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Kirtland's short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda kirtlandi)
The total length of this shrew is 95-134 mm, with a weight from 11-22 grams. The external ear is not apparent, and the eyes are minute. The tail is always less than half the length of the head and body. The color is grayish-black, sometimes with a silvery or brownish cast. . They are active day and night and throughout the year. The home range is from 0.5-1.0 acre. Populations can be as high as 25/acre, usually fewer. This species builds its own tunnels in the ground or snow, but it also uses those of other animals. The nest is built of dry leaves, grass and hair with a diameter from 6-8 inches. The nests are beneath logs, stumps, rocks, or debris. The reproductive season is from March to November with 3-4 litters of 6-7 young born per year. These animals always seem nervous, hyperactive and aggressive. A strong secretion from a gland in the abdomen is used to mark their territory and for sex recognition. This species feeds on insects, worms, snails, other invertebrates, and possibly even young mice. The saliva is toxic to prey. The longevity of this species is from 1-2 years. This species is prey for many snakes, birds and carnivorous mammals.
This species is found in a wider range of habitats than any other small mammal, and is usually the most abundant. Damp mature deciduous-coniferous woods consistently supported the highest numbers. They also inhabited fields of sedges and tall grasses. Only dry fields and woods and talus slopes are avoided.
This species feeds on insects, worms, snails, other invertebrates, and possibly young mice. | <urn:uuid:26bc7009-f7d5-4496-97ab-e89e38394c9b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957875 | 380 | 3.640625 | 4 |
image credit: USGS; image source; larger image
Understanding Plate Motions
This map, from a USGS poster, shows the epicenter of the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, China, along with the boundary, at the lower left, between the India Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The northward movement of the India plate produces the frequent seismic activity in China.
For the theory of the movements of plates in the Earth's crust, visit the USGS' Understanding Plate Motions.
(This feature was updated on July 19, 2013.)
Visit the Exploratorium's Faultline for a general introduction to earthquakes, with data, photos, activities, and more. Also, check out Plate Tectonics for plate tectonic animations, along with a description of the theory and how it was developed. | <urn:uuid:5c6ee2fa-1adc-4759-b03c-377bed86bf73> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.compadre.org/informal/index.cfm?Issue=50 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908642 | 169 | 3.78125 | 4 |
The goal of ocean planning is to protect coastal and ocean resources, reduce potential user conflicts, and facilitate compatible uses. NHDES is involved with an ongoing regional ocean planning initiative to work with stakeholder groups, including federal and state agencies, environmental organizations, industry representatives and the public to identify opportunities to improve the coordination and use of New England’s regional ocean information.
People use the ocean’s resources for food, energy, shipping, recreation and more. In the last few years, there have been major advances in understanding and mapping these resources and uses of the New England region’s coastal and ocean waters. The information gathered to date shows that there are few unused areas and that many uses happen in the same places. In other words, conflicting uses already exist and will likely increase as new users, such as energy generation and transmission facilities, consider ocean locations.
Federal and Multi-state Partnerships
New Hampshire’s participation in regional ocean planning occurs through two federal and multi-state partnerships: the Northeast Regional Ocean Council (NROC), formed in 2005 by the Governors of the New England states, and the Northeast Regional Planning Body (RPB), which is one of nine planning bodies established by a Presidential Executive Order in 2010 under National Ocean Policy. New Hampshire is represented on NROC by the NHDES Coastal Program, and on the RPB by NHDES Commissioner Tom Burack and Fish and Game Executive Director Glenn Normandeau. Neither the RPB nor NROC have regulatory authority.
The RPB is charged with leading a cooperative effort to develop a regional ocean plan, which is expected to be released in final form in the fall of 2015. The RPB has developed, with input from NROC and many ocean stakeholders, two documents which set forth the fundamental elements of its ocean planning activities. These include:
A Public Process
Research, data collection and public input are all important parts of ocean planning. NROC has worked extensively with marine-based industries, including aquaculture, commercial fishing, energy, maritime commerce and recreational boating to identify key issues and trends relevant to ocean planning in the region, which in turn has informed the RPB’s goals and framework. The RPB solicited and received public input that helped shaped its goals and objectives.
How to Participate
The RPB wants to hear from the New Hampshire public. The document below provides an overview of the participation goals. In addition, the following events are an opportunity to learn more about the RPB’s goals, work to date and to provide feedback.
Due primarily to the efforts of NROC and the RPB, there is now a variety of publicly available data on ocean resources and the interactions between these resources and uses. Collectively this data provides the best picture to date of what is taking place in our coastal and ocean waters.
- Northeast Regional Ocean Data Portal
- 2012 Northeast Regional Recreational Boater Survey New Hampshire State Summary
- Marine Characterization Public Webinar Summary and Documents
Learn More About Ocean Planning
For an engaging look at why ocean planning in New England is important, watch the movie Ocean Frontiers II, available for streaming at the below link. The movie includes an appearance by NHDES Commissioner Tom Burack.
- Ocean Frontiers II, the movie by Green Fire Productions
Join the Regional Planning Body’s mailing list to receive periodic updates on opportunities to provide comments as well as meeting and webinar announcements to learn more about the RPB’s activities.
For More Information
For more information about New Hampshire’s participation in regional ocean planning, please contact Chris Williams, Coastal Program federal consistency coordinator, at (603) 559-0025 or [email protected].
Adobe Acrobat Reader format. Download a free reader from Adobe. | <urn:uuid:7af37669-58da-4be6-b26e-32c7dc6e94cf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wmb/coastal/ocean_policy/regional-planning.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919927 | 787 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Saturday 3rd July – Monday 5th July 2010
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Call for Papers
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference project seeks to investigate and explore all aspects of childhood. The period of life prior to adulthood is one of dramatic change and development of physical, intellectual, psychological, and many other types of characteristics. The nature of childhood and its significance as a separate phase of life, however, is viewed quite differently in different cultures and in different historical eras. This conference will look at all aspects of the experience of childhood as well as the social and cultural perceptions of children and childhood. We encourage submissions on any theme to do with the nature of childhood, including, but not limited to the ones listed below.
1. Definitions of Childhood
~ How has the concept of childhood developed over time?
~ How is childhood viewed differently across different cultures and eras?
~ What are the boundaries of childhood? (Are children made to grow up to fast? Are mature people infantilized by definitions of the boundaries of childhood?)
~ Is 'childhood' a singular category or is it composed of quite distinct multiple categories?
2. Childhood and Development
~ What are the important aspects of physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual, moral, social, etc. development in childhood?
~ How do institutions (like schools, medical centres, and even legal systems) effectively nurture the unique developmental needs of children?
~ How has our understanding of childhood as a period of development changed over time? Are there ways we are still getting it significantly wrong?
3. Children and Relationships
~ What are the dynamics of children’s relationships with their family, peers, and their community?
~ How are children’s social relationships either experienced positively or negatively?
~ What are the dynamics of children’s relationships with social institutions (like schools and religious organizations)?
~ What is the nature of children’s relationships with animals?
4. Perceptions and Depictions of Childhood
~ How do adults perceive children and childhood? How do they perceive the capabilities, responsibilities, and privileges of childhood?
~ How do they perceive their own experiences of childhood? (Nostalgia? Embarrassment? Amusement?)
~ How do children perceive themselves?
~ How are children and childhood depicted in media such as art, literature, film, television, advertising, etc.?
5. Other Issues of Childhood
~ Children and education: What issues are the concerning how children are educated?
~ Children and leisure: How is involvement in recreational activities (including sports) either beneficial or harmful to children?
~ Children and the law: Does the criminal justice system effectively deal with children both as victims of crime and as perpetrators of crime?
~ Children and rights: What rights do children have in virtue of being children? To what extent must the choices of children be respected?
~ Children and gender: How are children socialized into gender-specific roles? What are the issues and concerns connected to how children form gender and sexual identities?
~ What is the nature of children’s relationship to the world of work?
The Steering Group welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 15th January 2010. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 28th May 2010.
300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Department of Philosophy,
University of Calgary,
Network Founder and Leader
The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers maybe invited for development for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s)
For further details about the project please visit:
For further details about the conference please visit:
Dr Rob Fisher
Priory House, Wroslyn Road, Freeland, Oxfordshire. OX29 8HR
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announcements appearing in this service. (Administration) | <urn:uuid:09c3c96e-78b5-41a3-93fd-bbce26826ede> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=171922 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931547 | 1,092 | 3.1875 | 3 |
9:30 am to 12:30 pm
The canonical period identified by the label “American Renaissance” has enjoyed a durable place in American literary history. However, its origins and its particular shape are peculiar to say the least. F. O. Matthieson’s book by that title concentrated on a half decade from 1850 to 1855 and on specific texts from five authors whose collective output consists of at least ten times as many volumes. Even more odd is that these particular writers-Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Thoreau, and Whitman-were not as widely read as other writers from the period, and one book in Matthieson’s canon, Moby Dick, was all but forgotten by the time the literary historian made this group of writers so central to the study of American literature. In this seminar, we’ll discuss some excerpts from Matthieson’s gang of five and consider some of the reasons for his argument that they are exceptional examples of American literary greatness. Moreover, we’ll place them in the context of other forms of writing that enjoyed much greater popularity, but many of which are long forgotten. | <urn:uuid:66091fc3-6714-4769-b3d2-50295a2a49c9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newberry.org/03062014-american-renaissance-context | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972126 | 239 | 2.734375 | 3 |
For related record temperature posts, see:
The monthly total of 1052 daily record low minimums also barely exceeded the 903 record high minimums. Both cold and heat records were far exceeded by the over 2500 daily precipitation records.
After reaching a level of over 4:1 in each of April, June, September, and October, the ratio of heat records to cold records was 2.28:1 for the year 2010 overall.
The daily record count shows that the cold extremes were not consistent through the month. They were centered around 3 sharp Arctic outbreaks peaking on the 8th (120 records), 15th (154 records), and 28th (155 records). Heat records dominated strongly during the week ending on Christmas, when a total of only 3 cold records were reported, vs. 207 heat records.
For the entire year 2010, preliminary surface temperature data from NCEP/NOAA show that most of the U.S. averaged near or above the climatological mean, except for the southeast coast and Florida.
Images (click to enlarge):
- Monthly total number of daily high temperature, low temperature, and high minimum temperature records set in the U.S. for July through December 2010, data from NOAA National Climatic Data Center, background image © Kevin Ambrose (www.weatherbook.com). Includes historical daily observations archived in NCDC's Cooperative Summary of the Day data set and preliminary reports from Cooperative Observers and First Order National Weather Service stations. All stations have a Period of Record of at least 30 years.
- Cumulative excess of heat records vs. cold records by month for 2010, data source as above
- High temperature, low temperature, and precipitation records set in the U.S. for December 2010, data source as above
- Daily numbers of high and low temperature records set in the U.S. for December 2010, data source as above
- 2010 annual temperature departure from climatological average from NOAA/NCEP via ESRL
Global Day of Overshoot
10 months ago | <urn:uuid:86bca0b7-b6d9-4e17-9a08-bfcd9d49d884> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://capitalclimate.blogspot.com/2011/01/us-december-cold-records-exceed-heat.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00020-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930984 | 418 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Nuclear Technology / Volume 168 / Number 1 / October 2009 / Pages 158-163
Dose/Dose Rate / Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 1) / Radiation Protection
The new computer code K-SKIN has been developed for use in skin dose assessment. The K-SKIN code calculates the dose distribution over the contaminated area using point kernels of monoenergetic electrons. These kernels are averaged over the beta spectra of contaminated radionuclides to obtain the dose distributions. Then, beta dose rates to the skin are calculated by numerical integration of point-kernel data over the contaminated area. Photon dose rates, if involved, are calculated using the specific gamma-ray constant for the radionuclides. Three predefined source types are arranged: point, disk, and cylinder. Backscattering correction, source self-shielding of a volume source, and reduction by the shielding material and air gap are considered during dose calculation. K-SKIN employs MATLAB as the coding tool and provides a graphical user interface. To verify K-SKIN, the dose rates from the point and disk source of several radionuclides over 1.0-cm2 area at 70 m skin depth were calculated and compared with results obtained from another point-kernel code VARSKIN 3 and the Monte Carlo simulation code MCNPX. The calculated results agreed within ±20%. The skin dose at various depths showed that the inclusion of energy-loss straggling in the point kernel improves the accuracy of the beta dose calculation at the deep region. The K-SKIN computer code will facilitate assessment of skin exposure at nuclear facilities. | <urn:uuid:d38ee84d-32af-47cd-8eed-501e4c17aa45> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nt/a_9118 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89687 | 354 | 3 | 3 |
Providing Refugee Orientation and Training
An orientation is when a new idea or situation is introduced, such as showing a refugee around their new home. A training is when specific knowledge, skills, or attitudes are being learned, such as how to interview for a job in a new or better way. Cultural/community orientation for refugees combines both of these elements: introducing refugees to their new environment and equipping them to deal with or adjust to it.
Both orientations and trainings can be delivered effectively by non-trainers, but careful pre-session planning is key to meeting the goals of both the trainer and the clients. The COR Center has produced a variety of resources to assist service providers with the design and development of orientation sessions, including ready-to-use lesson plans within the Orientation Toolkit, tools for trainers, and staff training materials.
In addition, this section of the website contains information on the orientation provided overseas by the various Resettlement Support Centers around the world. Look into the Overseas CO section for answers to frequently asked questions about the orientation refugees receive overseas, as well as information about the programs, locations, caseloads, teaching materials, and so on. Many program-specific pages include images of the refugees they serve, as well.
This section also houses information on the orientation provided within the United States by resettlement agencies and others. See Domestic CO for sample program descriptions contributed by agencies around the country, information about community-based organization efforts, webinars on various related topics, and more. | <urn:uuid:62973199-b4fe-43ef-9506-2a405ee84645> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.culturalorientation.net/providing-orientation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957075 | 311 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Thomas Hobbes was born in London in 1588. He received
his college education at Oxford University in England, where he studied
classics. Hobbes traveled to other European countries several times to
meet with scientists and to study different forms of government. During
his time outside of England, Hobbes became interested in why people allowed
themselves to be ruled and what would be the best form of government
for England. In 1651, Hobbes wrote his most famous work, entitled Leviathan. In
it, he argued that people were naturally wicked and could not be trusted
to govern. Therefore, Hobbes believed that an absolute monarchy - a government
that gave all power to a king or queen - was best.
Hobbes believed that humans were basically
selfish creatures who would do anything to better their position. Left
to themselves, he thought, people would act on their evil impulses.
According to Hobbes, people therefore should not be trusted to make
decisions on their own. In addition, Hobbes felt that nations, like
people, were selfishly motivated. To Hobbes, each country was in a
constant battle for power and wealth. To prove his point, Hobbes wrote, "If
men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms
and why do they have keys to lock their doors?"
Governments were created, according to
Hobbes, to protect people from their own selfishness and evil. The
best government was one that had the great power of a leviathan, or
sea monster. Hobbes believed in the rule of a king because he felt
a country needed an authority figure to provide direction and leadership.
Because the people were only interested in promoting their own self-interests,
Hobbes believed democracy - allowing citizens to vote for government
leaders - would never work. Hobbes wrote, "All mankind [is in] a
perpetual and restless desire for power... that [stops] only in death." Consequently,
giving power to the individual would create a dangerous situation that
would start a "war of every man against every man" and make
life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Despite his distrust of democracy, Hobbes
believed that a diverse group of representatives presenting the problems
of the common person would, hopefully, prevent a king from being cruel
and unfair. During Hobbes' lifetime, business began to have a big influence
on government. Those who could contribute money to the government were
given great status, and business interests were very powerful. In order
to offset the growing power of business, Hobbes believed that an individual
could be heard in government by authorizing a representative to speak
on their behalf. In fact, Hobbes came up with the phrase "voice of
the people," which meant that one person could be chosen to represent
a group with similar views. However, this "voice" was merely heard
and not necessarily listened to - final decisions lay with the king. | <urn:uuid:c1f2bfc2-d7da-434f-bb7b-1b71a45686e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/nature/hobbes-bio.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97978 | 635 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Basic commands, such as sit, down, stay, come and heel should be part of labrador puppy training. However, regardless of the commands you teach your dog at his young age, one thing must always remain the same, the method you use to train your pet.
The following are 4 rules you need to keep in mind when engaging in labrador puppy training.
1. Establish routine training sessions - For starters, lessons should be no longer than 5 minutes at a time and should occur in a room with limited distractions and after your dog has been exercised. When the 5 minutes are up, take a nice long break, especially if you plan to resume training again the same day. There is no need for you to train your lab pup every day, but a few days per week is a good idea. After all, your goal is not to hurry your dog’s learning as fast as you can, it is to allow them to learn at their own pace so they gain understanding.
2. Know when not to practice - There is a time for training and a time when practicing commands is counterproductive and a waste of your time. Since the whole point to labrador puppy training is for your small companion to learn, you will want to teach him when he is at his best. Times when you should avoid practicing include:
- After he has eaten
- After he has been crated for a few hours
- When he has too much energy
- There are other people present, especially guests
- He has not had sufficient time to rest
Essentially, you will want to avoid any situations when he feels sleepy, excessively excited, hyper or distracted. You want his focus and excitement to be directed at you when you train.
3. Using treats effectively - Treats are excellent rewards for training but they can become ineffective if you do not use them to their full potential. Here are some treat tips:
- Use goodies he does not have often (i.e. special dog treat or a safe human food morsel) for labrador puppy training.
- Only reward him when he does the command correctly
- Give him a treat each time he performs the instruction right the first few times to motivate him and to help him understand this is the desired behavior you want.
- Once he has complete understanding of a command, no longer reward him with a cookie every time. Give rewards randomly so he doesn’t get into the habit of only performing for food.
Remember the only type of reward a canine should always be given every time he performs correctly is praise.
4. Use verbal commands and hand signals - For each command you teach you should have a word and a hand signal that you use so your puppy can associate the sound and signal with the instruction. For instance, when you teach down in Labrador puppy training, say your dog’s name and the word "Down" in a firm tone and point to the floor at the same time with your index finger. By repeating this every time your pooch will eventually associate the sound and action with the command.Popular search terms for this page:
Filed Under: Labrador Training | <urn:uuid:d4a618ec-755f-4096-b236-a095bcfabaf7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thedogtrainingclub.com/labrador-puppy-training/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972472 | 643 | 2.578125 | 3 |
In addition to causing health problems, air pollution in WNC impairs the mountain views that help draw millions of tourists to the area.
As spring weather returns to Asheville, so does the risk of dangerous levels of ozone pollution. To raise awareness and help notify the public when ozone levels become hazardous, environmental agencies will start issuing daily air quality forecasts Tuesday, April 1, for Asheville and other metropolitan areas across the state.
“It helps people impacted by ozone plan their day,” said Director of the N.C. Division of Air Quality Sheila Holman, who was in Asheville March 27 for an “Ozone Season Kickoff” event. Ozone, a highly reactive form of oxygen, can be unhealthy to breathe — particularly for children, people with respiratory problems or heart disease, and even healthy adults who work or exercise outdoors, according to the agency. Over time, exposure to high ozone levels can cause the development of asthma. It also causes millions of dollars in tree and crop damage, and it impacts the mountain views that draw millions of tourists to Western North Carolina every year.
Ozone is North Carolina’s most widespread air quality problem, particularly during the warmer months. High ozone levels generally occur on hot sunny days with little wind, when pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons react in the air, according to the N.C. Division of Air Quality.
Ozone levels in Asheville have been declining since 2000. Last year was “the best ozone season on record,” with no days that reached levels the state agency considers “unhealthy,” said Holman. A major factor in keeping the pollution levels down was the unusually cool and rainy weather, she said.
The 2002 Clean Smokestacks state law required coal burning power plants to reduce emissions. That, as well as rising fuel standards have played major roles in bringing ozone levels down over the last decade, Holman said.
Duke Energy’s local coal-fired power plant has reduced its emissions of nitrogen oxide 77 percent since 2002, said Jason Walls, district manager.
The Clean Smokestacks law, which was championed by recently deceased Buncombe County Sen. Martin Nesbitt, resulted in Duke investing in “a multi-billion dollar modernization campaign,” Walls said at the ozone season kickoff event. “Our company has made tremendous strides, all while keeping costs below the national average to costumers.”
However, Bill Eaker, senior environmental planner at the Land of Sky Regional Council, says that despite the progress, it’s no time for clean-air advocates to start resting on their laurels.
Next year, the Environmental Projection Agency is likely to reduce the level of ozone it considers hazardous to human health. And in the years ahead, development could cause levels to rise, said Eaker.
“Our region is continuing to grow and with this growth will come more cars and trucks on our roads, more homes and buildings to heat and cool, not to mention all the lawnmowers and weed eaters and blowers we use on a weekly basis,” he explained. “So to keep up with this growth, we must continue to take action to reduce our energy consumption, find cleaner sources of power, and reduce emissions for our vehicles and equipment.”
View the N.C. Division of Air Quality’s daily ozone forecasts here. | <urn:uuid:93a964a2-16db-4951-bb4f-5baa3b79c45b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mountainx.com/news/community-news/spring_brings_increased_risk_of_ozone_danger/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95277 | 704 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Below a certain threshold value, electrosmog has no impact on biological processes or even human health – that was the state of scientific knowledge up to now. But for the first time, a research team led by Prof. Dr. Henrik Mouritsen, a biologist and Lichtenberg Professor at the University of Oldenburg, has been able to prove that the magnetic compass of robins fails entirely when the birds are exposed to AM radio waveband electromagnetic interference – even if the signals are just a thousandth of the limit value defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as harmless.
The findings based on seven years of research by nine Oldenburg scientists, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Peter J. Hore of Oxford University, are now available in a paper entitled "Anthropogenic electromagnetic noise disrupts magnetic compass orientation in a migratory bird", published in the latest issue of the renowned scientific journal Nature. Nature underlines the importance of this study by making it the cover story of its May 15th issue.
"In our experiments we were able to document a clear and reproducible effect of human-made electromagnetic fields on a vertebrate. This interference does not stem from power lines or mobile phone networks", Mouritsen stresses, explaining that electromagnetic interference within the two kilohertz to five megahertz frequency range is mainly generated by electronic devices. "The effects of these weak electromagnetic fields are remarkable: they disrupt the functioning of an entire sensory system in a healthy higher vertebrate."
It all started with a stroke of luck. For around 50 years it has been known that migratory birds use the Earth's magnetic field to determine their migratory direction. Biologists have proven this in numerous experiments in which they tested the birds' navigation abilities in so-called orientation cages. "So we were surprised when robins kept in wooden huts on the Oldenburg University campus were unable to use their magnetic compass", Mouritsen recounts.
Dr. Nils-Lasse Schneider, an electrophysiologist and researcher in Mouritsen's work group, then came up with the idea that set things in motion: he proposed covering the wooden huts, along with the orientation cages they contained, with sheets of aluminium. This did not affect the Earth's magnetic field, which is vital for the birds to navigate, but it strongly attenuated the time-dependent electromagnetic interference – the electrosmog – inside the huts.
The effect was astounding: suddenly the birds' orientation problems disappeared. "Our measurements of the interferences indicated that we had accidentally discovered a biological system that is sensitive to anthropogenic electromagnetic noise generated by humans in the frequency range up to five megahertz", Mouritsen says. The surprising thing here, the biologist adds, was that the intensity of the interference was far below the limits defined by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection and the WHO.
Considering the potential importance of the finding, Mouritsen and his team performed a large number of experiments to provide evidence of the effect they observed: “Over the course of seven years we carried out numerous experiments and collected reliable evidence, in order to be absolutely certain that the effect actually exists.” Under the leadership of Svenja Engels, Mourtisen's doctorate students conducted numerous so-called double-blind studies. Several generations of students repeated the experiments independently of one another on the Oldenburg campus. What they found was that as soon the grounding of the screens was disconnected or electromagnetic broadband interference was deliberately created inside the aluminium-clad and earthed wooden huts, the birds' magnetic orientation ability was immediately lost again.
Furthermore, the scientists were able to show that the disruptive effects were generated by electromagnetic fields that cover a much broader frequency range at a much lower intensity than previous studies had suggested. This electromagnetic broadband interference is omnipresent in urban environments. It is created wherever people use electronic devices. As expected, it is significantly weaker in rural areas. And indeed, unlike on the University campus, the magnetic compass of the robin did function in orientation cages placed one to two kilometres outside city limits, even without any screening. “Thus, the effect of anthropogenic electromagnetic noise on bird migration is localised. However these findings should make us think – both about the survival of migratory birds as well as about the potential effects for human beings, which have yet to be investigated”, Mouritsen concludes.
Prof. Dr. Henrik Mouritsen has been teaching and conducting research at the University of Oldenburg since 2002, and obtained his habilitation there in 2005. The Danish biologist has held a Lichtenberg Professorship from the VolkswagenStiftung since 2007. Through its “Lichtenberg Professorships” initiative the foundation funds outstanding scientists in innovative fields of teaching and research. Mouritsen researches the behavioural, molecular, physiological and cognitive mechanisms underlying long-distance navigational abilities in migratory birds. As head of the international research group “Neurosensorik/Animal Navigation” he has contributed substantially to the current state of the art suggesting that the birds use the Earth's magnetic field for orientation in two different ways. Light-sensitive molecules in their eyes enable them to visually detect the compass direction of the magnetic field. Furthermore, the birds seem to have magnetic sensors associated with the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve, which are connected via neural pathways to the brainstem. Mouritsen's group identified for the first time the areas in the birds' brains involved in both these orientation systems.
“Anthropogenic electromagnetic noise disrupts magnetic compass orientation in a migratory bird” by Svenja Engels, Nils-Lasse Schneider, Nele Lefeldt, Christine Maira Hein, Manuela Zapka, Andreas Michalik, Dana Elbers, Achim Kittel, P.J. Hore, Henrik Mouritsen, Nature.
Dr. Corinna Dahm-Brey | idw - Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
High in calories and low in nutrients when adolescents share pictures of food online
07.04.2016 | University of Gothenburg
Brain connectivity reveals hidden motives
04.03.2016 | Universität Zürich
R2D2, a joint project to analyze and development high-TRL processes and technologies for manufacture of flexible organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has been successfully completed.
In contrast to point light sources like LEDs made of inorganic semiconductor crystals, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are light-emitting surfaces. Their...
High resolution rotational spectroscopy reveals an unprecedented number of conformations of an odorant molecule – a new world record!
In a recent publication in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter...
Strands of cow cartilage substitute for ink in a 3D bioprinting process that may one day create cartilage patches for worn out joints, according to a team of engineers. "Our goal is to create tissue that can be used to replace large amounts of worn out tissue or design patches," said Ibrahim T. Ozbolat, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics. "Those who have osteoarthritis in their joints suffer a lot. We need a new alternative treatment for this."
Cartilage is a good tissue to target for scale-up bioprinting because it is made up of only one cell type and has no blood vessels within the tissue. It is...
Physicists in Innsbruck have realized the first quantum simulation of lattice gauge theories, building a bridge between high-energy theory and atomic physics. In the journal Nature, Rainer Blatt‘s and Peter Zoller’s research teams describe how they simulated the creation of elementary particle pairs out of the vacuum by using a quantum computer.
Elementary particles are the fundamental buildings blocks of matter, and their properties are described by the Standard Model of particle physics. The...
A year and a half on the outer wall of the International Space Station ISS in altitude of 400 kilometers is a real challenge. Whether a primordial bacterium...
28.06.2016 | Event News
09.06.2016 | Event News
24.05.2016 | Event News
28.06.2016 | Physics and Astronomy
28.06.2016 | Life Sciences
28.06.2016 | Physics and Astronomy | <urn:uuid:671ae78f-65f5-4757-8330-ed72cfc9da27> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.innovations-report.com/hrml/reports/studies/electrosmog-disrupts-orientation-in-migratory-birds-an-international-study-published-in-nature.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927979 | 1,768 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Terrorism. Never before in
our history has the need for preparedness been so great. Terrorism
could be an attack using weapons of mass destruction, chemicals,
as well as weapons of viruses, bacteria, and other germs. The
effects of an attack using chemicals or radiation would be immediate.
But many critical hours or even days could silently go by before
we might know about the devastating effects of an attack using
a dangerous, disease-causing germ. The following modules are intended
to help you recognize a terrorist event as it relates to the health
of our community. Being more prepared to quickly recognize an
intentional biological, chemical, or
radiological incident is critical to ensuring a prompt public
health response to control the situation and prevent additional
illnesses or deaths. This response could mean the difference between
one illness and many. | <urn:uuid:5bdde372-5b50-4517-9144-7aed92af3b25> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.emergency.cdc.gov/training/agentmodules/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938956 | 176 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Cover freshly planted grass seeds to prevent birds from eating them or heavy winds and rainfall from washing them away. Covering grass seeds also presses them closer to the ground and retains moisture that helps in germination. Gardeners commonly cover grass seeds with hay, mulch or straw to encourage seeds to germinate and grow into a lush green lawn.
Spread hay over grass seeds to protect them from birds and natural elements such as rain and winds. Hay also prevents soil erosion and retains moisture to keep the seeds from drying out. Hay is cheaper than mulch, so it is economically beneficial to spread it over large areas. For best results, apply a thin layer of hay over the grass seeds so parts of the soil underneath are still visible. Remove seed heads from the hay before spreading to prevent them from germinating and growing in your lawn. Although this is a laborious task, it ensures that your lawn will consist of grass and not wheat.
Spreading a layer of mulch over grass seeds has many advantages--mulch retains moisture, protects seeds from birds, compresses them down to the soil to restrict or limit movement and prevents soil erosion. It also acts as a natural fertilizer, adding nutrients to the soil when it decomposes. It is for these reasons that mulch is the most expensive seed covering. Gardeners have a variety of mulching options available. These include fine-screened compost, which according to The Garden Counselor is the best albeit most expensive choice; steer manure that smells for a few days after application; and tree bark. All these mulches also prevent competing weeds from growing along the grass, so your lawn stays lush, green and healthy.
Straw protects your grass seeds and keeps the soil slightly moist at all times, provided you dampen it frequently. It is available in bales that vary in size to cover 500 to 1000 square feet. Spread a thin layer of straw over seeds to shade the area. Many gardeners prefer straw over hay as it does not have any seed heads that must be removed before spreading over grass seeds. Although it looks messy, do not worry about removing the straw as the grass seeds germinate, because straw breaks down naturally or gets chopped up when you mow your lawn. | <urn:uuid:1a144e87-c9f0-4a93-b786-74de0465c7a7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gardenguides.com/106769-ideas-covering-grass-seeds.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949905 | 455 | 2.75 | 3 |
The Importance of Trees
Trees are very important to our environment. They provide oxygen for us to breathe. Trees also provide shade and shelter for wildlife and humans, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, and fruit for food as well as many other uses.
Each tree page has valuable facts on that tree type, growth rates, variations of the tree species, tree pests, diseases, wood facts and many close up tree photos to identify the tree.
Have You Ever Heard of Forest Bathing?
The concept of forest bathing was introduced in Japan in the 1980s. Shinrin-Yoku, as it is known in Japan, is the practice of becoming one with nature while visiting a forested area. The practice of forest bathing is believed to have a positive effect on our physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. Studies have shown that participants demonstrate reduced levels of stress, anxiety, depression and sleeplessness. Why not give it a try!
Type of Tree Search
People love to plant trees. Tree Pictures Online has a wealth of info on different tree species, and photos of different tree types that should give you a good idea on which trees would look best on your property. Hopefully, we can help you choose which trees you like best to plant.
Types of Trees
Tree Galleries on the left are categorized in alphabetical order with facts and beautiful pictures of each tree type. For some tree trivia follow to tree trivia
In order to enlarge the tree photos, just click on the tree picture you like to bring you to a full resolution photo.
The tree pictures below are some of our most favorite beautiful flowering trees in different seasons. Just click to make bigger and enjoy these wonderful pictures of trees.
Featured Tree Species
If money doesn't grow on trees why do banks have branches?
Trees outstrip most people in the extent and depth of their work for the public good.
~ Sara Ebenreck
Christmas Tree Lights
Thomas Edison's assistant, Edward Johnson is credited with the idea of electric lights on Christmas trees in 1882
Cancer-fighting agent called "taxol is found in the Pacific Yew tree. Doctors use taxol to control ovarian and other cancers.
First Christmas evergreen tree is said to have occurred before the birth of Jesus Christ
Oldest tree is the bristlecone pines, scientific name Pinus longaeva, found growing in California's White Mountains, USA.
Trees are one of the earth's important natural resources. Trees prevent soil erosion, provide food and building materials, offer shade on a hot sunny day, create beautiful landscapes and help to keep our air supply clean.
Tallest tree, bristlecone pine was found by Dr Edmund Schulman was christened "Methuselah". Found in 1957, it is dated as being 4,600 years old. Tree's location is not been disclosed due to fears of vandalism.
The symbolic meaning of trees is deeply rooted in the past. Trees are the longest living organisms on earth. Trees have always been an important natural resource which has been used in construction, transportation, fuel, and for medicinal uses.
Trees can represent beauty, strength, wisdom and eternal life. When we look at our ancestral heritage we refer to it as our family tree. Each type of tree has a different symbolic meaning.
Please click on the following link for more information on tree symbolism.
Trees are an important renewable resource. By planting trees we can replace those trees that are harvested for use by people or destroyed by fire or disease.
Trees have often been planted to celebrate special moments in our lives like the birth of a child, a wedding, a graduation, an anniversary, or one's retirement.
Planting trees as a memorial has become a popular way to honour the life of someone special who has passed away.
Collection of Impressive Tree Images
|Autumn Fall Trees Images||Bermuda Tree Photos|
|Christmas Tree Pictures||Hibiscus Tree Flowers|
|Winter Tree Pictures||Impressive Tree Pictures|
|Forest Tree Paths Photos||Oak Tree Pictures|
|Cedar Trees Photos||Pine Tree Pictures|
Trees: Recent Tree Photos, Pics & Images
United States land is covered by over 30 per cent with trees and forests
Tree Picture Finds, Stumbled on these Tree Images
We add new tree pictures as they come in to us, on a weekly & monthly basis. We hope you enjoy all our tree photos and information on the different types of trees and species.
Tree Images Video; a unique collection of tree photos from the start of blue bells under the beech trees, different oak trees images ... along with various pine tree photos. An artistically assembled tree video together with sayings and poems celebrating the tree. Nicely done tree video images with wonderful piano tunes song called Eclipse by Suzanne Ciani..
Bottle Tree Images, a collection of trees artistically decorated with colorful glass bottles. Not to be confused with the real and unusual Bottle Tree
Sequoia Tree Images, a great collection of the large Titan Sequoias tree. The worlds second biggest tree, the "President" is over 3,200 years old located in Sequoia National Park, California Nevada USA Region. More Sequoia Tree facts and pictures can be found at our TreePicturesOnline Sequoia Trees Photos page.
Tree Pictures and images from Iceland, interesting photos of various trees in summer, autumn and winter. More Winter Tree pictures can be found at impressive Winter Tree Pictures page.
Tree wallpaper images can make beautiful backgrounds on your computer`s desktop. See our tree wallpaper photographs above or linked in the left tree categories.
Thank you for visiting our Tree Pictures at TreePicture Online.com, please come back soon for more great tree photos!
Tree Pictures Online can be viewed in over 50 Languages
To view Tree Pictures Online tree categories in your preferred language choose the "Select Language" on the scroll down menu to your language ... then wait a moment and new Tree Pictures pages will appear. Enjoy these Tree Pictures.
Fireplace Pictures -
Tree Pictures -
Gazebo Pictures -
Symbols & Their Meanings
Resume Samples - Church Pictures - Manufactured Home Pictures
Natural Log Siding - Shadow Puppets - Caribbean Islands
Play Touch Games - Waterfall Pictures
Make Hot Pictures - Job Application Forms | <urn:uuid:53ca1e3d-da8a-4f40-afa6-0e020e6c382e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://treepicturesonline.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90854 | 1,312 | 2.75 | 3 |
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
When the Great Recession’s negative effect on the U.S. labor market was strongest, the national unemployment rate stood at 10.1 percent—a depth last seen in June 1983. But the greatest amount of pain was felt by younger and more vulnerable workers—though not in equal amounts. For instance, the unemployment rate for 16-to-19 year-olds reached 27.1 percent at the recession’s trough. For white teens, the figure was 25 percent; for black teens, it was close to 50 percent.
New Zealand's current 15-19 year-old unemployment rate is 27.5 percent. Unfortunately the HLFS tables do not show the ethnic breakdown of each age group. There is a suggestion here that Maori youth unemployment is over 40 percent.
According to the Department of Labour the Maori Youth NEET (not in education, employment or training) rate is around 17 percent:
The difference between the two rates comes about because the DOL defines youth as 15-24, not 15-19, and the unemployment rate for 20-24 year-olds is much lower.
Anyway the point of this post is to highlight the findings of the study because what holds for US blacks probably has relevance for NZ Maori.
... the picture grows even more troubling when the authors focus just on the 21 states fully affected by the federal minimum wage increases in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Approximately 13,200 black young adults in these states lost their job as a direct result of the recession; 18,500 lost their job as a result of the federal wage mandate—nearly 40 percent more than the recession. In
other words, the consequences of the minimum wage for this subgroup were more harmful than the consequences of the recession.
The substantial disemployment effects that emerge from the data raise an important question: Why do black males suffer more harm from wage mandates than their white or Hispanic counterparts?
The authors find that they’re more likely to be employed in eat-ing and drinking places–nearly one out of three black young adults without a high school diploma works in the industry. Businesses in this industry generally have narrow profit margins and are more likely to be adversely impacted by a wage mandate. There’s also substantial variation in regional location, as black young adults are
overwhelmingly located in the South and in urban areas. It’s also likely that unobserved differences in skill level and job experience play a role. To the extent that these differences are concentrated among young men of a particular race or ethnicity, this group would have the greatest risk of losing jobs when the minimum wage is increased.
Minimum wage increases remain politically popular, which means they’ll continue to be debated at the state and federal level for years to come. But the debate on the employment consequences of the minimum wage has been settled conclusively, and this research proves that those consequences are felt most by young black males.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Some Maori heads, with intricate tattoos, were traditionally kept as trophies from tribal warfare. But once Westerners began offering prized goods in exchange for them, men were in danger of being killed simply for their tattoos, French museum officials have said.
But that is only part of the story. Slaves were deliberately tattooed and beheaded when carved faces became a commodity. I can think of nothing more terrifying and barbaric. Undergoing the extreme pain of having one's face chiselled for reasons of rank and pride is one thing. Imagine experiencing the same agonising process in the knowledge that it is preceding your death. That is always my first thought when I hear about heads being repatriated. I struggle to understand why anyone wants a reminder of this brutal, exploitive practice.
One of the best things about the Treaty is that it effectively abolished slavery in Maoridom. The history of NZ Maori is a savage one. Peaceful tribes were obliterated or enslaved by stronger, more violent and acquisitive tribes. A recipe for a harsh, short-life society. The spiritualistic ceremonies that accompany the return of the remainders and reminders of such times are misplaced.
Maori, the island nation's indigenous people, believe their ancestors' remains should be respected in their home area without being disturbed.
Ironic as they weren't respected in life. Perhaps there is a healing and closure; an apologistic aspect to the process that evades me.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Now that is not a stupid reason to vote for someone. This young man has identified his most important value. And he looks for someone who mirrors that. I don't really know why but I found it fascinating witnessing how the Mr Nice Guy persona manifests in votes. And let's face it. There aren't that many people who are very interested in politics. I wasn't at his age either.
While it seems strange to me I need only examine my own attitude to sports. The names I hear about are vaguely familiar but I couldn't tell you whether a particular one waa a league player or netball star. When it comes to sports I tune out. But if I had to vote for a sports star it would be Tana Umaga because I met him and he was very nice and generous. And good looking.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
So why not the biggest chunk of government spending - social security? Leaving it for ACT?
But in this term and the last, ACT also abandoned welfare as a central issue. Roy was spokesperson from 2005-08 and Douglas thereafter. Neither raised public conciousness about welfare the way Newman had before.
The greatest potential area for NZ to reduce spending, as well as improve outcomes, is in welfare. But that market research stuff they do tells parties to avoid the issue as too electorally sensitive.
Back yourself Brash and go after it. In the early 2000s, while still Reserve Bank Governor, you were publicly critical of welfare. Your outspokeness in that role laid the base for much of your current support. National has done next to nothing in this term and NZ now trails other developed countries in the reform stakes. We cannot afford to.
Mother's Day is more a day for the children than it is for mums - all mums with healthy, beautiful children have a mother's day every day that their children stay safe and happy.
But this year - sorry to be a spoil sport - let's turn the spotlight on those mothers who are abject failures. All those mothers who haven't got a clue who their children's sperm donors were. All those mothers who have children because they get paid to - and, let's face it, they wouldn't get paid to do anything else. Those mothers who stay with men who hurt them and their kids because they're so pathetic and useless that any shag - even when it comes with a biff - is better than being alone.
This Mother's Day, I would plead that every mother who has had a child that they don't care about or can't cope with gets the help that they need....
I've been writing columns and banging on on talkback for more than 13 years about this and I am so, so sick of railing against the abomination that is child abuse in this country.
So this will be my last column on the subject. What I do is utterly futile.
Her emotion (or lack of it) is called burn out.
My advice to Kerre is don't stop writing but do start thinking about what policies need to change and be specific about what needs to happen. If you know that people have children because they are paid to, call for the end of such a policy. It is your money being used after all. If you think adoption is a better option, push for a change in CYF's attitude to adoption. How do you think it came about that NZ literally turned its back on the process? Vociferous, relentless, activism by feminists who believed that a child should always stay with its natural mother. How did it come about that we pay single women to have children? Feminist activism that deplored the nuclear family. Fight back and keep fighting. Not for a return to the past but for a new approach. Women today have so much more opportunity. They don't need these state crutches which if anything turn them into victims rather than empowered beings.
Take a breather and wait for the energy to return. It will. | <urn:uuid:087db6f8-37e5-4a74-a36f-9a273797aa10> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.co.nz/2011_05_08_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975665 | 1,744 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Greg Arehart Research
Stable Isotope Geochemistry of Plutons in the Great Basin and Metallogeny
Isotope geochemistry has long played a role in elucidating the crustal structure of the western part of North America. There is a large database of radioisotopic data available for the region as well as whole-rock oxygen isotope data. This project, funded by NSF, focused on additional analysis of mineral oxygen isotopes (quartz, zircon) because whole-rock samples are subject to both high-temperature and low-temperature water-rock exchange, which may affect the oxygen signature of such samples (primarily the feldspar component).
In addition to oxygen, sulfur isotopes are being analyzed. Both oxygen and sulfur appear to reflect the crustal interaction and contamination of ascending magma bodies, and provide important new information on crustal architecture, evolution of western North America, and the time-space distribution of some metal deposits (DeYoung et al., 2005, 2006; Arehart et al., 2013). Additional work along similar lines is continuing in Turkey (Boztug et al., 2005; 2007) and in northern BC/Yukon (Rasmussen et al., 2010).
The figure shows a model of the crustal architecture of the Great Basin, drawn from geochemical data.
Volcanic and Geothermal Fluid Composition
I have been involved in determining stable isotope compositions of H, C, N, O, and S in volcanic gases from around the world. Because many of these systems are actively depositing metals, these studies are important for understanding the links between magmatic and hydrothermal ore-forming systems in volcanic terranes. Active crater lakes are analogues for acid-sulfate gold-copper systems, and geothermal systems are low-sulfidation epithermal vein systems. An important aspect of these low-sulfidation systems is understanding the origin of calcite, which can be an important indicator of whether the system is expanding or contracting. In systems such as Golden Cross, New Zealand (Simmons et al., 2000), isotopic measurements suggest that the latest calcite veins represent collapse of the geothermal system that was responsible for gold deposition there. At the Midas vein system in Nevada, geochemical measurements on the various mineral bands in the vein should provide important insights into the development of geothermal system chemistry through time. The geologic setting of the Midas system was a part of the dissertation research of Ellie Leavitt (Ph.D., 2004) (Leavitt et al., 2005).
As part of the Geothermal Resource Center, trace metal concentrations in geothermal systems across the Great Basin have been investigated with the goal of better understanding the differences between magmatically-driven systems and those that are "extensional‚" systems, that is, are driven by the elevated geothermal gradient in the extending Great Basin. Preliminary data (Arehart et al., 2003) suggest that there are significant differences in the geochemistry of elements such as As, B, Cs, and Li between the two types of system. Developing a better understanding of these differences may lead to more efficient exploration and exploitation strategies. Geothermal systems in the Great Basin are often closely associated with very young epithermal deposits; an understanding of the time-space relationships of these systems is important to exploration of new resources of both types (Coolbaugh et al., 2005).
Top photo shows the crater lake at Ruapehu, New Zealand in 1995 prior to the most recent eruptive cycle. The lake had a pH of about 2.5, molten native sulfur on its bottom, and a surface temperature near 40ºC.
Bottom photo shows the site of the crater lake at Ruapehu, New Zealand following several months of eruptive activity.
Carlin-Type Gold Deposits
In the Great Basin, one of the major questions related to Carlin-type mineralization is the timing of that mineralization relative to the complex tectonic and igneous history of the region. My students and I have generated ages for a number of important ore deposits in Nevada. Dave Tretbar utilized Rb-Sr to date galkhaite, a complex Hg-Tl-Cs-Sb-S mineral from the Getchell and Rodeo deposits, the first and only direct dates on any Carlin-type deposits (Tretbar et al., 2000; Arehart et al., 2003). Tony Chakurian examined partially and totally annealed apatite grains to elucidate the timing of mineralization in the Carlin trend (Chakurian et al., 2003). This work also has shown that there is a zoning in the annealing from south to north, providing a vector toward the intrusion that most likely was the heat engine for this productive district. Ken Hickey at the University of British Columbia, is taking this work another step further and modeling the duration of Carlin-type hydrothermal systems (Hickey et al., in press).
I am currently working in east-central Yukon on the comparison of an exciting new group of recently-discovered gold deposits to the well-studied Carlin-type deposits of Nevada. These new deposits have many characteristics of Carlin-type deposits, but some potential significant differences (Arehart et al., 2013).
This figure shows an isochron from galkhaite samples, Getchell Mine, NV. This isochron yields an age of 39.5 Ma, the first date on a gold-bearing phase in a Carlin-type deposit. From Tretbar et al., 2000.
Thermochronology of Mineral Deposits
The geochronological work described above has been expanded at the Pipeline Carlin-type deposit (Arehart & Donelick, 2006) and in the Bald Mountain district (Schmauder et al., 2005). Stable isotope geochemistry coupled with low-temperature thermochronology (apatite and zircon fission-track and U/Th-He) can provide information on buried mineral deposits, because such deposits are fossil hydrothermal systems. Stable isotopes yield information on fluid flux from water-rock isotope exchange calculations, and thermochronology can yield information on the temperature of the hydrothermal fluids, as well as provide age constraints on the system. Both methods can be useful in vectoring exploration toward the center of the system, and may have extent beyond traditional geochemical indicators.
The figure at right shows a generalized geologic map of the Carlin Trend, NV. A gravity/magnetic high SW of the Trend may represent a buried (Tertiary?) intrusion that has completely reset apatite fission tracks in the southern part of the Trend (yellow) and partially annealed fission tracks in the northern part of the Trend (orange). From Chakurian et al., 2003.
Porphyry and Epithermal Mineral Deposits
Porphyry and epithermal mineral deposits are common in young volcanic terranes throughout the world, and my recent research has included studies of these deposits in the Great Basin (Leavitt et al., 2004, 2005; Coolbaugh et al., 2005), Alaska, New Zealand and Turkey (Yilmaz et al., 2005, 2006) in which the geology, geochemistry and geochronology are documented. Ellie Leavitt dated several of the epithermal veins in the Midas district, along with the enclosing volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks, providing evidence of the very close temporal relationship between volcanism and mineralization (Leavitt et al., 2004; 2005). She also documented the relationship of the vein system to the surrounding wallrocks. Studies of epithermal deposits are closely aligned with work on geothermal and volcanic systems, on which I worked in New Zealand, Nevada, and Turkey. Jessica Smith (2010) studied the Adanac (Ruby Creek) molybdenum deposit to determine the chronology of intrusion and
mineralization there as well as potential links between molybdenum and gold deposits. She showed that the timing of mineralization was distinct from the timing of the intrusive activity and that the gold event was probably unrelated to the molybdenum event. Two of my current students, Saige Sanchez and Dylan Baldwin, are looking at epithermal districts in Mexico and Nevada.
The top photo shows high-grade banded ore from the Colorado Grande epithermal vein, Ken Snyder Mine, Midas District, NV. Quartz-adularia-calcite bands (white) with naumannite-rich bands containing electrum (black).
Bottom is a location map of the Adanac porphyry molybdenum property, studied by Jessica Smith.
Ion microprobe and Laser Ablation ICPMS Analyses of minerals
Microanalytical techniques are becoming ever more important in documenting zoning and equilibrium/disequilibrium conditions in ore deposits, particularly at trace levels of elemental and isotopic concentration. The first quantitative analysis of gold in pyrite from Carlin-type deposits was made possible using the ion microprobe; continuing work is required to document the location of gold in these important deposits. In addition to elemental data, isotopic data can now be determined using microprobe techniques. Particularly for fine-grained ores such as Carlin-types, such fine spatial resolution is required to elucidate the geochemical history of mineral grain growth.
The figure at right shows ablation holes in a crystal of galkhaite from the Getchell deposit. Analysis of trace and ultra-trace elements shows distinctive zoning patterns.
H, C, and O isotopes in minerals and inclusions may provide constraints on paleoclimate (Arehart and Poulson, 2001). Alunite in weathering zones is one of very few stable isotopic indicators of paleoclimate which can be dated by direct means (K/Ar). If alunite growth is controlled by mechanisms such as Ostwald ripening, it may be possible to extract more than one datum per sample, and gain insights into shorter-scale climatological changes. Isotopic analysis of fluid inclusions from hydrothermal systems also can provide information on the composition of local meteoric water; multiple episodes of vein formation may allow a more detailed examination of shorter-term climatological changes.
Shown at right is a secular curve for hydrogen isotopic composition of water in the northern Great Basin for the last 30 Ma, based on analysis of alunite. | <urn:uuid:f127d80c-464c-4fcf-a270-cb7c8ff07485> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.unr.edu/geology/people/greg-arehart/research | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910378 | 2,197 | 2.671875 | 3 |
|Historical Guide to Clogheen
(Copyright Edmund O’Riordan)
(by Ed O’Riordan 1996)
Little town of Clogheen in
South West Tipperary’s Galtee-Vee-Valley owes its name to the Gaelic
‘Cloichin an Mhargaid’ (Little Market Stone). If we are to believe the
translation of historian - and former Clogheen Parish Priest - Fr.
Everard, it could also mean the Stone market place. An impressive cut
limestone rock which stands in the grounds of the local Saint Mary’s
National School is said to be the very market stone which gave the town
its name, and on which, long ago, traders and farmers at market signified
their acceptance of a deal by striking it with their blackthorn sticks.
Historical Guide to Clogheen
Following the defeat of the Danes at the Battle of Clontarf in
Dublin in 1014, there followed a long period of political and social
instability in Ireland as the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, has also
been slain at Clontarf. In the 12th century, the Anglo-Normans invaded
Ireland and during the next few centuries they consolidated their position
by building castles in most areas of the country. In the immediate
vicinity of Clogheen, castles were erected at Castlegrace (DeBirmingham),
Ballyboy (Earl of Desmond) and Shanrahan (Earl of Desmond). The ruins of
Castlegrace castle are still fairly extensive, but sadly, very little
remains of Ballyboy castle. In Shanrahan, the castle which was built in
1453, is now only recognisable by a solitary, ivy covered tower. Ownership
of the two latter castles had passed to Sir Richard Everard by the
beginning of the 17th century, and Shanrahan was described by Fr. Everard
as “a favourite residence of Sir Richard”.
Unfortunately, the Census of Ireland
taken in the year 1659, does not list the names of the inhabitants of the
various parishes and towns. It does, however, tell us that the parish of
Shanraheene, now parish of Clogheen, contained 376 people, (presumably
only landholders were recorded) and that 361 of those were Irish.
‘Clogheenmackett’ (undoubtedly Clogheen Market ) had a population of
82, and 78 of those were Irish.
Another useful record from those
years is the Hearth Money Records.
Hearth Money was a tax of two shillings (Sh) which was levied on all
fireplaces and the following is the listing for Clogheen compiled in 1666:
The removal by decree of the fairs
and markets from Clogheen to
Castlegrace in the immediate post-Cromwellian period must have curtailed
the development of the town for same years, but at some time in the years
following, the fairs and markets were restored and development was once
again under way.
Firstly, the landlords and huge graziers became even greedier than
heretofore and began to enclose the commonages. Secondly, the
Whiteboys or Levellers became very active in the area. This secret
organisation was the only form of justice available to the poor.
They had absolutely no recourse to the judicial system. They had no
knowledge of it, and they could not afford to take on the landlords in
costly legal battles. Even if they could have gone to court, they
would have found the people whom they considered to be their enemies
sitting on the bench. It is inevitable that desperate people will resort
to desperate measures, and so the Whiteboys became a means of vengeance
and a crude form of justice. Undoubtedly, they operated by bullying
and intimidating even their own people, and the so-called justice they
administered was possibly as cruel as that which they sought to redress.
They levelled ditches and fences, burned crops, injured animals, terrified
the tithe-proctors (collectors) with threats, and sometimes carried those
threats into effect, and forced people to join them and swear a secret
Thirdly, in this trio of events, was the fact that Fr. Nicholas
Sheehy was appointed Parish Priest of Shanrahan -Ballysheehan
-Templetenny. It was evident from the outset that here indeed was a
champion of the downtrodden and oppressed who were his parishioners, and
he quickly became a marked man.
The ruling class were terrified of a French invasion of Ireland,
and locally, they believed or pretended to believe, that Fr. Sheehy who
had been educated on the continent, was a link between the French and the
Whiteboys. They maintained that there was an ongoing conspiracy in
which the Whiteboys were being funded in an attempt to destabilise the
country in advance of this feared invasion. They decided on a course
of action, and Fr. Sheehy was to be the target of that action.
In an article about Fr. Sheehy, Exshaw's Magazine noted at the time
that he was a man 'with a passionate sense of justice'. and it was this
passion that caused him to openly take part in the levelling of a wall at
Drumlummin, a neighbouring townland. He had also offered resistance
to a tithe proctor, named Dobbin, in Ballyporeen, who had tried to collect
five shillings for every Catholic marriage.
This was the opportunity that his enemies had been waiting for, and
he was now charged with high treason. He was also charged with
assaulting one John Bridge, (described as a local halfwit), who had been
suspected of stealing a chalice from Carraigavisteal church.
Fr. Sheehy had to go into hiding and was obliged to spend his days
in the O'Callaghan family burial vault in Shanrahan cemetery. At
night he crept out and was given food and shelter by the Griffith family
who lived in a farmyard beside the cemetery.
The Griffiths were a well-known Protestant family and they could
never have known that their actions would be applauded by a classroom of
Catholic schoolboys almost two hundred years later, and that by their
action, they had passed on a valuable lesson in Christian fellowship to
those same boys.
Finally Fr. Sheehy
decided to surrender, and he sent word to landlord Mr. O’Callaghan, whom
he trusted, that he would do so on the condition that he would be tried in
Dublin as he was aware that he would not get a fair hearing in nearby
Clonmel, the seat of the enemies. O’
Callaghan arranged for him to be sent to Dublin, and in th trial that
followed, in spite of all the false witnesses that were presented to the
court, he was acquitted on all charges.
Some of the witnesses used against him were people of little
character: a horse thief who was awaiting trial, a prostitute who had been
admonished by Fr. Sheehy, and others who were ready to perjure themselves
for small reward. John Bridge
did not give evidence as he was nowhere to be found, and as the ‘not
guilty’ verdict was brought in, the gentlemen from South Tipperary who
had attended the court had the luckless priest arrested on a charge of
His worst fears were now to be realised, and he was brought back to
Clonmel for trial. The same
witnesses who had been discredited in Dublin were produced in Clonmel to
give evidence against him.
The result of the trial was a forgone conclusion and having been
found guilty of murder, even though no body had ever been found, Fr.
Nicholas Sheehy, Parish priest of Shanrahan/ Ballysheehan/ Burncourt, was
executed on the scaffold on the street in Clonmel on the 15th
March 1766 alongside Ned Meehan of Grange who had been prosecuted on the
same charges. Fr. Sheehy’s body was dragged through the streets of
Clonmel after execution. His
head was then severed from his body and stuck on a spike over Clonmel jail
as a warning to all those who would dare challenge the ruling class.
His body was taken by his sister and interred in Shanrahan
cemetery, Clogheen. Twenty
years later, his parishioners were given permission to remove the
blackened head from over the jail and it was buried in the grave at
The night before he was executed, Fr. Sheehy wrote a letter in
which he said that he had been told under the sacred seal of the
confessional, the names of the two men who had murdered Bridge, but he
could not use this information to save himself owing to the manner in
which he had received it.
Three of Fr. Sheehy’s co-defendants:
Edmund Sheehy (his cousin), James Buxton of Kilcoran and James
Farrell, were convicted on the same evidence and hanged in front of their
families square in Clogheen in that same year, 1766.
The Celtic cross which stands in the grounds of St. Mary's Catholic
Church was erected to the memory of Clogheen's martyred priest in 1870. It
was intended that the cross be erected over his grave but the military
were called out to prevent it. Some years later, the white marble plaque
on the side of his tomb and the railing which surrounds the tomb were
There was a great tradition in the parish for many years that the
clay from Fr. Sheehy's grave was a cure for many ills, and emigrants,
before leaving Clogheen, would come here and take a little of the clay
from inside the tiny door on the tomb, and bring it with them to their new
homes in England, America or Australia.
The name of Fr. Sheehy is still very much revered and honoured in
the parish of Clogheen/Burncourt. This is illustrated by the fact that the
parish Gaelic football and hurling club proudly bears his name. The local
G.A.A. playing field is also named after him as is the modern housing
estate near Mountain View road: Fr. Sheehy Terrace. It is fitting that
this estate should bear the name of Fr. Sheehy as he would undoubtedly
have said Mass in the little thatched chapel which once stood on this
The neat little housing crescent
at the western end of the town, opposite the Post Office is called Lios
Mhuire. It was on this site
that Clogheen’s Cavalry
Barracks was built into 1769 in response to the level of Whiteboy activity
in the area during those years. This
was one of the first British Cavalry Barracks built in Ireland and was at
one time an important depot for the south of Ireland.
The ground which was being farmed by a Mr. Butler, was leased from
Cornelius O'Callaghan, the local landlord at a rent of one peppercorn per
year. In a dispute in the 1830s with Clogheen's Parish Priest, Fr. Casey,
concerning a wall abutting the perimeter wall of the barracks, it was
discovered that the landlord had inadvertently forgotten to sign the
lease. Threatened legal action
against the priest have to be withdrawn. The barracks had in those early
years accommodation for 56 men, and stables for 60 horses.
Prior to the building of the Barracks Clogheen was occupied by a
unit of soldiers under the earl of Drogheda.
These soldiers would have been quartered on the local inhabitants.
At one time, the famous Irish horse Regiment was stationed at this
barracks. In 1858, No.1 Company of the South Tipperary Artillery moved
from Cahir to Clogheen as a result of over crowding in Cahir.
On the closing of the barracks in 1922, it was evacuated by a
battery of the royal Field Artillery.
The keys were handed to a local man. Mr.
Maher. B efore the
anticipated arrival of the newly formed Irish Government’s forces, the
barracks were burned down by the anti treaty forces.
(Old I.R.A) The ruined
barracks building was finally demolished to make way for the new houses in
the early 1950’s. The
perimeter wall of the barracks can still be seen encompassing Lios Mhuire,
a reminder of the 153 year British military
presence in the town. The
upper part of Clogheen’s Main Street is still known as Barrack Hill.
Today, Clogheen has a Garda
Barracks manned by one garda. It operates as a substation of Cahir. At one
time the town had three resident Gardai and one sergeant. Prior to the
establishment of the Garda Siochana, Ireland's police force was known as
the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). In
1836, Thomas Drummond formed the Irish Constabulary to replace an earlier
but disorganised police force. Police barracks were established all over
Ireland. Almost three quarters of the rank and file members of this force
were Catholic while all of the officers were Protestant. It was a strict
rule that members of the force could not serve in their own area.
house, on the west side of Keatings' public house on Main Street was
Clogheen's RIC. station. The original barred windows can still be seen on
the ground floor. (This building subsequently served as a bank.)
Contemporary writers regarded the Irish Constabulary as being
closer to a military body than a police force. Alexander
Somerville, writing in 1852, said, “ They have belts and pouches, ball
cartridges in their pouches, short guns called carbines, bayonets,
pistols, and swords". Later in the century, L. Paul Dubois described
the isolated rural barracks as being blockhouses with iron doors, more
like forts than police stations.
Within a few miles of Clogheen, three locations still carry the
name 'Mountain Barracks'. One on the Kilworth road out of Ballyporeen, one
at Gortacullen on the Clogheen-Newcastle road, and, perhaps the one most
familiar to Clogheen people, the site on the road over the Knockmealdowns,
just where the road forks for Lismore or Cappoquin. These outposts were
established to provide protection for the great numbers of flour carts travelling those roads as well as the Bianconi mail and
passenger coaches which operated throughout the greater part of Ireland.
The Mountain Barracks also served to control the lives of the rural
population of Ireland. The
RIC did not acquire the appellation 'Royal' until some years after their
After the RIC was disbanded in the 1920s, local people went to the
Mountain Barracks on the Knockmealdowns and took it apart stone by stone.
This was caused by a mixture of antipathy
towards the RIC and also the possibility of getting some good building
stone. Even though the rank and file members of the Irish Constabulary
were Irish and Catholic, the force had come to be seen as agents of the
Crown rather than an impartial police force. The Royal Irish Constabulary
also had barracks at Tubrid, Burncourt, Kilcoran and Knocklofty.
The four houses on the east side of Careys' Pharmacy occupy the
site of Clogheen's Bridewell. Bridewells were houses of correction or
prisons for minor offenders.
Partly out of a necessity to be
prepared for a French invasion and partly from an aspiration towards
independence from England, the Irish Volunteer movement was formed in the
latter half of the 1770s. Initially their ranks were occupied by
Protestants only, as Catholics were still restricted from holding arms.
There was no national uniform for the Volunteers and the various companies
seemed to vie with each other in their attempts at sartorial splendour. In
his History of Clonmel, Canon E.
Burke describes the Clogheen Troop of Horse, formed on the 6th January,
The uniform was scarlet, faced light blue, edged silver lace, white
buttons, silver epaulets, white jackets edged red. The furniture was goat
skin turned red:
Fitzgerald had a few favourite methods of making 'discoveries'. Any
peasants who were suspected of being members of the rebels, or of having
knowledge of them could expect to be dragged through the streets behind a
cart or flogged or both. Fitzgerald had great faith in the information
acquired in this way. Sir John Moore, who held a commission in the British
army, once witnessed the High Sheriff engaged in his favourite pursuit in
Clogheen. An innkeeper of good character was tied up and being flogged by
Fitzgerald's men in an effort to extract information. The man, Jeremiah
McGrath, was tied to a ladder for the duration of the flogging while the
local people were compelled to line the streets with their hats off to
witness the spectacle. McGrath had no information to give Fitzgerald, but
on being informed that he would be flogged to death if he did not give
such information, he invented a name.
The floggings went on all
afternoon and Fitzgerald claimed that he had flogged the truth out of a
great many respectable persons that day.
outside the Globe Inn (Eddie O’Riordan Jnr.)
Clogheen is proud of its past
glories, and we often delve into the past to regale visitors with tales of
its once busy fairs, thriving markets, and the seven flour mills that once
provided economic stability to the area. Sadly, all these fairs, markets
and mills are now only part of our past.
There is a history of milling in the locality going back to
medieval times, and in the 1654 Civil Survey of Ireland the following is
recorded for Castlegrace, two miles east of the town:
the said lands stands a large stone house, (and) a little castle, both
covered with thatch,and two turrets within a bawne whereof the said house,
castle, and turrets are all lately rebuilt at the chardge of the
Commonwealth, likewise some thatcht houses, cabbins, and a grist mill,
which Mill was
built by Capt. Thornehill, and the best part of the houses and cabbins by
his Tennts. upon the said lands. This land hath the accommodation of the
River Ountearr runinge by it."
The Civil Survey also refers to 'a tucking mill' (cloth) and a
grist mill' (coarse flour) at Rehill, and a 'grist mill' at Ballysheehan.
Both of these townlands are just a few miles north of Clogheen.
However, it was in the late 18th century that the mills, for which
Clogheen was once famous, commenced construction. In 1784, Thomas Vowell,
the adjutant of the Clogheen Volunteers, had purchased from one Daniel
Keefe, the Garter Inn and lands at Coole(ville), in Clogheen. Here Vowell
built a mill, and in 1794, he sold it to Samuel Grubb. a merchant from
Clonmel. Over the next several decades the Grubb family built further
flour mills at Cooleville, Clashleigh, Castlegrace and Flemingstown.
They also built a brewery at Clashleigh, and the little roadway which
leads down to the old mill ruins opposite the Catholic Church is still
known as Brewery Lane. Fennells,
who owned a mill at Rehill, purchased the Manor mill near the Duag Bridge
on Convent road from Murrays in the 1840s and later extended it.
Wades had a mill at Mt. Anglesbey.
It is suggested locally that this townland owes its name to its onetime
owner, the Earl of Anglesey, who received land in the area during the
Water power for the mills was derived from the Rivers Tar and Duag
and for Mount Anglesbey and the Manor mill at Glenleigh from the
Glounliagh stream. The last mill was constructed in 1832. The 1840
Ordnance Map shows that there was a small mill at Rearoe, two miles west
of the town, at that time
The Napoleonic wars, at the beginning of the
19th century, and the rapidly increasing population in the industrial
regions of England, created a huge market for Ireland's agricultural
produce. The mills provided both a ready market for the wheat grown in the
surrounding farmland and employment for great numbers of labourers.
Farming at the time was very labour intensive and consequently it, too,
provided a great deal of seasonal employment for the ever increasing rural
population. However, with the continuing trend of sub-division of farms
that was prevalent in the country, the demand for labour on these smaller
agricultural holdings gradually diminished. Samuel Lewis noted in the 1846
Parliamentary Gazette, that in Clogheen:
large trade in agricultural produce is carried on,
chiefly for exportation, and more than 80,000 barrels of wheat are annually
purchased in its market and in the neighbourhood. which is made into flour
of very superior quality and sent by land to Clonmel, whence it is
conveyed down the (River) Suir: For this purpose there are seven flour
mills in the town and neighbourhood, which are worked by fourteen
water-wheels. There is also an extensive brewery."
Slater's directory of the same year, 1846, was able to report that:
'The corn-mills of Messrs. Grubb are very extensive, employing great power
and a considerable number of hands. "
A document in the National Archives in Dublin records the
dimensions of the mill-wheel at Samuel Grubb's mill in Clogheen in 1847:
Diameter of wheel--16 feet. Number of buckets--32. Breadth of buckets--5
feet. Fall of water--13 feet. Revolutions per minute--8.
19th century, the River Suir was navigable from Clonmel to Waterford. The
barges which conveyed the flour down-river discharged their cargo onto the
Waterford quayside, or directly onto the ships which conveyed the flour to
England. However, not all the flour was exported through Waterford.
Youghal in County Cork, was at that time a busy port. It was to facilitate
the horse drawn flour carts journeying over the Knockmealdown mountains on
their way to Lismore and Youghal that the present Vee road was constructed
early in the 19th century. During the Great Famine of 1845-50 the mills
had to be guarded from attack by the starving populace. They did in fact
come under attack in 1846. (See chapter on Famine)
of Clogheen as a great milling centre began during and just after the
Great Famine. During the Peel administration in England (1841- 1846) the
Corn Laws were repealed. These were laws which imposed prohibitive
tarriffs on corn imports to Great Britain of
which Ireland was then a part. The great wheat growing areas of North
America were fast developing and becoming accessible by rail, and cheap
American wheat and corn eventually began to flood across the Atlantic
destabilising the prices heretofore ensured to Irish millers. In Ireland,
the newly established rail network, by excluding Clogheen from its routes,
also contributed to the mills' demise.
It had been expected that the rail line from Dublin to Cork would
pass through Clogheen, a route that would have made sense geographically.
Whether from lack of political influence or financial clout, the planned
rail connection to Clogheen never happened, and over the next several
years, the mills, now isolated, found that transportation costs and
competition from imports were all too much. Professor Wm. J. Smyth has
noted from records in the National Archives, the following description of
Grubb's flour mill at Flemingstown in 1870:
" The work done in this
mill in 1852 was 4,970 barrels. and in 1865. 1,115 barrels. Little or
nothing has been done since 1868, with only one pair of stones working for
two days a week on an average in these times. Some buildings are in ruins
and others much dilapidated. Indian Corn is now only ground in it and
wheat grain must be supplied from the Dublin market. It is nine miles from
the nearest railway station ."
By 1880 all but one of the flour mills had closed down. Before the
end of the century, flour milling had ceased in Clogheen. For some years
one of the mills was converted to the manufacture of woollens, and
Lonergans' Woolen Mill had a reputation for blankets, tweeds and serges of
Fairs And Markets
Two different sites in Clogheen
are pointed out as the location of the town's once busy market-house. Both
are correct. The 1840 Ordnance Survey map shows that the site now occupied
by Carey's Pharmacy on Main Street and Corbett's lumber yard directly
behind the pharmacy was the site of the market house and shambles. Here
weekly markets for butter, eggs, potatoes, and other foodstuffs gave life
to the town on two days of each week. Buyers from many urban areas
travelled several miles to purchase the butter at these markets. The
shambles at the rear was an area where stalls were erected from which
traders sold meat and other products.
In the late 1880s, the market house was destroyed by fire, and a
building at the site of the garage in the Square was converted to a market
house. This building was Clogheen's original court-house but had been
abandoned in favour of the new court-house in the early 1800s. During the
Great Famine, that same building had been used to house paupers when the
local workhouse was unable to accommodate the numbers seeking relief.
Before the advent of the Irish Farmers' Cooperative movement and
the subsequent organisation of cattle marts, cattle and pigs were sold on
'Fair- day' in designated towns around the country. Clogheen was one such
Throughout the countryside on fair-day, before the cock crowed or
the sun cast the first rays of early morning light, the farmers and their
labourers would have rounded up the few cattle they had to sell and begun
driving them along the road to the Clogheen fair. In the apparent
confusion of hundreds of cattle milling together on the streets, some sort
of order reigned, and all day long deals were done with much spitting
on palms prior to handshakes amid vociferous encouragement from the
Cattle sold and a few outstanding bills paid in the local stores,
the farmers headed for home. For some, the serious business was just
beginning, and their next port of call was one of the dozen or so local
public houses where vast amounts of whiskey, and porter from large timber
barrels were consumed. Songs were sung with old friends; old scores were
settled in fist fights, and new friends were made in the smoky bars lit by
oillamps while the publicans used butter-boxes to hold the day's takings.
The following day, the streets had to be cleared of the inevitable
mess from the fair, broken windows repaired, money counted and stories
told. Stragglers from the fair who had been too inebriated to find their
way home the previous night, nursed their sore heads with a 'hair of the
dog that bit them'! Another Fair- day was over. Sadly a day came when
Clogheen saw its last fair.
The absence of the railway was again to have an effect on the
economic well being of the town, and in 1889, George Henry Bassett, in his
' Book of County Tipperary , noted the following for Clogheen:
“ The houses of Clogheen for the most part, are well built, and
many of those devoted to business are tastefully fitted. and heavily
stocked with merchandise. The district contains a considerable amount of
good land. and in favourable times the farmers are well to do.
Oats and potatoes are the principal crops raised. Dairying is
carried on to a large extent. Every Saturday a market is held for butter
and eggs, but it is small in comparison to what it was some years ago. The
market-house was destroyed by fire, and has not been rebuilt. A fair is
held on the third Monday of every month for pigs. The cattle fairs, once
first rate, failed through competition of those held at Clonmel, Cahir and
Mitchelstown. Influences of a similar nature affected the prosperity of
the weekly market. Within forty years, four flour mills were worked with
success in the town and neighbourhood. Now only one is kept going. Fifty
years ago Clogheen had a brewery, but it likewise failed.
Nearly a hundred years ago a silvermine was worked profitably at
Castlegrace. Why it was abandoned does not appear. The Knockmealdown
mountains are supposed to be rich in iron ore. At present Woolens are
manufactured here on a modest scale, by Mr. Michael Lonergan. The industry
was begun by his late father some twenty years since, and has a promising
One of the most tangible links
that we in Ireland have with the past is the prolific number of old
churches scattered throughout the length and breadth of the country, some
currently in use, others in a state of ruin. In the immediate vicinity of
Clogheen there are a number of such ruins. Medieval church remains can be
seen in the cemeteries at Shanrahan, Castlegrace/Tullaghorton,
Ballysheehan, and Whitechurch. All dating from around the 15th century,
they fell into gradual decline following the suppression of monasteries
after the Reformation, and after the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity had
been passed in the middle of the 16th century. The church in Shanrahan was
rebuilt and used as a Protestant church at a later date. The square tower
from this later church is now a dominant feature of the cemetery. It was
here in Shanrahan that St. Cathaldus had his monastic settlement in the
7th century. (See chapter on St. Cathaldus on page 73)
The church ruin at Ballysheehan was at one time the parish church
of Ballysheehan. This ancient parish is now united with Shanrahan under
the name Clogheen/Burncourt. Ballysheehan was more anciently known as
Kilmolash and according to the Civil Survey of 1654, it boasted a Chapel
St. Mary's Church, Clogheen
It was a feature of life in
Ireland during the last few centuries that Protestant service was held in
a 'church' while the Catholics attended the 'chapel'. Despite thc Penal
Laws which were enacted in the 1690s, as a means of ensuring that there
could could be no more Catholic rebellion, a thatched chapel was built
in Clogheen in 1740. Chapel Lane ( Mountain View) owes its name to this
chapel. From 1740 until the 1830s, this was the place of worship for
Clogheen's Catholics. Prior to that, a Catholic church was in use inside
the walls of what later became Shanbally estate. Logataggart
has been pointed out as being the site of this early church. The Gaelic
word 'Lag' describes a natural hollow in the geographical terrain while
'Sagart' is the Gaelic for a Priest.
Following a fire in the Clogheen thatched chapel in the 1830s
during the pastorship of Fr. Matthias Casey, a decision was made to erect
a new Roman Catholic Church at Main Street. This decision reflected the
growing influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland following the Relief
Act of 1793 and the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 for which Daniel
O'Connell is famous.
The limestone for the new church was hewn from the adjacent quarry,
much to the chagrin of the Military authorities who found that the east
gateway of the barracks was made redundant by the quarrying of the stone.
That gateway, now blocked up, can still be seen on the old barracks wall,
behind and to the north of the Crucifixion scene in the church grounds.
Fr. Casey was so proud of his new church that he often boasted that it was
unsurpassed by anything outside Rome.
The continuing development of the Catholic church in Ireland,
however, with the resultant increase in the size of congregations,
necessitated the building of an even larger church in 1864. Fr. John
O'Gorman was the Parish Priest at the time. This is the present St. Mary's
Catholic church on Main Street which was built from limestone from
McCarthy's quarry at Garrymore - two miles from the village. The cost
of this handsome Gothic edifice was £2,662. Father Shanahan, who was the
Administrator of the parish in 1858, collected £1,700 towards the
building fund on the Australian gold-fields. Lord Lismore, the local
landlord, donated £100.
The Parochial house was erected in
the early 1890s.
St. Kieran's Catholic church at
Duhill in the neighbouring parish of Ballylooby /Duhill is well worth a
visit as it contains two stained glass windows by the famed artist in that
medium, Harry Clarke.
The Catholic church in
Burncourt was erected in 1952. This church replaced the 1810 cruciform
church on the same site which had been extensively restored in 1874 during
the pastorship of Rev. Thomas Finn.
A small silver chalice, now in
safe keeping in the parish, dates from 1638. It was a gift to the parish
from Lucas Everard and his wife Eliza Daniel on their wedding day in that
old wooden altar from the little thatched chapel of 1740 is still in
existence. And can be seen in the modern church.
The damage from the fateful fire is evident to this day. A few
statues from that chapel are also preserved.
St. Paul’s Church Of Ireland
The Protestant Church of St. Paul
was built in 1845-46.
In 1847, Rev. Wm. Frazer was the Protestant chaplain to Clogheen
Union workhouse, and Fr. Kelly, the Parish Priest, was the Catholic
chaplain to the same institution. Both men served on the Relief Committe
that was established in Clogheen during the Great Famine.
It was in this church, St. Paul's, that a British Army soldier
named James Clarke, who was serving locally as a bombardier in the Royal
Artillery, married Mary Palmer of Clogheen on May 21st, 1877. They were
the parents of Thomas Clarke, one of the signatories of the 1916
Proclamation who was executed after that rising.
Due to a sharp decrease in the size of its congregation, St. Paul's
closed as a Church of Ireland on March 14th 1976. At the final service, at
which Bishop John W. Armstrong officiated, many of the town's Catholic
community attended in a spirit of ecumenism with their Church of Ireland
neighbours. This gesture of friendship and sharing of the sadness at the
closing of the church was commented on by the presiding minister who said
that he was heartened by such a display of Christian fellowship,
particularly as he was about to take up an appointment in Belfast.
Following its closure as a church, the Church of Ireland
authorities donated the building to the People of Clogheen. Over the next
few years, the hard working community council converted it into the local
Community Centre which has proved to be a valuable asset to the town. The
tomb of the Taylor family, agents to Lord Lismore for several generations
can still be seen behind the old church.
Part of the remains of the
mediaeval parish church of Shanrahan can still be seen at the easternmost
end of the ruined church in Shanrahan cemetery. This has also been
suggested as the site of an ancient Abbey called St. Mary's but there is
no historical record of such an Abbey. The tower at the western end is
part is part of a later Protestant church. In 1666 Robert Thornhill of
Castlegrace was charged at a court in Clonmel with the destruction, by
force of arms, of the Church of All Saints in Shanrahan in 1657.
The townland of Rearoe, two miles west of Clogheen, is known
colloquially as Ronga, from the Gaelic word 'Rang', (pronounced 'roung'),
meaning 'school class'. While other hedge school sites would certainly
have existed, they are long forgotten, and so it is to Rearoe, or Ronga,
that we look for the earliest known school site in the area.
first identifiable school building in Clogheen is the old Parochial school
- older than and situated behind St. Paul's church. During the school's
first ten years in existence the ground in front of it, now occupied by
St. Paul's Church, was an open space. Also known as Shanrahan school, it
was built in 1838. It is doubtful if any Catholic children went there in
its early years. A number of 'pay-daily' schools were established in the
town over the following years, usually in the school-master's home.
Only those who could afford the few pence per week for the master
could afford to attend, and so these schools were in fact an early form of
In 1842, a school was established in the newly opened
Clogheen Union workhouse under the control of the National Board
of Education. Richard Burke was appointed as schoolmaster on a salary of
£15 per year, and Mary Nowlan was
appointed as first schoolmistress.
By all accounts, Burke was dedicated to his job and spared no
effort in setting up the workhouse school. Promotion soon followed, and he
became Clerk of the Union, and later still he obtained a higher position
in Waterford. While in Waterford he met and fell in love with a young
woman which was a bit unfortunate as he already had a wife in Clogheen! In
March, 1862, Richard Burke sent a package containing medicine laced with
strychnine to his ailing wife in Clogheen. She lived in one of the houses
now occupied by the Co-op store. Mrs. Burke took the medicine with fatal
consequences, but before she died she managed to alert one of her
neighbours as to the cause of her impending demise. Richard Burke's crime
was discovered and he was hanged on the 25th August, 1862.
The workhouse school was obviously only accessible to those
children whose parents were destitute in that institution. The poor
children who had so far managed to avoid the poorhouse were still denied
education. A letter to the Tipperary Vindicator newspaper in 1844, urged
that a National school should be built in Clogheen, saying:
"Nowhere are so many
children to be met with, so backward in literary requirement, nor no place
would they be tolerated to grow up and remain in so rude and uncultivated
a state of nature as they are here (in Clogheen), without some respectful
effort to have been made by at least a few humane, well disposed and
charitable persons to commence building an institution, to be conducted by
a Catholic, in which knowledge would be imparted that would dispel their
darkness and rescue them from their abject state of ignorance ...
stone plaque over the door of the building opposite St.Theresa's Hospital
shows that Clogheen had its National school by 1846.
In the 1930s, the old Parochial school behind St.Paul's was used as
a technical school.
In the early years of this century, the old National school closed
and was replaced by a Convent school run by the Sisters of Mercy and a
boys school on the Ballyporeen road a half mile west of the town. The
Sisters of Mercy had established a convent in the town in 1886, and in a
tradition that continues to this day, commenced nursing the sick and dying
and educating the children of the district.
The present St. Mary's National school was opened in 1980, and
replaced the Convent school and the old boysschool. A four teacher school,
it presently has 107 pupils on its roll-book. A well run modern school, it
boasts all the facilities necessary for the comfort of, as well as the
education of our children. It has had a considerable amount of success in
the Tidy Schools' competitions and its grounds are a credit to all those
charged with their care.
From Bassetts Book of Tipperary 1889
Visitors to Clogheen will be
surprised to learn that in spite of the fertility of the Valley and in
spite of the apparent affluence of the town in the middle of the
nineteenth century, it was nonetheless severely affected by the Great
Famine of 1845-50. With its seven mills and brewery and many assorted
shops and businesses, the casual observer could be forgiven for assuming
that Clogheen was set up to withstand the ravages of those dark years.
Just how badly it was affected can be shown by the fact that in a
famine exhibition at Cork University in October 1995, Clogheen/Burncourt
parish was chosen along with Skibbereen in County Cork to portray the
famine in Munster.
In October 1845, The Tipperary Free Press, a Clonmel based
newspaper, reported that they had investigated reports of widespread
failure of the potato crop and were saddened to say that the failure was
much more serious than they had at first thought. Somehow the poor managed
to struggle through the winter of 1845-46. After all, this was not the
first potato failure they had had to contend with. Neighbours who had 'a
bit put by' and local charities selling Indian meal at cost price, kept
the deaths to a minimum in those first months.
By spring of 1846, the true extent of the disaster began to be
realised. The landlords and gentry, clergy and business people of the area
held a meeting at Clogheen's courthouse in April and formed a Relief
Committee. This committee proceeded to divide the area around the town
into ten walks, and they visited each home in these walks. They selected
387 families, comprising 2,017 persons, as "fit objects for
relief." On the 18th April, The Tipperary Free Press reported that oatmeal and coarse flour
had been distributed to over 1,000 people in Clogheen during the week.
At the end of March, the Guardians of the workhouse were appealing
to the authorities in Dublin for funds, and they recorded in their minute
book (Tipperary County Library
Archives) that no contractors had tendered for the supply of potatoes
to the house. Consequently they would have to feed the paupers on meal and
bread. The destitution in the surrounding countryside was now so great
that the starving poor tried to take matters into their own hands. Convoys
of flour carts over half a mile long left Clogheen and Cahir each day
under military escort. They could no longer travel alone as they were
constantly coming under attack when unprotected. Lord Lismore had written
to Dublin Castle asking that extra military be sent to Clogheen as the
flour carts travelling the Clogheen to Lismore road had come under attack.
The mills were also besieged by a 'tumultuous body of people who advanced
on the town blowing horns'. The attacks on the mills were repulsed,
however, as the police had been tipped off and were waiting for the mob. (Outrage
Papers, National Archives)
Relief works were underway by summer, and the most important famine
relief project in the Clogheen area was the building of the present road
to Cahir. This road is still referred to as the 'New Line'. All over the
country, hundreds of thousands of people , the majority of them starving,
clamoured to get on to the various relief works. A system of piece-work
was introduced to reward those who were doing the most work, but this had
the most appalling consequences for the operation of the country's entire
relief-work system. Men in ragged clothes, near to starving, poured onto
the works with their wretched wives and children, in an effort to earn
more than the few pence per day that they themselves were capable of
After a few months the entire system became inoperable and
eventually closed down. Many people died while building the 'New Line' ,
and it is believed locally that they were buried in the ditches on either
side of the road. The Vee road over the Knockmealdown mountains was
upgraded during the Famine, and the walls on either side of that road were
built as part of famine relief.
January 1847 saw soup kitchens
being opened in all areas of the country that were fortunate enough to
have Relief Committees. Clogheen's soup-kitchen was established in
December 1846 by the Quaker family of Grubb. The charitable works carried
out for the poor of Ireland during the Great Famine by the Quakers or
Society of Friends is only now being acknowledged. Mrs Grubb's letter to
the Relief Commissioners in Dublin in Jan 1847 is preserved in the
National Archives in Dublin. In it she wrote:
" ... no persons with
common feelings could withstand the solicitations of the starving wretches
imploring them for relief which they cannot give. Disease in the rural
districts is making rapid strides, where grass, bran, and donkeys, we
hear, are resorted to for food."
Mrs. Grubb went on to request aid
under the grant system that had been advertised for setting up
food-kitchens. Dublin's reply was that as the Clogheen ladies'
soup-kitchen had not been officially set up by the Relief Committee, they
could not be grant aided. After much correspondence, aid was finally
granted to Clogheen.
The following month, Robert Davis, of the Society of Friends,
visited this area and recorded his findings. At Ballyboy near Clogheen he
" Active measures in
progress for the daily distribution of prepared food to the distressed
people around, and here I may say literally that actual famine first met
my view. There was no mistaking the shrunken looks and sharpened features
of the poor creatures, who were slowly and with tottering steps assembling
to partake of the accustomed bounty. Sheer destitution marked their
attenuated countenances too legibly to admit of a doubt that it was all a
sad reality ... From Ballyboy I next went to Clogheen, and visited the
soup, or rather porridge, establishment there, it was at full work and
appears to be well attended to. From Clogheen we proceeded to the village
of Burncourt, situated at the foot of the Galtee Mountains, a locality
where destitution abounds to a fearful degree ... deaths from actual
starvation were becoming of daily occurence; whilst the corpses were
buried in some instances at night, and without coffins. "
The Tipperary Free Press reported
on a similar visit by one of their correspondents in the same month:
"I have just returned from
having visited ten townlands (in the Vee-Valley), and a more distressing
duty I never I think performed. Although I knew great destitution
prevailed, yet I had no idea that the wretched people were at all so bad.
In many instances, I had to speak to them while they lay on a little dirty
straw, which they use for beds, they not being able from exhaustion to get
up to speak to me. People who were in good health four or five months ago,
I found were dead, and I was assured by the Sergeant of Police, that their
deaths were caused by starvation. In short, sore famine is in the
By the end of 1847, the workhouse in Clogheen was so overcrowded
that extra accomodation had to be found for the numbers seeking relief
there. Several extra buildings around Clogheen were leased including the
old court house at the Square, Clogheen, and at Tincurry, on the Galty
mountains outside Cahir, a disused factory was converted into an auxiliary
workhouse, to house 400 children.
A unique letter from one of the
unfortunate paupers who was obliged by destitution to seek refuge in
Clogheen workhouse with his family during those years, describes the
" ... the exterior is
grand and inviting, but the interior is a scene of tyranny, cruelty, and
inhumanity, which is destructive to human life. The portion of the food
and drink given to each person daily is not sufficient for one meal...some
are gluttonously fed, and many are perished by lingering hunger. ... I
have seen from six to twelve children dead daily. On the 23 March or
thereabouts I have seen sixteen dead together, fourteen of whom were
helpless children. I have seen fathers and mothers who could not find
their children dead or alive ... " (Board
of Guardian Minute Books, Tipperary County Library Archives)
Perhaps the most telling documents from those years are those which
contain the census figures (unfortunately for researchers, no names.) for
the years 1841 and 1851. The population of the valley had fallen in those
ten years from 43,932 to 32,903. The number of houses had fallen from
7,034 to 5,133, reflecting the huge number of evictions which took place
during those years. The population of the town of Clogheen had fallen from
2,049 to 1,562. That figure did not take into account the 1,322 inmates in
the local workhouse. Tincurry held over 500. Together, starvation,
emigration and death from fever had swept twenty five per cent of the
population from the Valley.
OF INTEREST FROM CLOGHEENS LATER YEARS
In the year 1866, Father Tracy of
Stradbally in County Waterford had organised a raffle to help pay off the
debt on his new church. Mrs. Collins, who lived in the above mentioned
house, sold a book of tickets for Fr. Tracy, and by way of thanks he sent
her an unwanted prize from the raffle. It was a painting, later described
as being of .. a man with a clean shaven, broad, kindly intelligent face,
wearing a furred cape over a black velvet jacket and something resembling
a Lord Mayor's chain." Mrs. Collins hung it in the parlour of her
home alongside black and white prints of Irish national figures.
Here it hung until one day in the early 1900s when Dr. Richard
Henebry, who occupied the chair of Celtology at Cork University at the
time, paid a visit to his cousins in Clogheen, the Collins family. While
waiting for a cup of tea to be made for him, he casually walked around the
room looking at the various paintings on the wall. His eyes fell on the
old picture and he immediately realised that it was a painting of Thomas
More painted in the early sixteenth century by Hans Holbein the younger.
At Dr. Henebry's suggestion the Holbein was sent to London where it
was sold at auction for seven hundred pounds. Mrs. Collins, the daughter
in law of the original owner, felt that she had come into a fortune. In
1918 the painting was resold to an American for forty thousand pounds.
More by Hans Holbein the younger
The Frick Collection
Today the Hans Holbein painting of
Thomas More hangs in the Frick Gallery in New York, and its value is
reported to be in millions of dollars.
For over three hundred years, art
lovers and experts throughout the world had searched for the Blessed
Thomas More painting by Holbein. It is not known how it came to be in
Ireland or who donated it to Fr. Tracy's raffle in Stradbally. What is
known is that for over fifty years the priceless portrait by Hans Holbein
the Younger hung unnoticed in Collins' house on Clogheen's Main Street.
at the facts of the story it would appear that there was a painting sold
from Collins' house in the early 1900s for seven hundred pounds. The
researcher at the Frick Museum suggests that it was probably one of many
copies of the Holbein that have come to light over the years. In 1918
somebody obviously saw a report that the Thomas More painting by Holbein
the Younger had been sold for £40,000 and assumed that it was the same
painting that had graced the walls of the Collins home for all those
Ryan And The Fairy Tree.
Temple Lane was the
pen-name of Isabel Leslie, daughter of the Rev. Canon Leslie, who at one
time ministered in St. Mary's Protestant Church in Clonmel, later at St.
Paul's Church of Ireland in Clogheen, and later still in Lismore where he
is buried. She took her name from the Temple lane that ran near her former
home in Clonmel.
What better way to
remember Katie Ryan than to reproduce the words of the famous song.
All night around the thorn
tree, the little people play,
They'll tell you dead men hung
Its black and bitter fruit,
To guard the buried treasure round
which it twines its root
They'll tell you Cromwell hung
But that could never be,
He'd be in dread like others to
touch the Fairy Tree.
But Katie Ryan who saw there in
some sweet dream she had,
The Blessed Son of Mary and all
his face was sad.
She dreamt she heard him say
Why should they be afraid? Why
should they be afraid? When
from a branch of thorn tree the
crown I wore was made.
By moonlight round the thorn tree
the little people play
And men and women passing will
turn their heads away.
But if your hearts a child's heart
and if your eyes are clean,
You'll never fear the thorn tree
that grows beyond Clogheen.
High up above the Vee road, on top
of the Sugarloaf peak on the Knockmealdown mountain range, a mound of
stones marks the site of one of the strangest burials ever to have taken
place in Ireland. Folklore has
a habit of confusing historical facts and we are happy to be able to offer
here a link to the correct information regarding Major Eeles - the man and
his burial place. http://www.vee.ie/page16.html
Just beyond the Vee hairpin, a few
hundred feet above the Lismore road out of Clogheen, stands a monument in
the shape of a beehive cairn that looks out over the Galty-Vee-Valley.
This well known landmark is the last resting place of Samuel Richard
Grubb, an estate and mill owner from Castlegrace, Clogheen. Mr. Grubb had
expressed a wish that he be buried overlooking his lands and estate at
Castlegrace and here at this spot on the side of the Sugarloaf was the
chosen site. Each year, many visitors to the Vee climb up to the monument
and are surprised to find that it bears an inscription, which simply
" Samuel Richard Grubb of
Castlegrace. Born 26th September, 1855; Died 6th September, 1921."
A couple of miles outside
Clogheen, in the lonely little churchyard of Tubrid in the parish of
Ballylooby and Duhill lies the grave of one of the most illustrious Gaelic
scholars that Ireland has ever produced. Dr. Geoffrey Keating (Seathrun
Ceitin] was born in the nearby townland of Burgess in 1570. Having trained
for and been ordained to the priesthood in Bordeaux he returned to his
native parish in 1610 and built the church in Tubrid from where he
ministered to his flock. Geoffrey Keating has been described as " the
greatest master and best model of Irish prose."
These were troublesome times in Ireland, but Fr. Keating seems to
have worked in peace for some years until for some reason he felt obliged
go on the run. He went into hiding in a cave in the Glen of Aherlow a few
miles from Cahir, and it was while here that he began to write his most
famous work (Foras Feasa an Eireann), a complete history of Ireland in
In 1650 Dr. Keating was killed by a Cromwellian soldier. He was
buried in the churchyard at Tubrid A handsome monument has been erected at
his birthplace in Burgess in recent times. It has been said of him that
his works will "always remain a standard of Irish at its best"
and that "it represents the current tongue of the Irish scholar,
writing when his native language possessed its full vigour."
To get to Tubrid, take the Clonmel road out of Clogheen. After two
miles, turn left at the pub at Castlegrace. One mile further on is Duhill
Church with the Harry Clarke stained glass windows. One mile further on
again is Tubrid Churchyard.
To get to the monument at Burgess it is best to take the Cahir road
out of Clogheen. Watch out for the signpost which is about two miles from
Man Killed At
Given that emigration has for
centuries been an integral part of Ireland's history, it is safe to assume
that many hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women from Clogheen and
district have, over the years, left their mark on various parts of the
world. One such man was William Hickey, a farmer's son from Lisfuncheon,
Clogheen, who emigrated to Boston towards the end of the Great Famine.
From the outset it appears (from his letters home which are still
preserved) that his life in the New World held all the excitement and
adventure that he could possibly have dreamed of as he was planning his
trip. Within days of leaving home an accident on board ship almost severed
his toes, but it seems he made a full recovery. In one of his early
letters he mentioned the fact that John Bourke from Tubrid was given two
hours before the ship sailed from Liverpool to remove his dead wife's body
on his back in order that she might be given a Christian burial. John
Bourke then returned to the ship and together with his two young children
set out for their new life in America.
One year after his arrival at his cousin's home in Commercial
Street, Boston, William wrote home to his parents requesting that the
return fare should be sent to him. Work was difficult to find and he had
been obliged to take up employment at a boot and shoe factory, a fact that
obviously displeased him. History does not relate whether or not he
received the money, but a few months later he was again writing to his
parents for money, this time to go to California, a journey he assured his
parents, that would take all of six weeks.
Again he was to change his
plans, and the next letter from William described his horror at finding
himself in Sheepscote Bridge in Maine "in the wilde woods of America
away from priest and chapel…I shed tears from my eyes in this letter for
you, thinking of you and being so lonesome here that I have no one that I
would spare a word to but savage Yankees, some of them who would sooner
see the devil than an Irishman."
He went on to say that he was
barely earning enough money to clothe himself, cutting down trees from
four in the morning till ten at night. He dreaded the oncoming winter when
he could expect to have to work in from six to fourteen feet of snow. He
resolved to go to St. Louis, where he felt sure that his cousin Father
Abram Ryan, the celebrated American poet, would fix him up with decent
William's final letter to his parents was written from New Orleans
in 1861. He was happy to be able to report that he was working in a very
respectable establishment, earning two dollars per day. He gave his
address as William Hickey, New Orleans, Louisiana.
On an August morning in 1866, Rev. Father James Hickey waited at
the gate of his brother's house in Lisfuncheon for the mail to be
delivered. He was anxiously waiting for word of his young cousin Johanna
Ryan, whom he had assisted in emigrating to America a few months
previously. The letter that arrived bearing a St. Louis postmark was from
Johanna's brother David, who had been awaiting his young sister's arrival.
The despair, sadness, and sorrow
with which Fr. James read that letter can hardly be imagined. A great many
of the passengers on the ship 'The England' had died from cholera during
her voyage, and great numbers after her arrival in quarantine in Halifax.
"and sad to relate poor
Johanna among the rest... Your nephew William Hickey was a brave hearted
young man, well liked by everyone in St. Louis, and at the breaking out oj
the war, he went to New Orleans where he joined the Confederate army, and
was killed at the Battle oj Shiloh holding the rank of lieutenant and was
acknowledged to be a brave intrepid commander."
William Hickey's Lisfuncheon Home
Wherever an unusual topographical
feature occurs in Ireland, one can be sure that there is a legend or two
accompanying it by way of explanation. Such a feature locally is the
ancient track across the Knockmealdown mountains known as Rian Bo Phadraig
(The track of St. Patrick's cow). The track in question is the unusual
topographical feature while the connection With St. Patrick's cow is the
The story goes as follows: St. Patrick's cow, accompanied by her
calf, was grazing contentedly on the banks of the River Tar. A cattle
thief from County Waterford came over the mountain and stole the calf and
made off with his prize for his home some twenty miles away. On
discovering her loss, the cow set off in pursuit and such was her fury
that she tore up the mountain side with her horns as she went. The
distraught animal pursued the rustler well into County Waterford until at
last she recovered her calf.
In 1903, the Rev. P. Power from Waterford first published the
results of his many years of investigation of the Rian. Using ancient
manuscripts and books and accounts of early saints' lives coupled with
thorough research on the ground, he gradually unravelled the great
Rian Bo Phadraig is in fact a 4th or 5th century roadway linking
the ancient ecclesiastical centres of Cashel in Co. Tipperary and Lismore
in Co. Waterford. Some historians maintain that the continuation of the
roadway from Lismore to Ardmore in the same county points to a link With
St. Declan of Ardmore who preached Christianity in the south of Ireland
before St. Patrick ever set foot here. However, Dr. Power has identified
a more direct link between Ardmore and Cashel via Newcastle at the eastern
end of the Knockmealdowns.
From interviews with the older members of the rural community who
lived along the route of the road Dr. Power identified many hundreds of
old Irish placenames which had not been recorded on the 1840 ordnance
survey maps. Using these names and his knowledge of the Irish language he
discovered many sites on the Rian which he regarded as positive evidence
of the road having been used by the holy men of Cashel and Lismore. Among
those sites was a well called Tobar Mochuda (Mochuda's well), on the north
side of the Knockmealdowns and the ruin of a small chapel close by.
Mochuda was the founder of Lismore.
At the time of Dr Power's research he was able, with difficulty in
places, to trace the Rian from Cashel to Lismore via Ardfinnan, Kildanoge,
and the summit of the Knockmealdowns. He expressed the opinion that the
ancient road had been preserved down through the centuries, even on
farmland, because of the reluctance of the farmers to interfere with the
holy road bearing the saint's name.
In this modern age of intensive farming, road widening, land
drainage and extensive afforestation, many stretches of Rian Bo Phadraig
are not clearly identifiable. However with the aid of Dr. Power's map,
available at the County Library in Thurles, it is now possible to retrace
the steps of the early saints of Ireland and St. Patrick's cow.
Whenever the destruction of
Shanbally Castle is mentioned in casual conversation in Clogheen, local
residents are seen to be visibly moved. While the anger in the voices will
have diminished over the years, the sadness remains. The shameful
demolition of that wonderful building in the late 1950s still causes
sentiments of disgust to be expressed that cannot be reprinted here.
Built in the early 1800s by the
landlord Cornelius O'Callaghan who had recently had the title of 'Lord
Lismore' bestowed on him, it would seem logical that the castle would have
been seen as a symbol of landlord oppression in the area and that its
destruction would have been welcomed by the locals. This, however, was not
Having, of necessity, accepted the inevitable landlord tenant
relationship that existed between them, the tenants on Lord Lismore's
35,000 acre estate appear to have borne little animosity towards the
O'Callaghan family who collected the rent from them each year. At first
this might seem surprising, in view of the fact that evictions did at
times take place on the estate, and considering that Lord Lismore had
called out the military to prevent the erection of a monument at the site
of Fr. Sheehy's tomb in 1870. However, it might be explained by the fact
that during the Great Famine of 1845-1850, Lord Lismore had shown
benevolence towards his tenants by reducing their rents and establishing a
soup kitchen at the gates of his castle. Contemporary writers described
Lord Lismore as one of Ireland's good landlords, and Clogheen had indeed
prospered under him.
The castle had been designed by the celebrated architect John Nash
who also designed the famous terraces that surround Regents Park in
London, and redesigned Buckingham Palace. Constructed of magnificently cut
limestone, the castle boasted twenty bedrooms, lavishly designed stucco
ceilings, splendid mahogany staircases and doors, marble fireplaces
throughout, and was set in one of the most picturesque parts of South
Tipperary. The setting was described in 'Lewis' Parliamentary Gazette' of
1846: “It is beautifully
situated on low ground, in the centre of the valley between the Galtee
mountains on the north and the Knockmealdown mountains on the south; and
it commands the most magnificent views of the slopes." One thousand
acres surrounding the building had been laid out in parkland and woods
which were further enhanced by the creation of an artificial lake. To add
to the sadness of the destruction of Shanbally castle, the chief example
of Nash's work in Ireland, Sir Cecil King Harmans' house in County
Roscommon had burned down a short time before the detonators and gelignite
had done their work in Clogheen.
In the 1950s the Shanbally estate had been purchased by the Irish
Land Commission and the land commendably distributed among Irish farmers.
Then followed one of those bizarre decisions for which officialdom
everywhere is well known. It was decided that as the roof was in a
dangerous condition, a fact disputed by lovers of the castle at the time,
ten thousand pounds were to be spent in its destruction. Over several
weeks, despite the outcry and protest from around the country, one
thousand and four hundred holes were drilled around the castle, eighteen
inches from the ground. The holes were then filled with explosive, and
following the huge explosion Shanbally Castle was converted into thousands
of tons of rubble.
It is no wonder that the people
who remember it wince when they are reminded of that wanton act of
official vandalism. Here, they will tell you, was Clogheen's Dromoland or
Ashford castle. Here, apart from our mountains, was Clogheen's great
tourist attraction with its consequent employment and ancillary business
opportunities. Even as a roofless ruin, Shanbally Castle should have been
allowed to stand as a monument to the man who built it, Cornelius
O'Callaghan - Lord Lismore, and indeed as a monument to the people whose
rent paid for its construction.
Cathaldus Of Shanrahan And Taranto.
South of Shanrahan cemetery stands
Knockshanahullion, a peak of the Knockmealdown mountain range. These
mountains were not always known as the Knockmealdowns but were more
anciently known as Slieve Cua or in English, Cua's mountain. They were
named after the legendary chieftain, Cua, who is reputed to have built his
fort either at the site of the present cemetery or in the immediate
vicinity of that place. This fort was known as RathCua or Cua's Fort.
Later on in time it became known simply as Rathan (the Fort) and as the
centuries progressed it became known as Shanrahan (Old Fort). What we now
know as the parish of Clogheen and Burncourt was, up to the last century,
together with the modern parish of Ballyporeen, known as the parish of
Shanrahan - Ballysheehan and Templetenny.
Following the arrival of St. Patrick, Holy men established small
monasteries throughout Ireland. In this area such Holy men are remembered
at Ardfinan (St. Finian}, Tubrid (St. Kieran). It is not surprising then,
to learn that in the seventh century a Holy man named Cathal, having
studied at the University of Lismore which was founded by St. Carthage,
made his way through the pass in the ancient SlieveCua mountains at the
western end of Knockshanahullion peak and arrived at Rathan where he
established his monastic settlement. He was appointed Bishop of the area
even though it must be remembered that in those early years of the
Christian Church this did not mean that he was in charge of a diocese.
After some years at Shanrahan, Cathal set out on a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. On his return journey he was shipwrecked off the coast of
Southern Italy and on discovering that the people of the area had reverted
to paganism he resolved to stay amongst them in an effort to reconvert
them to Christianity .
Within a few years the people of Taranto in Southern Italy had
selected Saint Cataldo (in Latin, Cathaldus or Cataldus) as their Bishop.
Today the popularity of Saint Cathaldus in Southern Italy is equal to, if
not greater than, the popularity of St. Patrick in Ireland. Over one
hundred and fifty churches are dedicated to him in that country and the
Cathedral-Basilica in Taranto proudly bears his name. He is the Saint
Protector of Corato [Bari], of Gangi (Palermo) and of many other places. A
town in Sicily is called San Cataldo.
In 1071, during the reconstruction of the Basilica in Taranto, the
tomb of Cathaldus was discovered and opened. With his body was found a
gold cross bearing his name and the word Rathcau.
In 1963, Fr. Frank Mackin, a Jesuit priest from Boston, came to
Clogheen to research his family history. Following that visit, he went to
Taranto to research the life of the Irish Saint. He was amazed that there
was neither a statue nor a stained glass window commemorating the Irish
Saint in the Clogheen Church even though it was obvious from the writings
of the Historian Fr. Everard - Clogheen's Parish priest in the early years
of the twentieth century - and from local tradition, that Clogheen people
were aware of the historic link between Taranto and Shanrahan. He resolved
to do something about it. In 1986 the Mackin family of America, Ireland
and Australia installed a beautiful Stained Glass window in St. Mary's
Catholic Church, on Clogheen's Main Street. The window, on the west
wall of the church, depicts the life of St. Cathaldus in Shanrahan, his
journey to the Holy Land and his being shipwrecked off the coast of
Southern Italy. PHOTO
In 1996, an important delegation from Taranto in Italy, accompanied
by Signor Enzo Farinella from the Italian Embassy in Dublin representing
the Italian Ambassador, came to Clogheen to re-establish the historic link
between Shanrahan and Taranto. The delegation was formed by Mons. Dr.
Nicola Di Cornite, Vicar General and Archdeacon of the Metropolitan
Chapter of Taranto; Mons Marco Morone, Parish Priest of the
Basilica-Cathedral 'San Cataldo' and Don Cosimo Quaranta, secretary of the
During concelebrated mass on Sunday September 22,1996 Monsignor
Michael Olden gave the homily on the subject of Saint Cathaldus. Then Mons
Nicola Di Comite addressed the people of Clogheen and presented his
Lordship most Rev. Dr. William Lee, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore with a
gold replica of the Cross of St. Cathaldus.
At the time of writing, 1996, it is planned that a plaque be
erected at Shanrahan to commemorate the visit of the Italian delegation
and the link between Shanrahan in Clogheen and Taranto in Southern Italy.
In the Irish office of this great Saint (Gill and Son, Dublin) Die
viii, Martii, p. 18, we read:
"Cathaldus in loco hodie
Shanrahan nuncapato sedam suam eptscpales constituit".
(Cathaldus, in a place nowadays
called Shanrahan, established his Episcopal See).
|Clogheen History. Clogheen Books. Fr Sheehy.| | <urn:uuid:851fb3e0-5d36-48f2-9123-d7abc82aa27c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.galteemore.com/clogheen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976349 | 16,595 | 3.109375 | 3 |
The concept of “productive aging” has been used to promote older adults’ involvement in productive activities in their latter years, regardless of whether these activities are compensated. Many public and private initiatives encourage older people to remain involved in productive activities, particularly formal volunteering. These initiatives frequently claim that formal volunteering not only provides a valuable service to the community, but also can actually improve the physical and mental health of older people.
There has been a great deal of research that links formal volunteerism with increased physical and mental health of older people. Underlying much of the research on the connection between volunteerism and physical and mental health is the notion that being a volunteer is a productive role, which is an important role for people of all ages. Role theory suggests that through engaging in a productive role, such as being a volunteer, older people increase their social networks, resources and emotional gratification, all of which can have a positive effect on their physical and mental health. Conversely, for those who volunteer too many hours, role theory suggests they may experience role strain, and thus might not have any physical and mental health benefits from volunteering. Role theory is quite useful in explaining the mechanisms of why a volunteerism could be linked with improved physical and mental health for older people.
Most of the research on the correlation between volunteering and health, however, has measured health solely on the basis of an individual’s self-perceived health. Although perceptions of health themselves are important, as they often relate to an individual’s adaptations to a medical or mental condition, perceived health is not necessarily related to actual medical or mental conditions, or to physical or mental functioning, or to mortality. Changes in perceived health could signify that volunteering actually slows the onset of medical conditions and decreases declines in functioning of older people; or it could mean that volunteering simply changes people’s perceptions regarding their health or their adaptations to their health. Initiatives encouraging formal volunteering among older people should be careful not to promise improved physical and mental health.
Which of the following statements could one infer from role theory as presented in this passage? A. Engaging in a productive role will result in more physical and mental health benefits if the activity is financially compensated B. Working adults should not retire. C. Engaging in a productive role is more important for older people than for younger people D. People will experience role strain if they volunteer too often E. Older adults are more likely to participate in a productive role if they think that their health or mental health is beginning to decline
(D) Answer choice (E) is tricky but incorrect. Role theory suggests that engaging in a productive role might lead to physical and mental health benefits, but does not suggest that people with declining physical and mental health would be more likely to seek out such a role. (B) is not an inference that can be drawn from the passage. (C) is incorrect, as role theory is not presented as being more applicable for understanding the behavior of older as opposed to younger people. People who overextend themselves might experience role strain. Thus, (D) is correct. Finally, (A) is incorrect, as paragraph one states that engaging in productive activities leads to benefits regardless of compensation. ------------- I am not comfortable with this choice . The paragraph suggests that the volunteers who role play for "long hours" can experience role strain. Long hours is not same as "too often" . May be a person volunteers for 15 minutes daily and one person volunteers for 18 hours for 2 days . Who would feel the strain ?
I am not comfortable with this choice . The paragraph suggests that the volunteers who role play for "long hours" can experience role strain. Long hours is not same as "too often" . May be a person volunteers for 15 minutes daily and one person volunteers for 18 hours for 2 days . Who would feel the strain ?
The passage does not say "long hours" as you suggest, it says "too many hours." While your assumption may be true that volunteering for many consecutive hours is different than volunteering for many hours stretched out over days, the passage does not make this distinction. The passage simply says "for those who volunteer too many hours, role theory suggests they may experience role strain." Based on this sentence (and not any outside assumptions), it is reasonable to infer that volunteering "too often" will lead to role strain.
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PRE-TRIP CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Students will prepare for measuring things which they cannot reach, using concepts of measurement, geometry, and proportion.
The teacher will read aloud The Librarian Who Measured the Earth, by Kathryn Lasky, and students will have access to other reading materials such as Sir Cumference and the First Round Table, and other books related to measurement, geometry, and proportion.
Students participate in a discovery activity which demonstrates the relationship between diameter and circumference. Students are provided with a collection of cylinders of different sizes (e.g., cardboard tubes of different sizes from toilet paper, paper towels, wrapping paper; lids or plastic containers, etc.).
1. Pairs of students are asked to measure the diameter of one cylinder, marking its length on a string with a pen.
2. Next, the student team measures around the cylinder with the diameter-marked string, making a mark at each unit of diameter length.
2. Students write down how many diameter lengths make up the circumference.
3. Students do this for each cylinder in their kit.
4. Students will discover that regardless of the size of the cylinder, its circumference will be a little bit more than three times its diameter.
Students can actually measure the diameters and circumferences using a cm or inch tape measure, and calculate a more exact relationship for each cylinder, recording them on a data sheet. Results should demonstrate a close proximity to pi for each cylinder.
In subsequent group discussions, students devise a formula to represent the relationship they discovered, with Õ representing the repeating factor they discovered in their cylinder activity. The formula should look something like:
Students can confirm their findings by referring to math text explanations of pi, and practice circumference/diameter problems from the text using pi.
Students practice both methods of height measurement (see description of methods under Field Site Activites, below) on the school site, beginning with structures of known height and working toward objects of unknown height. Students compare their results using both methods.
In class discussions, students discuss both methods, the benefits of having two or more methods to confirm a particular measurement (no answer key in life!!), and conjecture about the circumstances that would lead one to select one method over another if both were not possible.
MATERIALS AND RESOURCES
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth°, Kathryn Lasky
Sir Cumference and the First Round Table,
Yard or meter sticks
Students will be evaluated on their participation in the pi discovery activity and subsequent discussions. Data sheets and circumference math problems confirm the studentšs ability to measure, to discern patterns, and to understand the relationship between pi, diameter, and circumference.
FIELD TRIP ACTIVITIES
Students pairs measure the size of a tree by measuring its trunk, crown (broadest width of tree including branches), and height. Students record their data on a data sheet at the site. Before the field trip, students will have:
ˇ learned vocabulary words horizontal, vertical, measure, crown, trunk, circumference, diameter, round (math), straight, opposite, length, base, and height
ˇ read and understood activity instructions
ˇ studied the relationship between circumference and diameter (d×p = C)
ˇ practiced the height measurement method.
Instructions for measuring the trunk:
1. Measure from the ground to 4 1/2 feet high on the trunk.
2. At that height, measure the trunk's circumference. Use a string around the trunk and measure the length of the string.
3. Round to the nearest inch. Record the number as the circumference. Make sure you and your partner agree on the results.
4. Using a calculator, calculate the treešs diameter (circumference ¸ p), round to the nearest tenth of an inch, and record. Make sure you and your partner agree on the results.
Instructions for measuring the crown:
1. Find the tree's five longest branches.
2. Put markers on the ground beneath the tip of the longest branch.
3. Find a branch that is opposite it and mark its tip on the ground.
4. Measure along the ground from first marker to the second marker.
5. Record the number and label as crown. Make sure both you and your partner agree on the results.
Instructions for measuring the height - Method I:
1. Have your partner stand at the base of the tree.
2. Back away from the tree, holding your ruler in front of you in a vertical position. Keep your arm straight. Stop when the tree and the ruler appear to be the same size. (Close one eye to help you line it up.)
3. Turn your wrist so that the ruler looks level to the ground and is in a horizontal position. Keep your arm straight.
4. Have your partner walk to the spot that you see as the top of the ruler. Be sure the base of the ruler is kept at the base of the tree.
5. Measure how many feet he or she walked. That is the tree's height. Round to the nearest foot and record your answer as the height.
6. Switch roles with your partner and repeat Steps 1-5. If you and your partner obtain completely different results, measure the height again until you agree on an accurate measurement.
Instructions for measuring height Method 2 (best done close to midday when shadows are shortest):
1. Measure the length of the shadow of a tree.
2. Measure the length of the shadow of an object of known height (e.g., the student)
3. Have students establish an equation representing equivalent proportions between shadow length and height.
a. tree height ÷ tree shadow length = student height ÷ student shadow length
4. Have students solve for tree height (use calculator)
a. tree height = tree shadow length x student height ÷ student shadow length
Materials and resources:
String, 12-inch ruler, paper, pencil, data sheet, yard stick or tape measure, calculators, tree
If possible, allow time for pairs in each group to compare answers and then remeasure the tree if needed. When independently derived answers are in agreement, students will make the assumption their measurements are correct. If numbers do not agree, and time does not allow, students should be able to hypothesize some reasons for differences. Student product for formal evaluation: data sheets.
POST-TRIP CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Students discuss their experiences of measuring the treešs circumference, diameter, height, and crown. In a class discussion, they compare and analyze their results, and suggest possible reasons for variations or error. Students relate their experiences to the more general topic of measurement, discussing issues relating to accuracy (ballpark v. pinpoint accuracy), methodology, practicality, etc., and relate these issues to other kinds of measurement in the world.
A guest speaker (e.g., forestry resource manager) comes to the classroom to talk about how trees are measured (for purposes of resource management, dendrochronology, fire prevention) in real-life applications. The speaker relates the kinds of measurements the students made with these real applications. The speaker also introduces students to possible career paths in forestry and resource management.
MATERIALS AND RESOURCES
Speaker (contact local environmental education resources, USDA Forestry Dept., state and county forestry resources, private timber companies who employ resource managers, etc.)
Informal evaluation is based on student participation in discussions and speaking events.
° California Department of Education Recommended Literature | <urn:uuid:a8ce2a3f-0cd7-4599-ab5d-5ced2f8e3f2f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bioregion.ucdavis.edu/salmoned/learning/lee%20unit/measure.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920467 | 1,566 | 4.09375 | 4 |
Many Americans were puzzled by the news, in 1902, that United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water. The United States, throughout its emergence as a world power, had spoken the language of liberation, rescue, and freedom. This was the language that, when coupled with expanding military and commercial ambitions, had helped launch two very different wars. The first had been in 1898, against Spain, whose remaining empire was crumbling in the face of popular revolts in two of its colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. The brief campaign was pitched to the American public in terms of freedom and national honor (the U.S.S. Maine had blown up mysteriously in Havana Harbor), rather than of sugar and naval bases, and resulted in a formally independent Cuba.
The Americans were not done liberating. Rising trade in East Asia suggested to imperialists that the Philippines, Spain’s largest colony, might serve as an effective “stepping stone” to China’s markets. U.S. naval plans included provisions for an attack on the Spanish Navy in the event of war, and led to a decisive victory against the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in May, 1898. Shortly afterward, Commodore George Dewey returned the exiled Filipino revolutionary Emilio Aguinaldo to the islands. Aguinaldo defeated Spanish forces on land, declared the Philippines independent in June, and organized a government led by the Philippine élite.
During the next half year, it became clear that American and Filipino visions for the islands’ future were at odds. U.S. forces seized Manila from Spain—keeping the army of their ostensible ally Aguinaldo from entering the city—and President William McKinley refused to recognize Filipino claims to independence, pushing his negotiators to demand that Spain cede sovereignty over the islands to the United States, while talking about Filipinos’ need for “benevolent assimilation.” Aguinaldo and some of his advisers, who had been inspired by the United States as a model republic and had greeted its soldiers as liberators, became increasingly suspicious of American motivations. When, after a period of mounting tensions, a U.S. sentry fired on Filipino soldiers outside Manila in February, 1899, the second war erupted, just days before the Senate ratified a treaty with Spain securing American sovereignty over the islands in exchange for twenty million dollars. In the next three years, U.S. troops waged a war to “free” the islands’ population from the regime that Aguinaldo had established. The conflict cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and about four thousand U.S. soldiers.
Within the first year of the war, news of atrocities by U.S. forces—the torching of villages, the killing of prisoners—began to appear in American newspapers. Although the U.S. military censored outgoing cables, stories crossed the Pacific through the mail, which wasn’t censored. Soldiers, in their letters home, wrote about extreme violence against Filipinos, alongside complaints about the weather, the food, and their officers; and some of these letters were published in home-town newspapers. A letter by A. F. Miller, of the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment, published in the Omaha World-Herald in May, 1900, told of how Miller’s unit uncovered hidden weapons by subjecting a prisoner to what he and others called the “water cure.” “Now, this is the way we give them the water cure,” he explained. “Lay them on their backs, a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose, and if they don’t give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I’ll tell you it is a terrible torture.”
On occasion, someone—a local antiwar activist, one suspects—forwarded these clippings to centers of anti-imperialist publishing in the Northeast. But the war’s critics were at first hesitant to do much with them: they were hard to substantiate, and they would, it was felt, subject the publishers to charges of anti-Americanism. This was especially true as the politics of imperialism became entangled in the 1900 Presidential campaign. As the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, clashed with the Republican incumbent over imperialism, which the Democrats called “the paramount issue,” critics of the war had to defend themselves against accusations of having treasonously inspired the insurgency, prolonged the conflict, and betrayed American soldiers. But, after McKinley won a second term, the critics may have felt that they had little to lose.
Ultimately, outraged dissenters—chief among them the relentless Philadelphia-based reformer Herbert Welsh—forced the question of U.S. atrocities into the light. Welsh, who was descended from a wealthy merchant family, might have seemed an unlikely investigator of military abuse at the edge of empire. His main antagonists had previously been Philadelphia’s party bosses, whose sordid machinations were extensively reported in Welsh’s earnest upstart weekly, City and State. Yet he had also been a founder of the “Indian rights” movement, which attempted to curtail white violence and fraud while pursuing Native American “civilization” through Christianity, U.S. citizenship, and individual land tenure. An expansive concern with bloodshed and corruption at the nation’s periphery is perhaps what drew Welsh’s imagination from the Dakotas to Southeast Asia. He had initially been skeptical of reports of misconduct by U.S. troops. But by late 1901, faced with what he considered “overwhelming” proof, Welsh emerged as a single-minded campaigner for the exposure and punishment of atrocities, running an idiosyncratic investigation out of his Philadelphia offices. As one who “professes to believe in the gospel of Christ,” he declared, he felt obliged to condemn “the cruelties and barbarities which have been perpetrated under our flag in the Philippines.” Only the vigorous pursuit of justice could restore “the credit of the American nation in the eyes of the civilized world.” By early 1902, three assistants to Welsh were chasing down returning soldiers for their testimony, and Philippine “cruelties” began to crowd Philadelphia’s party bosses from the pages of City and State.
At about the same time, Senator George Frisbie Hoar, of Massachusetts, an eloquent speaker and one of the few Republican opponents of the war, was persuaded by “letters in large numbers” from soldiers to call for a special investigation. He proposed the formation of an independent committee, but Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, another Massachusetts Republican, insisted that the hearings take place inside his own, majority-Republican Committee on the Philippines. The investigation began at the end of January, 1902, and, in the months that followed, two distinct visions of the hearings emerged. Hoar had hoped for a broad examination of the conduct of the war; Lodge, along with the Republican majority, wanted to keep the focus on the present, and was “not convinced” of the need to delve into “some of the disputed questions of the past.” For the next ten weeks, prominent military and civilian officials expounded on the progress of American arms, the illegitimacy of Aguinaldo’s government, its victimization of Filipinos, and the population’s incapacity for self-government and hunger for American tutelage.
Still, the subject of what was called, with a late-Victorian delicacy, “cruelties” by U.S. troops arose a few days into the hearings, at the outset of three weeks’ testimony by William Howard Taft. A Republican judge from Ohio, Taft had been sent to the islands to head the Philippine Commission, the core of the still prospective “postwar” government. He was speaking about the Federal Party, an élite body of collaborating Filipinos who were aiding “pacification,” when Senator Thomas Patterson, a Democrat from Colorado, abruptly inquired about “the use of the so-called water cure in securing the surrender of guns.” Taft replied that he “had intended to speak of the charges of torture which were made from time to time.” He then allowed himself to be redirected by the young Indiana senator Albert Beveridge, an ardent imperialist who wanted to discuss the deportation of Filipino “irreconcilables” to Guam. But antiwar senators proved persistent. Minutes later, Senator Charles A. Culberson, a Democrat from Texas, pushed again. This time, Taft conceded:
That cruelties have been inflicted; that people have been shot when they ought not to have been; that there have been in individual instances of water cure, that torture which I believe involves pouring water down the throat so that the man swells and gets the impression that he is going to be suffocated and then tells what he knows, which was a frequent treatment under the Spaniards, I am told—all these things are true.
Taft then immediately tried to contain the moral and political implications of the admission. Military officers had repeatedly issued statements condemning “such methods,” he claimed, backing up their warnings with investigations and courts-martial. He also pointed to “some rather amusing instances” in which, he maintained, Filipinos had invited torture. Eager to share intelligence with the Americans, but needing a plausible cover, these Filipinos, in Taft’s recounting, had presented themselves and “said they would not say anything until they were tortured.” In many cases, it appeared, American forces had been only too happy to oblige them.
Less than two weeks later, on February 17, 1902, the Administration delivered to the Lodge committee a fervent response that was tonally at odds with Taft’s jocular testimony. Submitted by Secretary of War Elihu Root, the report proclaimed that “charges in the public press of cruelty and oppression exercised by our soldiers towards natives of the Philippines” had been either “unfounded or grossly exaggerated.” The document, entitled “Charges of Cruelty, Etc., to the Natives of the Philippines,” was an unsubtle exercise in the politics of proportion. A meagre forty-four pages related to allegations of torture and abuse of Filipinos by U.S. soldiers; almost four hundred pages were devoted to records of military tribunals convened to try Filipinos for “cruelties” against their countrymen. If the committee sought atrocities, Root suggested, it need look no further than the Filipino insurgency, which had been “conducted with the barbarous cruelty common among uncivilized races.” The relatively slender ledger of courts-martial was not, for Root, evidence of the unevenness of U.S. military justice on the islands. Rather, it showed that the American campaign had been carried out “with scrupulous regard for the rules of civilized warfare, with careful and genuine consideration for the prisoner and the noncombatant, with self-restraint, and with humanity never surpassed, if ever equaled, in any conflict, worthy only of praise, and reflecting credit on the American people.”
The scale of abuses in the Philippines remains unknowable, but, as early as March, rhetoric like Root’s was being undercut by further revelations from the islands. When Major Littleton Waller, of the Marines, appeared before a court-martial in Manila that month, unprecedented public attention fell on the brutal extremities of U.S. combat, specifically on the island of Samar in late 1901. In the wake of a surprise attack by Filipino revolutionaries on American troops in the town of Balangiga, which had killed forty-eight of seventy-four members of an American Army company, Waller and his forces were deployed on a search-and-destroy mission across the island. During an ill-fated march into the island’s uncharted interior, Waller had become lost, feverish, and paranoid. Believing that Filipino guides and carriers in the service of his marines were guilty of treachery, he ordered eleven of them summarily shot. During his court-martial, Waller testified that he had been under orders from the volatile, aging Brigadier General Jacob Smith (“Hell-Roaring Jake,” to his comrades) to transform the island into a “howling wilderness,” to “kill and burn” to the greatest degree possible—“The more you kill and burn, the better it will please me”—and to shoot anyone “capable of bearing arms.” According to Waller, when he asked Smith what this last stipulation meant in practical terms, Smith had clarified that he thought that ten-year-old Filipino boys were capable of bearing arms. (In light of those orders, Waller was acquitted.)
The disclosures stirred indignation in the United States but also prompted rousing defenses. Smith was court-martialled that spring, and was found guilty of “conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.” Yet the penalty was slight: he was simply reprimanded and made to retire early. Root then used the opportunity to tout the restraint that the U.S. forces had shown, given their “desperate struggle” against “a cruel and savage foe.” The Lodge committee, meanwhile, maintained its equanimity, with a steady procession of generals and officials recounting the success and benevolence of American operations.
That is what, on April 14th, made the testimony of Charles S. Riley, a clerk at a Massachusetts plumbing-and-steam-fitting company, so explosive. A letter from Riley had been published in the Northampton Daily Herald in March of the previous year, describing the water-cure torture of Tobeniano Ealdama, the presidente of the town of Igbaras, where Riley, then a sergeant in the 26th Volunteer Infantry, had been stationed. Herbert Welsh had learned of Riley, and enlisted him, among other soldiers, to testify before the committee. Amid the bullying questions of pro-war senators, Riley’s account of the events of November 27, 1900, unfolded, and it was startlingly at odds with most official accounts. Upon entering the town’s convent, which had been seized as a headquarters, Riley had witnessed Ealdama being bound and forced full of water, while supervised by a contract surgeon and Captain Edwin Glenn, a judge advocate. Ealdama’s throat had been “held so he could not prevent swallowing the water, so that he had to allow the water to run into his stomach”; the water was then “forced out of him by pressing a foot on his stomach or else with [the soldiers’] hands.” The ostensible goal of the water cure was to obtain intelligence: after a second round of torture, carried out in front of the convent by a “water detail” of five or six men, Ealdama confessed to serving as a captain in the insurgency. He then led U.S. forces into the bush in search of insurgents. After their return to Igbaras, that night, Glenn had ordered that the town, consisting of between four and five hundred houses, be burned to the ground, as Riley explained, “on account of the condition of affairs exposed by the treatment.”
Riley’s testimony, which was confirmed by another member of the unit, was inconvenient, especially coming after official declarations about America’s “civilized” warfare. The next day, Secretary of War Root directed that a court-martial be held in San Francisco and cabled the general in charge of the Philippines to transport to the West Coast Glenn and any witnesses who could be located. “The President desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts, nothing concealed and no man being for any reason favored or shielded,” Root declared. Yet in the cable Root assured the general, well in advance of the facts, that “the violations of law and humanity, of which these cases, if true, are examples, will prove to be few and occasional, and not to characterize the conduct of the army generally in the Philippines.” Most significant, though, was the decision, possibly at Glenn’s request, to shift the location of the court-martial from San Francisco to Catbalogan, in the Philippines, close to sympathetic officers fighting a war, and an ocean away from the accusing witnesses, whose units had returned home. Glenn had objected to a trial in America because, he said, there was a “high state of excitement in the United States upon the subject of the so-called water cure and the consequent misunderstanding of what was meant by that term.”
The trial lasted a week. When Ealdama testified about his experience—“My stomach and throat pained me, and also the nose where they passed the salt water through”—Glenn interrupted, trying to minimize the man’s suffering by claiming (incorrectly) that Ealdama had stated that he had experienced pain only “as [the water] passed through.” Glenn defended his innocence by defending the water cure itself. He maintained that the torture of Ealdama was “a legitimate exercise of force under the laws of war,” being “justified by military necessity.” In making this case, Glenn shifted the focus to the enemy’s tactics. He emphasized the treachery of Ealdama, who had been tried and convicted by a military commission a year earlier as a “war traitor,” for aiding the insurgency. Testimony was presented by U.S. military officers and Filipinos concerning the insurgency’s guerrilla tactics, which violated the norms of “civilized war.” Found guilty, Glenn was sentenced to a one-month suspension and a fifty-dollar fine. “The court is thus lenient,” the sentence read, “on account of the circumstances as shown in evidence.” (Glenn retired from the Army, in 1919, as a brigadier general.) Meanwhile, Ealdama, twice tortured by Glenn’s forces, was serving a sentence of ten years’ hard labor; he had been temporarily released to enable him to testify against his torturer.
The vote of the court-martial at Catbalogan had been unanimous, but at least one prominent dissenter within the Army registered his disapproval. Judge Advocate General George B. Davis, forwarding the trial records to Root, wrote an introductory memorandum that seethed with indignation. Glenn’s sentence, in his view, was “inadequate to the offense established by the testimony of the witnesses and the admission of the accused.” Paragraph 16 of the General Orders, No. 100, the Army’s Civil War-era combat regulations, could not have been clearer: “Military necessity does not admit of cruelty—that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.” Davis conceded that, in a “rare or isolated case,” force might legitimately be used in “obtaining the unwilling service” of a guide, if justified as a “measure of emergency.” But a careful examination of the events preceding the tortures at Igbaras revealed that “no such case existed.” Furthermore, Glenn had described the water cure as “the habitual method of obtaining information from individual insurgents”—in other words, as “a method of conducting operations.” But the operational use of torture, Davis stressed, was strictly forbidden. Regarding a subsequent water-cure court-martial, he wrote, “No modern state, which is a party to international law, can sanction, either expressly or by a silence which imports consent, a resort to torture with a view to obtain confessions, as an incident to its military operations.” Otherwise, he inquired, “where is the line to be drawn?” And he rehearsed an unsettling, judicial calibration of pain:
Shall the victim be suspended, head down, over the smoke of a smouldering fire; shall he be tightly bound and dropped from a distance of several feet; shall he be beaten with rods; shall his shins be rubbed with a broomstick until they bleed?
The questions were so vile and absurd—they were the kind that the Filipinos’ Spanish tormentors had once asked—that it seemed “hardly necessary to pursue the subject further.” The United States, he concluded, “can not afford to sanction the addition of torture to the several forms of force which may be legitimately employed in war.” Glenn’s sentence, however, stood. This would be perhaps the most intensive effort by the War Department to punish those who practiced the water cure in the Philippines.
Confronted with the facts provided by the Waller, Smith, and Glenn courts-martial, and with the testimony of a dozen more soldier witnesses who had followed Riley, Administration officials, military officers, and pro-war journalists launched a vigorous campaign in defense of the Army and the war. Their arguments were passionate and wide-ranging, and sometimes contradictory. Some simply attacked the war’s critics, those who sought political advantage by crying out that “our soldiers are barbarous savages,” as one major general put it. Some contended that atrocities were the exclusive province of the Macabebe Scouts, collaborationist Filipino troops over whom, it was alleged, U.S. officers had little control. Some denied, on racial grounds, that Filipinos were owed the “protective” limits of “civilized warfare.” When, during the committee hearings, Senator Joseph Rawlins had asked General Robert Hughes whether the burning of Filipino homes by advancing U.S. troops was “within the ordinary rules of civilized warfare,” Hughes had replied succinctly, “These people are not civilized.” More generally, some people, while conceding that American soldiers had engaged in “cruelties,” insisted that the behavior reflected the barbaric sensibilities of the Filipinos. “I think I know why these things have happened,” Lodge offered in a Senate speech in May. They had “grown out of the conditions of warfare, of the war that was waged by the Filipinos themselves, a semicivilized people, with all the tendencies and characteristics of Asiatics, with the Asiatic indifference to life, with the Asiatic treachery and the Asiatic cruelty, all tinctured and increased by three hundred years of subjection to Spain.” As the military physician Henry Rowland later phrased it, the American soldiers’ “lust of slaughter” was “reflected from the faces of those around them.”
In his private and public considerations of the question of “cruelties,” Theodore Roosevelt—who had been President since McKinley’s assassination, in September of 1901—lurched from intolerance for torture to attempts to rationalize it and outrage at the antiwar activists who made it a public issue. Writing to a friend, he admitted that, faced with a “very treacherous” enemy, “not a few of the officers, especially those of the native scouts, and not a few of the enlisted men, began to use the old Filipino method of mild torture, the water cure.” Roosevelt was convinced that “nobody was seriously damaged,” whereas “the Filipinos had inflicted incredible tortures upon our own people.” Still, he wrote, “torture is not a thing that we can tolerate.” In a May, 1902, Memorial Day address before assembled veterans at Arlington National Cemetery, Roosevelt deplored the “wholly exceptional” atrocities by American troops: “Determined and unswerving effort must be made, and has been and is being made, to find out every instance of barbarity on the part of our troops, to punish those guilty of it, and to take, if possible, even stronger measures than have already been taken to minimize or prevent the occurrence of all such acts in the future.” But he deplored the nation’s betrayal by anti-imperialist critics “who traduce our armies in the Philippines.” In conquering the Philippines, he claimed, the United States was, in fact, dissolving “cruelty” in the form of Aguinaldo’s regime. “Our armies do more than bring peace, do more than bring order,” he said. “They bring freedom.” Such wars were as historically necessary as they were difficult to contain: “The warfare that has extended the boundaries of civilization at the expense of barbarism and savagery has been for centuries one of the most potent factors in the progress of humanity. Yet from its very nature it has always and everywhere been liable to dark abuses.”
There was, of course, an easier way than argument to end the debate. On July 4, 1902 (as if on cue from John Philip Sousa), Roosevelt declared victory in the Philippines. Remaining insurgents would be politically downgraded to “brigands.” Although the United States ruled over the Philippines for the next four decades, the violence was now, in some sense, a problem in someone else’s country. Activists in the United States continued to pursue witnesses and urge renewed Senate investigation, but with little success; in February, 1903, Lodge’s Republican-controlled committee voted to end its inquiry into the allegations of torture. The public became inured to what had, only months earlier, been alarming revelations. As early as April 16, 1902, the New York World described the “American Public” sitting down to eat its breakfast with a newspaper full of Philippine atrocities:
It sips its coffee and reads of its soldiers administering the “water cure” to rebels; of how water with handfuls of salt thrown in to make it more efficacious, is forced down the throats of the patients until their bodies become distended to the point of bursting; of how our soldiers then jump on the distended bodies to force the water out quickly so that the “treatment” can begin all over again. The American Public takes another sip of its coffee and remarks, “How very unpleasant!”
“But where is that vast national outburst of astounded horror which an old-fashioned America would have predicted at the reading of such news?” the World asked. “Is it lost somewhere in the 8,000 miles that divide us from the scenes of these abominations? Is it led astray by the darker skins of the alien race among which these abominations are perpetrated? Or is it rotted away by that inevitable demoralization which the wrong-doing of a great nation must inflict on the consciences of the least of its citizens?”
Responding to the verdict in the Glenn court-martial, Judge Advocate General Davis had suggested that the question it implicitly posed—how much was global power worth in other people’s pain?—was one no moral nation could legitimately ask. As the investigation of the water cure ended and the memory of faraway torture faded, Americans answered it with their silence. ♦ | <urn:uuid:99e04658-0ec6-48a2-a336-94a0f59b3905> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/02/25/the-water-cure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976632 | 5,771 | 3.8125 | 4 |
The particular street signs, windows, and balconies on this street mark it as Parisian.
Paris, the city of light, is instantly recognizable—as long as you’re looking at a photo of the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. But could you recognize the city if the picture lacked a flashy landmark? (Try testing yourself here—just don’t look at the text on signs.)
If you find yourself stumped, know that a new software program has you beat: it can identify a city from a single photo of any old street. Almost any street, the program’s designers found, has little details that give away its city, including distinctive street signs, windows, and balconies.
To program the new software, researchers at Carnegie Mellon fed it 40,000 Google Street View images from 12 cities, including Paris and New York. These photos contained hundreds of millions of unique visual elements, creating a huge database that allowed the software to pick out which recurring details were typical of which cities. For example, Paris has unique cast-iron balconies that are clearly distinct from New York’s fire escapes and London’s neoclassical columns.
Mining large databases to find patterns like these is not a new technique, but the databases usually contain text or numbers, not pictures. Visual data mining is a much newer and trickier method, which might someday be applied at smaller scales to identify individual neighborhoods from a photo, or at larger ones to find the representative details of an entire continent. It’s interesting to wonder whether, in the future, machines will pick up on distinctions that even a city’s inhabitants are not conscious of, unique details that they walk past every day but never notice.
Images courtesy of Carnegie Mellon | <urn:uuid:54b1c7bd-a880-42b0-a529-a3ab2de6cd93> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2012/08/09/what-makes-a-paris-street-parisian-this-program-knows/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917424 | 363 | 2.78125 | 3 |
OSH Answers Fact Sheets
Easy-to-read, question-and-answer fact sheets covering a wide range of workplace health and safety topics, from hazards to diseases to ergonomics to workplace promotion. MORE ABOUT >
What are the lungs?
The lungs are the organs of breathing: they are responsible bringing oxygen from the atmosphere into the body through a series of branching air tubes (Figure 1) and exchanging it for carbon dioxide that is released back into the atmosphere.
The lungs are constantly exposed to danger from the dusts we breathe. Luckily, the lungs have another function - they have defense mechanisms that protects them by removing dust particles from the respiratory system. For example, during a lifetime, a coal miner may inhale 1,000 g of dust into his lungs. When doctors examine the lungs of a miner after death, they find no more than 40 g of dust. Such a relatively small residue illustrates the importance of the lungs' defenses, and certainly suggests that they are quite effective. On the other hand, even though the lungs can clear themselves, excessive inhalation of dust may result in disease.
What happens when we breathe in dust?
The lungs are protected by a series of defense mechanisms in different regions of the respiratory tract.
When a person breathes in, particles suspended in the air enter the nose, but not all of them reach the lungs. The nose is an efficient filter. Most large particles are stopped in it, until they are removed mechanically by blowing the nose or sneezing.
Some of the smaller particles succeed in passing through the nose to reach the windpipe and the dividing air tubes that lead to the lungs [more information about how particles entering the lungs].
These tubes are called bronchi and bronchioles. All of these airways are lined by cells. The mucus they produce catches most of the dust particles. Tiny hairs called cilia, covering the walls of the air tubes, move the mucus upward and out into the throat, where it is either coughed up and spat out, or swallowed.
The air reaches the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the inner part of the lungs with any dust particles that avoided the defenses in the nose and airways. The air sacs are very important because through them, the body receives oxygen and releases carbon dioxide.
Dust that reaches the sacs and the lower part of the airways where there are no cilia is attacked by special cells called macrophages. These are extremely important for the defense of the lungs. They keep the air sacs clean. Macrophages virtually swallow the particles. Then the macrophages, in a way which is not well understood, reach the part of the airways that is covered by cilia. The wavelike motions of the cilia move the macrophages which contain dust to the throat, where they are spat out or swallowed.
Besides macrophages, the lungs have another system for the removal of dust. The lungs can react to the presence of germ-bearing particles by producing certain proteins. These proteins attach to particles to neutralize them.
Dusts are tiny solid particles scattered or suspended in the air. The particles are "inorganic" or "organic," depending on the source of the dust. Inorganic dusts can come from grinding metals or minerals such as rock or soil. Examples of inorganic dusts are silica, asbestos, and coal.
Organic dusts originate from plants or animals. An example of organic dust is dust that arises from handling grain. These dusts can contain a great number of substances. Aside from the vegetable or animal component, organic dusts may also contain fungi or microbes and the toxic substances given off by microbes. For example, histoplasmosis, psittacosis and Q Fever are diseases that people can get if they breathe in organic that are infected with a certain microorganisms.
Dusts can also come from organic chemicals (e.g., dyes, pesticides). However, in this OSH Answers document, we are only considering dust particles that cause fibrosis or allergic reactions in the lungs. We are not including chemical dusts that cause cancer or acute toxic effects, for example.
What are the reactions of the lungs to dust?
The way the respiratory system responds to inhaled particles depends, to a great extent, on where the particle settles. For example, irritant dust that settles in the nose may lead to rhinitis, an inflammation of the mucous membrane. If the particle attacks the larger air passages, inflammation of the trachea (tracheitis) or the bronchi (bronchitis) may be seen.
The most significant reactions of the lung occur in the deepest parts of this organ.
Particles that evade elimination in the nose or throat tend to settle in the sacs or close to the end of the airways. But if the amount of dust is large, the macrophage system may fail. Dust particles and dust-containing macrophages collect in the lung tissues, causing injury to the lungs.
The amount of dust and the kinds of particles involved influence how serious the lung injury will be. For example, after the macrophages swallow silica particles, they die and give off toxic substances. These substances cause fibrous or scar tissue to form. This tissue is the body's normal way of repairing itself. However, in the case of crystalline silica so much fibrous tissue and scarring form that lung function can be impair. The general name for this condition for fibrous tissue formation and scarring is fibrosis. The particles which cause fibrosis or scarring are called fibrogenic. When fibrosis is caused by crystalline silica, the condition is called silicosis.
What are the factors influencing the effects of dust?
Several factors influence the effects of inhaled particles. Among these are some properties of the particles themselves. Particle size is usually the critical factor that determines where in the respiratory tract that particle may be deposited. Chemical composition is important because some substances, when in particle form, can destroy the cilia that the lungs use for the removal of particles. Cigarette smoking may alter the ability of the lungs to clear themselves.
Characteristics of the person inhaling particles can also influence the effects of dust. Breathing rates and smoking are among the most important. The settling of dust in the lungs increases with the length of time the breath is held and how deeply the breath is taken. Whether breathing is through the nose or mouth is also important.
What are the diseases of dusty operations?
The classic diseases of "dusty" occupations may be on the decline, but they have not yet disappeared. Workers today still suffer from a variety of illnesses caused by dust they inhale in their work environments. For practical purposes, we limit this document to dust. We do not take into consideration combined effects arising from exposures to dusts, gases, fumes and vapours.
Some types of lung diseases caused by the inhalation of dust are called by the general term "pneumoconiosis." This simply means "dusty lung."
The changes which occur in the lungs vary with the different types of dust. For example, the injury caused by exposure to silica is marked by islands of scar tissue surrounded by normal lung tissue. Because the injured areas are separated from each other by normal tissue, the lungs do not completely lose their elasticity. In contrast, the scar tissue produced following exposure to asbestos, beryllium and cobalt completely covers the surfaces of the deep airways. The lungs become stiff and lose their elasticity.
Not all inhaled particles produce scar tissue. Dusts such as carbon and iron remain within macrophages until they die normally. The released particles are then taken in again by other macrophages. If the amount of dust overwhelms the macrophages, dust particles coat the inner walls of the airways without causing scarring, but only producing mild damage, or maybe none at all.
Some particles dissolve in the bloodstream. The blood then carries the substance around the body where it may affect the brain, kidneys and other organs.
The table below summarizes some of the most common lung diseases caused by dust.
The OSH Answers document Extrinsic Allergic Alveolitis has more information about diseases from exposure to organic dusts.
Some types of pneumoconiosis according to dust and lung reaction
|Inorganic Dust||Type of Disease||Lung Reaction|
|Tungsten Carbide||Hard Metal Disease||Fibrosis|
|Mouldy hay, straw and grain||Farmer's lung||Fibrosis|
|Droppings and feathers||Bird fancier's lung||Fibrosis|
|Mouldy sugar can||Bagassosis||Fibrosis|
|Compose dust||Mushroom worker's lung||No Fibrosis|
|Dust or mist||Humidifier fever||No Fibrosis|
|Dust of heat-treated sludge||Sewage sludge disease||No Fibrosis|
|Mould dust||Cheese washers' lung||No Fibrosis|
|Dust of dander, hair particles and dried urine of rats||Animal handlers' lung||No Fibrosis|
How can we protect the lungs from dust?
To avoid respiratory or other problems caused by exposure to dust, hazardous substances should be substituted with non-hazardous substances. Where substitution is not possible, other engineering control methods should be introduced. Some examples are:
- use of wet processes
- enclosure of dust-producing processes under negative air pressure (slight vacuum compared to the air pressure outside the enclosure)
- exhausting air containing dust through a collection system before emission to the atmosphere
- use of vacuums instead of brooms
- good housekeeping
- efficient storage and transport
- controlled disposal of dangerous waste
Use of personal protective equipment may be vital, but it should nevertheless be the last resort of protection. Personal protective equipment should not be a substitute for proper dust control and should be used only where dust control methods are not yet effective or are inadequate. Workers themselves, through education, must understand the need to avoid the risks of dust. A respiratory protection program is discussed in OSH Answers - Personal Protective Equipment under Respirator Selection and Respirator Care.
Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy, currency and completeness of the information, CCOHS does not guarantee, warrant, represent or undertake that the information provided is correct, accurate or current. CCOHS is not liable for any loss, claim, or demand arising directly or indirectly from any use or reliance upon the information. | <urn:uuid:c9d4491b-6573-4f85-95b6-388e07904c3d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/lungs_dust.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909902 | 2,193 | 3.703125 | 4 |
When asked to think about heroic women of the Crimean War, many people will first think about Florence Nightingale and her tireless work as a nurse. However, there was another woman also doing incredible work looking after the troops: Mary Seacole (c.1805-1881). Aside from her work in the Crimean War, the Jamaican nurse was also a writer, hotelier, and entrepreneur. The below is an extract taken from The Oxford Companion to Black British History, explaining more about her amazing life.
She was born Mary Grant, but no official records of her birth or parentage exist; in her autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857), she stated her father to be a soldier of Scottish descent (possibly James Grant of the 60th Regiment of Foot) and her Creole mother to be the keeper of a Kingston hotel, Blundell Hall, and a well respected ‘doctress’, skilled in the traditional African use of herbal remedies. Her mother’s guests and patients included British army officers garrisoned in Kingston, and Grant enjoyed a close relationship with the Army all her life. She had one sister, Louisa Grant (c.1815–1905), and a half-brother, Edward Ambleton, who died during the 1850s. Grant was educated by an elderly woman described in the autobiography as ‘my kind patroness’, and by her mother in cookery and medicine. During her teens, succumbing to what she called an irresistible and unladylike ‘inclination to rove’, she twice travelled to London, and in her twenties sailed to the Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti, trading homecooked pickles and preserves for shells and fancy goods, for which she found a ready sale in Kingston. In 1836 Grant wed an Englishman, Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole (1803–44), in Kingston. She believed her husband to be a godson of Lord Nelson, but this cannot be confirmed. Together the Seacoles moved to the port of Black River, on Jamaica’s south-west coast, to open a general store. Like Edwin’s health, however, this venture failed to thrive and by 1843 both were back in Kingston.
Blundell Hall was consumed by the great fire of 29 August 1843; Edwin died in October 1844, and Seacole lost her mother around the same time. Temporarily cowed by this triple blow, she settled in Kingston to rebuild her livelihood. But by 1851 she was off again, choosing Panama—then the Republic of New Granada—for her next destination. Her brother Edward had already set up a hotel at Cruces, en route across the isthmus to the newly discovered California goldfields; Seacole opened her own hotel right opposite Edward’s.
Seacole struggled to make the hotel pay. American clients, she complained, preferred not to patronize any establishment fronted by a black woman, and there were not enough British visitors—whom she favoured—to go round. An alternative income came from an outbreak of cholera during her stay: using her experience of treating yellow fever in Jamaica, she nursed all comers, gladly accepting payment from those with the money. She carried out a pioneering autopsy one night on an infant, the better to understand the disease and help her patients. Seacole was back in Jamaica when she heard of the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854. Her immediate response was to apply to British authorities as a nurse. She considered herself eminently qualified, being medically experienced, independent, strong, fiercely patriotic, and eager to do her duty. Expecting a grateful welcome, she sailed to London in the autumn of 1854. She applied to the War Office, the Quartermaster-General’s Department, the Crimean Fund, and to Florence Nightingale’s organization. Perhaps understandably, she was ubiquitously rejected. None had the courage to engage a stout ‘yellow’ woman (her word) dressed in vulgarly bright colours, at nearly 50 well past middle age, ‘unprotected’ (i.e. without male relations to take responsibility for her), loudly insistent, and obviously used to being in charge. Seacole was stunned: she had rarely met what she considered to be colour prejudice from the British before, and found it impossible to justify. But the setback only fuelled her desire to reach the Crimea for the sake of her ‘sons’, or British soldiers. Entering into a business partnership with Thomas Day, a relative of her late husband, she announced the imminent opening of a Crimean ‘British hotel’ and general stores, and sailed for Balaklava in February 1855.
The hotel, fondly known as Mother Seacole’s Hut, soon became a Crimean institution. It was built of scrap beside a stream on Spring Hill, between Balaklava and Sevastopol. Seacole is mentioned with affectionate admiration in first-hand accounts of the war, as famous for her fine roasted bustards or rice puddings as for tending the sick and wounded with warmth and good humour. But Florence Nightingale mistrusted her, and feared her nurses associating with this unorthodox exotic. Nightingale’s principal objection was that she served alcohol at her hotel, and prescribed it to her patients. Nightingale aimed to change the system; Seacole simply wanted to make her ‘sons’ feel better.
A hasty evacuation of troops followed the war’s end in April 1856, leaving Seacole with unsettled bills and unsaleable stock. On her return to London that summer she was declared bankrupt. But a philanthropic succession of benefit festivals and subscription funds, patronized by Queen Victoria and other members of the royal family, ensured relative comfort for the rest of her life. In 1857 her autobiography—the first by an African- Caribbean woman in Britain—was published to great acclaim. The next quarter-century was punctuated by visits to Kingston, where she owned two properties; she unsuccessfully volunteered to nurse victims of the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; she enjoyed what appears to have been a remarkably close relationship with Princess Alexandra; and sometime between 1857 and 1860 she converted to Roman Catholicism.
Seacole died in London on 14 May 1881, and was buried at her own request in St Mary’s Catholic cemetery at Kensal Green. She was mourned as a British heroine, then promptly forgotten, surely in part because her colour and defiant self-possession forbade her from becoming a fashionable role model for Britain’s young ladies. Recently she has emerged again, thanks to a reprint of Wonderful Adventures edited by Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee in 1984, as a peerless model of self-belief, triumph over prejudice and preconception, and sheer strength of character. | <urn:uuid:c75c150a-fcb9-4d7a-8285-3de440135066> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.oup.com/2008/11/seacole/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973095 | 1,450 | 2.875 | 3 |
An interview with Stafford Lightman, Endocrinologist, Bristol University, England
Q: What are the origins of the stress response?
A: Stress is an extremely important protective mechanism for human beings, and in fact for all animals, because if you're being chased by a lion it's important to get away. In order to get away you need to give as much oxygen and as much sugar to your muscles to make them work as fast as they can, so your blood flow needs to go faster. When you're being frightened, your brain detects the danger, it sends signals down your spinal cord to your adrenal medulla to release adrenaline. The adrenaline increases the amount of sugar in your blood and increases your heart rate, and this helps your efficiency of getting away from the lion. Your brain also sends signals down to the pituitary gland, which releases another hormone which acts on the outside of the adrenal, the adrenal cortex, and that releases cortisol. Cortisol is also very important in keeping your blood sugar up, keeping your blood pressure up, and helping allow the body to have maximal exertion to get away from danger.
Q: What happens to the body as a result of the stress response in the brain?
A: One of the fascinating things that happens is the body is being prepared only to use its really essential functions, so the muscles work well, the liver releases more sugar, for energy, but things are actually being turned off as well. Although the heart rate is going up and more blood is going round the body, parts of the body which aren't needed urgently are being turned off. The blood supply to the gut and areas like this is actually decreased, so your digestion diminishes—you don't need digestion when you're running away from a lion—obviously your sexual function is turned off, and a lot of the non-essential activities of the body just decrease so that you preserve the really essential ones to get away from the dangerous situation.
In a modern situation we don't have these same sorts of dangerous problems, but what we have are other very stressful situations. And the interesting thing, of course, is that your blood sugar goes up, your heart rate goes up and your blood pressure goes up, but you're not utilizing all of this, you're not running away, you're not having energy, so all of these hormonal responses are happening, but they're actually not being used.
Q: When does the stress response become dangerous?
A: The important thing about the stress response is it's adapted for short-term responses. It becomes dangerous when you get multiple stress responses, one after the other, or experience chronic stress that goes on for weeks or years. When that happens your levels of cortisol can be raised for very prolonged periods of time, and it can have lots of nasty effects on the body. It can damp down your immune system, for instance, so that you can't respond to diseases as well as you should. It can also have effects on the brain, actually decreasing the number of brain cells in certain parts of the brain and decreasing your memory. It also can affect your blood pressure, and it can affect the fats in the blood and make it more likely for you to have heart attacks and strokes. So when you have chronic stress, that's when stress becomes dangerous.
Q: Can caring for people with chronic illnesses actually lead to illnesses in caregivers?
A: There's been quite a lot of interest recently about what chronic stress can do to cause disease. We did a study on caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease…We've looked at their hormones and we find that their cortisol is indeed raised, so they have a hormonal stress response which is prolonged for a very long period of time. We've also looked at their immune function by giving them influenza vaccination, which is routinely given to elderly people, and we've found that their antibody response to the influenza vaccination is much poorer than equivalent people of the same age who aren't caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's or some other disease.
So it's clear that chronic stress does damp down the immune system. And other people have also shown that chronic stress can decrease your ability to heal wounds, so that if you've got small wounds they just don't heal as well. The body just doesn't function quite as well when you have large, high levels of cortisol circulating through it for long periods of time.
Q: Has stress been linked to depression and other mental illnesses?
A: It's quite clear that chronic stress is related with depression. Depression is a very major common disease in our society, and it is undoubtedly related to the chronic stress that we have in our society.
The ability of stress to cause depression as well as other problems like heart disease and high blood pressure are connected in an interesting way. [Patients who are depressed after a] heart attack are much more likely to die within the next few years than people who've had heart attacks and who aren't depressed. So again this depression, which is related to chronic stress, actually has a major effect on life expectancy.
Q: Might there someday be a pill to reduce the effects of stress?
A: We are involved in an intensive program to develop an anti-stress pill, and the only way we can do this really is to try and block the beginning of the pathway in the brain that causes the response to stress. And this happens at the hypothalamus, which makes a hormone called CRH. We're making a pill that blocks the effect of CRH, and therefore blocks all of the effects of stress on the body, including the effects of stress in causing an increase in cortisol. We're not designing a drug to give to everybody who's stressed. But this can be very important and hopefully should actually be an extremely useful treatment for … depression that's associated with severe stress. | <urn:uuid:65728d43-f73f-4fa7-92f6-46910094805a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/stress-management/chronic-stress-can-significantly-damage-health.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973594 | 1,194 | 3.265625 | 3 |
A wise thought for every day of the year, from the great philosophers of all times and all people
A Calendar of Wisdom is a collection of insights and wisdom compiled by Leo Tolstoy between 1903 and 1910.
Tolstoy put an enormous amount of effort into this collection over a period of 15 years. He carefully selected the contributors and they cover a wide range of philosophical views. Tolstoy grouped the thoughts according to a topic for each day of the year, and he added his own thoughts to each daily entry.
Tolstoy: "I hope that the readers of this book may experience the same benevolent and elevating feeling which I have experienced when I was working on its creation, and which I experience again and again when I reread it every day, working on the enlargement and improvement of the previous edition" | <urn:uuid:d45667ca-32b5-42b8-a7cd-ea27d723955b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.svianadze.android.wisdom.lite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963613 | 170 | 2.765625 | 3 |
There's little affection in a "Glasgow kiss." Typically preceded by some variation of the growled question "Whit ya [expletive] lookin' at?" the term refers to a vicious headbutt, as delivered all too often in the bars and on the streets of Scotland's largest city. Alcohol-fueled violence and binge-drinking are endemic across Britain, but the phenomenon is especially acute north of the border and it's getting worse. That's why Scottish ministers this week announced radical plans to curb excess drinking.
"The scale of Scotland's alcohol-misuse problem is shocking," said Nicola Sturgeon, Health Secretary to Scotland's devolved government. And shockingly expensive, costing Scotland $3.2 billion a year in lost productivity and additional expenditure for health services, the police and other public-sector institutions. Scots are the world's eighth-heaviest drinkers, and a casual visitor to Glasgow could easily conclude that they top the league in public Bacchanalian drunkenness. (See pictures of whisky-making in Scotland.)
The cost of Scotland's alcohol problem is not only directed at the public purse the Scots have the highest rate for cirrhosis of the liver in Europe and one of the worst alcohol-related death rates. Rising murder and crime figures are also linked to drink. A study conducted for the Scottish Prison Service between 1979 and 2007 and published this year discovered that alcohol use had soared, with 79.6% of the young inmates surveyed in the final year claiming alcohol as a contributing factor in their offenses, compared with 47.9% in 1979. Respondents reporting that they had been drunk every day before their incarceration rose to 40.1% of those surveyed, up from 7.3% in the same period. (See pictures of people drinking in London's underground.)
Everyone agrees these are terrible statistics, but that hasn't stopped Scottish politicians and other interested parties from bickering like pub drunks over the best way to change the country's dangerous drinking culture. The government, a minority Scottish National Party administration, has found ways to introduce new measures by adapting existing legislation rather than seeking the support of opposition parties for new laws. Key points of the new strategy include the introduction of a minimum unit price of alcohol to stop strong drink from being sold cheaply, along with bans on cut-price promotions favored by supermarkets. Local police chiefs are being handed the power to request that local licensing boards raise the legal drinking age to 21. (See pictures of Denver, Beer Country.)
Critics of the changes say that if different areas have different drinking ages, younger drinkers will simply travel to buy drink. They also say that the minimum unit price will push up the price of Scotland's national tipple, whisky, which has an alcohol content of 40% or above, but could potentially even reduce the price of the drinks favored by binge-drinking youngsters, so-called alco-pops and Buckfast, a caffeine-infused "tonic" wine made by Benedictine monks in southwestern England.
Buckfast also known in Scotland as "Buckie," "Beat the Wife," "Wreck the Hoose Juice" and "A bottle of [expletive] ya lookin' at" (see earlier description of a Glasgow kiss) has an alcohol content of 15%. The survey of young offenders found that of those who could remember what they'd been drinking before committing the crime that put them behind bars, 43.4% answered Buckfast. Indeed, the beverage is so frequently associated with disorder that there have been calls to ban it. But opponents of such an idea say the only effective way to tackle Scotland's alcohol problem is to target its underlying causes.
That's not as straightforward as it sounds. Habits are influenced by economics poorer Scots drink more and the country's bracing northern climate. Northern peoples tend to drink without food, says Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, which represents pubs, hotels, clubs and other licensees. "Sticking some tables and chairs outside a Scottish pub doesn't mean you'll get southern European drinking." He supports the government's new initiative but adds, "You can't change a culture by law." That's a sobering thought indeed for Scottish legislators. | <urn:uuid:b8c73d1f-71cb-4ae1-9f17-5040f53c67e2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1883087,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00008-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967358 | 865 | 2.640625 | 3 |
PASADENA, Calif. -- Researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found that temperatures in the Martian atmosphere regularly rise and fall not just once each day, but twice.
"We see a temperature maximum in the middle of the day, but we also see a temperature maximum a little after midnight," said Armin Kleinboehl of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is the lead author of a new report on these findings.
Temperatures swing by as much as 58 degrees Fahrenheit (32 kelvins) in this odd, twice-a-day pattern, as detected by the orbiter's Mars Climate Sounder instrument.
The new set of Mars Climate Sounder observations sampled a range of times of day and night all over Mars. The observations found that the pattern is dominant globally and year-round. The report is being published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Global oscillations of wind, temperature and pressure repeating each day or fraction of a day are called atmospheric tides. In contrast to ocean tides, they are driven by variation in heating between day and night. Earth has atmospheric tides, too, but the ones on Earth produce little temperature difference in the lower atmosphere away from the ground. On Mars, which has only about one percent as much atmosphere as Earth, they dominate short-term temperature variations throughout the atmosphere.
Tides that go up and down once per day are called "diurnal." The twice-a-day ones are called "semi-diurnal." The semi-diurnal pattern on Mars was first seen in the 1970s, but until now it had been thought to appear just in dusty seasons, related to sunlight warming dust in the atmosphere.
"We were surprised to find this strong twice-a-day structure in the temperatures of the non-dusty Mars atmosphere," Kleinboehl said. "While the diurnal tide as a dominant temperature response to the day-night cycle of solar heating on Mars has been known for decades, the discovery of a persistent semi-diurnal response even outside of major dust storms was quite unexpected, and caused us to wonder what drove this response."
He and his four co-authors found the answer in the water-ice clouds of Mars. The Martian atmosphere has water-ice clouds for most of the year. Clouds in the equatorial region between about 6 to 19 miles (10 to 30 kilometers) above the surface of Mars absorb infrared light emitted from the surface during daytime. These are relatively transparent clouds, like thin cirrus clouds on Earth. Still, the absorption by these clouds is enough to heat the middle atmosphere each day. The observed semi-diurnal temperature pattern, with its maximum temperature swings occurring away from the tropics, was also unexpected, but has been replicated in Mars climate models when the radiative effects of water-ice clouds are included.
"We think of Mars as a cold and dry world with little water, but there is actually more water vapor in the Martian atmosphere than in the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere," Kleinboehl said. "Water-ice clouds have been known to form in regions of cold temperatures, but the feedback of these clouds on the Mars temperature structure had not been appreciated. We know now that we will have to consider the cloud structure if we want to understand the Martian atmosphere. This is comparable to scientific studies concerning Earth's atmosphere, where we have to better understand clouds to estimate their influence on climate."
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, provided the Mars Climate Sounder instrument and manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .
Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington | <urn:uuid:62c4f031-a68a-4222-b6aa-2429085abc2b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1484 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936739 | 808 | 3.859375 | 4 |
In a story that has gotten surprisingly little international press, on October 5th researchers at the archaeological superintendency of Emilia-Romagna announced the discovery of a necropolis dating to the 1st century BC to 1st century AD along the ancient Roman via Emilia outside Modena (ancient Mutina). Discovered during excavations for a car park, the necropolis held mostly cremation burials. Three young males who weren't cremated, however, are the real news.
|The three mudered Roman-era men (credit: Gazzetta di Modena)|
Under the dictatorship of Sulla, decapitation was a popular form of proscribed death. But Sulla generally wanted the heads as trophies. Since the heads of the murdered men from Mutina were present in the graves, the archaeologists suggest this was not a government-sanctioned killing. Rather, the director of the excavation, Donato Labate, told La Repubblica that they may have been slaves killed by their master, possibly as a lesson to other slaves (and the inclusion of bricks may have been to prevent them from re-emerging, he suggests, trying to jump on the recent witches/prostitutes/zombies bandwagon).
|Close-up of a murdered Roman-era man (credit: Gazzetta di Modena)| | <urn:uuid:44601a63-8d6b-419b-914d-5f44182b4fe0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.poweredbyosteons.org/2011/10/mutiny-in-mutina-decapitated-slaves-in.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968543 | 274 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Doctors have been told to cut back on the amount of antibiotics they prescribe to patients, be a leading Southampton reseacrcher.
They have been urged to preserve the drugs for serious life threatening illnesses instead.
It comes from Southampton University researcher and GP Michael Moore, who wants GPs to avoid prescriptions of antibiotics when there is likely to be little benefit for the patient.
His comments come on European Antibiotic Awareness Day which aims to highlight risks associated with inappropriate use of antibiotics and how to take antibiotics responsibly.
Dr Moore and colleagues at the university of have been conducting research, led by Professor Paul Little, into antibiotic overuse during the past decade, which focuses on the management of self-limiting illness in primary care.
Dr Moore said: “Antibiotic resistance is an international problem with the real prospect of untreatable serious infections in the next 10 to 20 years.
“In the past 60 years antibiotics have been widely used for both minor and major infection, however it is now apparent that widespread use leads to antibiotic resistance and since there is little prospect of new antibiotics being developed, we need to change the culture of use to preserve the antibiotics currently available.
“We now have clear evidence that antibiotics have a marginal effect in respiratory infections, it is imperative that we rethink current use patterns and avoid prescriptions when there is likely to be little benefit in order to preserve antibiotics for serious life threatening illness.
“Most antibiotics (80%) are prescribed by GPs of which about half are prescribed for respiratory infection.
“The problem is that some people develop serious complications of their respiratory illness, for instance pneumonia or quinsy (a throat abscess following tonsillitis). “I know from my own practice how hard it is for GPs to spot the people who really need the antibiotics.
“The research programme at Southampton has focused on this problem over the last 10 years.
“We have looked at ways of better targeting antibiotics for those at high risk using risk scores, new technology such as instant reading throat swabs – to diagnose the more serious throat infection, and pioneering alternative prescribing strategies, such as delaying the start of the prescription for a few days to see if symptoms settle on their own.”
Dr Moore has been working with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to help launch a toolkit containing new guidance for GPs and their patients on the appropriate prescription of antibiotics.
He added: “The toolkit is aimed at working GPs to give them the means to assess their current practice and to focus on ways to reduce antibiotic prescribing in situations where the evidence shows they are of little or no benefit.
“We will be adding to the toolkit over time as more evidence comes available. I don’t see antimicrobial stewardship as a one off activity rather as something to be worked on over time.
“We hope that practices will pick up on antibiotic awareness and integrate this into their service development programme over the coming years, perhaps focussing on a different clinical condition each year.” | <urn:uuid:1afbf60d-4870-42b0-aa31-dc015fbe1033> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/10052358.Doctors_urged_to_cut_prescribing_antibiotics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954364 | 631 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Most poisoning incidents are preventable and treatable. Almost half of all children who die from accidental poisoning are less than four years old. You can reduce your child's chance of poisoning by keeping toxic substances in their original containers and out of reach.
The California Poison Control System (CPCS)
provides immediate, free advice over the phone in case of exposure to poisonous or toxic substances. The phone line is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year at 1-800-222-1222.
Traumatic Brain Injury
You hear about it in the news, A football player injured in a tackle. A soldier disabled by an explosion. A child hospitalized as a result of shaking. An older adult injured in a fall.In the United States...
Signs and Symptoms of a Concussion
- At least 3 people sustain a TBI every minute.
- Every 36 minutes, an adult aged 65 or older dies from a TBI.
- 5.3 million people live with disabilities caused by a TBI.
- In one year alone, TBIs cost Americans $76.5 billion in medical care, rehabilitation, and loss of work.
A concussion is caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head. Concussions can also occur from a fall or blow to the body that causes the head to move rapidly back and forth. Even what seems to be a mild bump to the head can be serious. Be alert for any of the following signs and symptoms.Signs observed by school professionals:
- Appears dazed or stunned
- Is confused about events
- Answers questions slowly
- Repeats questions
- Can’t recall events prior to hit, bump, or fall
- Can’t recall events after hit, bump, or fall
- Loses consciousness (even briefly)
- Shows behavior or personality changes
- Forgets class schedule or assignments
Symptoms reported by the student:
- Sleeps less than usual
- Sleeps more than usual
- Has trouble falling asleep
- More emotional than usual
- Difficulty thinking clearly
- Difficulty concentrating or remembering
- Feeling more slowed down
- Feeling sluggish, hazy, foggy, or groggy
- Headache or “pressure” in head
- Nausea or vomiting
- Balance problems or dizziness
- Fatigue or feeling tired
- Blurry or double vision
- Sensitivity to light or noise
- Numbness or tingling
- Does not “feel right”
Visit the CDC for more information | <urn:uuid:10aca81f-404b-47b8-a9c0-dd4b64c3dfd8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://roseville.ca.us/fire/emergency_medical/injuries.asp?grpxver=mob | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.871828 | 536 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Botanical gardens brought together in a single space the great diversity of the earth's flora. They displaced nature from forest and foothill and re-arranged it to reveal something of the scientific principles underpinning the apparent chaos of the wild. Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed shows how the design and display of such gardens was not determined by scientific principles alone. Through a study of three botanical gardens - belonging to the University of Cambridge, the Royal Dublin Society, and the Belfast Natural History Society - the author shows how the final outcome involved a complex interplay of ideas about place, identity, empire, botanical science, and especially aesthetics, creating spaces that would educate the mind as well as please the senses. This highly engaging book offers a wealth of fresh insights into both the history and development of botanical gardens as well as connections between science and aesthetics.
Publisher: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
Series: Tauris Historical Geography SeriesHardback
Publication Date: 30 Jun 2011
Number of Pages: 288
Illustrations: 28 bw integrated illustrations | <urn:uuid:b0e63fa8-cf6d-4eaa-b556-d5d2915d9bdf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Humanities/History/History%20specific%20events%20%20topics/Historical%20geography/Nature%20Displaced%20Nature%20Displayed%20Order%20and%20Beauty%20in%20Botanical%20Gardens.aspx?menuitem= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898172 | 221 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Waterborne diseases among Aboriginal people
New South Wales Public Health Bulletin 21(5431) 183–184 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/NB09020
Published online: 27 September 2010
Aboriginal people in many communities in New South Wales (NSW) have, until now, not enjoyed the same access to water and sewerage services as the rest of the NSW population. Evidence from international studies shows that lack of these services leads to poorer health.1
Adequate quality and quantity of water are essential for drinking, food preparation and cooking, washing, waste removal, cultivation and recreation and, therefore, for health. A study of the global burden of disease found that poor water supply, sanitation, personal and domestic hygiene were responsible for 5.3% of total deaths and 6.8% of total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in 1990.2 There are a number of communicable diseases that result from poor water quality and quantity and they can be classified according to transmission route (Table 1).3
Since Aboriginality is poorly reported on deaths data by health care workers (identification is currently estimated at 76.6%)4 it is difficult to determine the number of Aboriginal deaths from the diseases caused by poor water quality and quantity in NSW. However, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that Aboriginal infants in Australia are 7.9 times more likely to die of infectious and parasitic diseases (which would include waterborne diseases) than non-Aboriginal infants. Furthermore, Aboriginal children aged 1–14 years are five times more likely to suffer from these diseases than non-Aboriginal children.5
After NSW became a British colony, Aboriginal people were made to live together in locations on the edges of, or remote from, towns. These communities became known as ‘reserves’ and, after the Aboriginal Land Rights Act was enacted in 1983, became the responsibility of the Local Aboriginal Land Councils. The Local Aboriginal Land Councils were responsible for all services on the reserves including maintenance of the water and sewerage infrastructure. Although the Act was intended as an act of reconciliation, the newly created Local Aboriginal Land Councils were given responsibilities for which they were ill-prepared, including the maintenance of water sewerage infrastructure.
With the evidence that Aboriginal people are more likely to suffer from infectious and parasitic diseases and that water quality in certain Aboriginal communities in NSW is often inadequate, a broad alliance of NSW Government departments and non-government organisations prepared a case for the NSW Government to address the issue. In 2008, the NSW Government committed $250 million of funding over 25 years for the upgrade, maintenance and operation of the water and sewerage infrastructure on specific Aboriginal communities. This program is currently being implemented and will require ongoing participation from the NSW Department of Health and regional public health units to ensure the interests of the communities are considered.
Prüss A, Kay D, Fewtrell L, Bartram J. Estimating the burden of disease from water, sanitation, and hygiene at a global level. Environ Health Perspect 2002; 110(5): 537–42.
| PubMed |
Michaud CM, Murray CJL, Bloom BR. Burden of disease—implications for future research. JAMA 2001; 285 535–9.
| CrossRef | PubMed | CAS | | <urn:uuid:b2778615-c43a-4a83-865d-ef5e7cb35704> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.publish.csiro.au/view/journals/dsp_journal_fulltext.cfm?nid=226&f=NB09020 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965743 | 686 | 3.03125 | 3 |
The enrichment of the stable isotopes 13C and 15N across trophic levels is a commonly used tool in studies on organic matter flow and food webs. An accepted standard for pre-analysis sample preparation, however, is still missing. Thus, potential methodological bias in single studies may hamper comparability and scalability of data from different sources. Sample CaCO3 content introduces a positive bias in ?13C measurements and a negative bias in ?15N measurements. The acidification of samples to remove inorganic carbonate significantly reduces both ?13C and ?15N. As a standard procedure we recommend (i) to acidify samples with as little hydrochloric acid (HCl) as possible using the drop-by-drop technique and (ii) to restrain from rinsing after HCl application.
Helmholtz Research Programs > MARCOPOLI (2004-2008) > POL-MARCOPOLI
Helmholtz Research Programs > MARCOPOLI (2004-2008) > POL4-Response of higher marine life to change | <urn:uuid:04258a1f-2375-41e7-ac8e-451bd0f94cc5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://epic.awi.de/10664/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.876967 | 220 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The National Theatre
The historical building of the National Theatre, constructed in 1883, is generally considered the prime stage in the CzechRepublic. It is the flagship of the National Theatre institution, today amounting to five buildings and encompassing four companies. You can see there Opera, Drama and Ballet performances.
Idea of building a stately theatre for the Czech nation
The National Theatre is the embodiment of the will of the Czech nation for a national identity and independence. Collections of money among the broad mass of the people facilitated its construction and hence the ceremonial laying of its foundation stone on 16 May 1868 was tantamount a nationwide political manifestation.
The idea of building a stately edifice to serve as a theatre was first mooted in the autumn of 1844 at meetings of patriots in Prague. It began to materialise through a request for “the privilege of constructing, furnishing, maintaining and managing” an independent Czech theatre, which was submitted to the Provincial Committee of the Czech Assembly by František Palacký on 29 January 1845. The privilege was granted in April 1845. Yet it was not until six years later – in April 1851 – that the Society for the Establishment of a Czech National Theatre in Prague (founded in the meantime) made its first public appeal to start collections. A year later the proceeds of the first collections allowed for the purchase of land belonging to a former salt works with the area of less than 28 acres, which predetermined the magnificent location of the theatre on the bank of the river Vltava facing the panorama of Prague Castle, yet at the same time the cramped area and trapezoidal shape posed challenging problems for the building’s designers.
The Provisional Theatre
The era of Bach’s absolutism brought to a halt preparations for the construction and gave rise to the concept of a modest provisional building, which was duly erected on the south side of the land according to the plans of the architect Ignac Ullmann and opened on 18 November 1862. The Provisional Theatre building subsequently became a constituent part of the final version of the National Theatre – its external cladding is still visible in the elevated section of the rear part of the building and the interior layout was only effaced during the latest reconstruction of the National Theatre (between 1977 and 1983).
Art of the National Theatre Generation
Concurrently with the implementation of this minimal programme asserted by F. L. Rieger and the Provincial Committee, the young progressive advocates of the original ambitious concept of the building (Sladkovský, Tyrš, Neruda, Hálek) went on the offensive. In 1865 they attained leading positions in the Society and asked a 33-year-old professor of civil engineering at the Prague Technical College, the architect Josef Zítek, to draft a design for the National Theatre. He then won a later-invited tender and in 1867 construction works began. On 16 May 1868 the foundation stones were laid, and by November the foundations themselves were complete. In 1875 the new building reached its full height and in 1877 the theatre was roofed over. From 1873 there were ongoing competitions for the interior decoration of the building, whose scenario had been elaborated by a special commission headed by Sladkovský: the themes were, on the one hand, classical, in the spirit of the Neo Renaissance concept, while on the other they were inspired by the contemporary enthusiasm for Slavonic mythology and the stories of the Manuscripts – both these concepts, based on Mánes-style painting and connected with contemporary Romantic landscape painting (also thematically linked to Czech history), provided the fundamental conceptual base for the artistic expression which today is designated as the art of the National Theatre Generation.
First opening of the National Theatre; the fire
The National Theatre opened on 11 June 1881 to honour the visit of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria. It staged another 11 performances before the building was closed down to enable the completion of the finishing touches. While the work was under way, a fire broke out on 12 August 1881 which destroyed the copper dome, the auditorium and stage of the theatre. The fire was considered a national disaster and induced an immense resolve for new collections: within 47 days a million gulden had been collected. This national enthusiasm, however, was in marked contrast to the behind-the-scenes battles that raged following the catastrophe. The architect Josef Zítek was pushed aside and his pupil Josef Schulz was summoned to work on the reconstruction. He was the one to insist on the extension of the building to include a lodging house owned by Dr Polák that was situated behind the building of the Provisional Theatre. He made this building a part of the National Theatre and also changed the layout of the auditorium somewhat in order to improve visibility. He respected with the utmost sensitivity the style of Zítek’s building and managed to merge three buildings by different architects to form an absolute unity of style.
Reopening of the National Theatre
The National Theatre was inaugurated on 18 November 1883 with a performance of Smetana’s festive opera Libuše, specially composed for this occasion. The building, in technical terms perfectly equipped (electric lighting, a steel stage structure), served without any major modifications for almost one hundred years. It was only on 1 April 1977, following a performance of Jirásek’s Lantern, that the theatre was closed down for six years. The architect Zdeněk Vávra was appointed to take charge of the overall reconstruction. This extensive redevelopment, combined with finishing works on the entire surroundings of the theatre, was completed to meet a binding deadline, the date marking the 100th anniversary of the opening of the National Theatre: 18 November 1983. On that day the historical building opened again to the public with a performance of Smetana’s Libuše. At the present time, this beautiful and historically extremely important building, together with the modern operational building, which also includes the main box office, is the main stage of the three artistic ensembles of the National Theatre: the Drama, Opera and Ballet.
Collections for the construction of the National Theatre
The entire nation collected money for the National Theatre. When looking into period documents, we realise the truly toilsome endeavour preceding these collections. Let us strive for a sober analysis, one devoid of folkloric sentiment, focused on highlighting the facts. It is true that the so-called kreutzer and gulden collections were a large source of income. However, a number of other sources existed besides them. All receipts and expenditures were meticulously recorded in the account books – one for Prague, one for other Czech municipalities and one for places beyond the Czech lands. The collection for the National Theatre was not the only one at the time; finance was also gathered for other purposes, for example, the completion of St Vitus Cathedral. The enthusiasm and self-sacrifice were immense and hence it comes as no surprise that during the 30 years in question the flow of money varied significantly, depending on the economic and political situation. For instance, the situation was negatively affected by Bach’s absolutism in the second half of the 1850s and the crash on the Vienna stock exchange in 1873. The accounting and period materials reveal plenty of interesting things. For example, even before the official announcement of the collections the first contributions had arrived from Polička and Litomyšl. Significant sums were donated by the nobility (Prince Lobkowitz: 6,000 gulden, one of the largest donations by a single individual; the Count of Chotkov’s family: over 4,500; Count Kolowrat-Krakowsky: 4,000; the Schwarzenbegs, Kinskys, Černíns, Nostitzes, Harrachs...), with the bourgeoisie, scientists, artists (Ringhoffer, Rott, Palacký, Rieger, J. R. Vilímek...) not lagging far behind. Money arrived from Moravia and Slovakia, as well as from Krakow, Graz, Lvov, and even Cambridge. Grains of washed gold worth one ducat came from California. Worthy of mention too are monies acquired through purchase of gifts, some of them rather quaint from today’s point of view (Mr Hostivít Hušek from Kutná Hora donated for sale 60 copies of "Instructions for dealing with pests on mangel-wurzel"). In the autumn of 1866 the construction designs were put on display at the Old Town Hall. The exhibition was visited by Emperor Franz Joseph II, who on this occasion donated his first personal contribution, amounting to 5,000 gulden, and later on added another 13,000. Photographs of the plans went on sale, the Provincial Committee of the Kingdom of Bohemia released 14,700 gulden, Czech female patriots held a jumble sale on Žofín island (which brought in almost 6,000 gulden). The 1877 Great National Lottery yielded another 238,000. House-to-house, municipal and club collections, informal meetings, balls, trips, auctions were organised too. To give a better picture – the annual salary of a clerk at the time was about 300 gulden, the daily wage of a mason about 1 gulden, 3 kreutzer. Nor did the funds dry up after the fire. Besides the settlement of insurance and a voluntary contribution from the insurance company, interest and other earnings, 634,000 gulden arrived from Bohemia (of which 223,000 from Prague and its suburbs alone), 50,000 from Moravia and Silesia, over 17,000 from other provinces of Austria-Hungary, 26,000 from the imperial family and 16,600 from abroad (including America, Asia and even Africa). It is also necessary to mention material building aid and handicraft works provided both by individuals and companies free of charge. Total incomes from 21 August 1850 to 30 June 1884 were 3,204,129 gulden, total expenditures, including taxes and fees, 3,204,129 gulden. Everything was recorded in detail and accounted.
The National Theatre legends
A number of minor and major myths, legends and interesting stories are connected with the National Theatre. For example, it is said (and written) that in 1868 a cask containing the holy water with which St Cyril baptised the Slavs was walled into the foundation stones. Another matter of interest can also be read in period documents. The first donors during the public collections included Otylka, a little girl from Vienna (she and her little brothers gave a gulden each). Her name also appeared years later during other benefit projects aimed at supporting the Theatre’s construction which she organised throughout the countryside, sending the yields on to Prague. Later on, her name would become famous on the stage of the National Theatre - Otýlie Sklenářová-Malá. Some interesting stories, both documented and undocumented, date from recent times. For instance, a story is told at the Theatre that during the latest reconstruction in the 1980s the actor Josef Kemr, with the assistance of workers, climbed up above the stage and screwed in three golden screws with the engraved names of his wife Eva Fousková, his colleague Rudolf Hrušínský and himself.
The National Theatre personalities
A plethora of illustrious personalities spanning all the arts are connected with the National Theatre. To name but a few: the painters František Ženíšek, Mikoláš Aleš and Vojtěch Hynais; the sculptors Bohuslav Schnirch, J. V. Myslbek and Antonín Wagner; the writers and playwrights J. K. Tyl, V. K. Klicpera, Ladislav Stroupežnický, Julius Zeyer, Alois Jirásek, Jaroslav Kvapil and Karel Čapek; the dramaturge K. H. Hilar; the composers Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček, Karel Kovařovic and Bohuslav Martinů; the conductors Václav Talich, Zdeněk Chalabala, Jaroslav Krombholc, Zdeněk Košler; the legendary opera singers and divas Vilém Zítek, Emil Pollert, Otakar Mařák, Beno Blachut, Eduard Haken, Růžena Maturová, Ema Destinnová, Jarmila Novotná, Marie Podvalová, Marta Krásová; the brilliant dancers, prima ballerinas and choreographers Augustin Berger, Saša Machov, Joe Jenčík, Marta Drottnerová; the unforgettable actors and actresses Eduard Vojan, Jindřich Mošna, Zdeněk Štěpánek, Václav Vydra, Marie Hübnerová, Hana Kvapilová, Otýlie Sklenářová-Malá, Leopolda Dostalová, Hugo Haas, Jaroslav Vojta, Ladislav Pešek, Jaroslav Marvan, Karel Höger, Dana Medřická, Rudolf Hrušínský, Josef Kemr and Boris Rösner. The list will, fortunately, never be complete. | <urn:uuid:792e609f-cfd1-4982-b727-95212cc92368> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.narodni-divadlo.cz/en/national-theatre/history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950909 | 2,877 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Parents agree that feeding and sleep schedules are important to help keep their children healthy. The same goes for childhood immunizations. Vaccinating children on time is the best way to protect them against 14 serious and potentially deadly diseases before their second birthday.
Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association
This monthly column about health issues publishes on Mondays in the Steamboat Today. Read more columns here.
The recommended immunization schedule is designed to offer protection early in life, when babies are vulnerable and before it’s likely they will be exposed to diseases. Public health and medical experts base their vaccine recommendations on many factors. They study information about diseases and vaccines very carefully to decide which vaccines kids should get and when they should get them for best protection.
Although the number of vaccines a child needs in the first two years may seem like a lot, doctors know a great deal about the human immune system, and they know that a healthy baby’s immune system can handle getting all vaccines when they are recommended.
There is no known benefit to delaying vaccination. In fact, it puts babies at risk of getting sick because they are left vulnerable to serious diseases during the time they are not protected by vaccines.
When parents choose not to vaccinate or not to follow a delayed schedule, children are left unprotected against diseases that still circulate in this country, such as measles and whooping cough.
• In 2010, more than 27,000 cases of whooping cough were reported nationally with 27 deaths — 25 of which were infants.
• In 2011, 222 people were reported to have measles in the United States — that’s more than any year since 1996.
Staying on track with the immunization schedule ensures that children have the best protection against diseases like these by age 2.
Make sure your kids are vaccinated on time. Getting children all the vaccines they need by age 2 is one of the best thing parents can do to help keep their children safe and healthy.
If you have questions about the childhood immunization schedule, talk with your child’s doctor or nurse. For more information about vaccines, visit www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents.
The Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association offers drop-in immunizations from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursdays at 940 Central Park Drive, Suite 101. For more information, call 970-879-1632.
Patty Hanley, RN, is the immunization program coordinator, and Charity Neal, RN, is the director of public health for the Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association. | <urn:uuid:9303ef04-71ae-4ade-a215-9195d0f7e684> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.steamboattoday.com/news/2014/apr/20/northwest-colorado-visiting-nurse-association-vacc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965 | 528 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Stefano Rellandini / Reuters
Gondoliers row gondolas with tourists in a canal in Venice in this May 7, 2011 file photo.
ROME -- Venice appears to have more nicknames than street names. It’s known as the "Queen of the Adriatic," the "City of Water," "City of Masks," "City of Bridges," "The Floating City," and "City of Canals."
But is Venice destined to become "The Divers' Paradise" much faster than we thought? New research by U.S. scientists suggests it is sinking more than five times faster than experts in Venice believe.
Saying that the city is sinking is just about as obvious as saying that the wind will always blow in Chicago. It’s just a thing of nature. And there’s nothing anybody can do to stop it.
While Venetians and tourists know that Venice's appeal is due to its undeniable beauty, with its Gothic and Byzantine palazzos appearing to float on the canals and lagoon, much of the city's allure comes from the fact that it appears to be disappearing.
So you don’t need a scientist to tell you that Venice is sinking. In fact, sometimes they tell you otherwise. Back in the 1980s Venetians rejoiced at the news that the city had finally stabilized. But, to use an Italian sailor’s jargon, that theory “loses water from all sides.”
It’s quite obvious to the naked eye (or rather, to the naked ankle when it floods) that parts of Venice are flooding more and more often. To tourists, walking in a flooded St. Mark’s Square might be a unique photo opportunity, but to Venetians it’s a sign of things to come.
So Venice is sinking. But the question remains -- how long will it take before it turns from floating jewel to a playground for divers?
The answer comes from a new research by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, expected to be published on Wednesday: Venice is still sinking, and sinking at a rate of up to two millimeters per year (0.08 inches).
City heading out to sea
There’s more. Not only is the city being reclaimed by the waters that made it famous, it now looks like it’s actually heading out to sea, as if the glorious capital of the former Maritime Venetian Republic is tired of being a tourist attraction and wants to die in the Adriatic.
According to measurements taken over 10 years, Venice is also tilting a bit, about a millimeter or two eastward per year. While this doesn’t mean that you should buy a ticket right away in order to see Venice before it disappears, it raises concern that not enough is being done to save it.
A complex system of moving dams around Venice that took decades and millions of dollars to build is nearing completion. The new research could well call into question whether these major works will actually be enough to save the “Floating City.”
One of the biggest experts on the state of Venice, Luigi Tosi, of Italy's National Research Center, pointed out that Venice's "sinking" was actually a combination of land subsidence and sea level rise.
He said the Scripps researchers' results "tell us nothing new." "We have published a paper back in 1992 that arrived to the same conclusions," he said.
But experts at Consorzio Venezia Nuova, the group in charge of safeguarding Venice and the lagoon, told NBC News they had a lot of questions about the Scripps report, saying they thought the city was sinking much more slowly.
“I learned about the new research from journalists like yourself,” said an official who asked not to be named. “We have records of the subsiding of Venice for hundreds of years, and yet they haven’t called us."
But one thing is clear to the official -- 10 years of measurements might sound a lot to most people, but on Venice’s standards it’s the blink of an eye.
"We have calculated that the city has been sinking three to four centimeters (about 1.5 inches) per century," the official said.
That's not to say the people at Consorzio Venezia Nuova aren't paying attention, however.
"Now they say two millimeters per year…that means Venice would sink 20 centimeters (7.8 inches) every 100 years. That’s more than five times more than we calculated. So I’ll believe it when I see it," he said.
It’s unclear whether the Scripps Institute team will contact the Consorzio before the research is published on Wednesday. But one way or another their difference will have to be reconciled … and it will be, once again, just water under the bridge.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Wife of Staff Sgt. Bales: 'I just don't think he was involved'
- Scientists: Venice sinking five times faster than thought
- Gunman in Afghan army uniform kills 2 NATO troops
- Cash-for-access scandal leaves UK government reeling
- Retired Turkish general faces terrorism trial
- Transgender candidate booted from Miss Universe Canada
Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world | <urn:uuid:1df5a44e-e704-40fb-b3a6-df04c89fe1a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/03/26/10863037-venice-sinking-five-times-faster-than-thought | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964679 | 1,138 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Lunch Time Lecture: Early History of Mulatto Bend in West Baton Rouge
The West Baton Rouge Museum will host a lunch time lecture on January 24, 2013 at noon, “Early History of Mulatto Bend in West Baton Rouge.” Historian Dr. Lee Smith has spent several years researching and writing about Mulatto Bend, uncovering new information about the historic free people of color community from 1763 to 1865. Located on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Port Allen, this community includes an historic African American cemetery. Laced with acres of sugar cane fields and residential clusters, Mulatto Bend harks back to the early 18th century.
Colonial powers played a key part in the establishment of Mulatto Bend, a small community of white and free black residents located on the Mississippi River in close proximity to Baton Rouge. Liberal ideas of race and the paternalism during the French period resulted in a group of mixed-race offspring of French men and African women who were freed by their fathers and sometimes received financial assistance from them. Spanish control of Louisiana resulted in an even more relaxed environment in which authorities hungry to find settlers suitable to populate and guard their colony freely granted land to free people of color as well as whites. The community that developed was constituted of free mixed-race individuals who were property-owning Catholics, who intermarried, lived in a single geographical area, and cooperated in almost all facets of social, legal, and economic life in order to maintain their identity as a group.
Two centuries later, Blues musician Slim Harpo became Mulatto’s Bend’s most famous son. Born James Moore in Lobdell, Louisiana, James dropped out of school to work as a longshoreman and played the harmonica in area nightclubs and bars in order to help support his orphaned siblings. He performed under the name “Harmonica Slim”. In the mid 1950’s he was introduced to a man in the record business and in 1957 he released his first record under his new stage name “Slim Harpo”. He was buried in the Mulatto Bend cemetery in 1970.
West Baton Rouge Museum • 845 Jefferson Ave • Port Allen • Louisiana •70767 • 225-336-2422 | <urn:uuid:45cc9038-bf90-44f1-a681-251651020862> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.westbatonrougemuseum.com/index.php?option=com_acymailing&ctrl=archive&task=view&listid=4-teachers&mailid=144-early-history-of-mulatto-bend-in-west-baton-rouge-january-24-2013-at-noon-draft | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971573 | 463 | 3.0625 | 3 |
In 1850 John C. Calhoun penned one of the most important pieces of political theory in 19th century America, his Disquisition on Government. In it he proposed a new way of viewing societies as torn between two competing and antagonistic groups, “classes” if you will. On the one hand there are those who pay the taxes upon which all government activities ultimately depend (the “tax-payers”), and on the other hand there are those whose livelihoods depend upon this tax revenue (the “tax-consumers”). At the same time in France, Frédéric Bastiat had developed very similar ideas. In Germany, Marx was becoming increasingly confused on this same issue.
John C. Calhoun notes that taxation divides the community into two great antagonistic classes, those who pay the taxes and those who benefit from them (1850)
In an extended critique of The Federalist, the pre-Civil War Southern political philosopher John C. Calhoun argued that any system of taxation inevitably divided citizens into two antagonistic groups - the net tax payers and the net tax consumers:
… it must necessarily follow, that some one portion of the community must pay in taxes more than it receives back in disbursements; while another receives in disbursements more than it pays in taxes… The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is, to divide the community into two great classes; one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes, and, of course, bear exclusively the burthen of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds, through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers.
Few, comparatively, as they are, the agents and employees of the government constitute that portion of the community who are the exclusive recipients of the proceeds of the taxes. Whatever amount is taken from the community, in the form of taxes, if not lost, goes to them in the shape of expenditures or disbursements. The two—disbursement and taxation—constitute the fiscal action of the government. They are correlatives. What the one takes from the community, under the name of taxes, is transferred to the portion of the community who are the recipients, under that of disbursements. But, as the recipients constitute only a portion of the community, it follows, taking the two parts of the fiscal process together, that its action must be unequal between the payers of the taxes and the recipients of their proceeds. Nor can it be otherwise, unless what is collected from each individual in the shape of taxes, shall be returned to him, in that of disbursements; which would make the process nugatory and absurd. Taxation may, indeed, be made equal, regarded separately from disbursement. Even this is no easy task; but the two united cannot possibly be made equal.
Such being the case, it must necessarily follow, that some one portion of the community must pay in taxes more than it receives back in disbursements; while another receives in disbursements more than it pays in taxes. It is, then, manifest, taking the whole process together, that taxes must be, in effect, bounties to that portion of the community which receives more in disbursements than it pays in taxes; while, to the other which pays in taxes more than it receives in disbursements, they are taxes in reality—burthens, instead of bounties. This consequence is unavoidable. It results from the nature of the process, be the taxes ever so equally laid, and the disbursements ever so fairly made, in reference to the public service…
The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is, to divide the community into two great classes; one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes, and, of course, bear exclusively the burthen of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds, through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers.
But the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations, in reference to the fiscal action of the government, and the entire course of policy therewith connected. For, the greater the taxes and disbursements, the greater the gain of the one and the loss of the other—and vice versa; and consequently, the more the policy of the government is calculated to increase taxes and disbursements, the more it will be favored by the one and opposed by the other.
The effect, then, of every increase is, to enrich and strengthen the one, and impoverish and weaken the other. This, indeed, may be carried to such an extent, that one class or portion of the community may be elevated to wealth and power, and the other depressed to abject poverty and dependence, simply by the fiscal action of the government; and this too, through disbursements only—even under a system of equal taxes imposed for revenue only. If such may be the effect of taxes and disbursements, when confined to their legitimate objects—that of raising revenue for the public service—some conception may be formed, how one portion of the community may be crushed, and another elevated on its ruins, by systematically perverting the power of taxation and disbursement, for the purpose of aggrandizing and building up one portion of the community at the expense of the other. That it will be so used, unless prevented, is, from the constitution of man, just as certain as that it can be so used; and that, if not prevented, it must give rise to two parties, and to violent conflicts and struggles between them, to obtain the control of the government, is, for the same reason, not less certain. | <urn:uuid:c6e73f4a-8b54-48ee-a157-dd6bc7c5d628> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://files.libertyfund.org/pll/quotes/78.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960238 | 1,240 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Using containers caused a huge reduction in port handling, thus lowering costs and helping lower freight charges and, in turn, boosting trade flows. Almost every manufactured product humans consume spends some time in a container. Containers are one of the important innovations of 20th century logistics.
By the 1920s, railroads on several continents were carrying containers that could be transferred to trucks or ships, but these containers were invariably small by today's standards.
The first vessels purpose-built to carry containers began operation in Denmark in 1951. Ships began carrying containers between Seattle and Alaska in 1951. The world’s first truly intermodal container system used purpose-built container ship the Clifford J. Rodgers built in Montreal in 1955 and owned by the White Pass and Yukon Route. During its first trip it carried 600 containers between North Vancouver, British Columbia and Skagway, Alaska on26 November 1955; in Skagway, the containers were unloaded to purpose-built railroad cars for transport north to the Yukon, in the first intermodal service using trucks, ships and railroad cars. Southbound containers were loaded by shippers in the Yukon, moved by rail, ship and truck, to their consignees, without opening. This first intermodal system operated from November 1955 for many years.
Containerisation revolutionised cargo shipping. Today, approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide moves by containers stacked on transport ship, with many containers originating from China. As of 2005, some 18 million total containers make over 200 million trips per year. Some ships can carry over 14,500 TEU (Emma Mærsk, 396 m long, launched August 2006). It has even been predicted that, at some point, container ships will be constrained in size only by the depth of the Straits of Malacca—one of the world's busiest shipping lanes—linking the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This so-called Malaccamax size constrains a ship to dimensions of 470 m long and 60 m wide (1542 feet * 197 feet).
The widespread use of ISO standard containers has driven modifications in other freight-moving standards, gradually forcing removable truck bodies or swap bodies to adopt standard sizes and shapes (though without the strength needed to be stacked), and completely changing the worldwide use of freight pallets so that they fit into ISO containers or commercial vehicles.
Better cargo security is also an important benefit of containerisation: because the cargo is not visible to the casual viewer it is less likely to be stolen. The doors of containers are generally sealed so that tampering is more evident, which has reduced the "falling off the truck" syndrome that was a problem in the shipping industry for a long time.
Using the same basic sizes of containers across the globe has reduced problems caused by incompatible rail gauge sizes in different countries. The majority of the rail networks in the world operate on a 1,435 mm (4 ft 8½ in) gauge track known as standard gauge but many countries like Russia, Finland and Spain use broader gauges while many countries in Africa and South America use narrower gauges on their networks. Using container trains makes trans-shipment between different gauge trains easier when using automatic or semi-automatic equipment.
To read more about modern shipping and its development and history go to http://en.wikipedia.org | <urn:uuid:8d2aa7ff-a1f3-4dd5-a78c-b55aec307d0c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.interfreight.co.za/container_history.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951901 | 679 | 3.578125 | 4 |
10 March 2003, Rome -- A
new FAO assessment on the status of mangrove forests worldwide
indicates that while the rate of mangrove deforestation is high,
it has been gradually decreasing over the past 20 years.
According to the survey, the most
comprehensive to date on the state of the world's mangrove
forests, the mangrove area worldwide had fallen below 15 million
hectares by the end of 2000, down from an estimated 19.8 million
hectares in 1980. However, although mangrove deforestation
continues, the rate of deforestation has slowed from 1.7 percent
a year from 1980 to 1990 to 1.0 percent a year from 1990 to
"This study takes into
account even the smallest countries. Even though they
didn't add much to the total, the mangroves in these
countries are very important at the local level. In fact,
mangroves may be the only forest resource that they
have," says Mette LÝyche Wilkie, FAO Forestry Officer.
A vital resource
Mangroves are usually found along tropical
and sub-tropical coastlines. In addition to protecting the coast
against erosion due to wind, waves and water currents, mangroves
also host a number of animal species - including endangered
mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds, and provide nutrients
to the marine food web and spawning grounds for a variety of
fish and shellfish, including several commercial species.
Mangroves are also a source of a vast range of wood and non-wood
forest products, including timber, fuelwood, charcoal, fodder,
thatch, honey and medicine, to name a few.
Mangrove deforestation threatens the survival of the
species that live in these areas and contributes to land erosion
and salinization of coastal soils.
"In many developing countries, coastal
communities rely on mangrove forests to provide fuelwood for
cooking, as well as protein in the form of fish and
crustaceans," says Ms Wilkie. "Mangroves
represent a vital resource for their daily subsistence and
should be managed carefully to avoid overexploitation."
Numerous case studies have described how
population growth in coastal areas has led to the conversion of
mangrove areas for coastal infrastructure, rice or salt
production and commercial aquaculture. But prior to the new
estimates, reliable information on the status of mangrove areas
and deforestation trends was scarce.
"Many organizations had been warning of the
destruction of mangroves, but there were limited data to back
this up at the global level," says Ms Wilkie.
"This assessment has confirmed their warnings, but also
shows that the rate of mangrove deforestation has decreased
during the past decade."
assessment builds on a 1980 survey conducted by FAO and the
United Nations Environment Programme, as well as the 2000 FAO
Global Forest Resources Assessment. The current survey covers
121 countries - compared to 51 countries in the 1980 assessment
- and is based on a trend analysis of 2 800 national and
subnational data sets. It provides revised estimates of the
world mangrove area in 1980 and 1990, a list of the most recent
reliable estimates for each country and an estimate of the
global mangrove area as of year 2000, based on analysis and
extrapolation of past data.
sources, mangrove experts, local communities and
non-governmental organizations were asked to contribute to the
study or to validate information already gathered by FAO.
The results will soon be available from an
online database on the FAO Forestry Web site. The data are also
featured in the State of the World's Forests
2003 and will be published in a series of working
papers on the summary results and on the database itself.
FAO Media Office | <urn:uuid:d2858af8-3f95-4d65-829d-8938ba758362> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/news/2003/15020-en.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00076-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934431 | 835 | 3.6875 | 4 |
This post is the second in a series on How to Improve Your English Language and Pronunciation Skills.
My students come from all around the world, and they all ask me the same question: “How can I improve my pronunciation?”
Here is a list of practical tips I’ve come up with for my students to improve their pronunciation. But many of these tips apply to improving your English language skills, so you can apply them to improving your grammar and vocabulary, too.
Remember, your improvement will come from addressing your linguistic issues outside of class.
Re-training your muscles and mind takes awareness, practice and perseverance. If you put in the hours and the work, you will see positive results!
10 Steps to Improving Your English Pronunciation and Language Skills
1. Learn and become aware.
After learning the various rules of English, you must become aware of the errors that you make in your speech.
Keep an organized list of your corrections that have come from being monitored by other speakers, preferably native English speakers. If you don’t have a native English speaker to monitor you, simple listen and repeat with the Elemental English pronunciation and speaking lessons, and take note of how your pronunciation differs from mine.
For example, does my [θ] as in “think” [θInk] sound like [t] or [s], as in “tink” or “sink”, when you say it?
Once you become aware of the errors you make, you are then ready to correct them. Obviously, if you are oblivious to your errors, you can’t fix them!
Any time you are corrected, write down the correction that you were given on a special “monitoring” list.
Constantly update this list, and keep it organized. This is extremely useful, because the errors that you produce are usually not random mistakes that come from “a slip of the tongue”. Most errors are part of a pattern of mistakes that you repeat again and again.
Download the free Pronunciation and Language Skills Monitoring List (PDF)!
3. Repetitive Review.
Consistently review your monitoring list of errors. You should start to notice a pattern and then be constantly aware of that pattern of what you need to correct.
4. Repetitive Practice.
Now that you are aware of your errors, you need to routinely practice the corrected pronunciation (or correct syntax, vocabulary use, etc.). Practice again and again.
I suggest that you practice out loud at home. Listen to the sounds that you produce, and compare these sounds to native speakers. Ask yourself questions when you pronounce the sounds, such as “How is my mouth moving?” “Where is my tongue?” “Are my vocal chords vibrating?” Notice the physical aspects of pronunciation.
With practice, you can develop the imperative habit of self-correction. Be so aware and in tune with the sounds of English that you can notice and hear your own errors. This ability to self-correct can only come from the above steps of monitoring and awareness.
6. Write down your questions.
There are plenty of times when all of us wonder how to express something in another language, but then do nothing with those questions! When you are unsure of how to say or ask something in English, write it down so that you can ask a native speaker, google it or post your question on ElementalEnglish.com.
7. Keep a running vocabulary list.
Be organized. Write down vocabulary that you want to look up but don’t have time to at that moment. Make a habit of reviewing vocabulary. If you don’t do this, you can easily forget new words before they are locked into your long term memory.
8. Think in English.
A huge mistake English language learners make is to think in their native language and then translate into English in their heads.
This is a mistake, because English syntax and word order is typically something that cannot be translated from another language.
9. Talk to yourself out loud at home.
Talking to yourself out loud will help you in the process of thinking in English instead of translating to English from your native language. Get in the habit of speaking freely without the worry of being heard or criticized.
Play with the sounds and write down the ideas you want to express, but don’t know how to. It’s those questions that you should ask a native speaker or post on ElementalEnglish.com.
10. Train your Ears.
Listen to a lot of English in the form of podcasts, television shows, movies and radio. You can always listen to the free Elemental English podcast on iTunes, but also listen to a variety of native speakers’ voices and accents to hear how the the music of English stays consistent.
Train your ears like a musician does!
Remember, your goal never needs to be to sound like a perfect, American speaker. In fact, Americans make mistakes in their speech all the time and speak with a variety of accents.
Improving your pronunciation is always about giving you the freedom and power to speak with confidence and to be understood when you communicate in English.
And if this lesson was helpful to you, feel free to share it with friends and family on Facebook and Twitter.
ElementalEnglish.com is your resource for free English language and pronunciation lessons, 無料オンライン英語教材, 免费在线英文课程, 免費在線英文課程, मुफ़्त ऑनलाइन अंग्रेज़ी, آنلائن مفت میں انگریزی سیکھئے, Kostenloser Englisch-Unterricht Online, Język angielski online, Học tiếng anh miễn phí, Libreng Pag-aaral ng Wikang Ingles sa Internet, Libreng Pag-aaral ng Wikang Ingles Online, دروس في اللغة الانجليزية على الانترنت مجانا, American English pronunciation, アメリカ英語の発音, 纯正美语发音, 純正美語發音, अमरीकी अंग्रेज़ी, امریکی انگریزی کا تلفّظ سیکھئے, Amerikanisches Englisch Aussprache, wymowa język angielski, Học tiếng anh miễn phí, Wastong Pagbigkas ng American English sa Internet, astong Pagbigkas ng, تعلم اللهجة الامريكية على الانترنت, American English Online | <urn:uuid:8ff5810c-532d-496a-9d14-954ef54c544a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.elementalenglish.com/ten-steps-improve-english-pronunciation-language-skills/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.883542 | 1,621 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Recently uncovered evidence strongly suggests that the deaths of 33,000 salmon and steelhead trout during last September’s fall run within 20 miles of the mouth of the Klamath River in northern California was not due simply to a lack of sufficient water, as claimed by a California state agency and environmentalists, but may have been caused by contamination from illicit drug manufacturing operations near rivers in the area.
A second overlooked factor appears to have been the temperature of the Klamath River, which was too warm for salmon. This, in turn, was caused by an unpublicized diversion of water from the much colder Trinity River that flows north to meet the Klamath at the small town of Weitchpec on state highway 96.
In a report in Monday’s Siskiyou Daily News, Barry Clausen, an investigator and author, challenged the official view and urged that toxicity and diversion of water from the Trinity be seriously investigated as likely contributory factors to the mysterious die-off.
According to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department and Larry Hand of the California Conservation Corps, a CCC crew last summer discovered several large glass flasks used for cooking methamphetamine on Ohpah Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River, just 21 miles from the mouth of the river. The flasks had been left on land owned by the Simpson Timber Company above the Ohpah Creek Ranch and were part of a “meth dump” – a place where unused residue and cooking utensils from meth labs are discarded.
“Could the illegal marijuana and meth producers dumping chemicals, poisons and waste above the fish kill into creeks, watersheds and river be accountable for the dead fish or at least have magnified the impact of the gill rot?” Clausen asks.
His question calls into dispute the official position of the California Department of Fish and Game detailed in a 63-page study released in early January. As WorldNetDaily reported, the department concluded that “too many migrating fish crowded into a depleted river, allowing the spread of two naturally occurring parasites that destroy the gills of fish. The salmon and steelhead subsequently died of asphyxiation.”
The DFG report – which is a preliminary analysis – in effect casts the blame for the fish kill on the Bush administration’s decision to release “too much water for farmers” during the spring without leaving “enough flow for the fish.”
The study also warned that unless the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation increases flows from the Klamath Lake in coming years, “there is a substantial risk for future fish kills on the Klamath River.” The bureau is the federal agency responsible for overseeing water diversions from the Klamath.
According to the DFG report, department biologists – after eliminating various factors that could have killed the fish, including drought, a late summer heat wave and a possible spill of toxics into the river – found the only difference in the Klamath River in the fall of 2002 compared to other dry years was that the number of salmon returning from their annual spawning run was high and the amount of water in the river was low.
They determined that “no substances were found at concentrations toxic to fish and therefore were not a factor in the 2002 fish kill.”
Clausen quotes the report: “Soon after the fish kill manifested itself, claims were made that toxic substances may have been the cause. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board Staff collected samples from five locations on Sept. 26, 2002, to determine if any toxic substances were present at concentrations toxic to fish. These scans test for a broad spectrum of organic compounds including organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, and Glyphosate.”
The date of the testing poses serious problems for defenders of the DFG report.
“The samples were taken seven days after the discovery of the dead fish,” Clausen points out. “The question arises – would concentrations of chemicals still be present in the alleged test areas after this length of time?”
This also was an issue that struck David Vogel, a biologist who worked for 14 years with fishery research divisions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before starting his own environmental consulting firm, Natural Resources Scientists, in 1990.
“They [Fish and Game] state that the fish kill began Sept. 19, and yet they say that no [water] analysis was done of any potential toxic substances until Sept. 26 – seven days later,” exclaimed Vogel when interviewed by WorldNetDaily. “So they conclude that toxic substances could not have caused the fish kill, when in reality there’s no way in the world you could make that conclusion when the samples were taken a full week later after the fish kill was under way. I was astounded at that.”
According to Clausen, who based his conclusions on interviews with numerous law-enforcement officials, toxic substances could have been introduced either from meth production or marijuana growing, the latter being a prominent “cottage industry” in the area. Marijuana growing in itself does not produce pollutants, but does pose a hazard to fish as growers use “rat poison, insecticides and pesticides to kill unwanted animals that penetrate their operations,” and these work their way into the groundwater and, ultimately, the river.
Meth labs suspect
But the major suspect for toxicity would be the production of methamphetamine, which uses a variety of chemicals obtained from various sources (such as car batteries) and varying degrees of toxicity.
A few of these, listed by Clausen, include toluene, ether, drain cleaner (sulphuric acid), car batteries (lithium), Red Devil lye (sodium hydroxide), hydrochloric acid, white gas, laundry soap and diesel fuel.
“The chemicals are then cooked in such items as Pyrex dishes or large glass flasks like the ones found on Ohpah Creek,” he explains. “Coffee filters are then used to filter the items cooked.”
Clausen reports that law-enforcement officials he spoke with emphasized that “the chemicals end up in creeks and watersheds,” and ultimately in rivers such as the Klamath.
Several members of the DFG told him they were familiar with the chemicals listed and their potential for harm: “Of course they could kill fish. The fish have gill rot, but there is the possibility they may have survived. If there was any of these chemicals in the river at any level, it would have stressed the fish and yes, it could have been a factor in the kill.”
Two persons Clausen interviewed claimed there are five meth labs between Weitchpec and the mouth of the Klamath, one being known to both law enforcement and local residents as the “Crystal Palace.” When asked, one Siskiyou County law-enforcement official told him, “It the truth were known, there are probably 50 labs.”
The other factor Clausen checked was the temperature of the Klamath River, which Vogel has insisted was too warm for salmon migrating upstream.
As Vogel explained to WorldNetDaily, “Notably absent from the [Fish and Game] report is an analysis of the water temperatures that were present in the Upper Klamath River downstream of Irongate Dam during the time of the fish kill.”
He added that the information and relevant data was available, which he had studied, and it was clearly apparent that water temperatures in the main stem of the Upper Klamath were within “lethal range” for salmon.
“They were too high,” he emphasized. “So Fish and Game attempts to build an argument for increased flow below Irongate Dam during early September. But the problem with that is that even if the flow had been increased, the water temperatures were unsuitably warm for salmon in the upper river. In other words there was no place for the fish to go.”
Added Vogel, “It doesn’t take much increase in water temperature to have catastrophic effects on fish. Just a couple of degrees plus or minus can make it or break it for fish.”
Warm water temperatures can also foster an increase in the number of death-causing parasites. “A major contributing factor in the fish kill would be the warmer temperature of the water, which Fish and Game did not take into account,” said Vogel.
The question, then, is what caused this higher temperature? Basically, there was not enough cold water flowing into the Klamath to cool it off. Cold water would normally flow from the Trinity River, which is 15 degrees cooler than the Klamath. But Clausen discovered that as much as 90 percent of the Trinity’s water is being diverted to the Sacramento River.
“This water would usually flow [north] into the Klamath at Weitchpec, but instead is being diverted and utilized in the Central Basin of California,” he writes.
The diversion is a major concern to the Hoopa Tribe of Indians, through whose reservation the Trinity flows. Government officials had assured tribal members that the amount of water released from the Trinity Reservoir to the Sacramento would be only 50 percent.
Instead, the amount water being released from the Trinity Reservoir at the time of the fish kill was 73 percent, according to Tom Patton, a hydraulic engineer for the Bureau of Reclamation.
Many of the local Hoopa blame the die-off on this overlooked diversion of the Trinity to the Sacramento River, rather than on the diversion of the Klamath to farms of Klamath basin upstream.
Duane Sherman, who has served on the tribal council, monitors Native American fishing rights, the Trinity River diversion, water levels, water temperature and the fish kill.
“The Trinity is 15 degrees colder than the Klamath, and if the Trinity had been flowing as we were promised, the fish would not have died,” Sherman told Clausen.
Asked if he blamed the upstream farmers and ranchers, he said, “No, but something different needs to be done – and soon.” | <urn:uuid:a37a0fc4-7a9d-4ad4-a855-afbcc5223c42> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wnd.com/2003/02/17405/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973429 | 2,139 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The IT Department where Daniel Toth works won't let him use open source software because they believe it's a security risk. Is it?
No. If anything, open-source software has the potential to be safer. Not that it always is, of course.
An open-source program is one whose source code is open to anyone who wishes to study it--or improve upon it. Open-source software is usually free and often public domain. Popular open-source programs include Linux, OpenOffice, and a program you're quite likely using to read this blog post: Mozilla Firefox.
At first glance, this seems counter-intuitive. If any hacker can read your code, why can't they use that knowledge against you? Think of what the Rebel Alliance did with the Death Star plans in the original Star Wars.
Reality and Star Wars don't always coincide. When everyone has access to the source code, a great many experts are able to examine that code thoroughly and determine if it really is secure. That's prohibitively expensive if the only people with access to the code are on the payroll.
And it's not as if closed-source programs are especially secure. People find exploits in Windows all the time.
Back in 1999, security expert Bruce Schneier wrote that "Public security is always more secure than proprietary security...For us, open source isn't just a business model; it's smart engineering practice." (I checked with Schneier while researching this piece; he still stands by those words.)
But don't be too hard on your IT department. They have to approve every program put on company computers, and checking out new programs is time-consuming. Open-source or not, they don't want programs on their PCs that they haven't vetted, and they don't have time to research or test everything. Besides, they may have to answer to executives who think that k is an effective password. | <urn:uuid:1e359bc9-7f10-47f8-add4-a244c573efc8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/349191/open_source_safe_/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971336 | 392 | 2.90625 | 3 |
This webliography accompanied the lecture "Uncertain Road: Slavery and Emancipation in the Rappahannock," presented by John Hennessy, Chief Historian/Chief of Interpretation, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, on February 12, 2004.
From the Central Rappahannock Regional Library:
From October through the end of December, 2006, the Fredericksburg Area Museum hosted a traveling exhibit, Civil Rights in Virginia.
Teachers were encouraged to bring middle and high school students to the museum to come face to face with this turbulent time in the state's history. An excellent exhibition curriculum guide, The Story of Virginia: Becoming Equal, is available for educators.
The huge boulder rolled deliberately in the middle of the road was the first sign of trouble. On May 11, 1889, along a dusty trail in Arizona, an unlikely bunch of desperadoes made off with $28,000 in gold from U.S. Army Paymaster Major Joseph Washington Wham. Buffalo Soldiers from the 24th Infantry were part of the 12-man escort that would go down fighting that day.
John Cephas died at his home in Woodford, Virginia, on Wednesday, March 4, at the age of 78.
The Caroline County resident was a nationally recognized blues singer and guitarist who played many local venues with singer and harmonica player Phil Wiggins--including the summertime Music on the Steps series at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library and the Bluemont concerts. | <urn:uuid:880b841a-32f6-4841-985e-c97b86dc25cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.librarypoint.org/taxonomy/term/33?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963184 | 313 | 2.515625 | 3 |
How this dog saved its owner's life by warning her she'd breast cancer
It may seem extraordinary but it's true ... dogs are now helping in the early detection of illness. Lisa Salmon meets a woman whose life was saved
Dogs are well known for their superior sense of smell, which is estimated to be at least a thousand times more sensitive than humans'. But it's only in recent years that this skill has been honed for medical purposes, sniffing out dips in blood sugar in people with diabetes, and even detecting cancer before noticeable symptoms have developed; this is at the heart of the work of Medical Detection Dogs, a charity that trains pooches for this purpose.
It currently has 50 placed Medical Alert Assistance Dogs, of which 90% are diabetes alert dogs, and is training 10 Cancer Detection Dogs.
Dr Claire Guest, the charity's chief executive, knows first-hand what lifesavers the dogs can be; her own Labrador, Daisy, alerted her to breast cancer.
Daisy was in training to sniff out prostate and bladder cancer at the time, when she started jumping up at Guest for no apparent reason and seemed unusually attentive and anxious. One day, she bumped into Guest's chest with her nose and it was unusually sore, so she decided to have it checked out.
"I had a very deep breast cancer which wouldn't have been found for years without Daisy alerting me to it," says Guest (50), who had a successful lumpectomy and radiotherapy after her 2009 diagnosis.
Her interest in dogs' cancer-sniffing abilities had actually been sparked years earlier, after a friend's pooch kept licking and sniffing a mole on her leg, which turned out to be malignant melanoma.
"From the description of the dog's behaviour, I was certain that it had smelt this change," says Guest.
Her theories were backed up by scientific studies. Dogs can detect minute odour alterations that occur during the very early stages of medical changes.
In 2008, the first diabetes alert dog was trained, and in the same year, the Medical Detection Dogs charity was formed. It has just welcomed the Duchess of Cornwall as its patron.
As well as diabetes, Medical Alert Assistance Dogs are trained to help people with conditions including nut allergies, by alerting them when a nut allergen's present.
Canines are also being trained to help people with Addison's Disease and narcolepsy, and it's hoped the list of conditions they can assist with will continue to grow in the future.
"There's a huge number of other conditions that we're potentially investigating – the number of individuals with life-threatening conditions that we could help is enormous," stresses Guest. "We're only just realising the difference the dogs will be able to make."
The results of the first Medical Alert Assistance Dog placements showed a huge reduction in the dog owners' paramedic call-outs and unconscious episodes, and much healthier blood-sugar levels in those with diabetes.
"The fact that these dogs can prevent hospital admissions is absolutely incredible, and life-changing for their owners," says Guest. "Seeing a dog do it, and realising that it's saved someone from a traumatic, acute, life-threatening event is quite humbling, even for us in the charity who've seen it before."
For Claire, a 45-year-old from Kent who has very severe diabetes, getting her Medical Alert Assistance Dog last year, has transformed her life. She had no confidence before and was scared to go out alone in case she had a 'hypo' attack.
"He has not only improved the quality of my life, but my diabetes is much better controlled," she says of her pooch, Pal. "This has had a massive impact on my renal failure for the better, and also my mental health."
Claire was previously calling out paramedics up to four times a week. But since getting Pal – and his super low-blood sugar sniffing snout – she hasn't needed to call them out at all.
It's a weight off her husband, Steve's, mind too, and he's no longer missing as much work as a result.
"Our partnership goes from strength to strength and every day, Pal amazes me with his ability to know exactly how I'm feeling," she adds. "As a family, we cannot express our gratitude to everyone who helped make Pal the lifesaver he really is."
Charity staff can't, of course, tell if the dogs are aware that their actions are preventing something dangerous happening to their owners, but Guest would like to think the dogs do know.
"We train a dog to recognise a particular odour and then tell us about it and get rewarded. But I do wonder whether there's a bit more going on – dogs look to protect us from things that are dangerous, and I don't know whether when they're trained to detect, they're recognising that these things can be unpleasant for their owners and have an instinctive understanding." The charity doesn't breed its own dogs – some are rescued or donated, or might already have belonged to the person living with an illness. Not all dogs are suitable to be trained up, however.
Dogs that failed to complete Guide Dogs for the Blind training, because they relied more on their sense of smell than their vision, are also sometimes used.
A large proportion of the Medical Detection Dogs are Labradors, which often have a very good sense of smell as well as a suitable temperament, but spaniels, crossbreeds and even Yorkshire Terriers are also used.
"It's important that the dog wants to be with the person – if it likes to be alone, it's not going to notice any odour change from its owner," explains Guest. "In addition, of course, they have to focus on their noses. That combination is exactly what we want – the breed is less important."
The smell recognition training for Medical Alert Assistance Dogs can take just six weeks, and the dogs are then taught to alert their owner to problems, with signals such as nudges, licks, a push of the hand or even a simple stare. If the owner misses the signal, the dog will jump up, and get the blood testing or medical kit in their mouths and present it to them.
In contrast, Cancer Detection Dogs don't come into direct contact with their subjects, but screen samples from donors in a training area, and are taught which ones have the odour of cancer.
They're currently being trained to recognise cancers for which there is no reliable lab test, such as prostate, bladder or renal cancers. It's hoped that in the future, they'll be able to detect ovarian and pancreatic cancers too.
"What we propose is that the dog would provide another test – the dog doesn't become the doctor, but something that runs alongside other tests and might help indicate whether a person needs a biopsy," says Guest. "It gives you a much higher predictive accuracy of diagnosis."
It's also hoped that for younger women, instead of mammograms, they could simply breathe into a tube – and if a dog picked up a cancer odour, the woman would go for an early mammogram.
"Had my cancer not been picked up by my dog, I wouldn't have had a mammogram for years and my cancer would've been very, very serious," notes Guest.
The cancer detection work's still at the research and development stage, but Guest has high hopes. Her dog Daisy, for example, has screened 7,000 bladder cancer urine samples, with 93% accuracy.
"The indication is that a lot of 'invisible' cancers aren't invisible to dogs," she says.
The charity relies on fundraising and donations and gets no government funding.
Guest says: "The dogs save the NHS a huge amount of money through stopping hospital admissions and reducing medical care, and it would be nice in the future if the dogs could at least be part-funded.
"These dogs enable people to retain their independence and they don't need carers. There are huge benefits, but it's still early days."
For more information visit www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk | <urn:uuid:509dd9b6-8d31-481c-b775-5120a40b22ae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/how-this-dog-saved-its-owners-life-by-warning-her-shed-breast-cancer-30215823.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98334 | 1,689 | 2.625 | 3 |
Tyrone, age twelve, came home crying, shaking and barely able to speak. "What happened?" his mother screamed. Between sobs he was finally able to tell his mother about the terrifying ordeal he had endured on the way home from the park.
"Three kids jumped me and forced me into a 'PortaPotty.'" he explained. "They wouldn't let me out, beat on the walls and told me they were going to shove my head into the toilet. I think they would have, but they ran when a jogger came along."
"How long were you in there?" his mother asked.
"I don't know. Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe" Tyrone replied.
"Do you know the boys?" she asked as she hugged her son.
"Yeah," he answered. "They're a year ahead of me in school and always picking on us younger kids."
Bullying incidents like Tyrone's have been getting a lot of attention lately. And well, they should. Even though bullying has been going on for many generations we are learning just how devastating its effects can be.
Some bullying tragedies make national headlines. It turned out, for example, that Eric Harris Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School murderers, had suffered years of bullying. Massachusetts teenager Phoebe Prince committed suicide after months of being victimized by older students.
Tyrone's story won't make cable news nor will the millions of other bullying incidents that happen every year. Brain science, however, is showing us how serious and long term the damage can be. Studies reveal that there are long lasting chemical and structural brain changes that account for the cognitive and emotional damage that can be as severe as the harm done by child abuse.
Canadian psychologist Tracy Vaillancourt, for example, reports that the levels of the stress hormone cortisol are higher in bullied boys meaning that their stress reaction system is in constant overdrive. Curiously cortisol levels are below normal for bullied girls, perhaps meaning that their stress response systems are hampered.
McLean Hospital researcher Martin Teicher scanned the brains of bullying victims and found significant shrinkage in the corpus callosum -- the brain tissue that connects the left and right hemispheres. This makes it difficult for victims to process what is happening around them and to respond appropriately.
The amygdala is the brain's alarm center. When it is repeatedly activated the brain is in a constant state of arousal. It's as if the radar is finely tuned, always ready to pick up the slightest hint of a threat. It is very difficult to concentrate, remember and learn when the brain is always scanning for danger.
These brain changes are the explanations for the symptoms bullying victims have: avoidance behaviors, anxiety, depression, appetite and sleep problems, feelings of helplessness and suicidal thoughts. Bullying also causes cognitive problems like impaired memory, attention and concentration. It's hard for the bullied brain to learn when it's always in a state of high alert, prepared for the next attack. Bullying victims and PTSD sufferers have a lot in common. The hypersensitivity makes it very hard to relax and enjoy activities.
Life for bullied youngsters can be miserable. Bullies are often smart enough to avoid the types of physical attacks that could get them into trouble. So they resort to threats, insults, or ridicule. Victims have to endure being ignored, excluded, insulted and laughed at.
The same technology that can entertain, educate and bring young people together also provides the bully with a new set of weapons leading to an epidemic of cyberbulling, a word that wasn't even in our vocabularies a few years ago. Instead of waiting by the door after school, cyberbullies do their damage via text messages, emails, and Facebook posts from a remote location. Cyberbullies send insults and threats electronically, often many of them. They circulate humiliating pictures or post demeaning descriptions on websites. Victims are often taunted on home computers or cell phones and feel there is no escape from torturers. Research shows that three times as many kids are cyberbullied as are bullied face to face.
Brain science lends even more urgency to confronting the scourge of bullying. There are studies suggesting that the brain changes are long term and therefore can create emotional scars that last for a lifetime.
Here are some things parents can do:
1. Let your children know that if they are victims they should tell adults right away.
2. If your child is a bullying victim, get involved by contacting the bully's parents, school, or, if needed, law enforcement.
3. Help kids learn how to apologize and work out conflict with others face-to-face.
4. Make sure your children and teens know that there is a zero tolerance policy for bullying.
5. Check with your school to see if they have a bullying prevention policy that they follow and enforce.
6. Encourage your school to provide bullying prevention training for students, teachers and staff.
7. Make sure that your children know that if they act like bullies, the punishment will be swift and sure.
You can learn more about parenting and children's brains at Dr. Dave Walsh's website www.drdavewalsh.com. His latest book was just released, "Smart Parenting, Smarter Kids: the One Brain Book You Need to Help Your Child Grow Brighter, Healthier and Happier." | <urn:uuid:e51b1927-5ef1-43ae-81fa-40d94305627a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-walsh/the-bullied-brain_b_914709.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966818 | 1,105 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Waste & recycling - June 9
Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
World's poor overwhelmed by rubbish (photo gallery)
1 / 17
World Environment Day was established by the UN in 1972 to give a human face to environmental issues. But as these images show, developing countries suffer the worst effects of waste and pollution. Here, a trash-covered creek in Manila, Philippines, where slums often adjoin rubbish dumps. The country's poorest sift through the garbage to find discarded objects they can sell on or re-use, or even scraps of food to eat
Converting Garbage into Fuel
Kevin Bullis, Technology Review
Waste Management, a large waste company, gives technology for gasifying trash a boost
Waste gasification, a process for converting garbage into fuel and electricity without incinerating it, may be a step closer to large-scale commercialization. Last week, Houston's Waste Management, a major garbage-collection and -disposal company, announced a joint venture with InEnTec, a startup based in Richland, WA, to commercialize InEnTec's plasma-gasification technology.
Waste Management will fund the new venture, which will be called S4 Energy Solutions, as well as provide infrastructure and expertise from its waste-collecting and -processing businesses to make the technology economical. The company, which will operate and market plasma-gasification technologies, will be announcing specific projects to build facilities later this year. The involvement of Waste Management could signal that the technology, which has been more expensive than other waste-disposal options, is finally reaching a stage at which it can be practical. "Up until late last year, it was under the radar," says James Childress, the executive director of the Gasification Technologies Council. "Now the big players are finally getting involved in this."
(27 May 2009)
Recommended by Big Gav of Peak Energy.
Recycling revolution begins in blood and guts
Danny Fortson, The Times
Darren Renshall can’t help himself. As he approaches a spigot amid the din coming from a maze of pipes, he smiles, pulls the lever and out slops a pile of foul-smelling black sludge.
The odour is revolting. But the engineer doesn’t seem to care. He is clearly excited about the muck, which is piling up like a mound of mashed potato on the floor. It is what makes this power station, in Widnes on the Mersey, like no other. Instead of using coal or gas to generate electricity, this plant runs, quite literally, on blood and guts, a cocktail of the food industry’s leftovers. The “fuel” contains slaughterhouse bone and meat, mouldy bread, rotten fruit, old ready meals and fish entrails that “look like thousand island dressing”, said Renshall, who runs the plant...
(25 May 2008)
The Top 6 Ways to Convert Poop Into Electricity
Josh Harkinson, MotherJones
More than half of the 15 trillion gallons of sewage Americans flush annually is processed into sludge that gets spread on farmland, lawns, and home vegetable gardens. In theory, recycling poop is the perfect solution to the one truly unavoidable byproduct of human civilization. But sludge-based as fertilizer can contain anything that goes down the drain—from Prozac flushed down toilets to motor oil hosed from factory floors. That's why an increasing number of cities have begun to explore an alternative way to dispose of sludge: advanced poop-to-power plants. By one estimate, a single American's daily sludge output can generate enough electricity to light a 60-watt bulb for more than nine hours. Here are the six most innovative ways that human waste is being converted to watts:...
(22 May 2009)
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This is a community site and the discussion is moderated. The rules in brief: no personal abuse and no climate denial. Complete Guidelines. | <urn:uuid:8bd5fe8f-7799-4580-aaff-7a0add26977c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.resilience.org/stories/2009-06-09/waste-recycling-june-9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933694 | 868 | 2.75 | 3 |
In the US, the scent of decline is in the air. Imperial overreach, political polarization, and a costly financial crisis are weighing on the economy. Some pundits now worry that America is about to succumb to the "British disease".
Doomed to slow growth, the US of today, like the exhausted Britain that emerged from World War II, will be forced to curtail its international commitments. This will create space for rising powers such as China, but it will also expose the world to a period of heightened geopolitical uncertainty.
In thinking about these prospects, it is important to understand the nature of the British disease. It was not simply that the US and Germany grew faster than Britain after 1870. After all, it is entirely natural for late-developing countries to grow rapidly, as is true of China today. The problem was Britain's failure in the late 19th century to take its economy to the next level.
Britain was slow to move from the old industries of the first Industrial Revolution into modern sectors such as electrical engineering, which impeded the adoption of mass-production methods. It also failed to adopt precision machinery that depended on electricity, which prevented it from producing machined components for use in assembling typewriters, cash registers and motor vehicles. The same story can be told about other new industries such as synthetic chemicals, dyestuffs and telephony, in all of which Britain failed to establish a foothold.
1. How India became a poor country by sanjeev nayyar - examples of how British exploited India economically. http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/Why-India-is-a-poor-country-1.aspx | <urn:uuid:1044ee8e-da44-4a42-9b36-4db23a720a16> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2010/11/fwd-is-us-catching-british-disease-by.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95427 | 345 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Feral cats on Kauai are a growing problem for an endangered Hawaiian seabird.
Recent video provided by the Kauai Endangered Seabird Recovery Project shows a feral cat crawling into the burrow of a Hawaiian petrel and killing it.
Project coordinator Andre Raine says it’s becoming an all too common occurrence on the island.
“We’ve had cats visiting burrows multiple times over the last few years,” he told KHON2. “In one case, we had a cat hit nine burrows in the course of a single day.”
Cameras are set up to monitor the birds’ burrows “to see how the bird is doing, to see when they arrive on their burrows and how their chicks fledge,” Raine said.
“I don’t think people realize that no matter where you go on this island, that Kauai has very remote parts of the islands, but there are feral cats all throughout these areas and they have significant impacts not only our seabirds, but also other native endemic birds on the island,” he added.
The project is currently looking at ways to deal with the cats and other non-native predators.
Watch the full video below: | <urn:uuid:b2236cdc-7d6e-48db-b528-3dbd6e7319dc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://khon2.com/2014/06/06/video-of-feral-cat-killing-endangered-bird-highlights-growing-problem-on-kauai/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958159 | 266 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Fruit and vegetables have almost doubled in price in parts of the developing world over the past 20 years, calling into question the idea that modern farming methods lower basic food prices for the poor.
Paradoxically, the cost of some processed foods has fallen by a fifth over the same time, prompting fears over increasing obesity.
Researchers with the Overseas Development Institute looked at relative food prices in Brazil, China, South Korea and Mexico to produce "The rising cost of a healthy diet" - the first study of its kind in emerging economies.
The report’s authors found that fruit and vegetables had risen in price by up to 91 per cent in real terms between 1990 and 2012, a bigger increase than for other any other food group. “In high income countries over the last 30 years it seems that the cost of healthy items in the diet has risen more than that of less healthy options, thereby encouraging diets that lead to excess weight,” said Steve Wiggins, one of the authors of the report.
“It seems the same may apply in emerging economies, where prices of fruit and vegetables have been rising more than most other foods, including energy-dense processed foods.”
In the United Kingdom 68 per cent of men and 61 per cent of women were classed as overweight or obese in 2008, a figure almost as high as in the US and significantly worse than in most European countries.
Mr Wiggins’s team found that in Mexico, where almost 70 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, ready meals have become cheaper and the cost of green vegetables has increased since 1990.
In Brazil, where the prevalence of overweight and obese adults has doubled since 1980, crisps, biscuits, energy bars and sugary drinks formulated to be “hyper-palatable” are much more widely eaten than previously, while in China green vegetables have also become twice as expensive over the past 20 years.
A vendor selling cabbage waits for customers at Garak Market in Seoul, South Korea (Bloomberg)
In Korea, the price of cabbage – a common ingredient of traditional dishes such as kimchi – has risen by 60 per cent.
The report does not address the question of why fruit and vegetables have become more expensive, although the authors do offer possible explanations.
Horticulture may well have a “stepped supply function,” the ODI said, so that while small quantities of fruit and vegetables can be supplied at low unit cost, once a particular volume is reached costs rapidly escalate.
It may also be that the changes in quality explain the increased relative prices. Or, it may not be a matter of cost but of increased demand from those consumers who appreciate the health benefits of fruit and vegetables.
Meanwhile, advances in manufacturing, packaging and flavouring are reducing the prices of processed foods.
In Brazil, the consumption of “ultra-processed” ready-to-eat food has risen from 80kg (176lb) a year in 1999 to 110kg a year in 2013 – equivalent in weight to each person eating an extra 140 Big Macs a year.
“In January 2014, in an attempt to curb obesity, Mexico introduced taxes on sugary drinks and energy-dense food,” said Mr Wiggins. “Everyone is watching to see what effects these taxes have, as policy-makers in rich and poor countries struggle to respond to the looming health epidemic caused by changing diets.” | <urn:uuid:58d4bad2-ee33-4408-9cbf-74d773e2df42> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/11596250/Cost-of-healthy-living-soars-in-developing-world-while-junk-food-gets-cheaper.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963658 | 707 | 2.921875 | 3 |
|This lifetime advocate of workers’ rights helped pioneer today’s workplace safety and health programs.
by Dionisia M. Xenos
|The sound of fire engines disrupted the silence in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Nearby, Frances Perkins was enjoying Saturday tea with her neighbor when the noise aroused their curiosity. The women scurried across Washington Square to find the top floors of the Asche Building, which housed the Triangle Shirt Waist Company, in flames.
The building doors, locked to prevent employee theft, blocked the workers’ escape from the burning building. Perkins witnessed the young employees on the ledges of the upper-story windows, hands folded in prayer, leaping to their deaths. In less than an hour, 146 of the 600 workers trapped by the March 25, 1911, fire died.
The image of the charred human remains that lined the sidewalk remained fresh in Perkins’ mind for many years to come. It intensified her growing conviction to improve workplace safety to protect workers.
By the time of the Triangle fire, Perkins had already become a strong advocate of workers’ rights and protections. Her lifelong conviction began taking root when Perkins was a student at Mount Holyoke College. There, she received an assignment to visit local textile and paper mills to survey the working conditions. Perkins was so appalled by the treacherous conditions, she vowed to help change them. Years later, in her
book, "The Roosevelt I Knew," she called the existence of industrial hazards in America’s factories "one of our oldest disgraces."
Perkins’ experience at Mount Holyoke led her to volunteer among the factory women of Worcester, and later, she accepted a job at Chicago Commons, the famous settlement house. There, she learned more about the ongoing struggle between workers trying to increase their wages and shorten their hours and employers attempting to reduce wages and increase working hours or the intensity of labor.
While working at Chicago Commons, Perkins lived at Hull House, another settlement house that gave her a firsthand opportunity to study the problems of the poor and help find ways to improve their living and working conditions.
In 1907, Perkins returned to the East to become the only paid staff member of the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association. The association was formed to help young black women from the South and young white immigrant women from Europe who were arriving in droves to find work, but were often preyed upon or robbed in the process.
In this role, Perkins surveyed the city’s rooming houses, improved investigation and counseling methods, and pressured city authorities to enforce stricter lodging house licensing. She issued a report on living and working conditions of young women supporting themselves in a major American city and lobbied for stricter ordinances for rooming house licensing.
Perkins studied economics and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance, then relocated to New York where she accepted a fellowship at the New York School of Philanthropy and enrolled in graduate studies at Columbia University. Pauline Goldmark, head of the School of Philanthropy, had assigned Perkins to survey the Hell’s Kitchen section of the West Side. In an effort to help a poor family she had visited there, Perkins met with State Sen. Timothy J. MacMannus, who represented the Hell’s Kitchen section. MacMannus helped Perkins, and in doing so, showed her the value of using the political system to achieve her social goals.
In 1910 Perkins became the secretary of the New York Consumers League, formed to educate workers about harmful industrial conditions and lobby for protective legislation. The league’s national director, Florence Kelly, assigned Perkins to make extensive surveys of unsanitary cellar bakeries and fire safety in industry. Kelly showed Perkins how to search beyond the immediate conditions to find the roots of safety and health problems in industry.
With Kelly’s mentoring, Perkins became a well-known expert on industrial conditions, and her surveys provided the statistics and necessary information needed to build an effective argument for protective social labor legislation.
Perkins’ efforts in advancing factory safety led to her appointment as executive secretary of the Committee on Safety, formed as a result of the Triangle fire. She later became a member of the Factory Investigating Commission (FIC), created to review job safety and health conditions in New York.
Perkins took the FIC commissioners to the Cattaraugus County Cannery to see little children snipping beans and shelling peas at 4 a.m. At dawn, the commissioners stood at the gate of a ropeworks watching thousands of exhausted women file out in a zombie-like fashion after working 10 hours through the night. The commissioners also went to the workers’ homes and heard testimonies of the hardships they experienced while at work—motivating the commissioners to push for stronger legislation. Between 1915 and 1922, they completely rewrote the New York industrial code with 36 new laws protecting workers on the job, restricting the hours women and children could work, and compensating victims of on-the-job injuries.
In 1919, Al Smith, then governor of New York, appointed Perkins as commissioner of the State Industrial Commission. He appointed her to the Industrial Board in 1923, then named her chairman in 1926. Three years later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected governor and appointed Perkins as the industrial commissioner of New York State. In that role, she acted as directing head of the New York State Department of Labor.
In 1933, Roosevelt was elected U.S. President and offered Perkins an appointment as Secretary of Labor. It was an unprecedented move; never before had a woman served as a Cabinet member. Nonetheless, before accepting Roosevelt’s offer, Perkins told him, "I don’t want to say ‘yes’ to you unless you know what I’d like to do and are willing to have me go ahead and try." She explained her goals: to direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief, public works, work hour limitations, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, unemployment insurance, social security, and revitalized public employment insurance.
Perkins asked him, "Are you sure you want these things done? Because you don’t want me for Secretary of Labor if you don’t." Without hesitation, Roosevelt agreed to back her, and incorporated most of her goals a part of his New Deal. Perkins accepted the position and served for 12 years, longer than any other Secretary of Labor in U.S. history.
Perkins’ achievements as Secretary of Labor are legendary. During the first 100 days of the Roosevelt Administration, Congress enacted 15 major laws, and Perkins was the focal point of this activity. During her term, she helped reduce the basic work week to 40 hours, fought for a minimum wage, and helped draft numerous other labor acts.
To help advance workplace safety and health, she established the Department’s Division of Labor Standards. It became the first permanent federal agency set up to focus principally on the safety and health of the entire American workforce.
Because most workers were subject to state labor legislation, Perkins focused on the state and local labor laws. She established a committee of representatives from organized labor, business, government, and the safety movement to advise her on ways to improve how these laws were administered and suggest improvements. In response to their suggestions, state labor departments began to offer training for state factory inspectors. The group also worked to increase protective legislation at both the state and federal level concerning job safety and health.
Working through the Division of Labor Standards, Perkins organized a wide range of conferences that encouraged information sharing among the states and ultimately, increased uniformity of state laws and programs.
Much of the division’s work focused on outreach and voluntary compliance—still recognized today as the most effective avenues to workplace protection. The division worked with industry associations and safety organizations to establish voluntary industrial safety codes, and later used this expertise to help develop industrial codes for other federal agencies. It also helped unions establish safety and health programs, provide safety education for workers, and promote better safety and health laws. In turn, the unions helped the division, providing them with lists of hazards in different industries.
The division also helped improve state factory inspections by providing safety courses for factory inspectors and producing an inspection manual. Perkins called on a fellow pioneer in workplace safety and health, Alice Hamilton, who had worked in the Department of Labor under Secretary William Wilson, to return to the department to assist in this effort and conduct industrial hazard investigations.
Many transformations took place during Perkins’ term as Secretary of Labor. Perhaps her most significant achievements related to workplace safety and health were passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, which allowed the U.S. Public Health Service to fund state industrial health programs; The Walsh-Healy Public Contracts Act of 1936, which banned contract work done under hazardous conditions; and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which prohibited children under 18 from working in hazardous jobs.
Perkins resigned as Secretary of Labor after Roosevelt’s death in 1945. This was not, however, to be the end of her career. The following year, President Harry Truman appointed her to the Civil Service Commission, where she spent seven years as a commissioner focused on privacy violations on job applications. Perkins ended her government career in 1953 and spent the rest of her life teaching and lecturing at prestigious universities. She continued to lecture until weeks before her death in 1965.
Fifteen years later, the new Department of Labor headquarters at 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., in Washington, D.C., was named the Francis Perkins Building in honor of her many contributions to America’s workforce.
Former Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz’s tribute couldn’t better describe those contributions. He said, "Every man and woman who works at a living wage, under safe conditions, for reasonable hours, or who is protected by unemployment insurance or social security, is her debtor." JSHQ
Xenos served as a summer intern in OSHA’s Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C. Judson MacLaury, the Department of Labor historian, and Gordon Berg, a Department of Labor public affairs specialist, contributed to this article. | <urn:uuid:0e9a4a20-8c8c-46ef-8e94-eff292f2bfa7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.osha.gov/Publications/JSHQ/fall2002html/perkins.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965945 | 2,092 | 3.171875 | 3 |
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This instruction book for beginning lap dulcimer in DAD tuning is unique in two ways. First, it instructs the beginning student in the increasingly popular DAD tuning. Secondly, the author, a classroom music teacher, has carefully and systematically layered the lessons to guide the student through familiar songs while teaching skills and musical concepts.This not only enables the student to enjoy the lap dulcimer but also enhances total music understanding and participation. The accompanying CD provides instructional dialogue and demonstrations of the techniques and songs included in the book. Additional hints and exercises are presented in an inviting and encouraging conversational text.
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Established in 1995, Musicroom.com is part of the Music Sales Group, a long-established international organisation specialising in the publication and distribution of printed music. Shipping to over 300,000 customers in over 100 countries worldwide, Music Room is one of the world's largest online retailer of sheet music, tutor methods, instructional DVDs & videos, music software and instruments & accessories.
This store has not received any reviews yet, you can be the first one to write one! | <urn:uuid:df4b127c-0b89-464a-808c-7b20693ba498> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sheetmusicstock.com/sheetmusic/1268644/joyce-ochs-first-lessons-dulcimer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924951 | 266 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Dr. Linda J. Laubenstein, a Manhattan physician who in 1981 discovered some of the first mysterious cases of what became the worldwide AIDS epidemic, died on Saturday in Chatham, Mass., on Cape Cod. She was 45.
Her family said an autopsy was pending. She suffered from severe asthma and weakness from childhood polio, an illness that required three major operations and left her a paraplegic at age 5.
``She is incredibly important in the history of AIDS, a genuine pioneer and a real fighter for what she believed,`` said Larry Kramer, an author and a leader in AIDS causes.
Dr. Laubenstein inspired the character of Dr. Emma Brookner, a principal role in Kramer`s play on acquired immune deficiency syndrome titled The Normal Heart. He said an agreement was near on a movie version by Barbra Streisand.
Dr. Laubenstein and Dr. Alvin Friedman-Kien wrote the first paper to be published in a medical journal on the alarming appearance of Kaposi`s sarcoma, a previously rare disease of lesions of the skin and other tissues. | <urn:uuid:1cc7bd57-595f-445a-99d7-189504c411e4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1992-08-18/news/9201160400_1_dr-alvin-friedman-kien-linda-j-laubenstein-first-mysterious-cases | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966029 | 225 | 2.65625 | 3 |
During the late 1660s and the early 1670s, several mysterious deaths of influential members of the French nobility followed one after the other, leading to a scandal, better known as the "Affair of the Poisons," which involved prominent individuals at the royal court of Louis XIV in France. The King, who was concerned that the widespread use of the practice of poisoning could endanger his own safety and that of the royal family, appointed Nicolas de La Reynie, the Lieutenant General of the Paris Police, to oversee the investigation. In 1679, he also established a special tribunal, known as the Chambre Ardente, to prosecute the murders. The court ruled for over three years, issuing 319 subpoenas, arresting 194 individuals, and sentencing 36 of them to death.
This article examines the involvement of three women who were prominently implicated in the scandal: the Marquise de Brinvilliers, whose trial rocked the royal court of Louis XIV and whose decapitation engaged the public imagination; the sorceress Catherine La Voisin, who was prosecuted and burned alive for providing important members of the royal court with magic powders and venomous potions; and finally, the Marquise de Montespan, one of the favorite mistresses of Louis XIV, who allegedly purchased love powders from La Voisin and participated in black masses, but whose direct involvement in the scandal was never conclusively determined by the Chambre Ardente.
87 Chicago-Kent L. Rev. 347 (2012). | <urn:uuid:b77ec714-8661-482b-9df9-cd73a6027f03> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/pubs/499/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956159 | 304 | 2.6875 | 3 |
One of the least understood parts of the Bible, shrouded in the mystery of prehistory, is the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve. It’s easy to read the story, only one chapter of Genesis, and long for more details. Just what does it mean? Does the fruit represent something? What type of fruit was it? Why did God punish Adam and Eve the way He did?
That last question, in my experience, is asked mostly by women who aren’t very happy about the looming prospect of child labor. Who can blame them? I’m certainly not going to, mostly for fear of the doghouse.
In order to understand this, we need a basic overview. You can read the full account here, but I’ll summarize: Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, minding their own business, when a serpent (representing Satan) approached Eve and asked her whether God had really told her not to eat any of the fruit in the garden. Eve answered that she couldn’t eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because she would die. Satan responded with the half-truth that she would not die. In response, Eve took some of the fruit and ate it and gave some to Adam to eat. They both realized they were naked and hid themselves. God discovered them, they all pointed fingers at each other, and God pronounced the sentences: the serpent would crawl on his belly and eat dirt, the woman would have labor pains, and the man would toil and sweat when he’d farming. Then Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden.
One of the things to realize about God is that his punishments are never merely arbitrary. As a loving Father, He wants His children to learn from their mistakes, and so we can reasonably ascertain that there must be a specific reason for the two punishments of labor pains and difficulty in farming. There are a couple common threads in the text that may shed light on this: fruit and dirt.
The first command of God to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). Fruit was the instrument by which Eve was tempted. Because Adam and Eve had cut themselves off from God, the source of life and fruitfulness, they would have to bear fruit on their own without the help of His grace. This would lead to immense difficult in bearing the fruit of the womb through child-labor, as well as in bringing forth the fruit of the earth in farming. Due to their violation of God’s life-giving fruitfulness, Adam and Eve would bear the logical consequences: they would have a tough time bearing fruit.
What about the dirt? If you look closely, God did not curse Adam directly, but cursed the dirt on account of Adam. Why? Adam was made from dirt. Eve was made from Adam. Adam’s and Eve’s children would, by extension, be made from dirt. Just as sin cut off humanity from God as the source of fruitfulness, it also cut off humanity from God as the source of life. Every man, by God’s punishment on Adam, would ultimately return to dirt in death, giving up the spirit God had breathed into him. Man himself was corrupted by sin, as was his fruitfulness, his ability to do good for God.
Now that we’ve seen the common threads in dirt and fruit, let’s see how it can point us to Christ.
Recall again that Adam is dirt. The serpent also was punished by being doomed to eat dirt the rest of his life, a prophecy of Satan’s stubborn battle to attack God by defeating His children. A few verses later, we are told that the serpent would be striking at man’s heel, another clear indication that in his quest to satisfy his gluttonous hunger for lost souls, Satan would try to “eat” man. However, we receive a promise from God Himself:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at His heel.” -Genesis 3:15
In the process of striking at man, trying to go about eating dirt, Satan would one day try to take a bite out of the wrong heel. The Messiah was promised, the offspring of the woman who would restore man and his fruitfulness by the power of grace. Nevertheless, the Messiah would also undergo the punishment of Adam. Take a look:
In the Garden of Gethsemane,
Christ suffered in His agony
Until His short life’s end.
Great thorns He wore upon His head;
He sweated anguished drops of red,
He died the world to mend,
Upon the cross, in love to God.
And so was buried in the sod,
e’ermore to rend. | <urn:uuid:b7d066a1-b8b7-4a59-8884-4bc469d2acc2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://truthandcharity.net/labor-pains-and-difficult-farming-an-explanation-for-the-punishments-of-adam-and-eve/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986647 | 1,020 | 3.015625 | 3 |
How optical nanostructures and materials improve the efficiency of solar cells and solar concentrator systems.
Photovoltaic solar electricity is one of the key technologies for reducing the world’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation. Reduced costs and higher conversion efficiencies are essential for making photovoltaics economically competitive. Optical nanostructures have a major role to play in improving the efficiency of solar cells by increasing the absorption of incident light, especially for thin-film applications. Nanosolar concentrator systems, organic solar cells and dye-sensitized cells also stand to benefit from nanophotonic engineering schemes. Within this context, light management by anophotonic structures on a solar module level also needs to be considered. In addition, the upcoming area of nanophotonic materials for solar hydrogen will also be addressed since nanophotonic materials will play a pivotal role there. Thermophotovoltaics is another area that has been studied for some time but that may receive an important boost from recent developments in plasmonic nanostructures.
The scope of the meeting covers all aspects of photovoltaic efficiency improvement techniques including: | <urn:uuid:482df00b-3e2b-4854-998d-a5194c9e7f93> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.osa.org/en-us/meetings/osa_meeting_archives/2012/optical_nanostructures_and_advance_materials_pv/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914248 | 241 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Happy feet help your whole body. Your feet endure a lot of wear and tear in the process of supporting your frame in motion. Use these foot care tips to take good care of your feet and enhance your general well-being and comfort.
- Wear supportive shoes. A wide array of injuries such as plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, bunions, and sprains can be caused by wearing shoes that do not support proper bone alignment or muscle function. Choose shoes that support an even distribution of weight and have a thick sole to help absorb the shock of your daily activities or exercises.
- Have your feet sized. Wearing the wrong size shoe can lead to all sorts of foot problems from bunions to hammer toes. Make sure you’re wearing the right size shoe by having your foot measured. You might even need two different shoe sizes.
- Change your socks. Wearing clean socks with breathable fabrics is an important step to preventing foot odor. Just like Mom said, “change your socks!”
- Moisturize your feet. The skin on your feet needs moisture just like the rest of your body. To keep your feet soft and to prevent dry, cracking heels, use a foot cream before you put on your socks at night or as part of your home pedicure routine. You can also use moisturizing socks when you’re relaxing at home.
- Buff off dead skin and calluses. Keep your feet looking their best by gently buffing off dead skin and calluses. After bathing or a relaxing foot soak, use a pumice stone to buff away calluses on your feet. Do not shave or cut corns or pop blisters; you could cause an infection.
- Avoid ingrown toenails. Cutting your toenails correctly is the best way to avoid ingrown toenails. Cut your toenails straight across with toenail clippers. Rounded corners are more likely to grow back into the skin. Soaking your feet in Epsom salts is relaxing and can also help prevent and treat ingrown toenails.
- Protect your feet from hot and cold. Wear socks in the winter and shoes when walking at the beach or on hot pavement. Test hot water before putting your feet in. Skin irritation from hot or cold can easily become worse with the friction and impact of your daily activities.
- Maintain feet circulation. The American Diabetes Association emphasizes the importance of keeping the blood flowing to your feet. If you spend all day sitting at a desk, make sure you wiggle your toes and move your ankles up and down for five minutes two or three times a day. Avoid sitting on your feet or crossing your legs for long periods.
- Wear sunscreen. Don’t forget to slather sunscreen on your feet, too! During the summer, feet are often forgotten when protecting skin from the sun. Protect your feet and remember to check them for sun damage when you do regular self-exams.
- Stretch your feet. Release the tension of daily activity and protect yourself from injury by stretching your feet. The Yoga Journal features stretches and other foot care tips for healthy, relaxed toes.
If you have specific foot care concerns, whether from problem toes or heel pain, check out our other posts for more information about caring for your feet and preventing injury. | <urn:uuid:95b06ba5-ca33-4e61-b515-90839749b4d7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blog.footsmart.com/portfolio/10-tips-to-take-care-of-your-feet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912532 | 685 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The San Gabriel Valley Mosquito & Vector Control District has received the first confirmation of West Nile virus (WNV) activity in the San Gabriel Valley this year. Two dead birds collected and tested by the Los Angeles County Veterinary Public Health on July 20 were positive for WNV infection. The birds were collected from the cities of La Verne and La Puente.
Many birds are highly susceptible to WNV infection and reports of dead birds in the
community are often the first sign that the virus is being transmitted by mosquitoes.
Residents are encouraged to continue reporting dead birds to the State’s WNV
Hotline at (877) 968-2473 or online at www.westnile.ca.gov. While all birds might
not be collected and tested, the reports are analyzed by the California Department
of Public Health to identify problem areas. These reports help mosquito control
officers find and address issues early and can save lives.
This year, 218 birds, 168 mosquito samples, and 10 sentinel chickens have tested
positive across the State for WNV however no human cases have been reported.
West Nile virus has been detected in multiple cities in Los Angeles County indicating widespread activity again this year.
Residents throughout the County must take precautions now to break the mosquito lifecycle and prevent bites and infection with WNV:
Check properties and remove all sources of standing water to kill immature mosquitoes and eliminate places female mosquitoes use to lay eggs.
Report inoperable pools or other sources of standing water to the District. One algae-filled pool can breed thousands of mosquitoes per week and affect properties for blocks around.
Use effective repellents if outdoors when mosquitoes are present (between dusk and dawn)
Ensure doors and windows are properly screened to keep mosquitoes outside.
All residents, regardless of their age or health, can get sick from WNV. Those over 50 years of age or with compromised immune systems are at higher risk of developing the more severe form of the illness which can be fatal.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that almost 29,000 people have been reported with WNV disease since 1999. Of those, 11,760 have been serious and over 1,100 have died.
Research continues to show that even the ‘milder’ forms of the disease can cause significant illness which lasts for weeks. West Nile virus must not be taken lightly.
The San Gabriel Valley Mosquito & Vector Control District is a public health special district dedicated to the control of mosquito and other vector-borne diseases. The
District can be reached at 626-814-9466 or on the web at www.sgvmosquito.org. | <urn:uuid:4b2ae458-5dce-4185-8f6a-170e21e7120d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.insidesocal.com/heights/2009/07/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936963 | 552 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Noun: thing thing
- A special situation
"this thing has got to end"; "it is a remarkable thing"
- An action
"how could you do such a thing?"
- A special abstraction
"a thing of the spirit"; "things of the heart"
- An artifact
"how does this thing work?"
- An event
"a funny thing happened on the way to the..."
- A vaguely specified concern
"things are going well";
- matter, affair
- A statement regarded as an object
"to say the same thing in other terms"; "how can you say such a thing?"
- An entity that is not named specifically
"I couldn't tell what the thing was"
- Any attribute or quality considered as having its own existence
"the thing I like about her is ..."
- A special objective
"the thing is to stay in bounds"
- A persistent illogical feeling of desire or aversion
"he has a thing about seafood"; "she has a thing about him"
- A separate and self-contained entity
Derived forms: things
Type of: abstract, abstraction, action, aim, artefact [Brit], artifact [N. Amer], attribute, concern, entity, feeling, happening, natural event, object, objective, occurrence, occurrent, physical entity, situation, state of affairs, statement, target | <urn:uuid:8f6920d0-d8a7-415c-bfd9-544001a3991c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/THING | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910457 | 290 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Take a sneak peek at the new NIST.gov and let us know what you think!
(Please note: some content may not be complete on the beta site.).
NIST Analytic Technique Offers Arson Investigators Faster, More Accurate Results
From NIST Tech Beat: June 17, 2014
A research group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated a new method for detecting ignitable liquids that could change the way arson fires are investigated. The new process for analyzing debris for traces of fire accelerants is faster and more accurate than conventional methods and produces less waste.
An arson investigation typically requires collecting one or two liters of ashes and debris from various locations within a fire scene in metal cans similar to those used for paint, and sending the material to a lab. The testing methods typically include gas and liquid chromatography or various versions of spectroscopy, with gas chromatography being the most widely used in fire debris analysis, according to the lead NIST researcher, Tom Bruno.
When the fire debris is received at the testing facility, samples are taken for testing. Sometimes this will involve suspending a strip with activated charcoal in the air or "headspace" directly above the sample in the paint can for a period of time that can vary, depending on the judgment of the analyst, for 2-3 hours or up to 16 hours.
Other testing methods include "dynamic purge and trap" of the headspace. And still another sampling method involves a newer solid-phase microextraction method (SPME) that does not destroy the sample. This later method, however, has a high displacement rate of heavier over lighter ignitable liquid components, is difficult to automate, makes preserving and archiving samples difficult and has not shown a consistent ability to obtain repeatable and quantitative results. Also, the SPME sampling method requires expensive equipment, and the SPME fibers are easily damaged. Still other methods are less sensitive and produce large amounts of chemical waste.
The vapor collection method developed by Bruno's group involves the dynamic adsorption of headspace vapors on short porous layer open tubular (PLOT) columns maintained at low temperature (as low as -40 C). The benefits of this method are many. The collection sensitivity is high; below 1 part per billion (ppb). The low temperature is achieved using a vortex tube connected to compressed air; it has no moving parts, and is attractive for use in environments with explosive or flammable materials.
After vapor collection, the PLOT capillaries can be heated (up to 160 C, again with the vortex tube), releasing the vapor. The capillaries used are robust and cheap, and this process is especially effective with relatively nonvolatile substances because of its wide operating temperature range. It also is not limited to water-borne samples, as most commercial sampling instruments are. And best of all, this PLOT-cryo method can be used to simultaneously test for up to eight different ignitable liquids from a single sample. This allows investigators to take multiple samples from each of several locations in a fire scene (such as a grid approach) in a short amount of time. This method also enables high repeatability and quality assurance of the testing process and is available in a portable unit that can perform the sampling in remote locations.
"This sampling method is faster, more efficient, recovers more analytics and produces much less waste than traditional methods," Bruno said. "And the sampling device and its components are much cheaper than traditional equipment." While the present study involved samples measured in the laboratory, Bruno has further developed the method to be field portable. A patent is pending for a device that will offer these same vapor collections, even at fire scenes. The self-contained portable unit is carried in a standard briefcase and may be available to arson investigators in as little as two years.
*J.E. Nichols, M.E. Harries, T.M. Lovestead and T.J. Bruno. Analysis of arson fire debris by low temperature dynamic headspace adsorption porous layer open tubular columns. Journal of Chromatography A. Volume 1334, 21 March 21, 2014. | <urn:uuid:5ffbd90e-3670-4777-83d7-3d3b1dc20b79> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nist.gov/mml/acmd/arson-061714.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929037 | 853 | 3 | 3 |
Researchers Urge Caution on Test for High School AthletesNew Study Questions Widespread Use of ECG to Detect Potentially Fatal Heart Ailments
Sometimes the first symptom of a serious heart problem is sudden cardiac death (SCD). Silent heart conditions may exist, surfacing with fatal results. The tragedy is heightened when victims are young, seemingly healthy, athletes. Many U.S. school districts now require high school athletes to submit to a pre-participation physical exam before being allowed to play sports. That exam may include an electrocardiogram (ECG) to screen for heart abnormalities that could lead to SCD. But a study by the University of Houston finds that the practice may not accurately detect such abnormalities and may not be an efficient use of time or money.
"Using our statistical model, which is based on information and estimates in published reports, about 16 percent of high school athletes would have a positive ECG, but very few of those would actually have the cardiac abnormalities that could lead to SCD," said Dan O'Connor, assistant professor of health and human performance. "Total costs for the screening and subsequent medical follow-ups for those athletes could be in the millions of dollars annually across the United States."
O'Connor, who investigates the effectiveness of clinical interventions by applying biostatistical methods, used data from the National Federation of High School Associations and the U.S. Census Bureau School Enrollment in addition to a number of medical articles. He entered this information into mathematical equations to evaluate what might happen if all high school athletes received an ECG at their pre-participation exam.
"We are not suggesting that young athletes shouldn't exercise caution before beginning a sport. Certainly they should have a physical examination before playing, as recommended by a number of medical associations," he said. "However, we are encouraging athletic trainers, coaches, physicians and parents to be aware of what the ECG's results may convey - you will find a few athletes who have serious conditions, but you are going to get a lot of apparent abnormalities in normal, healthy kids."
O'Connor says there are a number of issues with ECG testing in teenagers, which include interpreting the results, differences in children's ECGs relative to adults and the rarity of serious heart conditions. O'Connor says when ECG is used for all young athletes, these issues combine to lead to a large number of "false positives," or athletes with abnormal ECGs who are actually healthy and at no risk for SCD.
"For example, for every teenage boy who actually has a cardiac abnormality and who is identified by ECG screening, about 50 boys with no abnormalities may have a positive ECG, which will often require further medical testing to rule out disease," O'Connor said. "If we add up the estimated total costs of administering the ECG and the subsequent medical tests for false positive results of the 2 to 3 million athletes entering high school each year in the U.S., it could exceed $126 million."
The "cost" of testing everyone, he said, would be evident not only in money, but in psychological stress of being falsely-labeled with a potentially fatal condition, and in the time an athlete may be removed from his/her sport in order to pursue costly follow-up exams. O'Connor says he hopes his study provides some reasonable expectations about adding ECG to pre-participation exams.
"A better strategy may be to test only those athletes who are at highest risk, such as those with a family history of heart problems or premature death, as well as other known risk factors," he said. "More study is needed of large populations of high school athletes, followed for many years, to determine the real prevalence of cardiac abnormalities, the occurrence and risk of sudden cardiac death and the accuracy of electrocardiograms in this setting."
The study is published in the June issue of Journal of Athletic Training. | <urn:uuid:2c9e612a-abfd-4b22-930f-b3a96bab9c48> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://uh.edu/news-events/stories/2010articles/June2010/6292010HHPSuddenCardiacDeath.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967058 | 803 | 2.75 | 3 |
Deception (methodological technique)
From PsychWiki - A Collaborative Psychology Wiki
Deception is a methodological technique whereby a participant is not made fully aware of the specific purposes of the study or is misinformed as part of the study. Two main forms of deception that may occur in research are (1) the researcher intentionally misinforms the participant about some aspect of the study. For example, a researcher wanting to study how people respond to negative health feedback may deceive participants by telling them a saliva test they took indicates that they may have a disease, when in fact the test was only a manipulation used to create an emotional response and (2) omission of information, such as not telling participants that a study of “Relationship formation with a stranger” actually deals with the specifics of interracial interactions. This type of deception is based on the notion that certain psychological processes may be biased if the participant were aware of the exact nature of the study. A common form of deception is not fully disclosing the true nature of the study until it is over. Here knowledge of the purposes of the study may cause participants to act in less than spontaneous ways and may bias the results. Additionally, the “stranger” in the study may not be another participant at all, they may be a trained member of the research team, called a confederate, whose job it is to guide the interaction based on a script and evaluate the actual participant. In this form of deception, the participants are not misinformed, but they are not made fully aware of the specific purposes of the study. The use of a confederate is another form of deception. In this example it is true that the participant was interacting with another person. The deception occurred because the other person was not another participant but rather a member of the research team, and the interaction was predetermined by an experimental script. In this and other cases, deception can often be seen in the “cover story” for the study, which provides the participant with a justification for the procedures and measures used. The ultimate goal of using deception in research is to ensure that the behaviors or reactions observed in a controlled laboratory setting are as close to those behaviors and reactions that occur outside of the laboratory setting.
Deception and Ethics
Since it is an ethical responsibility for participants to give informed consent, deception can be seen as a threat to the “informed” nature of consent. For this reason, deception can only be used in certain circumstances. The conditions for those circumstances are that (1) no other non-deceptive method exists to study the phenomenon of interest; (2) the study possesses significant contributions and; (3) the deception is not expected to cause significant harm or severe emotional distress. Whenever deception is used, it is the responsibility of the experimenter to fully debrief the participants at the end of the study by explaining the deception, including the reasons it was necessary and ensuring that participants are not emotionally harmed. In certain cases debriefing participants can actually increase the harm of deception by making participants feel tricked by pointing out perceived flaws. However, a thorough debriefing that alleviates distress and explains the deception is usually sufficient. Human subjects committees or Institutional Review Boards, which include researchers and lawyers that review and approve research at an institution must approve the use of deception to certify that it is both necessary and that a plan exists to debrief participants to remove and residual effects of the deception.
History in Social Psychology
The use of deception can be tied to the earliest experiments in social psychology, but began in earnest after World War II when social psychology began to prosper. In the 1960’s and 1970’s many of the most famous and most important social psychology studies involved deception. One famous example is Stanley Milgram’s studies of obedience in which the participants were told that they were to deliver strong electrical shocks to a participant sitting in the next room. The shocks were never administered, although the other person, who was a confederate, reacted as if they were. As a result of critiques of these types of studies, both the type and amount of deception used in current social psychology studies tends to be less extreme.
In the video, personal space (and personal space violations) are represented in a variety of contexts including in the elevator (Elevator Effect) and exhibited by "avatars" in Second Life, which is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003. The video implies that psychologists conduct research studies in Second Life by creating their own avatars and interacting with real people (their avatars) in the virtual world.
Was deception involved? The implication of the video is that the participants in Second Life are not aware that their interactions are actually manipulations from an experimenter or that their behavior is being recorded for a scientific study. Thus, the study is certainly involving deception since the researchers are intentionally omitting this essential information. The purpose of the deception is probably because the researchers assume that if the Second Life inhabitants were told that they are part of a psychology research study, then the inhabitants may not respond in a natural, normal manner. In other words, as describe above in the "Definition" section, the researchers are likely worried that participants would not act in a naturally spontaneous way and may therefore bias the results.
The researcher is likely following a carefully thought-out "script" in which they interact with each participant in the same way each time. The purpose is to identify if personal space violations occur in the virtual world in the same manner as the real world. How does this study correspond to the three circumstances in which deception can be used in the absence of informed consent (see Deception and Ethics section above): (1) the Second Life study could not exist without deceiving the participants about the true purpose of creating personal space violations. In other words, there is no other way to study this phenomenon in this context without the deception. (2) The assumption is that the study possesses significant contributions. (3) Does the deception cause significant harm or severe emotional stress? The recorded behavior is whether or not the avatar would back away to regain the sense of person space after perceiving the personal space violation from the experimenter. This behavior is brief, temporary, and causes no last harm or injury. Thus, the deception appears "ethical" given these three criteria. On the other hand, if the participant was repeatedly intruded by the researcher and/or somehow created emotional stress, then deception may not be warranted in this case.
Korn, J.H. (1997). Illusions of Reality: A History of Deception in Social Psychology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1979). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. Washington, DC.
Sieber, J.E. (1992). Planning Ethically Responsible Research: A Guide for Students and Internal Review Boards. Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol. 31. Newbury Park, Calif.: SAGE Publications, Inc.
◄ Back to Collecting Data page | <urn:uuid:ab68d244-e695-42f6-8cb3-4406ade4c00f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Deception_(methodological_technique) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00187-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943045 | 1,460 | 3.640625 | 4 |
On August 20th, on two separate years, two major probes in NASA’s unmanned planetary exploration mission were launched to the final frontier.
On August 20th, 1975, the Viking 1 probe launched aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket to begin a nearly-year-long journey to the Red Planet, Mars. Once there, a lander fell to the surface while a separate craft stayed in orbit. Together, they took pictures and data of the planet and its two moons. The Viking 1 lander stayed operational for over six Earth years.
Two years later, in 1977, the Voyager 2 spacecraft blasted off, also onboard a Titan rocket. This probe would make history—not only traveling to Jupiter and Saturn, but also becoming the first Earth spacecraft to travel to the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune. The mission of Voyager 2 to the planets took place over many years, and the probe is in fact, still operational after 35 years of service!
Ironically, one original proposal for what became the Viking Mars landers was called the Voyager program. | <urn:uuid:47eb12eb-cbd6-42c8-8e77-c655b3e3e0fd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wtvy.com/news/morningshow/morningsegmentheadlines/This-Day-in-History-August-20th-Viking-and-Voyager-Space-Launches-220298971.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958327 | 214 | 3.84375 | 4 |
Amid the hoopla over the Bill Nye-Ken Ham “debate” at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, Buzzfeed recently posted 22 messages from self-identified creationists. Here are responses to each of them.
1. “Bill Nye, are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?”
Many kids that watched Bill Nye developed a passion for knowledge that fueled their desire to become scientists (or science writers). There are many positive lessons you can learn from the Science Guy – curiosity, creativity and thoughtfulness, to name but a few.
2. “Are you scared of a Divine Creator?”
Are you scared of a universe that does not center on mankind (and, by extension, yourself)?
Continue Reading Below
3. “Is it completely illogical that the earth was created mature? i.e. trees created with rings… Adam created as an adult…”
Yes it is. The Big Bang was an extraordinary event, but there are lines of objective evidence that point towards its existence. There's no physical evidence to prove that a tree or a man can pop into being fully formed.
You could maybe argue that God shaped the universe 4,000 years ago but carefully formed it to just look like it’s billions of years old -- planting bones in the Earth and putting rings in trees and encoding our DNA to make us seem close to chimpanzees -- but that seems like a twisted vision of a Creator. Wouldn’t a deity have something better to do than to pull a massive, universe-wide scam?
4. “Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove Evolution?”
This is a common trope in creationism, but it’s based on a flawed understanding of thermodynamics. The second law says that the entropy – which, in the interests of simplification, we can think of as “disorder” – in a closed system will increase with time. So if it’s a natural law things get more disordered, then evolution must be impossible because it has created more and more complex (or “ordered”) forms over time!
But the key to the second law is that “in a closed system” part. Just as no man is an island, he is not a closed system – and neither is an ape, or a single-celled amoeba. The universal trend might be increasing disorder, but there’s a lot of small scale increases in order everywhere, both through natural and manmade processes. These are accompanied by increases in disorder elsewhere in the universe – the system balances itself.
So how does this specifically relate to evolution? Organisms are not closed systems because they interact with the environment; on a macro scale this turns into the process of natural selection. Random genetic mutations might be “disorderly,” but because life exists in an environment, some mutations are beneficial and are more likely to be passed on, while mutations that confer disadvantages are less likely to propagate through the gene pool. So, through evolution, some order emerges out of disorder (but keep in mind it’s still a messy, wild process).
You can see examples of “ordering” happening all the time in the natural world.
“Consider what happens when the weather changes and it gets colder outside,” Cornell astronomer Dave Rothstein explains. “Cold air has less entropy than warm air - basically, it is more ‘ordered’ because the molecules aren't moving around as much and have fewer places they can be. So the entropy in your local part of the universe has decreased, but as long as that is accompanied by an increase in entropy somewhere else.”
5. “How do you explain a sunset if their [sic] is no God?”
The Earth rotates on its axis, making it so the sun appears to move through the sky. Once every 24 hours, the center of the solar disc will appear to move below the western horizon. That is a sunset.
To go a little further: the various fiery colors in the sky at sunset are caused by light scattering. At sunset, the angle of Earth and Sun is such that the light has to travel through more of our atmosphere to reach your eyes. Shorter wavelengths of light are more likely bounce off of molecules in the atmosphere, so when sunlight has to travel through a longer stretch of air, the bluer end of the spectrum bounces out while other colors continue on. Red has the longest wavelength of visible light, so that’s why the sun usually looks red when it’s right on the horizon – it’s the only color that can make it through all the haze of Earth’s atmosphere at that extreme angle.
6. “If the Big Bang Theory is true and taught as science along with evolution, why do the laws of thermodynamics debunk said theories?”
Basically the same answer as #4, with a slight twist. At the start, the universe in its compressed form would seem to be at near-maximum entropy -- a dense, homogenous gas. But the "organization" of the universe into its current form also generates disorder:
"The solution here is that because the universe is expanding it keeps getting shifted out of equilibrium," Case Western Reserve University physicist Mano Singham writes. "In the drive to reach a new equilibrium state, you can get pockets of order occurring without violating the second law, because the maximum allowable entropy also keeps increasing."
Singham also has a good piece on why the Big Bang also doesn't violate the first law of thermodynamics (energy in a closed system cannot be created or destroyed), because it did not require an input of energy -- the negative gravitational potential energy exactly cancels out the positive energy represented by matter.
"It is not the case that something came out of nothing," Singham writes. "It is that we have always had zero energy."
7. “What about Noetics?”
What about it? “Noetics” is a philosophical school concerned with consciousness and spirituality, often with Christian overtones. The concept is most widely known from a mention in Dan Brown’s novel “The Lost Symbol.” It’s not evidence against evolution.
Many branches of science are interested in the question of consciousness, sentience, and how these qualities might evolve. There is actually an interesting, if a bit wild, proposition in theoretical physics that consciousness might be another state of matter.
8. “Where do you derive objective meaning in life?”
From many of the same places that you probably do. But this is irrelevant to the question of whether evolution is true or not. Should we try and shape facts to fit a certain philosophy, or figure out the facts and consider how this affects our worldview?
9. “If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate? By chance?”
Yes, sort of. But keep in mind that evolution isn’t like the roll of a single die that is Life or No Life. It’s more like trillions upon trillions of dice being rolled for billions of years. The conditions of early Earth happened to weight some of those dice in such a way that Life came up.
And scientists don’t think that a single-celled organism just suddenly popped into being. Simple molecules can arise spontaneously in the right conditions – experiments show that it’s possible to whip up a big batch of amino acid soup from the conditions existing on early Earth, perhaps sparked by lightning storms or through undersea chemical reactions near hydrothermal vents. Over time, aggregates of these molecules formed and developed protective coatings, and began finding new ways to replicate themselves.
10. “I believe in the Big Bang Theory… God said it and BANG it happened!”
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
11. “Why do evolutionists / secularists /huminists [sic] / non-God believing people reject the idea of their [sic] being a Creator God but embrace the concept of intelligent design from aliens or other extra-terrestrial sources?”
They don’t. Perhaps you’ve confused the movie “Prometheus” with a nature documentary?
There is a hypothesis* called panspermia that posits life on Earth might have been first seeded by organisms or material that flew in on the backs of asteroids, comets, and meteorites, but this is not “intelligent design” or a theory that aliens created life. It’s just a hypothetical process, akin to when animals or plants wash up on remote islands and proceed to populate them.
12. “There is no in between [fossil?]… the only one found has been Lucy and there are only a few pieces of the hundreds necessary for an ‘official proof’.”
Simply false. There are thousands of hominid fossils that have been discovered – not all direct ancestors of Homo sapiens, but cousins of a sort. ("Lucy," the nickname for a 3.2 million year old Austrolopithecus afarensis specimen discovered in 1974, is still a pretty impressive find. Paleontologists managed to find about 40 percent of her skeleton; usually they can only find bits and fragments of individuals.)
Also, keep in mind that not every living thing becomes a fossil – they’re actually quite rare. You need very specific conditions for fossilization to occur. The Earth is also very big, and paleontologists have only dug up an incredibly small fraction of it.
13. “Does metamorphosis help support evolution?”
Metamorphosis is not micro-evolution; it’s a series of developmental stages in a single organism. Here is a good article on the evolution of metamorphosis in insects.
14. “If Evolution is a Theory (like creationism or the Bible) why then is Evolution taught as fact.”
The idea that diseases are caused by germs is a theory too, yet most medical schools tend to spend much more time on antibiotics and hygiene than on faith healing. Most science classes don’t teach evolution “as fact”; it is taught as a scientific theory. And in this case, “theory” doesn’t mean “a bunch of wild ideas that Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye cooked up after a late night at the pub”; it means an explanation supported by massive amounts of physical evidence and logic, tested and weighed and re-tested and scrutinized by scientists across the world.
Creationism is not a scientific theory. A scientific theory can be altered or disposed of if new, convincing evidence arises; creationism ignores or selectively misinterprets existing scientific evidence in favor of preserving the assumption of a divine creator.
15. “Because science by definition is a ‘theory’ – not testable, observable, nor repeatable [--] why do you object to creationism or intelligent design being taught in school?”
That definition of theory is wrong (see Answer 14). Observation and testing is actually pretty much the entire thing that science is about.
16. “What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?”
I don't quite understand this one, but here's a shot: mutations arise in the normal course of DNA replication and other genetic processes; natural selection weeds out most of the bad ones and keeps out most of the good ones. (Also, see Answer 4.)
Update 2/6/2014 10:26 am: Thanks to commenters below for adding additional possible interpretations of the question.
So this seems to be a common creationist argument: evolution cannot be real because mutations don't "add information." In their view, it's impossible to get from a tiny microorganism that has a very small genome to a human with about 20,000 protein-coding genes through mutations. This is kind of an extension of the entropy argument.
But there are actually plenty of ways that mutations can "add information" to the genome! A region of DNA might be copied and inserted into the genome due to an error during replication, or by a virus. Sometimes even a whole genome can get duplicated -- many plants are what are called polyploids, meaning they have multiple copies of their whole genetic library (cultivated strawberries, for example, are octoploids -- they have 8 copies of their genome in every cell!)
Duplication is thought to be a powerful engine for evolution. A creature might retain an original version of the copied gene, while the other copy might undergo some point mutations (changes to a single letter of the DNA sequence). The organism still has the functional, original gene that allows it to keep on truckin', while the other copy may gain new functionalities.
17. “What purpose do you think you are here for if you do not believe in Salvation?”
Like questions 2 & 8, this question is irrelevant to the larger question of whether evolution is true or not.
But this is also a false dichotomy; there are plenty of scientists that identify as religious and don’t see a conflict between evolution and their beliefs. Does the concept of Salvation really hinge on whether or not humans evolved over time?
18. “Why have we found only 1 ‘Lucy’ when we have found more than 1 of everything else?”
Scientists have actually found at least nine specimens of Austrolopithecus afarensis (the species “Lucy” belongs to) in Eastern Africa. Also see Answer 12.
19. “Can you believe in ‘the big bang’ without ‘faith’?”
Yes, because there are multiple lines of evidence supporting the theory.
Astronomical observations show that galaxies are moving away from each other, and if we trace their paths backward, it looks as though the Universe was condensed into a single, very hot point billions of years ago. The ratios of hydrogen, helium and other elements throughout the Universe appear to match what we might expect if the Universe was once compressed into a tiny, very hot, very dense point. We haven’t found any stars that appear to be older than 13.8 billion years old. The cosmic background radiation permeating throughout the universe is at the temperature that one would expect from an expanding, cooling universe.
20. “How can you look at the world and not believe someone created / thought of it? It’s Amazing!!!”
Most scientists find evolution pretty amazing and beautiful! It’s exciting to think about how life in all its vast, varied beauty and terror, has changed over billions of years – and how it might change in future eons.
21. “Relating to the big bang theory… where did the exploding star come from?”
Barring the fact that the Big Bang isn’t quite the same thing as an exploding star—it’s massively hotter, for one thing, and stars explode in space, while the Big Bang created space itself and stretched it -- a lot of scientists would like to know this too!
One idea*, for example, is that the Big Bang was actually the interaction between two vast objects outside of our universe called “branes.” It’s an important question, and a difficult one to explore – but one of the great things about science is that you can always say “I don’t know”; another is to follow that up with “but I’ll try and find out.”
22. “If we come from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?”
Humans are not direct descendants of modern monkeys or apes; we both evolved from a common ancestor. Evolution isn’t a straight line from one organism to the next; it’s more like a great branching tree. This infographic, created by a Reddit user named SlipperyFish, has a good rundown:
*Clarification 2/6/2014, 9:27 a.m.: I initially called panspermia and branes "theories," but commenters rightly pointed out that these don't meet the same standard of scientific theory that evolution does! There's not enough evidence for them yet. | <urn:uuid:4bbcbbf5-7bb8-485b-9313-1baeddd52bc6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ibtimes.com/22-responses-buzzfeeds-22-messages-creationists-evolution-origin-life-1553534 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945606 | 3,442 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Divide or Move Daylilies
Older varieties of daylilies can usually go for many years without needing division, but newer hybrids perform best when divided every 4-5 years. Repeat blooming daylilies will put on the best show when divided even more frequently, every 2-3 years. Use two spading forks back to back to pry apart the crowns of daylily plants.
Fertilize Lawns in Early Fall
The best time to fertilize the cool season lawn grasses we grow in our region is in early fall. To both benefit turf the most and reduce the likelihood of fertilizer runoff polluting nearby waterways, put down fertilizer by September 15 in northern parts of New England and by October 15 in southern parts. Don't put down more than one pound of actual nitrogen per 1000 square feet in one application. Choose a fertilizer with at least 50% of its nitrogen in slow-release or water-insoluble form and without phosphorus unless a soil test indicates a soil deficiency.
Sow Grass Seed
Now is a good time to sow seed for a new lawn, to fill in bare spots, or to overseed a lawn that is thin. Grass seed germinates readily in warm soil and the young plants will continue to grow well in the cooler, wetter fall weather after frost has killed off the annual weeds that are competing with them. Wait until September to fertilize established lawns.
Let Herbs Go to Seed
Let your last planting of annual herbs such as dill, cilantro, caraway, and chervil go to seed. The flowers will attract beneficial insects and the seeds that fall to the ground will self-sow, giving you a new crop of plants to harvest from early next season.
Sow Cover Crops as Garden Beds Empty
As summer crops finish bearing and space in beds begins to open up, sow a cover crop to help protect soil over the winter and add organic matter. Annual rye and oats are good choices that usually die over the winter in our region. The killed tops provide winter soil cover and the roots and tops add organic matter to the soil. You don't need to turn them under to kill them in the spring and wait for them to decompose before spring planting, as you do with hardier cover crops like winter rye that survive the winter. | <urn:uuid:9e519feb-d13b-4166-8b40-3e805b1681a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://garden.org/regional/report/arch/reminders/3879 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943328 | 478 | 2.703125 | 3 |
My child has
The IDS pharmacy is made up of pharmacy staff that is responsible for preparing and dispensing the medicine your child will be taking during the clinical research study.
An investigational drug pharmacist as well as other medical center staff pharmacists and certified pharmacy technicians.
IDS has taken many steps to prepare and dispense your child's study medicine. These steps can take more than an hour, depending on the study. The steps are explained in further detail below.The IDS pharmacist receives a prescription for your child's study medicine and reviews the order to make sure it's correct. The pharmacist will confirm the dose based on your child's height and weight, and according to the protocol. They will then review your child's medicine history to make sure there won't be interactions with other medications. Finally, they will review lab test results, if needed.
Once the order is verified, the study medication is entered into the computer system which creates a prescription label for your child's medicine.
If your child is taking a study medicine by mouth, it will be prepared and labeled in the main Cook Children's pharmacy. If your child is receiving a study medication through an IV, it will be prepared and labeled in a special mixing area using sterile techniques.
The pharmacist must then record every vial, tablet, capsule or liquid medication into the investigational drug inventory log. This log is required for the pharmaceutical company sponsoring the study and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) upon request. The IDS pharmacist spends several hours each week documenting inventory and dosages dispensed to patients on drug accountability logs.
We ask you to return all medicine containers, even empty ones, to follow the requirements of the pharmaceutical company sponsor, as well as state and federal regulations regarding the accountability of study medications. These returned containers are recorded in the drug accountability log which is given to the regulatory agencies.
A placebo is a medicine or intervention that is not expected to make a certain disease or condition better. Placebos will usually look like the real treatment medicine, but it does not contain the actual drug. A sugar pill is a good example of a placebo.
A placebo helps researchers separate placebo effects from the actual effects of the drug or treatment being studied.
Our mind is a powerful thing and sometimes our own expectations and beliefs that a medication or treatment will make us feel better, can actually affect how our body responds to the treatment. Basically, if we believe the treatment is going to make us feel better, then we will actually start to feel better. This is called the placebo effect.
When studying a new medicine or intervention, it is important for researchers to compare these placebo effects to the actual effects seen from the drug. This allows researchers to decide whether the actual drug being studied is effective.
During the study, if an investigational medicine seems to work well, the researcher may stop using the placebo. This decision depends on many factors including the interventions being studied, the medicine and the illness. These decisions will vary from one study to another. You can ask the doctor this question when you are considering participation in a study.
Randomization divides the research participants into groups. One group (the experimental group) will receive the treatment, medicine or test and the other group (the control group) will be the comparison group and does NOT receive the treatment or test being studied. The children in the control group may receive no treatment at all, the standard treatment for the disease or a placebo. This will depend on the study.
Randomization is often the best way for researchers to have study groups that have similar characteristics, including age and ethnicity. These similar characteristics allow researchers to compare the results at the end of a study.
The use of new medicine takes place in controlled clinical trials designed to find out how safe and effective the medicine is. Sometimes, patients do not qualify for these trials because of other health problems, age or for other reasons. The Food and Drug Administration has created special exceptions for these patients that may benefit from the medicine but do not qualify for the trials. These exceptions allow the makers of investigational medicines to provide "expanded access" use of the drug. This means the drug might be used outside of a clinical trial. These “expanded access protocols” are only allowed if researchers are actively studying the new medicine or treatment in well-controlled studies, or all studies have been finished. There must also be evidence that the medicine may be an effective treatment in these patients and can't expose patients to unreasonable risks.
A treatment IND (Investigational New Drug) or treatment protocol is a relatively unrestricted study. It provides access to a new medicine for people with a life-threatening or serious disease for which there is no other good treatment. Another reason for a treatment IND is to get additional information about the medicine, especially its safety.
Medical research may seem a lot like your child's current medical therapy. For example, both usually occur in a hospital or clinic setting, health care workers (doctors, nurses, etc) are usually involved in providing care and both present some potential risk. However, there are differences in how medical research and medical therapy are conducted. It is important to recognize and understand these differences when making a decision about whether or not your child should participate in a study.
The focus of medical therapy is to give medical care and manage your child's illness or injury and improve his or her health. The direct benefit to your child is the main goal. In medical research, the main focus is to gain information which can be used to improve treatment for all children. This means that the direct benefit for your child is not the main goal. However, it is not uncommon for some research to offer health benefits to children that are participating.
It is also important to realize that if the research involves any significant risk, the balance of the risk to your child versus the benefit to your child must be at least as good as it is for the current standard therapy they would receive.
When a child receives medical therapy, treatment may be adjusted to meet the needs of the individual child. For instance, one drug may be substituted for another or the timing and how the drug is given may be changed to meet the needs of that child. When conducting a medical research study, it is important for the study to meet its scientific goals. This can only be done when the treatments of the children in the study follow the exact study design or protocol. If parents want to change treatments that are not allowed according to the protocol, you can withdraw your child from the study at any time. However, it is important to keep in mind that there may be potential benefits for your child when following the protocol.
In medical therapy, parents agree to treatments to make their own child's health better. When children participate in medical research, parents give their permission to participate in the study. Parents may do this for several reasons, some of which include the hope that it will benefit their child, but that it may also help other children suffering with the same medical issue.
In medical therapy AND medical research, health care providers are involved in the care and treatment of the child. In medical therapy, the primary responsibility of health care providers is to treat your child's illness and improve your child's health. When conducting medical research, health care providers are also required to follow the study protocol.
When considering participation in medical research, it is also important to think about parental responsibilities which might include:
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Worried about the cows that are fed corn, which makes them sick? Well, no need to worry any more; some farmers are now feeding their cows candy.
No, this isn’t a candy corn joke gone wrong. Because of the rising prices of corn caused by the drought conditions across the U.S., at least one rancher in Kentucky is feeding his cows candy “seconds” mixed with an ethanol by-product and a mineral nutrient.
Joseph Watson, owner of United Livestock Commodities in Mayfield, Kentucky told a local news station that he is buying candy that’s unfit to be sold to people and is feeding it to his cows. He says that he monitors the blend of feed for fat content, and that the cows are not showing any health problems and are gaining weight as they should.
A Texas news station website has photos of cows eating what appear to be ribbons of brightly colored candy.
The extreme drought conditions that have plagued the U.S. have begun to affect the country’s corn and soybean supplies. Most of these crops were never directly destined for consumers’ dinner tables, but rather for the feed troughs of cows, pigs, and chickens. Because of the increased cost of feed, meat, egg, and milk prices are projected to rise.
Is this a case of a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, or will there be unintended consequences of beef raised on the Willy Wonka diet?
Image by Ninha Morandini | <urn:uuid:1ddd9347-4bb1-4da9-b48e-bf3d42583d10> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/the-environment/rancher-feeds-cows-candy-to-cut-costs-drought/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967222 | 313 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Older, Wiser, Wider?
Call it what you will: the battle of the bulge, middle-age spread, the waistline war. Somewhere in that busy time between 30 and 40, the forces of nature—children, work, time—gang up on you. One day you notice last season's clothes are a little uncomfortable this time around. All this comes at a time when age is less acceptable as an excuse for gaining weight. Just look at the current U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which make no allowance for getting heavier through the years. Getting older doesn't have to mean getting wider, the experts say. The first step in the fight against flab is knowing your opponent. Take the following quiz to find out how well armed you are.
1. Middle-age spread is an increasing accumulation of:
You didn't answer this question.
The correct answer is
The increase in fat puts you at higher risk for high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. A healthy weight is possible with regular physical activity that includes aerobic (“cardio”) activities, such as brisk walking, golfing, yard work, bicycling, and swimming, and muscle-strengthening exercises, balanced with a healthy diet. And you can do more than just manage your weight. According to federal guidelines, getting at least 2-1/2 hours a week of moderate-intensity activity like brisk walking can lower risk for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, and colon and breast cancers.
Your score was: | <urn:uuid:29408ee6-2e3f-4a82-854a-2bf78452ee35> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sjo.org/Health-Library/Article.aspx?CT=40&C=OlderWiserWiderQuiz | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00117-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9534 | 329 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Israel's Secret Project: Super-Battery To Reduce World's Oil Thirst
Quietly and with little media coverage, it seems that Israel has made it its national goal to develop a battery that can provide enough power for a 500 kilometer-drive with a single charge.
One month ago, the Israeli National Center for Electrochemical Propulsion was founded. The center will be inaugurated within the next weeks and will receive a budget of 45 million NIS (approximately $11.7 million) for the next four years.
The center will include one hundred researchers divided into 12 teams from four academic institutions: Tel Aviv University, The Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), Bar Ilan University and Ariel University Center of Samaria.
The center's sole purpose will be to research and develop new technologies to more effectively store electricity.
"Oil has no future, both because of politics and because of future shortages," said the chairman of the center, Prof. Doron Urbach from Bar Ilan's Department of Chemistry. "There has been a change in mindset in politicians that has permeated into the automotive industry and has gone all the way to battery manufacturers. They all want electric cars. In fact, it is already possible to drive for 150 kilometers with an electric car, which is enough for the average Israeli, and yet want to increase it."
Article continues at ENN affiliate, NoCamels
Image credit: NoCamels | <urn:uuid:c82d98f9-5fde-4166-acea-c48ef85b092e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enn.com/energy/article/44528/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962515 | 292 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Image Collection: Viral Skin Diseases
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13. Picture of Infectious Mononucleosis
Infectious mononucleosis, or "mono" as it is commonly referred to, is a viral illness that causes extreme fatigue, fever, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and sore throat. It is sometimes called “the kissing disease” because it spreads easily through saliva. The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) causes most cases of mono, although other viruses may cause the illness. Severe cases of mono may cause inflammation of the liver or spleen. If the spleen is enlarged, it is important to avoid vigorous physical activity and contact sports to reduce the risk of spleen rupture.
The illness is usually less severe when it occurs in childhood. It tends to be more severe in teens and young adults. Mono typically lasts for 2 to 4 weeks. Some individuals suffer from it for many months. Most adults have EBV antibodies in their blood indicating prior infection. Stress or depressed immunity may cause EBV reactivation.
Text Reference: "Epstein-Barr Virus and Infectious Mononucleosis." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Guide to understanding the Image Gallery categories: | <urn:uuid:10158012-13fe-47cb-ad86-7c05922561ca> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.emedicinehealth.com/image-gallery/infectious_mononucleosis_picture/images.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.862021 | 439 | 3.6875 | 4 |
7 Facts About Hairballs
April 26 is National Hairball Awareness Day. To celebrate, we've hacked up a few facts about everyone's least favorite cat treat.
1. It's hairballs. Trichobezoars, if you're nasty.
A hairball by any other name is still gross. In this case, the scientific term is trichobezoar. The root, trich, is Greek for "hair." A bezoar is any mass found in the stomach or intestines. It comes from the Persian word for "antidote."
Animal hairballs were once thought to cure epilepsy, the plague, and poisoning. (But alas, have never been aphrodisiacs.) During the Middle Ages, hairballs were even set in gold. In 2011, jewelry designer Heidi Abrahamson created cat hair jewelry for Modern Cat founder Kate Benjamin to celebrate National Hairball Awareness Day. The hair for these accessories was shed, not vomited, but it still pulls off that "Is this art, or is it gross?" look.
2. Some cats are hairball-ier than others.
When they're not eating, sleeping, or starring in Internet videos, cats like to groom. A lot. Hairballs happen when indigestible hair is swallowed and builds up in the stomach. In a healthy cat, hair passes through the digestive tract just fine and reappears later in the litter box. But sometimes the hair forms a mass that has to be regurgitated. Thanks to the esophagus, hairballs usually look like tubes of hair, not balls.
All cats groom, but not all cats get hairballs. Obviously, long-haired cats have more hair to swallow, so they're more likely to have a hack attack. Kittens don't really get hairballs, either. In addition to having less fur, they don't groom themselves as thoroughly. So which of your cats is responsible for that mysterious hairball on your bedroom floor? Blame the older, more fastidious one.
Or your pet lion. Lion hairballs are especially furr-ocious.
3. Hairballs are seasonal.
Flowers in bloom, chirping birds, retching cats—they're all signs of spring. Hairballs are especially common as cats shed their winter coats.
4. Healthy cats have one to two hairballs ... a year.
"The bottom line about hairballs is they are not normal," says Dr. Jane Brunt, a feline veterinarian and executive director of the CATalyst Council. "The cat has developed a digestive tract that can handle normal amounts of fur without a problem. Even long-haired cats should not develop more than one or two hairballs a year.”
And don't assume all cat coughing or vomiting can be blamed on hairballs. It could be a sign of another medical issue, like an allergy or skin or intestinal disorder.
5. Hairballs today, gone tomorrow.
More than two hairballs a year is cause for concern. But don't worry: There are a number of remedies out there. Many hairball-fighting cat treats contain flavored indigestible mineral oil or petroleum jelly, which keeps everything lubricated. Some cat owners skip the fancy stuff and just put Vaseline on their kitty's nose, so he or she will lick it off. Switching to a high-fiber cat food is also helpful. You can do it yourself by feeding your cat canned pumpkin.
But food's not everything. Brushing your cat or seeking professional grooming help also makes a big difference. Dr. Brunt suggests using brushing as a reward. “It has two positive outcomes," she says. “First, your cat will have a lovely coat when properly brushed, and second, you may prevent your cat from becoming overweight if you are using brushing as a reward rather than treats.”If you're really feeling ambitious, you can even try this...
6. Where there's a mammal, there's hair. And where there's hair, there's hairballs.
Hairballs aren't just for cats. Cows and rabbits are especially prone to them, but their bodies aren't designed to vomit them up. They often go undiscovered until an animal's untimely death. Talk about a bad hair day.
Humans also get hairballs. People with trichotillomania, the compulsion to pull out their hair, sometimes experience trichophagia, the compulsion to eat hair. Trichobezoars can cause severe stomach pain. Sometimes hairballs grow so big over the years that they extend beyond the stomach into the colon, a rare intestinal condition called Rapunzel Syndrome. Trust us, it's one fairytale no one wants to comes true.
7. These hairballs are nothing to cough at.
If a hairball gets too big, it may require surgical removal. In January 2012, a British cat named Gemma went under the knife when a tumor the "size of two cricket balls" prevented her from eating. But it wasn't a tumor. (Please read that in your best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.) It was a five-inch wide hairball that weighed 7.5 ounces and, incidentally, looked like a newborn puppy. | <urn:uuid:6aeeb184-df7a-4519-a8d2-ff7a70cca61c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mentalfloss.com/article/50303/7-facts-about-hairballs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958826 | 1,081 | 2.8125 | 3 |
The City of Edo and the Edo Period (1615-1868)
Media only: Megan Krefting 202-633-0271; [email protected]
Public only: 202.633.1000
March 22, 2012
Edo (present-day Tokyo) was probably the most populous city in the world during much of the 18th century. Its population was approximately one million inhabitants.
The early 17th-century settlement of Edo was the result of deliberate measures undertaken by the shogun, or feudal overlords, to create an imposing metropolis. Samurai were ordered to move from the countryside with their lords and reside within the precincts of the new capital. The resulting frenzied construction and reconstruction of the majestic Edo Castle, the large-scale building of samurai residential quarters, and temples and shrines at the city’s periphery, subsequently lured craftsmen in large numbers. Unprecedented levels of consumption also attracted goods and workers from throughout Japan. Diverse opportunities for employment—as servants, shopkeepers, entertainers, hired laborers, or apprentices in nascent industries such as publishing—lured migrants from near and far. During the 18th century, the largest wooden city in the world experienced a series of disastrous fires. Between 1703 and 1721, Edo’s two largest theaters burned to the ground eight times and more than one-third of the city went up in flames in 1772.
The city of Kyoto was Japan's ancient capital, serving as the seat of the imperium from the late eighth century until the end of the Edo period in 1868. Whereas Edo served as the new locus of political power with the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, Kyoto maintained its vibrant role as a repository of traditional cultural knowledge and artistic practices throughout the premodern period. Against this backdrop, innovative artists from Kyoto's mercantile community—such as Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716) and Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800)—emerged during the Edo period.
It is estimated that more than 25 percent of the total land area in Japan belonged to temples and shrines during the 18th century.
Artists in the Edo period worked in many media. A famous artist such as Ogata Kōrin was as likely to paint on a ceramic bowl or a woman’s kimono as to design a lacquer box or paint on paper or silk.
Strict sumptuary laws in Edo Japan were designed to limit the conspicuous display of wealth by the merchant class. For example, merchants were not allowed to have household articles with gold lacquer decorations, use gold and silver leaf in their structures, build three-story houses, have elaborate weddings, or wear long swords or large short swords
In Edo Japan, rice was such an important commodity that it was used for samurai stipends and formed the basis of the economy. As living standards increased, a greater percentage of the population could use rice as the primary source of food. As such, the farmer and rice cultivation became symbols in Japanese art for economic prosperity, peace, and stability as well as for the simple rural life.
The art of the Edo period speaks to viewers in the West in a direct and powerful way, not only for its inherent qualities but also because so much of its aesthetic concurs with what we consider modern. Late 19th- and early 20th-century Japanese art, especially color woodblock prints, had a strong influence on artists such as Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec.
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Washington, DC 20013-7012 | <urn:uuid:9f591f0d-7fb6-49d2-b981-96b4bf26c585> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.asia.si.edu/press/2012/edo-fact-sheet.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96425 | 782 | 4.0625 | 4 |
On December 4, 2014, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a unique laser beam mapping invention. A future mapping application for an iDevice like an iPhone will use a laser sensor and laser beam to gather measurements of a room that includes shapes, distances, attributes of environmental objects and volume. While Apple's patent application provides us with an overview of the technical of the invention, they never really reveal the many applications that this invention could be applied to in the future. More than likely Apple will expand upon this invention in the future so as to provide us with more insight as to how consumers will be able to take advantage of this new laser beam system for iDevices that cover everything from an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. While Apple is careful to not mention the word 3D, the nature of the measurements would suggest that the data collected in three axis mode would create a 3D model. It's definitely one of Apple's most interesting inventions of the year.
Apple's Patent Background
Laser distance measuring devices include a laser and a sensor. The laser generates a laser beam that is reflected off of surfaces such as walls in a room. By detecting the reflected beam, a device can measure the distance to the surface. This type of laser distance measuring device sometimes includes area or volume measuring capabilities. For example, in a volume measuring mode, the device may instruct a user to sequentially measure the width, length, and height of a room using the device. The device can then compute a volume using the measured width, length, and height.
Conventional laser measuring devices measure only the distance from the device to a given surface. These devices are unable to measure distances between multiple points that are separate from the device and therefore require the user to place the device is specific locations for which measurements are desired. This can be difficult in, for example, a furnished room with items that restrict access to all parts of the room.
Additionally, these devices can be bulky pieces of equipment that require batteries or battery packs and must be purchased and transported separately from other equipment and electronic devices.
It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved electronic devices with mapping circuitry.
Apple Invents iDevices with Laser Mapping Circuitry
Apple's invention generally relates to electronic devices and, more particularly, to electronic devices with mapping circuitry for measuring sizes, shapes, distances, and other attributes of environmental objects.
The mapping circuitry may include a laser sensor and positioning circuitry such as device position detection circuitry. The laser sensor may include a light-emitting component and a light sensor. The light-emitting component may be a coherent light source such as a laser. The light sensor may be configured to detect reflected portions of the light emitted by the light-emitting component.
The positioning circuitry may include one or more accelerometers, one or more gyroscopes, satellite navigation system receiver circuitry such as Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver circuitry or other circuitry for determining and monitoring the position and orientation of the device.
During mapping operations, a user may select a mapping application using the display (e.g., using touch sensors in a touch-sensitive display). The mapping application may be implemented using software running on processing circuitry in the device.
The mapping application may receive device position data from the positioning circuitry and laser sample data from the laser sensor. Laser sample data may be gathered by pointing the laser at a location on a surface and gathering sensor data using the light sensor. Laser sample data may be gathered while pointing the laser at multiple sample points on a single surface, at multiple sample points on multiple surfaces, may be continuously gathered while moving the laser across one or more surfaces, etc. For each sample point at which laser data is gathered, device position data from the positioning circuitry (e.g., accelerometer data and gyroscope data) may also be gathered.
Apple's mapping application may combine the gathered laser sample data and the gathered device position data to generate sample position data for each sample point. The sample position data for multiple sample points may be combined to form surface data, area data, volume data, distance data, square footage data, virtual images of a surface, virtual images of a room, virtual images of a structure or other object or may other mapping data. The mapping data may be stored and/or displayed to a user.
As shown in the side view of FIG. 3, a laser sensor such as laser sensor #32 may be mounted on circuitry such as printed circuit within the housing of the device. When the device is in a mapping mode operation, a user may push button #43 which will activate a laser sensor to generate laser beam or may cause circuitry in the device to gather sample data such as a sample of laser data and a sample of device position data.
In the example of patent FIG. 3 above, the laser sensor emits a laser beam through the audio jack opening #22. However, this is merely illustrative. If desired, the laser sensor may emit a laser beam through any suitable opening in the iPhone be it the housing or through the display.
In general, Apple's patent FIG. 4 shown below is a diagram showing how a device may use a laser beam to gather sample data at one or more sample points on one or more surfaces from one or more positions.
During operation in a mapping mode, the laser beam may be used to measure distances to surfaces of objects as shown in the diagram of FIG. 4 below. As shown in FIG. 4, the device may emit a laser beam in the direction of surfaces such as walls 36 and 38. For example, a user may point the laser beam at a first point such as point P1 and then press the button #43 to activate sampling of data at each sample point. However, this is merely illustrative. If desired, virtual controls such as virtual button #135 may be displayed on the device's display during mapping operations.
Activating sampling of data may include gathering a sample of data while pulsing the laser beam gathering a sample of data while the laser beam is continuously illuminated, continuously gathering samples of data while the pulsing laser beam continuously gathers sample data.
The device may be used to gather laser sample data and device position data while the device is at device position DP1 and the laser beam is aimed at point P1. The user may then move the device in a direction such as direction #137 to position DP2 so that the laser beam is pointed at sample point P2 and so forth.
Apple's patent FIG. 5 noted below is a diagram showing how a device may use a laser beam to gather sample data at one or more sample points on a curved surface from one or more positions.
Apple's patent FIG. 6 noted below is a diagram showing how a device may use a laser beam to gather sample data for volumetric measurements from one or more positions in a room.
Apple's patent FIG. 8 below is a diagram showing how a laser sensor may provide laser data to a mapping application and other applications; FIG. 9 is a flow diagram showing how laser sample data and device position data may be combined to form mapping data
According to Apple, the new laser mapping system may apply to cellular telephones, media players, other handheld portable devices, somewhat smaller portable devices such as wrist-watch devices, pendant devices, or other wearable or miniature devices, gaming equipment, tablet computers, notebook computers, or other electronic equipment.
Apple credits Vivek Katiyar, Andrzej, Dhaval Shah and Stephen Lynch as the inventors of patent application 20140357316 which was originally filed in Q2 2013. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
Maybe it's just me, but after reviewing the invention, "Beam me up Scotty," came to mind when thinking of its use with Apple Watch.
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Patently Apple presents a detailed summary of patent applications with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for full and accurate details. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 8pm MST and sporadically over the weekend. | <urn:uuid:7f55a548-e6d2-4a19-82d5-af0ab62b10c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2014/12/apple-invents-a-laser-beam-mapping-system-for-idevices.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00035-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918445 | 1,754 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Categorizing: Fruit Bowl Mixup!
Categorizing different kinds of objects, and sorting healthy food from sweets, are both important skills for young learners. This fun printable does both! Your child will have to tell which of the food items belong in the fruit bowl, and which are to be saved for special occasions. Then, he'll cut and paste to complete the healthy food harvest! Great for practicing a variety of kindergarten level skills, this printable is also loads of fun. | <urn:uuid:5750b546-e617-4458-a76c-91085f36e85e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/fruit-bowl-mixup/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955649 | 100 | 2.875 | 3 |
The Photos from Lac Chauvet, France
The Lac Chauvet photos first appeared in Aime Michel's "The Truth about Flying Saucers," which showed a clear discoid object. The photos were taken by M. Fregnale on July 18, 1952, who would remain convinced until his death that he had seen, and taken pictures, of some natural phenomenon. He believed that an extraterrestrial origin for the disc was impossible because of the large interstellar distances between star systems [Michel, 1957]. Only in 1994 were these photos subjected to a careful and detailed examination by Dr. Guerin, a professor at the Institute d'Astrophysique in Paris.
Picture of UFO near lac Chauvet, France, July 18, 1952 by André Fregnale. The image investigation by Claude Poher, director of the GEPAN, concludes that the photograph is not a fraud but a genuine ufo.
Guerin, Pierre, "A Scientific Analysis of Four Photographs of a Flying Disk Near Lac Chauvet," Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 8, No. 4, Article 1, 1994, pp. 447-469.
A Scientific Analysis of Four Photographs of a Flying Disk Near Lac Chauvet (France)
Pierre Guerin, Institut d'Astrophysique, Paris, France
A series of four photographs of a disk-shaped object apparently flying in the sky was physically analyzed. Certain details led us to develop a mathematical model of the supposed trajectory. The model was validated by measurements on the photographs, which demonstrated that the disk was distant from the camera, flying along a straight and horizontal trajectory, and was not a fabrication.
The Chauvet Lake UFO
Andre Fregnale, an engineer and photographer, walked around France's Lake Chauvet on July 18, 1952, for a great many hours taking pictures of a UFO that came out of the Northwest sky. The sky was clear and luminous and the UFO moved in the heavens at an altitude of 1,000 meters for several hours. The film was developed and analyzed by Pierre Guerin, a well respected astronomer and confirmed the UFO object as real. The photographs have been scrutinized by many experts and all have found them to be real shots of a real UFO.
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Are you tired from slow perfomance of your computer. Let's Talk About Some Ways To Increase Memory Perfomance. Although A Large Amount Of RAM Is desirable, it is not always possible to add more RAM to a system. Many applications require a large amount of memory to run effectively. To prevent applications from using all available RAM on a system and to keep memory efficient, the operating system will move less imporpatant data from physical memory (RAM) to a location on a hard disk to create virtual memory. You can modify how much computer virtual memory is available and how it's used to increase perfomance.
Processors are designed to guess what set of instructions or command are going to be run next and to load those commands prior to actully having to execute them. If a processors guesses wrong, a page fault occurs. A page fault is when the processor has to turn to another source to obtain the set of instructions, either RAM (which is very fast) or a paging file on hard drive (not as fast as RAM). Although a pafing file is not as fast as RAM,it is still much better than not having the command available, and so the paging file helps to increase the overall perfomance of the system.
To modify the computer virtual memory :
1. Click start ! Control Panel ! system to open the system properties.
2. Click on advanced tab and then click the settings button in the perfomance section.
3. Click the advanced tab and then click the change button in the virtual memory section
4. You will seethe virtual memory settings shown in figure :
Allocating Computer Virtual Memory
The amount of disk space allocated to teh paging file can be modified to increase perfomance. Basically, the more space allocated to the paging file, the more improvement in the perfomance. So what size should you set the paging file to? There are a number of answers to how long a paging file should be, and it often depends on the applications installed.The stock microsoft answer has been to set the paging file to 1.5 time the physical memory installed. So in a system with 1 GB of RAM, the paging file should be 1.5GB. Other publications recommend 2.5 times the physical memory installed. If exchange 2000 is installed, it recommends seeting the paging file to two times the physical memory installed.
Try setting the paging file to 0 or no paging file. Restart your computer and see what happens. If you have a large amount of memory (over 512MB) you probably won't see much of a drop in perfomance, as there is a plenty of RAM available for the applications running. The drawback is you will recieve periodic nag screens ( I mean, helpful Pop-ups) stating that you don't have enough virtual memory and so windows is creating a paging file for you.
If you make sure You have enough physical RAM to run things properly, the amount of virtual memory becomes secondary.And to answers the question about how large of a paging file to create: go with what you are comfortable with.The paging file should be at least the same size as the amount of physical RAM installed. Whatever size you decide,make sure that you set the initial size and maximum size of paging file to be the same. If the initial size and maximum size are diffrent (as the default) the paging file will constantly resize itself, which leads the paging file becoming fragmented and negatively affects perfomance . Whatever you do , do not allow the system to manage the paging file!
Note : After making changes to the paging file, you must restart the computer to commit the change. | <urn:uuid:09fe4a01-947e-4600-9451-f07a52e00fe9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://technologyandinternet.blogspot.com/2007/10/increasing-virtual-memory-low.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924985 | 770 | 2.875 | 3 |
When to Begin Toilet Training
Before your child is ready to begin potty training, she must progress from spontaneous and uncontrollable urination and defecation to voluntary control over her bowel—and then her bladder. In general, if your child can coordinate the muscles and balance needed to run, then she can control her bowels or bladder. Of course, just because your toddler has the muscle control does not mean she will use it.
Believe it or not, your child will let you know when she's ready to begin toilet training. Until that happens, don't try to force the issue or rush your child into it. If you urge your child to take up potty training too soon, she will fail—and feel anxious for having disappointed you—and the whole process will take longer. Besides, it makes sense to let your child decide when she's ready. The whole objective of the process is to have your child gain control over her bladder and bowel movements. So from the very beginning, it will help if your toddler feels in control of the process.
For most toddlers, the process begins some time between the second and third birthday. But a rare few start even earlier and many more don't start until they are three.
In general, girls tend to gain control over bladder and bowel movements sooner than boys. But regardless of when they start using the potty, few children master this skill until close to their third birthday. Even early starters tend to have at least occasional accidents until age three. And late starters tend to have fewer accidents, perhaps because they're more mature physically by the time they begin. So why be in a hurry to get your child on the potty?
The key to determining when your child is ready for toilet training is your toddler's self-awareness. Your child has to know when she is going to relieve her bladder or bowels before it happens. Toilet training will fail if your child becomes aware of the need to go to the toilet only after the pee or poop is running down her leg.
Don't start toilet training when a younger sibling is about to be born, when day care is just beginning, when a family member is very ill, or when some other monumental life change is occurring. Your child should not have to deal with more than one change at a time.
Watch for these signs that your toddler might be ready:
- Your child's diaper is often still dry a couple of hours after it was changed.
- Your child shows that she understands simple requests or instructions.
- Your child demonstrates the ability to mimic adult behavior.
- Your child has the verbal ability to let you know when she needs to go to the bathroom.
- Your child shows a marked dislike for wet or soiled diapers.
- Your child offers a tip-off when she's about to have a bowel movement. It may be a facial expression; she might stand straight up, as still as a statue; or she might head for a particular location.
More on: Preschool
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Parenting a Preschooler and Toddler, Too © 1997 by Keith M. Boyd, M.D., and Kevin Osborn. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit Amazon's web site or call 1-800-253-6476. | <urn:uuid:c8690400-fe28-4dd6-8f16-85fa1a1bedae> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://life.familyeducation.com/potty-training/toddler/53237.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958581 | 712 | 2.953125 | 3 |
The Diencephalon is composed of two structures: the thalamus and the hypothalamus.
The thalamus is the large, two-lobed structure that constitutes the top of the brain stem. One lobe sits on each side of the third ventricle, and the two lobes are joined by the massa intermedia, which runs through the ventricle. Visible on the surface of the thalamus are white lamina (layers) that are composed of myelinated axons. The thalamus comprises many different pairs of nuclei, most of which project to the cortex. Some are sensory relay nuclei nuclei that receive signals from sensory receptors, process them, and then transmit them to the appropriate areas of sensory cortex. For example, the lateral geniculate nuclei, the medial geniculate nuclei, and the ventral posterior nuclei are important relay stations in the visual, auditory, and somatosensory systems, respectively. The thalamus seems to be a relay for sensory input as well as an important part of other pathways, including motor and sensory pathways and those between different parts of the cortex and the cerebellum and other subcortical structures. The thalamus and the cortex are profusely interconnected by reciprocal connections, which play an important role in the generation of rhythmic patterns in the brain and in attention, and may also be involved in top-down effects in perception. By virtue of bidirectional connections between the thalamus and every region of the cortex, these rhythmic patterns sweep regularly and rapidly through the cortex. They, therefore, provide a possible source for the rapid pacemaker hypothesized for high-speed inner sequencing. The rate of speed of these thalamocortical rhythms ranges from twenty to eighty Hz (Hertz: cycles per second) in the waking state and as slow as from four Hz to less than one Hz in deep sleep.
The hypothalamus (Greek hypo-, cognate to Latin sub- "under") lies under the thalamus. It plays an important role in the regulation of several motivated behaviors. It exerts its effects in part by regulating the release of hormones from the pituitary gland, which dangles from it on the ventral surface of the brain. Two other structures appear on the inferior surface of the hypothalamus the optic chiasm and the mammilary bodies. The optic chiasm is the point at which the optic nerves from each eye come together. The mammillary bodies are a pair of spherical hypothalamic nuclei located on the inferior surface of the hypothalamus, just behing the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus apparently does not play much of a role in language.
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© 2000 Rice University. This document, or any portion hereof, may be used for non-commercial informational purposes only. Any copy of this document, or portion hereof, must include the copyright notice (http://www.rice.edu/about/cr-notice.html) in its entirety. | <urn:uuid:66b655bc-b00c-413d-8add-e6d22dc1de35> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lngbrain/cglidden/dien.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933689 | 637 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Novel rescues charismatic German from the margins
Novel rescues charismatic German from the margins
Friday, August 8, 2014
Dr Ernst Dieffenbach – a liberal-minded, free-spirited 19th century German physican, geologist and naturalist who studied New Zealand’s wildlife, plants and people, was fluent in Māori and considered all races to be equal – was a man ahead of his time.
His views seem more in line with contemporary thinking on issues such as race relations and democracy, which is partly what fascinated Dr Thom Conroy. The result is his first, just-published novel The Naturalist (Penguin Random House Books).
Dr Conroy, a Massey University creative writing senior lecturer, says he was struck by what he read about Dieffenbach while researching natural history for another project. He felt the German deserved more attention in light of his colourful personality and experiences at the onset of New Zealand’s colonisation.
Expelled from Germany for supporting a subversive pro-democracy revolutionary student movement and for duelling, Dieffenbach wound up in London and was appointed as naturalist aboard the controversial 1839 expedition of the Tory.
His ship mates included Colonel William and his nephew Jerningham Wakefield of the New Zealand Company, who were off to buy land from Māori for British settlers without the consent of the Crown. Charles Heaphy, artist and draughstman for the New Zealand Company, was aboard too.
Dieffenbach had strong views on colonisation, which clashed with orthodox views at the time and made for heated debate during the gruelling three-month voyage. Also on board was Nahiti, a young Māori returning home from London having left New Zealand on a whaling ship. His friendship with the German naturalist confirmed Dieffenbach’s conviction that humans were equal, whatever their skin colour.
While he may be known to a few historians through his two volume narrative Travels in New Zealand, Dr Conroy says Dieffenbach has been overlooked. “The more I read about him, the more I felt he needed to be rescued from the margins of history.”
He includes a striking quote at the opening of the book from the second volume of Dieffenbach’s Travels in New Zealand: “I am of the opinion that man, in his desires, passions, and intellectual faculties, is the same, whatever be the colour of his skin; that mankind forms a great whole, in which the different races are the radii from a common centre; and that the differences which we observe are due to particular circumstances which have developed certain qualities of body and mind.”
Such views were unusually enlightened for his time, and in contrast to those of the theory of evolution founder Charles Darwin, who makes a cameo appearance in the novel. He believed Māori were of a “lower order”.
The novel focuses on Dieffenbach’s 18-month stay in New Zealand, weaving a compelling narrative around his discoveries, explorations – he was the first European to ascend Mt Taranaki – and encounters with land, nature and people. The story vividly evokes the extraodinary pioneering sea voyage into unknown territory, and spans the Northern and Southern hemispheres to encompass his personal life and love interests in Germany, London and New Zealand.
American-born Pennsylvanian Dr Conroy, who has lived in New Zealand for nine years, drew on extensive historical records and research for the book, inventing scenes and additional minor characters to bring the German’s remarkable personality and story to life.
He hopes his fictional rendition of Dieffenbach’s story will have wide appeal – especially to those intrigued by influential yet marginalised historical characters who provide fresh clues to the tangents and nuances of New Zealand’s colonial history.
Balancing the tension between fact and fiction to produce a compelling and authentic story was one of the main creative challenges of the book, which he completed after more than 30 drafts, he says.
But such literary challenges have a positive spin-off. Discussing them enlivens his creative writing classes and supervision of Master of Creative Writing students. “When I’m sitting in a class or workshop discussing work with students, we’re there as people, as writers. We understand what we each are going through and can learn from each other.”
Dr Conroy’s short fiction has appeared in various journals in the US and New Zealand, including Landfall, Sport, New England Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Kenyon Review. He has won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction and his writing has been recognised by Best American Short Stories 2012 as well as the Sunday Star-Times Short Fiction Competition.
He and his School of English and Media Studies colleague Dr Tina Dahlberg, who publishes under the name of Tina Makereti and also teaches creative writing papers at Massey’s Manawatū campus, are two of only only three new literary fiction writers in New Zealand to be published by Penguin Random House Books this year. Dr Dahlberg’s novel Where the Rekohu Bone Sings, was published in March.
The Naturalist is being launched at the Palmerston North City Library on August 15 at 7pm. | <urn:uuid:c1c839b7-28c9-4f70-b880-80edb99b8c69> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC1408/S00025/novel-rescues-charismatic-german-from-the-margins.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972901 | 1,095 | 2.71875 | 3 |
- Psychology & the public
- What we do
- Member networks
- Careers, education & training
Children may learn how to gossip from TV
New research published in the Journal of Communication suggests that children may learn about gossiping and friend manipulation by watching television shows. The study found that children watch a significant amount of programmes that show social bullying or social aggression.
Investigators from Indiana University and the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, discovered 92 per cent of the top series' viewed by little ones aged two to 11 contained a form of these behaviours.
In addition, it was found that attractive characters who carried out these undesirable actions did not tend to get punished for them, while scenes showing such behaviours were more likely to be presented in a humorous manner than those depicting physical aggression.
Nicole Martins of Indiana University noted: "Parents should be more aware of portrayals that may not be explicitly violent in a physical sense but are nonetheless antisocial in nature."
Ms Martins added mums and dads should not assume programmes are suitable for their little ones just because they contain no physical violence.
Professor Rachel Callam from the University of Manchester, a Chartered Psychologist, comments:
"We know from social learning theory and models of social interaction learning that children are influenced by their context and experiences. Parent monitoring and mediation of the messages that they see on TV can help to counteract negative impact, and help to broaden children’s perspectives." | <urn:uuid:cd038d41-59ce-4e98-8b28-7c76334bc77b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bps.org.uk/news/children-may-learn-how-gossip-tv | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949235 | 298 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Robert E. McNiel & Steve Elkins
Department of Horticulture
Introduction: Aesculus parviflora (bottlebrush buckeye) has made many recommended plant lists during recent times. However, few plants are available on a regular basis in the nursery trade. Seed was the main method of propagation until the 1990s when Bir & Barnes(1994) established a protocol for cutting propagation. Fordham (1987), in his discussion of propagation of bottlebrush buckeye, devoted his explanation to seed, except for a final comment that root cuttings and root suckers can be a source. Seed availability, timing or facilities may still limit this plant from being propagated in significant numbers by either seed or cuttings.
Layering has been recommended as a form of propagation for plants forming suckers by several authors during the 1900s (Bailey, 1920; Wells, 1985). While addressing layering in one form or another, neither Mahlstede & Haber (1957), Macdonald (1986), Dirr & Heuser (1987), nor Hartman et al. (1998) defines layering as a technique for bottlebrush buckeye. Bailey (1920) addresses the benefits of wounding during the layering process. As a means of producing large numbers of bottlebrush buckeye with limited facilities and less dependence upon timing, we looked at mound layering.
Materials and Methods: Aesculus parviflora were planted on the University of Kentucky Horticulture Farm during the early 1990s in north/south rows. During 1998 the plants were bush hogged to the ground. Multi-stem regrowth occurred during 1999 and 2000. In August 2000 research was initiated in order to determine if rapid propagation could occur by mound layering Aesculus parviflora. Sawdust was row mounded eighteen inches deep and three feet wide around 41 plants. Starting in August 2000 three stems on ten randomly selected plants were treated on a monthly basis. Treatments included cutting into the stem near the base, treating with No. 3 Hormex and keeping the stem gapped with a section of toothpick. A drip irrigation system was installed in the plot, and scheduled to run 20 minutes twice a day at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. One GPH emitters were spaced every two feet along ½ inch diameter lines.
Results and discussion: During March 2001, plants treated each of the previous months were evaluated for rooting. Plants treated August 2000 had roots formed at the wound site on 29 of 30 stems. Plants treated September 2000 had roots formed at the wound site on 8 of 30 stems. No roots were found on stems treated in October nor November.
During the spring, each plant produced additional new shoots from the base. Late April 2001 the sawdust was reduced to about half its depth to allow for new stem development. Most new 2001 stems were developing new root growth by mid summer without wounding or hormone treatment. Initial results indicate that mound layering could be a viable means for propagating Aesculus parviflora.
Bailey, L. H. 1920. The Nursery Manual. Macmillan Pub., New York.
Bir, R. E. & H. W. Barnes. 1994. Stem cutting propagation of bottlebrush buckeye. Comb. Proc. Intl. Plant Prop. Soc. 44: 499-502.
Dirr, M. A. & C. W. Heuser, Jr. 1987. The reference manual of woody plant propagation: From seed to tissue culture. Varsity Press, Athens, Georgia.
Fordham, A. J. 1987. Bottle brush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) and its propagation. Comb. Proc. Intl. Plant Prop. Soc. 37: 345-347.
Hartmann, H. T., D. E. Kester, F. T. Davies, Jr., & R. L. Geneve. 1998. Plant propagation principles and practices, 6th ed. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Macdonald, B. 1986. Practical woody plant propagation for nursery growers. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon.
Mahlstede, J.P. & E. S. Haber. 1957. Plant propagation. Wiley & Sons, New York.
Wells, J. S. 1985. Plant propagation practices. Amer. Nurseryman Pub., Chicago.
Home UK College of Agriculture About Us Agronomy Agricultural Economics Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Entomology Horticulture Plant Pathology Cooperative Extension Service Feedback | <urn:uuid:bba77291-3b16-4671-b764-afffcf294758> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uky.edu/Ag/NewCrops/bottlebrush.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932819 | 972 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Great Barracuda photographed in St. Lucia on a shallow reef.
Barracuda Use Sharp Teeth to Prey on Other Fish
Found across the globe in tropical seas, except the east Pacific, the great barracuda is typical of the approximately 20 species of barracuda. It may be distinguished from other barracuda by the black spots on its lower sides. It has a long, slender body, a pointed head and two rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Juvenile great barracuda usually live among sea grasses and mangroves where they are hidden from predators. In their second year, they typically move to coral reefs. Sometimes found in the open sea, they often remain near the surface, though they may be found as deep as 325 feet.
Sight-oriented, great barracuda locate their prey visually, swimming as fast as 36 miles per hour to swallow small prey whole or using their sharp teeth to rip larger prey into pieces. They prey on a wide variety of fish, including anchovies, groupers, grunts, herrings, jacks, killifishes and mullets. Few predators are able to catch barracuda, but sharks, tuna and goliath groupers may prey on smaller adults.
Although barracuda have formidable arrays of teeth and the disconcerting habit of curiously following divers and swimmers, attacks on humans are rare. Most often, an attack consists of a single strike when the fish tries to steal prey from a spear or mistakes a shiny object for a fish. While serious, attacks are seldom lethal, but can result in lacerations and the loss of some tissue. | <urn:uuid:e9ff0d9d-2e3e-4c13-b5f2-9c7f112ff547> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nature.org/newsfeatures/specialfeatures/animals/fish/giant-barracuda.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95012 | 338 | 3.5625 | 4 |
There is no magic, there is only awesome (Part 2)
This is the second article in a series titled “There is no magic, there is only awesome.” The first article introduced the “four cardinal rules of awesomeness”.
If you’ve ever watched someone make string figures, it’s pretty obvious that the tool set includes a loop of string, and your fingers. But if you haven’t played with string figures much, you might be surprised to learn that you’ve got a lot more than string and fingers at your disposal.
There are figures that require the use of your wrists to hold the string. Some require you to use your lips, teeth, tongue, or nose. I know a few that use the neck. There are some that use the elbow, knee, foot, or toes. A few require you to set the figure down on a flat surface to manipulate it.
Different figures might require different types of string. Some, like Eskimo figures, work best with a thicker, shorter, stiffer string, while those of the Pacific islands tend to prefer longer, more supple and slippery strings.
With so many variables, and so many ways of combining them, how then does one ever excel at string figures? Is it hopeless?
Of course it isn’t. As with any other activity, there are simply a set of tools to be employed, and the expert will be well acquainted with them. It’s rule #1 of being awesome: know thy tools.
Knowing vs. Knowing
But what does that mean? It certainly doesn’t mean just “knowing what your tools are”, otherwise you’d all be on your way to string figure mastery, just by reading the above paragraphs. Knowing your tools necessarily means knowing, deeply, how to use a tool. It means knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, knowing why a particular tool is best in any given situation, and knowing how to learn more about them.
In fact, those statements can be generalized into four questions that can be used to gauge the depth of your knowledge about most anything:
- What does this do best?
- What does this do worst?
- Why should I use this in particular?
- When was the last time I learned something new about this?
We’ll hit those four questions in each of the articles that follow, but for now, I’m going to apply them specifically the tools of my own professional domain: writing software.
The tools of computing
If you write software, step back for a minute and think about the tools you use every day. This includes your operating system, your text editor, your command shell, your SCM. It’s your web browser, your terminal client, your email and IM clients. It includes command-line utilities you probably use without thinking, every day: grep, sed, awk, find, ls and cd, to name a few. It’s even your hardware: the keyboard you use, your mouse, your monitor, your computer. It probably includes many other things that I’ve completely overlooked! (Note, though, that programming languages will be covered separately; they are certainly tools of the trade, but they’re such spectacularly important tools that they deserve their own rule of awesomeness. More on that when we hit rule #2.)
So, now it’s your turn. Go ahead and grab a scrap of paper. Make a list, right now, of the tools you use every day. I’ll wait.
Done? Okay, awesome. Now, go through each item on your list and ask yourself each of the four “knowledge gauge” questions:
1. What does this do best?
Compared with similar tools, what does this tool do best? Don’t use a pre-recorded, generic answer. Think about it. Consider it carefully. Be specific. For particularly powerful or flexible tools, there may be multiple answers, and that’s okay. Your answer may quite possibly be debatable, and that’s okay, too. The point here is that you need to have an opinion. If someone asks you why in the world you choose to use Vim instead of Emacs, don’t let the silence stretch awkwardly. Know your mind!
2. What does this do worst?
Related to the previous question: At what is this tool particularly bad? Again, this is in comparison with similar tools. And there is no such thing as a perfect tool, so there’s no point trying to skip this question. That’s a cop out. If you don’t have a few pet peeves for each tool in your toolbox, then chances are you aren’t familiar enough with your tools. Have an opinion.
3. Why should I use this in particular?
Given all possible alternatives, why am I using this tool in particular? Was it recommended to you? Are you using it “by mandate”? Perhaps it was it a gift, or a hand-me-down? Have you personally tried any of the alternatives? The real test of this question is having someone ask you for a recommendation. If you were to recommend this tool, and they were to ask “why” in return, what would you tell them? Similarly, if someone were to ask you about one of the alternatives, would you be able to give them an educated opinion? (You do have one, right?)
4. When was the last time I learned something new about this?
In many ways, this is the most important of the four questions. It’s purpose is to make you aware of potential stagnation. Certainly there is a point at which you say can that you know a tool “well enough”. It gets your job done. It suffices. Perhaps you’re even something of an expert, with deep knowledge about the tool. But no matter how well you know a tool, if you stop learning and instead put your expertise on “cruise control”, you’ll stagnate. Expire. Rot. Guaranteed. To be exceptional, you must be active.
Don’t stagnate. Seriously, just don’t. If it’s been a while since you learned something new about one of your tools, take a good look at that tool. Look at its documentation. Find tutorials or blog articles. Books, videos, podcasts, whatever. Try to find something new about it, something that you didn’t know before. Perhaps it’s a feature you weren’t aware of. Maybe it’s just a new application of the tool. Perhaps-
now, don’t freak out here-it’s another tool altogether! Never be afraid of replacing your tools when something better comes along. (It’s actually really, really valuable to continually experiment with similar tools, even if you’re satisifed with what you already have. It’s like learning a foreign language: it gives you a new perspective, and can introduce you to things, to which you might otherwise have never been exposed.)
Keep in mind, too, that “something new” does not have to mean “something mind-blowing”. In fact, such discoveries will be the exception. The point here is to simply be proactive, regularly flexing your knowledge muscles. And then, you must apply that new bit of knowledge in your workflow. Otherwise, it’s not really learned, is it? It’ll atrophy if you don’t exercise it.
Try to find at least one new thing per day. It may be cliche, but it’s also true: “practice makes awesome.” Or something like that.
Have an opinion.
These questions are intended to make you think about your tool set. It can be hard, at first, to step back and “meta-analyze” yourself and your habits, but you really can’t have a meaningful opinion if you don’t think about things. And trust me, you want to have opinions. People without opinions are, frankly, boring. They’re pretty much the opposite of awesome. Blindly accepting recommendations, mindlessly reciting others’ claims, and cargo-culting others’ solutions might be an okay place to start, if you must, but it’s always a lousy place to finish.
Get first-hand experience. Learn. Expose your hidden assumptions. Ask “why”. Have an opinion.
Know thy tools. | <urn:uuid:71f6853d-b7af-4c43-ae8a-eb6ea99fc88c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2009/9/25/there-is-no-magic-there-is-only-awesome-part-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944298 | 1,824 | 2.53125 | 3 |
For all of their oversimplification on the pages of Playboy or on the streets at Mardi Gras, breasts are pretty complex body parts. And better understanding their unique composition of glands, lobes, lobules, fatty tissue, and ducts may help physicians better determine which women are at highest risk for breast cancer. In fact, researchers at the prestigious Mayo Clinic believe that the specific make up of women’s breasts—and in particular the concentration of sac-like milk-producing acini within the breast’s lobules—may indicate which women are at highest risk for developing cancer.
In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology researchers examined the breast composition of 85 female cancer patients, and compared it to earlier biopsies of the women’s then-healthy breast tissue. They then compared those findings against 142 control samples (from benign biopsies). By determining standard concentrations of acini and lobules in women’s breast tissue at different ages, they found that older women who still had a dense concentration of lobules and acini were more likely to develop cancer.
As women age, lobules and acini begin to disappear from breast tissue, decreasing the risk for cancer, the researchers say. Yet, if by age 55 the lobules (and acini within) haven’t largely disappeared, a woman’s risk for breast cancer may be tripled, according to the study. The researchers hope this new technique can be incorporated into current detection and prevention practices, and help doctors facilitate the best—and most timely—risk assessments for their patients. | <urn:uuid:d2f7532a-26b8-479f-bebd-c6de8bab51b5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://healthland.time.com/2009/10/07/can-the-make-up-of-your-breast-tissue-influence-your-risk-for-cancer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949072 | 327 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Index of Postal Freedom
(Click here for a printer-friendly version)
Russian Post (Pochta Rossii or PR) is a sleeping giant, which has only recently begun to stir with the emergence of a new consumer economy in Russia. PR is in many ways a relic of the vast, inefficient state bureaucracies of the Soviet area. However, with vigorous new management, infusions of investment capital, and the rapid introduction of electronic communications, the system is showing signs of new life. There are no indications that PR will be privatized; it is, and for the foreseeable future will remain, a state-owned enterprise.
The service is recognized as a valuable tool in holding the huge Russian construct together. As the economy evolves, international carriers are playing a role in modernizing postal service in Russia, especially in package transport and logistics. These two arenas are crucial because of the unique transportation challenges posed by Russia’s vast land mass and geography.
Fueled by a commodities boom, the Russian economy has markedly turned around since its late-1990s collapse in the wake of mismanaged attempts at reform. Many Russians are now able to afford a widening range of consumer goods. In fact, catalog marketing is beginning to provide new growth opportunities for postal services.
Structure and Regulation
Pochta Rossii provides a perfect case study of the complex bureaucratic relationships that define post-Soviet Russia. After the disintegration of the USSR, PR found itself divided into 92 independent regional units. The system was enormously inefficient. Delivery times were slow, and package service was unreliable. Diverse customs rules and inspections -- not to mention creative “interventions” in the mail stream and localized fees and taxes -- made the system ponderous and reform difficult.
In 1993, postal service in Russia undertook the first steps of reorganization. The old post office was formally restructured as an “FSUE,” or Federal State Unitary Enterprise. Officials attempted to reintegrate the capital assets of the post office under a single structure belonging to the national government. The post office, still divided by region, state, and often type of activity, was then allowed to “use” these unified assets to deliver the mail.
Russian Post maintains 42,000 post offices and employs 415,000 people. Postal jobs are secure but low-paying; until recently, PR employees were paid roughly 60 percent of the average wage in Russia. PR reports handling over 1.4 billion letters, 38 million parcels and more than 188 million money transfers in 2006. PR expects those numbers to increase in the future and claims that it collects, sorts, and delivers 1.5 billion letters, 48 million parcels, and more than 190 million money orders annually.
The system reportedly lost US$186 million in 2007. It provides about 80 types of services through 90 affiliates. Although the unified operating company now has a relative degree of freedom, ultimate control still rests with Russia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
There has been some talk of making PR a state corporation, but critics within Russia point to the conflict of interest between seeking profits and providing social services.
During Russia’s economic decline of the late 1990s, mail usage plummeted and the postal system lost money, even with the aid of questionable accounting practices. Attempts to reform the system included unraveling existing arrangements and improving service without unduly upsetting patronage arrangements.
The current version of Russian Post was established on September 5, 2002. In 2007, Andrei Kazmin, the dynamic CEO who had success reforming Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, was brought in to supervise reforms of Pochta Rossii. Sberbank’s structure and problems paralleled those facing the postal service. In the last year, he has moved quickly to assess PR’s overall situation and address processing bottlenecks and management issues. Many of the problems facing PR stem from a need to restore public confidence in the system.
The government is making both internal funding and foreign loans available to build new infrastructure, particularly for PR. According to the Finmarket information agency, Russian Post planned to invest 9.5 billion rubles in 2007 in modernization, compared to just 600 million rubles in 2004. Kazmin has publicly stated that he does not intend for PR to become a bank, but the organization is nonetheless rolling out an increasing array of financial services.
New processing facilities are being built in the “hub” cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg in concert with foreign firms like TNT. PR is also attempting to centralize purchasing to cut costs.
Given Russia’s size and relative technological sophistication, initiatives for money and document transmission via e-mail are being given high priority by Kazmin and his team. A funds transfer service called Cybermoney was established in 2003. A service called CyberPocht@ (or Kiberpocht), which allows Russians to access computer terminals to send and receive e-mail and funds, has recently been rolled out. By the end of 2006, Russia was reported to have over 20,000 postal offices (PAO outlets) offering Internet access.
A whole range of value-added services centering on the post office network are in varying stages of implementation.
Besides regular mail deliveries, post office “outlets” are beginning to offer services like the distribution of subscription periodicals; mail order and COD; ecommerce; collection of rent, utility and tax payments; consumer cards and credit; lottery sales; insurance products; sales of railroad and airline tickets; passes for public transportation; and even terminals for MasterCard and Visa. PR is also pushing communication initiatives involving remote printing.
Kazmin has made raising both postal salaries and service standards a priority for his tenure. Labor costs account for 78% of total expenses, and recent salary increases of roughly 30% have dampened expectations of PR producing a profit in the near future, despite jumps in revenue.
Liberalization and Competition
The market for Russian postal services is growing rapidly and was valued at about $1 billion in 2003, with Pochta Rossii accounting for 80 percent of that number. Today, delivering letters makes up only 20 percent of the post office’s income.
Technically speaking, the Russian postal market was opened to competition in 1996 when the Ministry of Communications removed the state monopoly on postal services.
The Russian government is now a major source of business for Russian Post. Certain large streams of mail from other government agencies, like the delivery of 60 million pension checks annually, are routed through Russian Post.
Most of its revenue, however, comes from delivering goods. There are some local delivery services in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Competition with international carriers for lucrative and strategically important package delivery and logistics services is concentrated in the western hub regions of Russia. This is a booming market, and DHL Worldwide, TNT, FedEx, UPS and others are all involved.
In 2004, Russian Post launched its own national express mail operator (EMS -- Russian Post) with prices that are 20% lower than competitors on average. EMS relies on its connections with the regular postal network and touts deliveries made “door-to-door.” More than 42,000 post offices throughout Russia make EMS deliveries, and 5,500 post offices in Russia accept EMS items.
It is unclear whether Russian Post subsidizes EMS with proceeds from traditional mail. Even though the Russian government eliminated the state postal monopoly in 1996, PR still controls 80 percent of the postal market and so has sufficient market dominance to build EMS on the backs of ordinary stampbuying consumers.
EMS claims annual revenues in the area of $300 million and an annual growth rate of 30-40 percent.
Firms like Western Union compete in the money transfer business against PR’s Cybermoney system. PR rates are set to undercut the competition by as much as 35 percent.
In 2002, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Leonid Reiman told Prime-TASS in an interview that “There are no plans for privatizing Russia’s postal service in the near future,” although he added that there remained a possibility that it might be reformed into a 100-percent government owned company.
Current law does not allow for the privatization of postal service companies. In 2006 Reiman told a Cabinet session that of the many countries that tried to privatize their postal services, few succeeded. “For example, the U.S. Postal Service is a government corporation and is subsidized from the budget to perform socially important functions.”
RussiaPost: Can snail mail survive Internet boom?
EMS Post Resource and Information
History of the Russian Post Office
International Commission for Postal Financial Service and Business | <urn:uuid:7f455117-cf6c-4a51-bf1b-bd46aa892b65> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.postalconsumers.org/postal_freedom_index/Russia_Post.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95131 | 1,784 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Cancer cell fingerprints in the blood may speed up childhood cancer diagnosis
Newly-identified cancer cell fingerprints in the blood could one day help doctors diagnose a range of children’s cancers faster and more accurately, according to research* presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference next week.
"We hope that this early research could eventually lead to the development of non-invasive tests which are faster, more accurate and gentler, transforming the way we make a cancer diagnosis in the future." - Dr Matthew Murray.
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, found unique molecular fingerprints for 11 types of children’s tumours,** which could be used to develop blood tests to diagnose these cancers.
This may eventually lead to a quicker, more accurate way to diagnose tumours, and could also reduce the need for children to undergo surgery to get a diagnosis one day.
The research was funded by Sparks, the children’s medical research charity, and Cancer Research UK***.
Each year almost 1,600 children are diagnosed with cancer in the UK. These cancers tend to behave differently to cancers in adults and therefore require different treatments.
The researchers uncovered the fingerprints left by the tumours by analysing blood samples from children when they were diagnosed with cancer. They were looking for molecules that turn genes on and off, called microRNAs, to find common changes linked to different tumours.
In particular they found a very specific fingerprint which identifies different types of neuroblastoma, a form of childhood cancer which develops from a type of nerve cell. There are around 100 new cases of the disease each year in the UK.
The research suggested that different types of tumour could be identified using a blood test which recognises the unique fingerprints produced by tumours.
The lead researchers were Dr Matthew Murray and Professor Nicholas Coleman, both from the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
Dr Murray said: "Being diagnosed with cancer is often devastating for a child and their family, and the tests involved can be upsetting. We hope that this early research could eventually lead to the development of non-invasive tests which are faster, more accurate and gentler, transforming the way we make a cancer diagnosis in the future.
“Using a blood test instead of surgery to remove a tumour sample could improve diagnosis – such that results take a matter of hours rather than days or weeks. However, before such a test can be incorporated into clinical practice, it will now be important for these findings to be validated in other, larger independent studies.”
Dr Julia Ambler, Director of Medical Research at Sparks, said: “We are delighted to have been able to fund a project that will hopefully lead to much quicker diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancers which has the potential to benefit hundreds of children and their families each year. This project is at a really exciting stage and we are looking forward to seeing the results from the next step.”
Professor Nic Jones, Cancer Research UK’s chief scientist, said: “These early results show promise that one day a blood test could be used to diagnose these cancers. This research is the first step towards a potential test which would be very exciting, but more work needs to be done before we see this in the clinic.
“Making sure that the diagnosis and treatment of children’s cancers is much kinder in the future is urgently needed. Survival from childhood cancers has climbed to 8 in 10 in recent decades – we must continue to push the pace in this area. We need to make sure even more children survive, and there are fewer side effects from their treatment.”
For media enquiries please contact the press office on 020 3469 8300 or, out-of-hours, the duty press officer on 07050 264 059.
Notes to Editor
* You can find the abstract for this research online: http://conference.ncri.org.uk/abstracts/2014/abstracts/B001.html
** High risk neuroblastoma, low risk neuroblastoma, hepatoblastoma, Wilms tumours, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, Ewings sarcoma, osteosarcoma, pleuropulmonaryblastoma and glioma.
*** The initial pilot study was funded by Sparks who covered the cost of the researcher and consumables, and Cancer Research UK who were able to provide the funding for the laboratory and equipment. | <urn:uuid:a04e8083-00fc-4153-a998-08c67b517156> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/press-release/2014-11-01-cancer-cell-fingerprints-in-the-blood-may-speed-up-childhood-cancer-diagnosis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951869 | 956 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Roman numerals originated, as the name might suggest, in ancient Rome. There are seven basic symbols: I, V, X, L, C, D and M. The first usage of the symbols began showing up between 900 and 800 B.C.
The numerals developed out of a need for a common method of counting, essential to communications and trade. Counting on one's fingers got out of hand, so to speak, when you reached 10. So, a counting system was devised based on a person's hand.
Meaning of Roman numerals
A single line, or "I," referred to one unit or finger; the "V" represented five fingers, specifically, the V-shape made by the thumb and forefinger. "X" equaled two hands. (See how an X could be two Vs touching at their points?)
Larger Roman numerals developed from other symbols.
M = 1,000 — Originally, the Greek letter phi — Φ — represented this value. It was sometimes represented as a C, I and backwards C, like this: CIƆ — which sort of looks like an M. It's only a coincidence that mille is the Latin word for a thousand.
D = 500 — The symbol for this number was originally IƆ — half of CIƆ.
C = 100 — The original symbol was probably theta — Θ — and later became a C. It only coincidentally also stands for centum, the Latin word for a hundred.
L = 50 — This value was originally represented by a superimposed V and I, or by the letter psi — Ψ — which flattened out to look like an inverted T, and then eventually came to resemble an L.
How to read Roman numerals
Numbers are formed by combining various letters and finding the sum of those values. The numerals are placed from left to right, and the order of the numerals determines whether you add or subtract the values. If one or more letters are placed after a letter of greater value, you add. If a letter is placed before a letter of greater value, you subtract. For example, VI = 6 because V is higher than I. But IV = 4 because I is lower than V.
There are a number of other rules related to Roman numerals. For example, do not use the same symbol more than three times in a row. When it comes to subtracting amounts, only powers of 10 are subtracted, like I, X, or C, but not V or L. For example, 95 is not VC. 95 is XCV. XC equals 100 minus 10, or 90, so XC plus V, or 90 plus 5, equals 95.
Also, only one number can be subtracted from another. For example, 13 is not IIXV. It's easy to see how the reasoning would be: 15 minus 1 minus 1. But following the rule, it instead is XIII, or 10 plus 3.
You also cannot subtract a number from one that is more than 10 times greater. You can subtract 1 from 10 (IX) but you cannot subtract 1 from 100; there is no such number as IC. You would instead write XCIX (XC + IX, or 90+9). For larger numbers in the thousands, a bar placed on top of the letter or string of letters multiplies the numeral's value by 1,000: .
Disadvantages of using Roman numerals
Roman numerals are not without flaws. For example, there is no symbol for zero, and there is no way to calculate fractions. This hindered the ability to develop a universally understood, sophisticated math system, and made trading more difficult. Eventually, Roman numerals gave way to the more versatile Arabic or Hindu numeral system, where numbers are read as a single number in sequence, like 435 as four hundred thirty-five.
As the Roman Empire collapsed a thousand years later, Christianity (ironically one of Rome's earliest targets for persecution), continued to use the culture's number system.
Today, Roman numerals appear in building cornerstones and movie credits and titles. They are also used in names of monarchs, popes, ships and sporting events, like the Olympics and the Super Bowl.
Roman numerals are used in astronomy to designate moons and in chemistry to denote groups of the Periodic Table. They can be seen in tables of contents and in manuscript outlines, as upper- and lower-case Roman numerals break information into an easily organized structure. Music theory employs Roman numerals in notation symbols.
These uses are more due to aesthetic reasons than functional purposes. Cosmetically, Roman numerals convey a sense of history and timelessness, which is especially true in clocks and watches. | <urn:uuid:e9f07e7e-21b3-49de-bfa7-d9d430e529f6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.livescience.com/32052-roman-numerals.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934315 | 982 | 3.921875 | 4 |
This section describes the procedures for constructing new lists.
list simply returns a list where the elements are the arguments,
cons* is similar, but the last argument is stored in the cdr of
the last pair of the list.
scm_list_ntakes a variable number of arguments, terminated by the special
SCM_UNDEFINED. That final
SCM_UNDEFINEDis not included in the list. None of elem1 to elemN can themselves be
scm_list_nwill terminate at that point.
list, but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list, returning
))). Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument is returned as result. This function is called
list*in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
Return a (newly-created) copy of lst.
Create a list containing of n elements, where each element is initialized to init. init defaults to the empty list
()if not given.
list-copy only makes a copy of the pairs which make up
the spine of the lists. The list elements are not copied, which means
that modifying the elements of the new list also modifies the elements
of the old list. On the other hand, applying procedures like
delv! to the new list will not alter the old
list. If you also need to copy the list elements (making a deep copy),
use the procedure
copy-tree (see Copying). | <urn:uuid:77736980-4ab7-45a2-bd1e-cddd3267ec5a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/docs/docs-1.8/guile-ref/List-Constructors.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.784503 | 319 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Aboriginal Community Council (Australia)
SummaryThere are various types of Aboriginal Community Councils which typically represent the interests of, and make decisions on behalf of a local Indigenous community. It is a term that can be used to describe either a Council or an Association.
Extended DefinitionMany Councils are legally incorporated under the Aboriginal Councils and Associations Act 1976 (Cth). In that legislation the term 'Council' could refer to either an incorporated Aboriginal 'Council' or an incorporated 'Association'. Other Councils could be incorporated under one of the legislative regimes in each state or territory. | <urn:uuid:3d2f4625-ce85-4043-bd4d-220e3c834e0d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.atns.net.au/extglossary.asp?GlossaryID=182 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94234 | 122 | 2.75 | 3 |
By Daus Studenberg – Applications Engineer
There are certain cases where it is necessary to make sure that two machines have a considerable amount of parallel radial offset. Such machines are usually coupled by a cardan shaft where more than 4-6 degrees of angle exists between the cardan coupling and the machines. Once the offset is established, it is important to ensure the machines are parallel to each other. If angular misalignment exists (i.e. the machines are not exactly parallel to each other) a rapid change in the shaft RPM will result during operation, as well as an uneven bearing loading, which could shorten the life of the machine.
A special cardan bracket was developed specifically for this application. Its main function is to directly translate the axis of rotation of one machine to the axis of rotation of the other machine.
With the bracket installed, a simple shaft alignment occurs using an uncoupled measurement mode as laser and receiver are both turned independently of each other to take measurements. The ROTALIGN ULTRA and the OPTALIGN SMART both feature superior single beam sensor technology that allow uncoupled measurements to be taken accurately. The ROTALIGN ULTRA takes it a step further with its useful “pass mode”. The “pass mode” automatically takes measurements each time the laser is rotated past the receiver, thus reducing the time to take measurements.
Here’s a video of the cardan bracket and the ROTALIGN ULTRA being used for an alignment on a paper mill roll: | <urn:uuid:e3a52319-0ee7-4ef9-86b3-656825a3c385> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ludeca.com/blog/alignment/3013/cardan-shaft-alignment-simplified-using-latest-laser-technology-demo-video-on-paper-mill-roll | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931379 | 313 | 2.640625 | 3 |
If there was one way to explain income, confusion around tax time would be lessened, but that's unfortunately not the case. Aside from net income and gross income, there's also what's known as adjusted gross income. Adjusted gross income is only needed around tax time, and primarily serves as a numerical figure that represents how much of your earned money is taxable. Calculating 7.5 percent of that amount requires simple math.
Determine your annual gross income. Your gross income is money earned before taxes. If you're paid a monthly salary of $5,000 from your small business, for example, your gross annual salary would be $60,000.
Calculate your adjusted gross income. Adjusted gross income refers to the amount of money you earn in one year that's taxable, which means the money made after tax deductions. For example, if you earn $250,000 in gross income, but only $180,000 is taxable after tax deductions, such as IRA contributions, your adjusted gross income would be $180,000. For a full list of tax deductions, visit the IRS Website.
Multiply your adjusted gross income by 0.075. The number represents 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income. | <urn:uuid:697a4767-800c-4db2-a307-c136f718065c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://smallbusiness.chron.com/calculate-75-percent-adjusted-gross-income-15850.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975385 | 252 | 3 | 3 |
Shivers and Sweats
- The Fever Trail: The Hunt for the Cure for Malaria by Mark Honigsbaum
Macmillan, 333 pp, £18.99, November 2001, ISBN 0 333 90185 1
Mark Honigsbaum is fascinated by fever trees. The phrase may bring to mind ‘the great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees’. But Honigsbaum is not interested in Kipling’s trees, or in the beautiful flat-topped acacias of the Kenyan rift valley, which are called ‘fever trees’ because they grow in malarial districts. What he writes about are the many species of Cinchona that grow at high altitudes on the inaccessible eastern slopes of the Andes, in Bolivia and Peru and Ecuador and Colombia and Venezuela, whose bark is the source of quinine.
It is well known that quinine is what makes tonic water bitter, and that it has been used both to protect against and to cure malaria. What is less well known is that quinine was (with the exception of the largely forgotten Chinese qing-hao) the first drug to be discovered that provided a specific cure for an infectious disease; and the disease it cured was both a serious cause of misery and death in many parts of the world, and a major barrier to European settlement in India, Africa and the Dutch East Indies.
The first drug designed to deal with a specific infection – the arsenical Salvarsan, used to treat syphilis before the days of penicillin – was developed by Ehrlich in 1909; the sulphonamides, including the celebrated M&B 693, arose as an offshoot of the synthetic dye industry in the 1930s; and the first antibiotics became widely available at the end of the Second World War. All these modern drugs were introduced to treat diseases that were well defined and known to be caused by particular organisms. When the Spaniards used cinchona bark to treat fevers in 17th-century Peru, no one knew what caused the diseases that were being treated. Indeed, the distinction between fevers that responded to the treatment and fevers that didn’t must have helped to define what we now think of as malaria.
Until recently, the accepted story was that in 1638 the beautiful Countess de Chinchón, wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Peru, was struck down by a vicious intermittent fever, with alternate chills and sweats, that seemed about to kill her. The Governor of Loja, who eight years earlier had barely survived a similar fever, recommended a native remedy that had saved his life; it had been suggested to him by a Jesuit missionary who had himself been cured by it. The remedy was an infusion made from the bark of trees growing high in the Andean rainforest above Loja, a bark the Indians called quinquina, or ‘the bark of barks’. The Viceroy took the Governor’s advice, and the Countess was saved. When she returned to Spain, the news of her miraculous cure sparked a healthy South American export trade in ‘Countess’s powder’ or ‘Jesuits’ bark’.
The story explains why, a century later, Linnaeus called the Loja tree Cinchona officinalis (immortalising the lady’s name but, by leaving out the first ‘h’, ensuring that the English always mispronounce it). The Viceroy kept a meticulous and detailed diary, which doesn’t mention his wife’s alleged illness, and there is good evidence that she never returned to Spain but died in Cartagena. It is possible that the husband rather than the wife was the patient, as the Viceroy did have repeated attacks of an intermittent fever – attacks which, by October 1638, had become so threatening that the Countess arranged a Mass for him, and distributed candles and alms throughout Lima. On 8 November he suddenly recovered, but there is no mention in the diary of the bark of a hitherto unknown tree. It is just conceivable that the Viceroy would have thought it impolitic to attribute his sudden cure to a native remedy rather than to the Mass and the alms.
The full text of this book review is only available to subscribers of the London Review of Books. | <urn:uuid:2a54c44a-650c-4d15-9ea8-853cc69621f3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n14/ian-glynn/shivers-and-sweats | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979297 | 913 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Normal growth and development
Toggle: English / Spanish
A child's growth and development can be divided into four periods:
- Preschool years
- Middle childhood years
Immediately after birth, an infant normally loses about 5 - 10% of his or her birth weight. However, by about age 2 weeks, an infant should start to gain weight and grow quickly.
By age 4 - 6 months, an infant's weight should be double the birth weight. During the second half of the first year of life, growth is not as rapid. Between ages 1 and 2, a toddler will gain only about 5 pounds. Weight gain will remain at about 5 pounds per year between ages 2 - 5.
Between ages 2 - 10 years, a child will continue to grow at a steady pace. A final growth spurt begins at the start of puberty, sometime between ages 9 and 15.
The child's nutrient needs correspond with these changes in growth rates. An infant needs more calories in relation to size than a preschooler or school-age child needs. Nutrient needs increase again as a child gets close to adolescence.
A healthy child will follow an individual growth curve, even though the nutrient intake may be different for each child. Parents and caregivers should provide a diet with a wide variety of foods that is suited to the child's age.
Healthy eating habits should begin during infancy. This can help prevent diseases such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity.
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT AND DIET
Poor nutrition can cause problems with a child's intellectual development. A child with a poor diet may be tired and unable to learn at school. Also, poor nutrition can make the child more likely to get sick and miss school. Breakfast is very important. Children may feel tired and unmotivated if they do not eat a good breakfast.
There are government programs in place to make sure each child has at least one healthy, balanced meal a day. This meal is usually breakfast, because the relationship between breakfast and improved learning has been clearly shown. Programs are available in poor and underserved areas of the United States.
Talk to your health care provider if you have concerns about your child's growth and development.
Related topics include:
Diet - intellectual development
Stettler N, Bhatia J, Parish A, Stallings VA. Feeding healthy infants, children, and adolescents. In: Kliegman RM, Behrman RE, Jenson HB, Stanton BF, eds. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 19th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 42.
- Last reviewed on 2/26/2014
- Neil K. Kaneshiro, MD, MHA, Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. © 1997- 2013 A.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited. | <urn:uuid:619e5016-456e-4f2b-8f3a-8d371cdb5adb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://umm.edu/Health/Medical/Ency/Articles/Normal-growth-and-development | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928807 | 709 | 3.609375 | 4 |
versão On-line ISSN 2309-8775
J. S. Afr. Inst. Civ. Eng. vol.56 no.2 Midrand Ago. 2014
P R van Wyk; L CroucampCorrespondence
Often the use of local rock material for construction purposes is overlooked in engineering, which could reduce costs in terms of procurement and transport, as well as being more environmentally friendly by minimising the introduction of foreign materials. The rock materials at and around the site of a rock vault for the Matjiesfontein Geodesy and Earth Observation Observatory (MGO) were tested to determine if local materials may be used for construction purposes. In order to do this, strength and durability tests were conducted according to several South African National Standards (SANS). Slake durability was also tested where the potential of certain rock types, such as tillite of the Dwyka formation and shale of the Karoo Supergroup, typically slake/disintegrate into long angular fragments. This angular fragmentation during crushing of rock into aggregate for concrete also affects the workability of concrete in a fresh state. Concrete design using crushed local rock material was conducted to analyse performance and to establish a mix design that would be sustainable throughout the lifetime of the project. Tillite of the Dwyka formation was found to satisfy all test prerequisites best with minimal slaking due to the arid conditions at Matjiesfontein. Quartzite (Table Mountain Group) is very durable, but further testing for alkali-silicate reactivity is needed. All concrete cube tests accomplished the 40 MPa cube stren,gth, which was the design requirement, but problems arose in the workability of the concrete when river sand from nearby non-perennial rivers was used as fine aggregate in the concrete. This relates to too many particles of the same size within the sand.
Keywords: Matjiesfontein, concrete, durability, gravimeter, vault
The Matjiesfontein Geodesy and Earth Observation Observatory (MGO) will be the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere and will, amongst other collocated instruments, be home to a Lunar Laser Ranger (LLR). The LLR is a large laser telescope that emits laser beams in the direction of the moon, and these are then reflected from retro-reflectors that were placed on the moon during the Apollo programme. This is used to determine the distance to the moon, and forms part of an international network of similar geodetic stations in the northern hemisphere that investigate discrepancies in earth-moon relationship models. The validity of Einstein's theory of relativity can also be analysed with such data. Uncertainties in data collected from gravimeter stations around the world confirm that, like the tides at sea, the earth's crust experiences tidal movement of about thirty centimetres per day (Combrinck 2012), which can be monitored using highly sensitive equipment such as permanent gravimeters, seismographs and accelerometers. These instruments need to be fixed directly onto the earth's crust and housed in a structure that offers a stable environment, uninfluenced as far as possible by external impacts. A vault built into a rock face or hill best serves this purpose and will be built at the MGO where a gravimeter, seismograph and accelerometer will be installed. Understanding the rock mechanics and the terrain from a geotechnical perspective is the first step in preparation of construction of the vault. The access road to the MGO site is also in need of repair, as vehicles transporting expensive and sensitive equipment need to travel to the site.
The use of local material for construction and concrete design could reduce procurement and transportation costs, as well as be more environmentally friendly by reducing the introduction of foreign materials. If one could use excavated material and then build on the area that had been excavated, the essence of sustainability could be accomplished at a fraction of the cost, given that the equipment needed for excavation and construction (such as a small-scale crusher, sieve, vehicles, jack-hammers, etc) are not too expensive.
The site of the MGO is located in a small depression at the foot of the Witteberg mountain range, about five kilometres south of Matjiesfontein village in the Western Cape (South Africa) on the boundary between the Cape and Karoo Supergroups (Figure 1). The typical rock types are mainly quartzite (Table Mountain Group), sandstone (Table Mountain Group), tillite (Dwyka formation) and shale (Karoo Supergroup). A portion of the 1:50 000 geology field map, obtained from the Council for Geoscience, is shown in Figure 2, where CPd is the Dwyka formation, Cw the Witpoort formation, Cf the Floriskraal formation, Ck the Kweekvlei formation and Dwi the Witpoort formation. These rock types all exhibit their own characteristics and potential risks when used for construction purposes. Although quartzitic sandstone of the Cape Supergroup (Peninsula and Skurweberg formations) is good when used as concrete aggregate and is extensively used in the George, Bredasdorp and Knysna regions (Cole 2011), quartzite, when strained, does pose a risk for alkali-silicate reactivity (Alkali-silica reaction in concrete, n.d.) when used as aggregate in concrete.
The following sections describe methods used in determining strength and durability of the different rock types through a slake durability and a 10% Fine Aggregate Crushing Test (10%FACT); and performance of concrete when local construction materials are used as aggregate and analysed by means of cube strength. This is followed by a discussion on what potential changes could be made in order to improve the project, followed by a summary and conclusion.
Slake durability test
In the slake durability test, seven lumps of rock, from each of the four different rock types (quartzite, tillite, sandstone and shale) were placed in four different bins. The assembly was rotated on an axle for five wet/ dry cycles (1 cycle - wet for 12 hours during the day and dry for 12 hours during the night). During the wet period of a cycle, the bins were partially submerged in water so that when stationary, all lumps of rock weresubmerged, and then for the dry period of a cycle, the water was completely drained.
After the five wet/dry cycles were completed, the mass of rocks left in the respective bin was compared to that of their original mass. This data was then used to calculate the percentage of deterioration that each rock type had undergone during the test. Photos before and after were also taken for visual comparisons in degradation.
The test apparatus consisted of four bins, each with a width of 100 mm and a diameter of 250 mm (Figure 3). The circumference of the bin consisted of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) pipe (250 mm diameter), with a matrix of 20 mm diameter holes, and closed on the sides with 13 mm mesh. Each bin was positioned on an axle and rotated at five rotations per minute by a motor.
Assumptions and limitations
The slake durability apparatus (Slake n.d.) is an apparatus that conforms to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D4644 (1998), used to test the slake durability of rocks via a rotating drum mechanism. This apparatus is used to test the disintegration of the rocks into small particles. This is not an accurate estimate when considering rocks such as those from the MGO site. Shale, in particular, breaks down into particles/fragments of many shapes and sizes, so if one had to use the ASTM D4644 (1998) standard, shale may seem more durable than some of the other rock types, which would be an inaccurate representation. Because the slaking of disintegrating rocks into different shapes and sizes was to be tested, a test mentioned in Brink (1983) was adapted and an apparatus was built that would release < 20 mm particle/lump sizes.
Unfortunately, in Brink (1983) only a visual evaluation is done by comparing before-and-after photos to estimate which materials had undergone more weathering, and no physical mass comparisons between before-and-after the apparatus were run. In Brink (1983), however, tests were also done by substituting water with saturated sodium sulphate and sodium hexametaphosphate known as Calgon (a dispersive agent). Unfortunately, such tests in different solutions were not possible due to the lack of availability of mixtures (±30 L of each mixture) and cost implications.
Although comparative results were found in Brink (1983) on the slaking of samples into particle sizes, actual tabular results, which would have enabled comparison to a test similar to the one conducted, i.e. breakdown percentages of the slaking of disintegrating rocks into different shapes and sizes, was not possible.
During the 10%FACT test two samples of each rock type were tested for their 10%FACT value. One sample for each rock type was tested under dry conditions and the other under wet conditions (soaked for 24 hours).
The purpose of the 10%FACT test was to determine the force required that would yield 10% fines (10% of the original specimenmass) in a dry and wet condition. The way in which the test was done, was to crush 9.5 mm aggregate in a steel cylinder (in the compression testing machine) to yield a percentage fines between 7.5% and 12.5% and record the force required to produce this percentage (Figure 4). The force obtained for wet and dry conditions was then expressed as a percentage (wet-to-dry ratio). The general necessary wet-to-dry ratio for the present 10%FACT specification for road aggregates is a minimum of 75% (Thothela et al 2011).
Assumptions and limitations
According to the old South African Bureau of Standards 842 (SABS 1994), the sieves used as part of the apparatus are 13.2, 9.5 and 2.36 mm sizes, whereas in the new South African National Standard 5842 (SANS 2006) the sieve sizes are 11.2, 8.0, 2.8 mm respectively. Due to a lack of the relevant sieve sizes required by SANS 5842 (2006), the sieve sizes used during the test were according to SABS 842 (1994), while the method used was that as set out in SANS 5842 (2006).
There was, however, insufficient material of the correct size, i.e. not enough material was retained on the 9.5 mm sieve for three different samples of each rock type (± 9 kg of 9.5 mm aggregate for each rock type). An assumption was therefore made that the aggregate would yield a percentage fines in the region of 7.5% to 12.5%. Therefore, as described in SANS 5842 (2006), the following equation was used to determine the 10%FACT value for each rock type:
F = the force necessary to produce 10% fines (kN)
x = the force necessary to produce a percentage fines between 7.5% and 12.5% (kN)
y = the percentage fines that correlates with force x
Cube strength was used to determine the strength of the concrete when using local materials from the Matjiesfontein site. The 28-day cube strength aimed for was 40 MPa and the test was conducted according to Addis (1998: 23-25). An assumption, from the durability testing, was that shale and sandstone would not make good coarse aggregate for use in concrete, and consequently only tests using quartzitic sandstone and tillite as coarse aggregate were conducted, with river sand as fine aggregate. The relative densities were obtained using the pycnometer method as shown in SANS 5844 (2006). Four mixtures (three cubes for each mixture) with a water:cement ratio (W:C) of 0.55 (Ramat 2012) were designed, trialed, adjusted and tested in order to achieve the 40 MPa cube strength. The first two concrete designs used Malmesbury sand (commonly used in South Africa and often called building sand) as a fine aggregate, and quartzitic sandstone and tillite as coarse aggregate respectively. The second two also contained quartzitic sandstone and tillite respectively, but instead of Malmesbury sand, ordinary river sand was sieved (< 4.75 mm) and used as fine aggregate. Tables 1 to 4 show the four different concrete designs tested.
Slake durability test
The slake durability test revealed that quartzite and tillite were the most durable materials, losing only 10.5% and 16.5% of their initial sample mass respectively. As illustrated on the graph in Figure 5, sandstone and shale proved considerably less durable than quartzite and tillite, losing over half their initial mass during the five wet/dry cycles.
Figure 6 shows what the samples looked like before and after the test. Quartzite showed little breakdown and weathering, and much of the material collected in the container underneath the basket throughout the test was in the form of silt-size particles similar to dust that had degraded through mechanical interaction with the surfaces of the apparatus and other lumps of rock. The quartzite lumps generally remained in an angular form, but were rounded at the edges.
Like quartzite, tillite showed little breakdown, and the material recovered in the container under the tillite bin consisted of tiny flaky pieces of rock material with a "powderish" appearance. The tillite lumps also remained angular and rounded at the lump edges.
Sandstone showed the most weathering. Of the material collected under the sandstone bin, most was in the form of sand particles. The sandstone lumps progressed from being angular in appearance to rounded small-to-medium size lumps, many of which were small enough to fall out of the bin into the container.
Shale, as was expected, broke down in different shapes and sizes, although with the tumbling action of the wheel they were rounded at the edges. In nature this would not necessarily be the same, and the slaked-off fragments would be angular and sharp, but the test does reveal the extent to which typical shale rocks degrade. Far less silt-size particles and flaky pieces of material were found in the container than for the other rock types.
Figure 7 shows the 10%FACT value for each rock type in wet and dry conditions. All of the rock types, except for the first test for quartzite, had a larger 10%FACT value in the dry condition than under wet circumstances.
As can be seen in Table 5, tillite showed a ratio of 84.9%, sandstone 71.5% and shale 79.8%. Interestingly, the 10%FACT value for wet conditions for quartzite was initially significantly higher than that for dry conditions, producing a ratio of 155% wet-to-dry 10%FACT. Therefore a second test was done yielding a wet-to-dry ratio of 97.4%. According to Thothela et al (2011), the minimum dry 10%FACT value required is 210 kN. Tillite and shale both satisfied this prerequisite, whereas sandstone and quartzite did not.
Cube strength test results
The concrete cube test results are summarised in Table 6.
Tillite's slake durability results were initially surprising, because greater slaking and breakdown of material were expected, but according to Brink (1983) it was discovered that in arid regions, such as where the MGO is situated, no problems were reported concerning this physical breakdown, though exposure may disintegrate the material to an extent. This is probably because less rain occurs in the Karoo, and the Matjiesfontein region is far less humid than areas closer to the east coast where drastic breakdown of tillite is reported.
The manner in which shale slakes into fragments of different shapes and not into silt sizes indicated that shale, although impermeable to water, contains internal bedding planes along which the lumps break. Shale disintegrated less than sandstone, probably because the sandstone lumps tested were initially weathered to a larger extent and much softer than the shale.
A possibility is to build an apparatus closer to that as described in ASTM D4644 (1998) and to conduct the test again, and then compare results. Another possibility is to use Calgon (dispersive agent) instead of water, as described in Brink (1983), in order to conduct a similar test and visually evaluate in more detail.
Although sandstone showed a ratio < 75 %, recent studies in South Africa by Thothela et al (2011) suggested that a relaxation in the specification may be required. The reason for the ratio being < 75% for sandstone is most likely because the rock samples that were crushed and used in the test had been collected at surface where the site is located, and where they had already been exposed to initial weathering. Although the sandstone does not meet the 210 kN precondition in the wet or dry condition, further testing of less weathered sandstone would be recommended.
The result of the first wet 10%FACT test for quartzite was significantly higher than the 10%FACT value for the dry test. This was peculiar, because only materials pre-coated with bitumen show such tendencies, due to their ability to reject water or decrease the ability of water to be absorbed into aggregate (Thothela et al 2011). It was understandable that the quartzite could repel moisture due to its density (closely compacted particles with no voids) and hardness. For it to have such a high wet-to-dry 10%FACT ratio of 155%, however, the only conclusion that could be drawn was that the water acts as an adhesive agent similar to that of pre-coating, resulting in high wet-to-dry ratios. It was suggested that the result be considered inconclusive, and that the 10%FACT test for quartzite be redone, because no results yielded a wet-to-dry ratio greater than 120% (a value only achieved using precoated materials (Thothela 2011)). This was done, yielding a more reasonable wet-dry ratio of 97.4% which, according to Thothela (2011), is normal for quartzite (close to 100%).
Possible precautions should be taken when procuring materials on site to ensure that only materials showing little or no weathering are used. A possibility is to start a quarry on site, but this would be inadvisable, because it would dramatically affect the aesthetic value which the local Matjiesfontein community wishes to preserve.
All the cubes tested for strength achieved the 40 MPa design prerequisite at 28 days. According to Croukamp (2012), 40 MPa concrete may be unnecessary, as the concrete will not be subjected to high loading, and strengths of 25-30 MPa may well be sufficient. In order to decrease the overall concrete strength, the W:C ratio may be decreased, and a cheaper design could be achieved in that less cement would be used.
Problems arose when local river sand was used as fine aggregate, in terms of workability. Slump tests of the concrete in a fresh state indicated slumps in the region of 10 mm to 40 mm, whereas 75 mm was the minimum slump specified. This value is typically used in construction (Ramat 2012). As can be seen in Figure 8, the local river sand is very coarse, making the mixture abrasive and affecting its workability. As indicated in Addis (1998: 86-87), river sand on the banks of rivers (as the local river sand tested) often contains particles of roughly the same size. This is not conducive to workability, because materials have a large deficiency or excess of a certain size fraction. A possibility to remedy this situation may be to design and test a concrete mixture that contains a superplasticiser, or another admixture, to increase fluidity in the concrete (Illston & Domone 2001).
The suitability of a concrete mix requires much more than strength testing. Other properties such as the Oxygen Permeability Index, Absorptivity and Chloride Conductivity still need to be examined.
Alkali-silicate reactivity is a risk when using quartzite as aggregate in concrete, but only if the quartzite is highly strained (Lee n.d.). In order to establish whether the quartzite is strained or not, petrographic analysis of a quartzite thin-section may be used (Verryn 2013). An additional test that is widely used is the mortar bar test that may be conducted in 16 days (Obla 2005) in order to fully determine if the aggregate is reactive.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Generally most of the tests conducted indicated that quartzite and tillite are the most suitable materials for construction purposes at the MGO site. The slake durability test showed that quartzite and tillite only degraded 10.5% and 16.5% from their initial masses respectively in five wet/dry cycles. A recommendation is to build another rotating mechanism that conforms to the slake durability apparatus (Slake n.d.), and conduct tests again for the slaking of rocks to sand- and siltsize particles, and compare these to the test conducted. Another possibility is to conduct the test using a dispersive agent instead of water, as mentioned in Brink (1983).
The first 10%FACT test for quartzite resulted in abnormal figures and was therefore inconclusive. The second test, however, had more normal results, with a wet-to-dry ratio of 97.4%, but did not achieve the minimum required 10%FACT value of 210 kN. This would render it unsuitable for construction if only the 10%FACT test is used as the accept/reject criterion. Along with tillite, shale fulfilled the 10%FACT test prerequisites (wet/dry ratio of 75% and 10%FACT value greater than 210 kN), but shale would not be recommended as a construction material for the purposes of the project due to its known slaking properties. A recommendation in the light of the 10%FACT test, including redoing the test for quartzite, is to conduct the test using unweathered or partially metamorphisised sandstone (quartzitic sandstone). This should increase the 10%FACT value above 210 kN, but again the recommendation is not to use sandstone, due to it disintegrating properties (disintegration into sand and silt sizes).
All concrete cube tests achieved the design value of 40 MPa cube strength, but when the local river sand was used as fine aggregate in the concrete, problems arose in the workability. This was because the river sand is too coarse and contains too many particles of roughly the same size. Although 40 MPa concrete was the design value, after further discussion, this prerequisite may possibly be lowered to 25-30 MPa, which will reduce costs. Along with further strength testing of cubes containing super-plasticiser, a recommendation is to examine other concrete properties such as the Oxygen Permeability Index, Absorptivity and Chloride Conductivity.
In order to determine if quartzite poses a risk of alkali-silicate reactivity in the concrete, it is recommended that thin-sections of quartzite from the site be analysed to determine if the quartzite is strained, and if it is, to conduct additional mortar bar tests.
The authors would like to thank Stellenbosch University for providing the technical staff and facilities necessary for the research to be conducted. Staff members Charlton Ramat, Matteo Dal Ben, Colin Isaacs and Adriaan Fouché, among others, are thanked for their technical assistance. We hereby also acknowledge DST, NRF and AEON's Inkaba yeAfrica Programme's financial support during 2012 and 2013. This is an Inkaba Publication No 76.
Addis, B 1998. Fundamentals of Concrete. Midrand: Cement and Concrete Institute. [ Links ]
Alkali-silica reaction in concrete. n.d. Available at: http://www.understanding-cement.com/alkali-silica.html [Accessed on 15 October 2012]. [ Links ]
ASTM 1998 (American Standard Test Method D4644). Standard test method for slake durability of shales and similar weak rocks. West Conshohocken, PA: American Standard Test Methods. [ Links ]
Brink, A B A 1983. Engineering Geology of Southern Africa. Pretoria: Building Publications, Vol. 3, pp 89-90. [ Links ]
Cole, D I 2011. Report on economically viable mineral resources in the City of Cape Town's administrative area. Cape Town: Council for Geoscience. [ Links ]
Combrinck, L 2012. Personal interview. 18 April, Matjiesfontein. [ Links ]
Croukamp, L 2012. Personal interview. 4 December, Stellenbosch. [ Links ]
Illston, J M & Domone, P L (Eds.) 2001. Construction Materials: Their Nature and Behaviour. London and New York: Spon Press, Vol. 3, pp 110-120. [ Links ]
Lee, N n.d. Alkali-silica reactivity in concrete. Available at: http://www.branz.co.nz/cms_show_download.php?id=fdcfed6f47d2995324c7372bf1764045785d0488 [Accessed on 15 October 2012]. [ Links ]
Obla, K 2005. Alkali silica reactions. Concrete in Focus, Spring: 45-47. [ Links ]
Ramat, C 2012. Personal interview, 19 September, Stellenbosch. [ Links ]
SABS 842 (South African Bureau of Standards) 1994. The determination of the 10 per cent fines aggregate crushing value. Pretoria: Standard Test Methods. [ Links ]
SANS 5842 (South African National Standards) 2006a. FACT value (10% fines aggregate crushing value) of coarse aggregates. Pretoria: Standards South Africa. [ Links ]
SANS 5844 (South African National Standards) 2006b. Particle and relative densities of aggregates. Pretoria: Standards South Africa. [ Links ]
Thothela, T, Robertson, G & Jenkins, K 2011. Improving the durability of seal aggregate by precoating. Proceedings, 10th Conference on Asphalt Pavements for Southern Africa (CAPSA 2011), KwaZulu-Natal. Available at: http://www.capsa11.co.za/paperdir/approved/78-1032.pdf [Accessed in September 2011]. [ Links ]
Thothela, T 2011. Correspondence, 4 October, Cape Town. [ Links ]
Verryn, S 2013. Understanding alkali aggregate reactions in concrete with reference to mineralogy testing and thin sections. E-mail communication from P R van Wyk, 22 January. E-mail: [email protected] [ Links ]
P R van Wyk
Department of Civil Engineering
Private Bag X1
T: 079 922 6228
Department of Civil Engineering
Private Bag X1
T: 083 291 1008
PETER VAN WYK obtained his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering in March 2012 at Stellenbosch University, and is currently enrolled as a Masters student at the same university, focusing on geotechnical properties of rock materials at the Matjiesfontein Space Geodesy and Earth Observation Observatory.
LEON CROUKAMP obtained his BSc, BSc (Hons) and MSc from the University of Pretoria, and is currently enrolled as a PhD student at Stellenbosch University. He worked as an Engineering Geologist and GIS Analyst at the Council for Geoscience in South Africa for 23 years, during which time he was also President of the South African Institute for Engineering and Environmental Geologists (SAIEG) for a term of four years. Currently he is a lecturer in GIS and Engineering Geology at Stellenbosch University. | <urn:uuid:79cf8267-d758-4af1-9959-0658ec73bc77> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-20192014000200004&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00132-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942937 | 5,932 | 2.890625 | 3 |
June 15, 2005
Nicotine Triggers the Same Brain Reward Circuitry as Opiates
In experiments with mice, researchers have found that nicotine triggers the same neural pathways that give opiates such as heroin their addictively rewarding properties--including associating an environment with the drug's reward. However, unlike opiates, nicotine does not directly activate the brain's opiate receptors, but activates the natural opioid reward pathway in the brain.
The researchers, led by Julie Blendy of the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (TTURC) at the University of Pennsylvania, said their findings suggest more effective ways that opiate blockers could be used to help smokers quit.In their experiments reported in the June 16, 2005, issue of Neuron, the researchers administered nicotine to mice and analyzed the levels of a protein called CREB--known to control genes involved in the reward pathway of opiates and other abused drugs. They found that not only was CREB activated in the reward regions of the nicotine-treated animal's brains, but also that the drug naloxone, which blocks the opiate receptors, blocked CREB activation. Also, mutant mouse strains lacking the opioid receptor did not show an increase in CREB activity when they received nicotine.
The researchers also studied the relationship among nicotine, the environment, and this reward pathway. They conditioned mice to associate a specific test chamber with receiving nicotine, finding that the mice would prefer to stay in that chamber when given a choice. The researchers found that just placing the conditioned mice in the chamber activated CREB. They also found that naloxone blocked this conditioned increase in CREB, and that mutant mice lacking CREB or pretreated with naloxone did not show any reward response to nicotine.
However, naloxone did not block the chamber choice of mice conditioned with cocaine, found the researchers, indicating that cocaine activates the brain reward pathway in a different way from nicotine and opiates.
"The present results demonstrate that nicotine-associated environmental stimuli can activate the same molecular signal transduction molecules as the drug itself," wrote Blendy and her colleagues. They wrote that the activation of CREB "is evident not only after acute and repeated nicotine administration, but also following exposure to an environment in which the animal has previously received nicotine."
The researchers noted that clinical studies of opioid receptor blockers to relieve cigarette cravings "so far have produced mixed results, ranging from ineffectiveness at smoking cessation to mild reduction in the desire to smoke."
The researchers wrote that their findings "suggest that the timing and context of opioid receptor antagonist administration are critical for determining the effectiveness of blocking nicotine reward . . . . Given the results reported here, clinical studies designed to evaluate administration of opioid antagonists just prior to cues associated with smoking could lead to a more promising treatment regimen."
On the Web: | <urn:uuid:5b60f4c2-d4ce-4d5c-8ce4-1ae43d08678e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/156315/nicotine_triggers_the_same_brain_reward_circuitry_as_opiates/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957081 | 575 | 2.75 | 3 |
This graphic compares visible-light and infrared views of the same detailed area in the star-forming nebula NGC 2174 from the Hubble Space Telescope. On the left is a visible-light image made by WFPC2 in 2001 and on the right is an image made by the WFC3 infrared camera. Infrared light penetrates more dust and gas than visible light, allowing main details to become visible. A jet of material from a newly forming star is visible in one of the pillars, just above and left of center in the right-hand image. Several galaxies are seen in the infrared view, much more distant than the columns of dust and gas.
Object Names: NGC 2174, Monkey Head Nebula, Sharpless Sh2-252
Image Type: Astronomical/Annotated
To access available information and downloadable versions of images in this news release, click on any of the images below: | <urn:uuid:fe664bba-d277-41f3-9732-49813cbec1b2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/18/image/b/layout/thumb/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00061-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878535 | 186 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Interested Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering
Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering supports research from the navigation of space shuttles and the control of observation satellites to supply valuable data for what lies beneath the planet’s surface. Geomatics is a relatively new scientific term, combining geodesy and geoinformatics. It includes tools and techniques used in land surveying, remote sensing, cartography, geographic information systems, global navigation satellite systems, photography, geography and related forms of earth mapping. The term was originally used in Canada, because it is similar in origin to both French and English, but has since been adopted worldwide. The related field of hydrogeomatics covers the area associated with surveying work carried out on, above or below the surface of the sea. A number of university departments now offer courses in surveying, survey engineering, topography and geomatics or geomatic engineering. The advancement of Geomatics is largely due to computer hardware, computer science and software engineering as well as space shuttle observations and other areas taken into consideration are the environment, seismic studies, climate change, meteorology and oceanography. There are not many sites available on the Internet supplying information on the subject. However, below are listed universities offering courses along with associations where valuable information can be found.
This is the site of the University College of London which has a section dedicated to Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. Details of courses, admissions and teachings can be found along with a section for research. Resources can be found in the careers and industry section with links, video demonstrations and articles stating what opportunities and jobs are available after completing the courses and open posts are advertised.
The Northern University of Illinois has a department for Geography offering courses in Geomatics and Natural Environmental Systems. The courses combine land surveys and cartography long with Geographic Information Science with the emphasis on Civil and Environmental Engineering. Full details about the courses available and the university can be found on the site with some lessons being available online. Further information is given in ‘the student club’ where details on scholarship can be obtained.
The Ohio State University has a department for Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering with the focus on mapping, GIS, photogrammetry, computer vision, satellite positioning and inertial navigation. The university specialises in Engineering with many courses available; the details of which can be found on the site along with information on the university itself. Research can be carried out on Environmental, Geodetic and Infrastructure Engineering with news and events being advertised.
Study Portals advertises various courses available in Geomatics. A general description about how Geomatics operates is given along with full details on the courses. Career opportunities are discussed within the field and a list is provided for further suggested studies. The site is based in the Netherlands and available jobs within the country are advertised and can be applied for after passing the exams.
The Florida Atlantic University has a department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering. Information can be found on each of the three mentioned topics along with a directory for news and research. Many graduates from the university are actively involved in funding sources along with professional organisations for research projects and useful links are provided to all participating establishments. Full details about the courses and the university can be found on the site.
Purdue University is a school for Civil and Geomatic Engineering giving details about the prospectus for staff, students and alumni. Programmes offered are Minor in Land Surveying, Masters Degree and Ph.D Degree. News and events are highlighted with spotlights on research developments. Several research centres are available for information including the Bowen laboratory and any form of ‘giving’ to the university is encouraged.
The Polytechnic of Milan offers a course in Master of Science in Environmental Geomatic Engineering. Details of what the course offers are available on the site with recent thesis titles and course catalogues available to view. The study programme along with the learning objectives are clearly stated and further information can be found in the sections named technology transfer projects and the PhD school. Resources can also be found in the Geomatics library, which is available in English and Italian.
Wessex Archaeology has a section, which is dedicated to the Geomatics and CIS services provided to the heritage sector. Geomatics techniques and case studies can be viewed and a full list of services offered by the site is shown. Information can be read on surveying, high dynamic range photography, polynomial texture mapping, industrial archaeology, landscaping and cartography. Chosen topics can be searched by period or place and there are special sections with news on Stonehenge as well as coastal and marine data. A link is provided to a photographic gallery and there is an online shop for purchasing stock photos and books.
Newcastle University has many courses at the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department. Some of the courses are Environmental Engineering, Geomatics, Geochemistry, Geotechnics and Structures, Transport and Geodesy and Surveying. Details regarding the courses can be found on the site including the goals and aims of each along with possible career options after completion. Information is given for staff and students and there is also a section for research.
This is the website for Thomas who provides civil and environmental engineering, ecological and environmental services, property services and GIS services for infrastructure management and projects. The company is based in New Zealand and values and attributes are mentioned on the site. Two images galleries are available to view and information can be found under civil engineering, environmental services, property and buildings, planning and development and GIS. A list of project partners is given and useful links lead to further information. | <urn:uuid:8d28f5ad-f14e-49a3-a3a6-4683dccb15c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.top-site-list.com/topsites/civil-environmental-and-geomatic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945766 | 1,161 | 2.78125 | 3 |
How is hearing loss diagnosed?
A hearing loss is diagnosed based on the person’s history, behavior, and the results of medical and audiological examinations.
If anyone, doctor or someone else, tells you that nothing can be done about your hearing loss and you should just learn to live this it, seek another opinion.
What should I do if I think I have a hearing loss?
See an ear, nose and throat doctor (otolaryngologist or otologist) or your primary care physician to see if you have a hearing loss and to rule out any medical condition.
You may also choose to go to an audiologist directly without seeing a doctor. In this case you would need to sign a waiver, because currently the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that you see a physician first. HLAA supports going to an audiologist first.
What will I learn from the doctor?
You will find out from the doctor if you have a hearing loss, what might be causing it, (link to Hearing Loss Causes and Prevention) and if it can be treated. For example, fluid in the middle ear or wax in the ear canal can cause hearing loss.
If you do have a hearing loss, don’t despair. There are several things you can do to hear and cope better in situations that have caused you difficulty in communicating.
In the event that you are diagnosed with a hearing loss the physician should refer you to a qualified hearing health professional for a full hearing test. This test will tell you the degree and type of hearing loss and also determine if you could be helped by hearing aids. The hearing health professional will recommend what type of hearing aid is best for your hearing loss.
If the physician finds no medical cause for your hearing loss and does not refer you for further testing and tells you that nothing can be done for you, you should make an appointment directly with a hearing health professional for a full hearing test and evaluation. This will include an audiogram.
There is a difference between hearing testing and hearing screening. Find out more from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
If a hearing aid is recommended where do I get one? Will my insurance cover it?
Hearing aids are dispensed by audiologists and hearing instrument specialists. There are many types of hearing aids that vary in cost, design, and features. Hearing aids are covered by some private insurance plans, company plans, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, and Tricare, the plan for active and retired military and their families. Some plans cover hearing testing, but not the hearing aids. Medicaid covers hearing aids for children in some states. Medicare does not cover hearing aids.
For information about assistance go to Financial Assistance page.
Is there anything I should be aware of when buying my hearing aid?
HLAA recommends following best practices to help you know what to ask for and look for when buying a hearing aid. Download the HLAA publication Purchasing a Hearing Aid: A Consumer Checklist as a starting point.
Most states have laws in place that provide for a 30-day trial period. However, state laws vary, some have a longer period, some none at all, and some providers will offer more time. Ask your provider to give a written statement regarding the trial period, with the start and end dates noted, as well as whether the trial period will be stopped if you have to return the hearing aid for repairs during the trial.
Find a hearing professional you are comfortable with and who will work with you until you get the optimum results for your hearing loss.
Ask about various options available in the hearing aid, such as a telecoil that is convenient to use with telephones and hearing assistive technology.
What else should I know about hearing aids?
Hearing aids will not correct hearing like glasses correct vision. Don’t expect 20/20 hearing but they will help you hear in many situations. Your new hearing aids may require follow-up visits for technical tweaks by your provider. Adjusting to hearing aids takes time and perseverance, but it is worth it. You may have a love/hate relationship with your hearing aid at first, as no one is enthusiastic about getting a hearing aid. But after a while, you will not want to be without it.
A hearing aid coupled with your willingness to tell others how to communicate with you and your practicing good speechreading and communication strategies, is a winning combination and will get you back into your social and family life as you once knew it.
Read more about hearing aids.
What is an otolaryngologist?
Otolaryngologist (ENT) (oh/toe/lair/in/goll/oh/gist) - a physician trained in the medical and surgical management and treatment of the ear, nose, throat (ENT), and related structures of the head and neck. For an otolaryngologist near you call the American Academy of Otolaryngology at 703.836.4444 or visit AAO-HNS at www.entnet.org.
What is an audiologist?
Audiologist is a health care professional qualified to do a thorough evaluation of your hearing. The audiologist can determine your type and degree of hearing loss and whether or not you can be helped by hearing aids and, if so, the best type of hearing aid for you. The audiologist will recommend a treatment program to assist you with your communication needs and, if indicated, may recommend a medical evaluation.
For more information or for an audiologist near you, call the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) at 800. 638.8255 or visit ASHA at www.asha.org; or call the American Academy of Audiology (the Academy) at 800.AAA.2336 or visit them at www.audiology.org.
What is a hearing instrument specialist?
Hearing instrument specialist is a professional certified by the National Board for Certification in Hearing Instrument Sciences (BC-HIS) and licensed or registered in all states. This specialist does an assessment, fits and dispenses hearing aids, and provides instruction in the use and care of hearing aids and related devices. For a hearing instrument specialist near you, call the International Hearing Society's (IHS) Hearing Aid Helpline at 800.521.5247 or visit IHS at www.ihsinfo.org.
We also have a HLAA Professional Membership Directory of those professionals listed above who value HLAA and have chosen to join us. | <urn:uuid:0e1189c6-00db-4f31-beff-63282e58088f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hearingloss.org/content/diagnosing-hearing-loss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952234 | 1,348 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Definitions for mega
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word mega
Origin: From the prefix mega-.
alt. of Megalo-
The New Hacker's Dictionary
[SI] See quantifiers.
Is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of one million or in computing, computer science and information technology is a binary value based on an international agreed standard.
Mega has different uses and meanings when used in the metric system, computing, computer science and information technology.
The numerical value of mega in Chaldean Numerology is: 4
The numerical value of mega in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.
2014 was an excellent year for Israeli high tech even though there was not a mega deal.
We also expect to see more mega-deals as Canadian investors are in a flight to quality.
Thankfully, it's not the undercard, obviously, Jennings and Klitschko is not the mega-fight.
There are two kinds of great power which can shake the earth: Mega earthquakes and big ideas!
Images & Illustrations of mega
Translations for mega
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
Get even more translations for mega »
Find a translation for the mega definition in other languages:
Select another language: | <urn:uuid:054fd6e3-862a-4b08-b9a6-88c1f351f650> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.definitions.net/definition/mega | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.836483 | 287 | 2.828125 | 3 |
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