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A small amount of sugar is used to even out the appearance - to ensure an even quantity of reducing sugar is available for Maillard's reaction to proceed equally everywhere (see Wikipedia link for more info). However, the amount does not affect significantly the taste or nutritional values of the fires.
[Washing the potatoes with slightly sugary water] It’s not done for flavouring and it doesn’t mean you’re eating additional sugar. In fact, total sugar represents approximately .007% per pound of potato, so it’s an extremely small part of the finished product.
Regarding the common claim that the fries are sweet because of this, there is, in fact, evidence of the contrary.
Sugar, when exposed to high temperatures such as that of the oil blend that McDonald's uses when frying, caramelises.
The dark brown colour at the top of a creme-caramel is due to caramelisation of sugar
Fast food fries are most definitely not caramelised. The browning of the chips is through Maillard's reaction and not caramelisation.
The light brown colour of French fries is due to Maillard's reaction.
Fries are sweet because the starch is first gelatinised during cooking and then broken down into glucose thanks to the amylase enzyme present in our mouth.
Facts and references
- Oil used by McDonald's to fry: Canola oil
- Canola oil smoking point: 230˚C
- Common fry temperature for chips: 200˚C
- Caramelisation temperature for sugar: 160˚C
- Maillard's reaction temperature: 154˚C
- Temperature at which starch gelatinises: 55–85˚C
- Saliva contains: amylase | <urn:uuid:f196d54f-b085-466e-8b31-6d3688bbd84c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5283/are-mcdonalds-fries-coated-in-sugar-before-cooking | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00136-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921326 | 362 | 2.9375 | 3 |
he opening words of Shakespeare's Henry V
not only set the stage for that play. They also give us a place to begin thinking about the role of theater in our lives. Shakespeare wrote:
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
The play's the thing that will catch our consciousness of drab reality's inner meanings. Henry's victory at Agincourt was less, in the course of history, than the play would have it be. Yet, as far as human intensities go, it was huge — both for its participants and its observers.
And, like any event that ever takes place — large or small — it changed the course of history.
So we wonder: Is the play an exaggeration of reality, or its fulfillment. I like to recite Lienhard's Principles of Minimum and Maximum Drama, and they address that question. Like the Laws of Thermodynamics, the first, The Principle of Minimum
Drama, is easiest to understand and remember. It says, "The least dramatic explanation of any situation that we don't fully understand is the one most likely to be true.
For example, I walk down the hallway and see two colleagues talking. As I draw close, they quit their conversation and go into their offices. So I speculate as to what they were doing.
- They were going to nominate me for the university presidency.
- They were planning to assassinate me.
- They'd just finished their conversation as I came in sight.
Now look at the dramatic content of each possibility. The last lacks all drama, so it's the one that's true. My colleagues really had just finished talking as I came around the corner.
My First Principle is wonderfully useful. It keeps me from assuming the worst. It keeps me out of trouble. But it also bothers people. "Is life really so dull," they ask me. Well no, it isn't.
Let's go to the Second Principle — the harder-to-understand Principle of Maximum
Drama. It says: "Once we understand the facts, the truest explanation of those facts is the one with the greatest dramatic content.
" Example: the story of the philosopher who met three men scraping bricks by the side of the road. He asked what they were doing and got three answers:
- I'm removing mortar from old bricks so we can reuse them.
- I'm helping to build a great cathedral on this spot.
- I'm trying to bring people closer to God.
All three answers are true, but the last is most dramatic. It tells most fully what was going on by the side of that road.
In 1951, I worked at the Boeing Company. One day I passed a row of three draftsmen. I asked each what he was doing.
- I'm designing a bracket to hold an air duct, said the first.
- I'm creating the new B-52 bomber, said the second.
The third pulled a long face and said,
- I'm trying to bring people closer to God.
In the years since then, through the course of several wars, I learned how true that third and most dramatic answer really was.
To understand facts, we first have to shed drama and seek their essential plainness. That's called scientific detachment. But we'll never know the full meaning of facts without seeing them in their dramatic finery.
So Richard Armstrong and I have chosen to look theater — to look at drama in general — in this year's Engines CD. And our Engines colleagues Roger Kaza and Andy Boyd will be helping out. Let's begin by seeing what Richard has to say about all this:
Well, John, you've begun by telling us, in effect, that truth and drama intertwine.
And "theatricality" really is all about a heightened sense of truth. Playwrights set up conflicts among their characters. As they wrangle with one another, some truth comes to light, and we're moved. The only way for a play to engage the audience is to hit us with something that feels real, vital, urgent. That's why so many well-intentioned plays about ideas fail: they're more about abstractions than gut-level realities, like hate, lust, or shame.
On the other hand, "theatricality" can mean the opposite of truth. It can mean exaggeration or even hypocrisy. (Perhaps I saw a little of that in your engineer at his drawing board.)
Just think of common terms like melodrama or drama queen. We resent people who drag us into their personal drama like unwilling extras. It all seems excessive, out of proportion, manipulative. The need to orchestrate personal drama can even be pathological. There's a recognized "histrionic personality disorder," whose symptoms include exaggerated emotion, provocative behavior, and the need to be the center of attention. These people compulsively "make a scene."
Which is the flip side of the fact that theater, in its many forms, shows how rich in meaning our world really is — much richer than we're inclined to imagine.
And we've been using theater to reveal that richness for a long time. Let's go back and look how the Greeks caused the idea of The Play
to emerge — how they wedded truth and drama in a new form of public story-telling. I'd like to look at how they used it to give us a deeper understanding of ourselves. | <urn:uuid:c452a41c-beef-4322-a964-f4922b71d763> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uh.edu/engines/CD-Theater/engines_of_our_ingenuity-theater-track1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974118 | 1,148 | 2.984375 | 3 |
As a biblical counselor, I get calls every week from people who want counseling for depression and other “mental illnesses.” Most of these people already have been through some other form of counseling and are usually taking psychotropic medication (drugs that act on the mind). The world and its “experts” tell us that depression is an illness, a sickness that can be treated only by a “qualified expert.” The DSM-IV classifies depression as a mental illness. Various organizations and web sites on depression concur. Consider the following quotes:
Depression.com states, “Depression is not something you can just ‘snap out of.’ It’s caused by an imbalance of brain chemicals, along with other factors. Like any serious medical condition, depression needs to be treated.”
“Depression has no single cause; often, it results from a combination of things. . . . Whatever its cause, depression is not just a state of mind. It is related to physical changes in the brain, and connected to an imbalance of a type of chemical that carries signals in your brain and nerves.” 2
The National Institute of Mental Health says, “Some types of depression run in families, suggesting that a biological vulnerability can be inherited….
In some families, major depression also seems to occur generation after generation. However, it can also occur in people who have no family history of depression. Whether inherited or not, major depressive disorder is often associated with changes in brain structures or brain function. People who have low self-esteem, who consistently view themselves and the world with pessimism or who are readily overwhelmed by stress, are prone to depression. Whether this represents a psychological predisposition or an early form of the illness is not clear.” 3
“The causes of clinical depression are likely to be different for different people.” 4
“Today, we are able to treat depression much more effectively because we have a better understanding of the causes of clinical depression. Many people begin to feel depressed as the result of some recent, notable event or events, which occurred in one’s life. We also know that family history and genetics play a part in the greater likelihood of someone becoming depressed in their lifetime. Increased stress and inadequate coping mechanisms to deal with that stress may also contribute to depression. We know that there are biological and psychological components to every depression; it is not a purely biochemical or medical disorder.”5
Not all quotes are stated as conclusively. Clinical psychologist Bruce Levine writes, “No biochemical, neurological, or genetic markers have been found for attention deficit disorder, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, compulsive alcohol or drug abuse, overeating, gambling, or any other so called mental illness, disease, or disorder.” 6
Elliot Valenstein, University of Michigan neuroscientist, writes, “Contrary to what is often claimed, no biochemical, anatomical, or functional signs have been found that reliably distinguish the brains of mental patients.” 7
Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says, “A serotonin deficiency for depression has not been found. . . . Still, patients are often given the impression that a definitive serotonin deficiency in depression is firmly established.” 8
Maurice Victor, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Neurology at Dartmouth Medical School; and Allan H. Ropper, M.D., Professor and Chairman of Neurology at Tufts University School of Medicine, agree: “At
the present time, it must be conceded that there is no reliable biologic test for depression.” 9
The Bible records the thoughts of a depressed psalmist:
“Because of your anger, my whole body is sick; my health is broken because of my sins. My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. My days are filled with grief. A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken. I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart. You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh. My heart beats wildly, my strength fails, and I am going blind. My loved ones and friends stay away, fearing my disease. Even my own family stands at a distance.” Psalm 38:3-11 (NLT)
How do we reconcile the conflicting opinions of those who say depression is an illness, others who say that claim has no basis in fact, and the words of the Bible regarding the causes and cures of depression?
In my quest to understand this complex issue, I sought out materials written by medical professionals; medical doctors, neuroscientists, neurobiophysicists, and psychiatrists who have done extensive research on the theories about this prevalent physical and emotional state. I have quoted them extensively above. Some medical professionals radically disagree with the proponents of the theories of mental illnesses. At this writing, there is no consensus in the medical field on the cause of depression and other “mental illnesses,” nor is there a cure. Treatment includes manageability of behavior and symptoms through medication but no cure. There is great confusion and disagreement within the medical and scientific communities about depression and other mental illnesses, yet theories are being presented as scientific fact.
My goal is to expose you to the alternative legitimate viewpoint on what the world calls depression and mental illness. Like my colleagues, I am greatly concerned and alarmed about the onslaught of these diagnoses. Entire segments of the population (e.g., lonely housewives, drunkards, those enslaved to sexual sin or anger, undisciplined children) are being diagnosed as mentally ill on a daily basis. The National Institute of Mental Health surveyed more than 9,000 U.S. adults and concluded that about half of all Americans will develop a mental disorder at some time in their lives! 10
How did we get to such a place? How can it be that in the last 40 years, the world has seemingly (pardon the pun) gone mad? My assessment is that because of the influence of evolution, psychiatry, and social liberalism, our society has effectively eliminated God, standards of morality, and absolutes. Behaviors once considered deviant and immoral are being redefined as medical conditions and illnesses by the psychological professionals. You can find them in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV).
1 “Take Charge of Your Health 1 Step at a Time,” GlaxoSmithKline, http://www.depression.com, 1997-2006.
2 “Causes of Depression,” GlaxoSmithKline, http://www.depression. com/causes_of_depression.html, 1997-2006.
3 Margaret Strock, “Depression,” NIH Publication No. 00-3561, National Institute of Mental Health, http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/ depression.cfm, 2000.
4 Prentiss Price, “Causes of Depression,” http://www. allaboutdepression.com/cau_01.html, 1999-2004.
5 “Depression (Unipolar),” MentalHelp.net, http://mentalhelp.net/ poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=438&cn=5, Oct. 24, 2001.
6 Bruce E. Levine, Commonsense Rebellion: Debunking Psychiatry, Confronting Society: An A to Z Guide to Rehumanizing Our Lives (New York: Continuum Publishing, 2001), 227.
7 Elliot S. Valenstein, Blaming the Brain: The Truth about Drugs and Mental Health (New York: The Free Press, 1998), 125.
8 Joseph Glenmullen, Prozac Backlash (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 197-198.
9 Maurice Victor and Allan H. Ropper, Adams and Victor’s Principles of Neurology - Seventh Edition, (New York: McGraw-Hill, Medical Publishing Division, 2001), 1616-1618.
10 Ronald Kessler, et al. “Lifetime Prevalence and Age-of-Onset Distributions of DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication,” Archives of General Psychiatry Vol. 62, No. 6 (June 2005), 593-602. | <urn:uuid:5cd00898-f01e-4468-8244-9d55e4f03f1f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bc4women.blogspot.com/2011/02/debunking-depression.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00057-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933205 | 1,783 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The Black Dog Of Leeds Castle, is the alleged spectral black dog or hell hound that haunts Leeds Castle and surrounding property.
Appearance: The Black Dog Of Leeds Castle appears as a large black retriever with curly hair.
Lore: According to lore, the Black Dog Of Leeds Castle first began to haunt the location after Eleanor Cobham, an aunt of Henry VI, was found guilty of witchcraft and imprisoned in Leeds Castle around the year 1440. Sightings of the Black Dog Of Leeds Castle are viewed as an omen of death. Interestingly, the black dog was believed to have saved the life of at least one woman, a member of the Wykeham-Martin family. The woman was sitting by a window when she sighted the phantom. The black dog then walked right through a wall. The woman excitedly jumped up to see if she could locate the animal when seconds later the wall collapsed and fell into the castle moat below. The woman would have most assuredly died had she not have seen the spectral canine.
Powers: As a spirit, The Black Dog Of Leeds Castle can walk through walls as well as simply fade away and disappear before the eyes of witnesses. Sightings of the phantom are believed to be death omens.
Defense Against The Black Dog Of Leeds Castle: The Black Dog Of Leeds Castle poses little-to-no threat to people. People who see the phantom hound should show caution as it is believed to be an omen of death.
Spirit Of A Black Dog | <urn:uuid:4dadd1da-5376-44e3-9f90-0861ecf1e808> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thedemoniacal.blogspot.com/2011/08/black-dog-of-leeds-castle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961721 | 308 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Here at the port of Djibouti, thousands of metric tons of food assistance are ready to be shipped as part of the U.S. response to the massive drought currently ravaging the Horn of Africa. USAID is mobilizing nutritious split peas, along with vitamin-fortified corn-soya blend and other commodities, from warehouses around the world to assist the more than 10 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia most affected by the drought.
The USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) began warning of the possibility of this crisis as early as summer 2010. Today, it has developed into the region's worst drought since the 1950s. Consecutive seasons of poor rainfall have resulted in failed crops, dying livestock, and sky-high market prices -- the cost of staple cereals are 40 to 240 percent higher in some areas. Malnutrition has reached emergency levels: one out of every two Somali refugees arriving in Ethiopia and one out of every three arriving in Kenya is acutely malnourished.
This week, USAID activated a disaster assistance response team (DART) operating out of Ethiopia and Kenya to work with the World Food Program, UNICEF, and over a dozen other organizations to coordinate emergency efforts to relieve the crisis. So far this year, the United States has provided more than $366 million to respond to the drought in the Horn of Africa, and continues to explore additional ways to assist those in need.
Editor's Note: This entry also appears on the USAID Impact Blog. | <urn:uuid:909d5c57-b333-4114-be74-3ba3a6acdb41> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2011/07/08/us-response-drought-horn-africa?page=0%2C1635 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00165-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952667 | 316 | 2.828125 | 3 |
There have been some remarkable retorts to President Obama’s assertion at a campaign event in Roanoke, Virginia, on July 13,
In fact, the context is larger than just this one speech in Roanoke by the President. For example:
Sure, government can do big things like win World Wars I and II, land on the moon and kill Osama bin Laden. But based on recent assertions, Obama has completely forgot that the marketing of the automobile, inventing television, inventing the airplane and the discovery and later marketing of electrical power -- all done outside of government -- are not only big things, but have led to much prosperity and yes, even greatness.
Now let’s turn to the still larger context – that of the two-century sweep of American history. We’ve grown up in a world where the federal and state governments have paid for a great deal of infrastructure. It leads someone like the President, the Vice President, and Elizabeth Warren to conclude that this has been so throughout our history. That has not been the case. And, with regard to the foreseeable future, it will not be the case. As we will see in a brief historical overview below, transportation and communications infrastructure by and large started as private endeavors. The federal and state governments became more involved. But within the past decade or so, there have evolved “public-private partnerships.”
We should note that the U.S. Constitution, in article I, section 8, specifically grants Congress the power to establish postal roads, but there were doubts whether this included the power to build such roads or was simply the power to designate existing roads for this purpose, and whether the designated roads would be limited to postal use or not.
The 20th century Interstate Highway System is financed primarily through gas taxes and tolls.
There was much canal building in the first half of the 19th century. I limit myself here to four from the 19th century and one from the 20th.
• George Washington had a vision of uniting the Ohio country to the Eastern Seaboard. When independence came, he felt the need for this even more acutely. His political interest was to deter western settlers from creating ties to Great Britain to the north or Spain to the south. His business interest consisted of 58,000 acres of land he owned in Pennsylvania and what is now West Virginia. Washington needed the cooperation of Maryland and Virginia. The states agreed to facilitate interstate commerce in the 1785 Mount Vernon Compact. (The negotiation of this interstate compact led to additional meetings, culminating in the Constitutional Convention and the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.) The two states authorized the Potowmack Canal Company and purchased one-fifth of the company’s stock. The remaining 80% was owned by the private sector. Washington became the company’s president. The canal started operations in 1801 (two years after Washington’s death) and ceased operations in 1828.
• The Erie Canal, stretching 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo, opened in 1825. President Monroe had vetoed federal funding for this “internal improvement” because he believed it was unconstitutional. The State of New York funded the $7 million upfront with reimbursement through user fees (tolls).
• The 308-mile long Ohio and Erie Canal was built in segments starting in 1825 and by 1834 extended from Portsmouth on the Ohio River to Cleveland on Lake Erie. The cost was $41 million, including $25 million in interest, fronted by the state. The state was reimbursed by tolls, leases of waterpower and the rental of canal land.
• Turning to President Obama’s adopted home state, the 96-mile Illinois and Michigan Canal was started in 1836, delayed by the Panic of 1837, and completed in 1848 at a cost of $6 million. The money came from the state which borrowed from banks and financiers and a grant of 284,000 acres of federal land. The state loan was paid off by 1871.
• The St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959. It was preceded by canals unable to accommodate oceangoing ships. After Canada signaled it was prepared to build the Seaway on its own, the United States contributed $134 million toward its $470 million cost. Starting in 1978 the operational costs were fully funded by tolls.
Railroads initially competed with canals and then supplanted them. I list four.
• The railroad that comes immediately to the public mind (as it has to the mind of Vice President Biden) is the nearly 1800-mile long Transcontinental Railroad between Omaha and Sacramento completed between 1863 and 1869 at a cost of $50 million. It was heavily federally subsidized – but that fact is not evidence in favor of using federal monies to build infrastructure because the federal subsidy became a federal scandal of huge proportions, occasioned by the padding of costs by subcontractor Credit Mobilier.
• The Panama Railroad is an instance where a railroad preceded a canal rather than the other way around. The 47 miles of track were laid across the Isthmus of Panama. It was completed in 1855, fifty years before the later Panama Canal. The cost of $8 million was borne by private financiers.
• The Chicago and Rock Island company was the first to open a railway between Chicago and the Mississippi River, in 1854. I digress to say: To promote the railway, the owners invited, at the owners’ expense, people from the East -- newspaper editors, current and former government officials, authors, and their families -- to travel to Chicago, take the one-day train to Rock Island, and then travel six days by steamboat to and from St. Paul in June of that year.
Over 1200 people, almost all of them having never seen the interior of the country, accepted the invitation. There were two 9-car trains and seven steamboats. Plenty of food. A band on each steamboat. (See the reports in the New York Times by “Excelsior”: June 8, 9, 12, 14, and 17, 1854; and New York Times, July 12, 1854; Report of Charles F. Babcock of the New Haven Palladium, excerpted in “Rails West: The Rock Island Excursion of 1854,” Minnesota History, Winter 1954 (centennial), pp. 133-143, William J. Peterson, Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi 271-86 (rev. ed. 1968),
• The Baltimore and Ohio opened its first segment in 1830 and reached Wheeling on the Ohio River in 1852. Nearly every citizen of Baltimore owned shares in the company, founded in 1827. Twenty thousand people paid $5 million for stock.
There is a relationship between the B&O, one of the earliest railways, and the first telegraph which set precedent for later telephone lines, microwave towers, and fiber optic cables. Congress provided seed money, $30,000, to Samuel Morse and his associates for an experimental 38-mile telegraph line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore with the permission of B&O to use its right-of-way – in return for free usage by B&O of the telegraph line. The telegraph line opened in 1844. Following its success, the Morse and his associates used private monies to expand the line to Philadelphia and New York, and additional private companies formed throughout the country. Typically, railroad rights-of-way were used.
The first transatlantic telegraph cable was conceived and laid by Cyrus West and the investors in the Atlantic Telegraph Company. West obtained some financial aid from both the British and American governments. On August 16, 1858 the first message sent across the Atlantic without using a ship was, “Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace and good will toward men.” After a faster cable was laid in 1866, Congress awarded Field a gold medal in 1868.
I list three bridges.
• Chain Bridge crosses the Potomac River a few miles upstream of Georgetown in Washington, D.C. The first bridge in this location was built by the Georgetown Bridge Company in 1797. Cattle crossings were too heavy and the bridge had to be replaced in 1804. That bridge was destroyed shortly thereafter by floods and the bridge was rebuilt in 1808. The 1808 bridge used chains and that is how the bridge got its current name. The bridge was rebuilt in part in 1810, 1840, 1852, 1874, 1927 and 1939. Private owners built the bridge and obtained tolls until Congress took over the bridge in 1833.
• Putting the joke aside about selling the Brooklyn Bridge, who paid for it to be built? Initially, it was a private company to which New York and Brooklyn contributed funds but, after substantial construction had been completed, the citizenry objected to having a private company in command of so much public money. The private interests were then reimbursed and terminated. The bridge opened in 1883 at a cost of $15.5 million. It was a private citizen who demonstrated the safety of the bridge by parading his 21 elephants across. The man’s name was P.T. Barnum.
• On the other side of the country, the California legislature had created a district for the design, building, and financing of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge in 1927. Due to the Crash of ’29, construction funds were not able to be obtained – until a single bank, the predecessor to the Bank of America, purchased $6 million of the state bonds in 1932. The bridge was completed in 1937. In 1971, the construction bonds were retired; they had been paid off by tolls -- $35 million in principal and $39 million in interest.
Since the President cited in Roanoke the Internet as an example of government-provided infrastructure, we can rely on L. Gordon Crovitz’ article in the July 22 issue of the Wall Street Journal to rebut the President. It was primarily the work of Xerox. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518.html
This short overview did not address private institutions of philanthropy, such as the founding of 67 institutions by Catholic Mother Frances Cabrini between 1889 and her death in 1917, or Danny Thomas’ non-denominational St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, or Andrew Carnegie’s 3,000 public libraries. It is not our place here to explore the impact of federal funding on such existing institutions or the creation of new ones. Suffice it to say that in Democracy in America (2d vol. 1840), Alexis de Tocqueville described the American proclivity to establish nonprofit associations and how that contrasted then and even today with the experience of government monopoly in France.
In this country, there is increasing private support, relative to government support, of governmental institutions and facilities. I provide four examples:
• Public land grant universities were initially funded by sales of federal lands. State support for these universities is declining. For example, as mentioned in the reports this summer of the dismissal and rehiring of the president of the University of Virginia, the Virginia state government now provides only 8% of the university’s annual operating costs. The rest comes from private sources.
• The American Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian Institution, garnered some $300 million in private donations over the past ten years.
• In 2009, the City of Chicago leased its Skyway Bridge for 99 years for $1.83 billion to a joint venture consisting of Australian and Spanish companies.
• The National Council for Public-Private Partnerships was founded in 1985. http://www.ncppp.org/
In conclusion, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and senatorial candidate Warren are simply wrong in their argument that the success of American businesses throughout our history has been dependent on government initiative and funding.
Spero columnist James M. Thunder is an attorney who works in the Washington DC area. | <urn:uuid:4fd5a229-ab84-425b-b3bb-0f864095b87c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.speroforum.com/a/CNDFXYTVSQ3/73039-Where-the-Democrats-are-wrong-about-Federal-involvement-in-infrastructure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965554 | 2,499 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Anyone who has ever wanted to build their own robot but has been worried that they do not have the required skills or budget to purchase and assemble one of the commercially available Arduino robotic kits currently on the market. Might be interested in this new Pi-Bot Arduino Robotic learning platform which has been created by Melissa Jawaharlal and Lavanya Jawaharlal.
The Pi-Bot Arduino Robotic learning platform is a kit which has been specifically created to allow beginners to build a robot from scratch and program it using the Arduino programming language.
The kit includes everything you need to create your very own mini robot including the STEM board Arduino compatible microcontroller, laser-cut chassis, wheels, gearbox and sensors all for just $75.
The Pi-Bot Arduino Robot has been built from the ground up over the past couple of years through several design cycles to refine the final design which is now ready to go into manufacture. Features of the Pi-Bot Arduino Robotic learning platform include :
– Modular platform for interchangeable sensors
– Standardized Arduino C programming
– Novel chassis design minimizes weight while maintaining strength
– Fully accessible microprocessor for easy connections
– Slide in battery pack
– Additional microprocessors can be used simply replacing the support plate
– Develops practical knowledge by using real electronic components
– All for a low cost!
From the list of components as well as its price point the Pi-Bot Arduino Robot seems to be the perfect way to enter into the world of robotics and start building your very own. The Pi-Bot project is currently over on the Kickstarter crowd funding website looking to raise enough pledges to make the jump from concept to production. So if you think Pi-Bot is something you could benefit from, visit the Kickstarter website now to make a pledge and help Pi-Bot become a reality.
Source: KickstarterFiled Under: DIY Projects, Gadgets News, Technology News, Top News | <urn:uuid:7490f210-5633-47ce-a548-0bb28c6c8928> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/pi-bot-arduino-robotic-learning-platform-kit-launches-for-75-video-11-02-2014/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939899 | 392 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Encyclopedia of Science
The real or true motion of a star with respect to the
local standard of rest
; also known as
The motion of a cosmological object other than the apparent recession caused by the expansion of the universe.
• Copyright © The Worlds of David Darling •
Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy | <urn:uuid:1c3c44d1-6ed5-4cf6-92b3-32e0433323ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/P/peculiar_motion.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.774546 | 65 | 2.625 | 3 |
From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
In 1794 Jefferson added a nailmaking operation to his blacksmith shop on Mulberry Row at Monticello. He hoped it would provide a source of cash income while he restored the depleted soil of his farms. Nail rod was shipped from Philadelphia and hammered into nails ranging in size from six-pennies to twenty-pennies. In 1796 Jefferson acquired a nail cutting machine, which made four-penny brads from hoop iron.
In his Farm Book Jefferson wrote: "Children till 10. years old to serve as nurses. From 10. to 16. the boys make nails, the girls spin. At 16. go into the ground or learn trades." Up to fourteen young male slaves, aged ten to twenty-one, worked at the forges of the nailery. From 1794 to 1796, when he was retired to Monticello, Jefferson calculated the efficiency of the nailers, each day weighing their nail rod and the nails they produced. Most of the slaves who began their working lives in the nailery became tradesmen. Moses Hern and Joe Fossett became blacksmiths; Lewis and Shepherd were carpenters; Barnaby Gillette was a cooper; James Hubbard a charcoal burner; Wormley Hughes a gardener; and Burwell Colbert was Monticello butler as well as a painter and glazier.
The nailery was quite profitable in its early years, supplying nails throughout Albemarle and Augusta counties. Management problems and the competition of cheaper imported nails later made it an only intermittent source of income.
Among the information found in the documentary record is the following:
"I now employ a dozen little boys from 10. to 16. years of age, overlooking all the details of their business myself and drawing from it a profit on which I can get along till I can put my farms into a course of yielding profit. My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe."
"A nailery which I have established with my own negro boys now provides completely for the maintenance of my family, as we make from 8. to 10,000 nails a day and it is on the increase."
"Those who work in the nailery are Moses, Wormley, Jame Hubbard, Barnaby, Isbel's Davy, Bedford John, Bedford Davy, Phill Hubbard, Bartlet, and Lewis. They are sufficient for 2 fires, five at a fire." (Jefferson's instructions to his overseer, October 1806)
"Jim makes 15 pounds. 20d Nails Barnaby makes 10 pounds, 10d do. Wagner Davy makes 10 pds. 10d do. Bedford John makes 8 pounds. 8d do. Bedford Davy makes 6 pounds. 6d do. Bartlet makes 6 pounds. 6d do. 4 Boys makes 8 pounds. 6d [total] 63 pounds nails" (Overseer's account of daily task of nailers, c. 1806)
- ↑ Jefferson to J. N. Demeunier, 29 April 1795, PTJ, 28:341.
- ↑ Jefferson to James Lyle, July 10, 1795, PTJ, 28:405-406. | <urn:uuid:6d4107da-ece0-460b-87b2-a1beeca7d14b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Nailmaking&oldid=5160 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00161-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962065 | 684 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Schools Urged to Teach Life Skills for Success Alongside Academics
If students are going to make a successful transition to college and career, schools need to do more than focus on academics. Experts say helping students develop grit, self-discipline, and critical thinking needs to be prioritized, as well.
A new report by the New America Foundation emphasizes the value of these "skills for success" and encourages K-12 educators to integrate activities to promote them into the classroom.
While prekindergarten programs have paid attention to this holistic approach to teaching, that focus is often lost in elementary, middle, and high school, according to "Skills for Success: Supporting and Assessing Key Habits, Mindsets, and Skills in Pre-K-12", released last week.
Authors Melissa Tooley and Laura Bornfreund, both on staff at the foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit, write that investing time in developing these life skills pays off in success in postsecondary and career settings.
With college enrollment growing, but completion rates remaining flat, educators are looking for ways to incorporate so-called soft skills into their college- and career-readiness efforts.
The report makes several recommendations for how the government, local educational agencies, educators, and research institutions can encourage schools to devote time to developing these life skills.
Schools should make their practices that influence students' skills in these areas more visible and progress should be monitored by outside stakeholders. This might mean including school climate in accountability systems, the authors suggest. This should not be at the expense of moving away from accountability for academic achievement, they add.
For these skills to receive attention, educators need to understand their value and learn about strategies for promoting them through training, the report noted. "Research shows that many of these skills, such as self-regulation and cooperation, are, in fact, closely linked to academic achievement," the report said. "There are some promising approaches available, both from Pre-K and K-12, for supporting the skills, habits, and mindsets that enable students to be successful academically as well as professionally and personally throughout their lives."
The New America Foundation recommends funding more research to find out the most-effective approaches to teaching these life skills and establishing regulations to create skills for success standards that can help ensure schools make this a priority. | <urn:uuid:9a202938-57a6-4210-8de4-c2f837b36c79> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2014/11/schools_urged_to_teach_skills_for_success_alongside_academics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00191-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966622 | 482 | 3.25 | 3 |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |
Biological: Behavioural genetics · Evolutionary psychology · Neuroanatomy · Neurochemistry · Neuroendocrinology · Neuroscience · Psychoneuroimmunology · Physiological Psychology · Psychopharmacology (Index, Outline)
The body handles this pretty well during activities like running, where muscles that oppose each other are engaged and disengaged sequentially to produce coordinated movement. This facilitates ease of movement and is a safeguard against injury. Sometimes, for example, a football running back can experience a "misfiring" of motor units and end up simultaneously contracting the quads and hamstrings during a hard sprint. If these muscles, which act opposite to each other are fired at the same time, at a high intensity, a tear can result. The stronger muscle, usually the quadriceps in this case, overpowers the hamstrings. This sometimes results in an injury known as a pulled hamstring.
To get an idea of reciprocal inhibition in action, hold a heavy book in one hand, palm up. With your other hand feel the front of your upper arm. It's contracted and hard. Then, feel the back of your upper arm. It's relaxed, and flaccid. Include this as a flexibility technique to improve your active and PNF stretching. | <urn:uuid:25342a08-5206-4743-9b32-07d04c80a569> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Reciprocal_inhibition | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906562 | 276 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Australian citizenship is more than just a ceremony and forms an important part of Australia Day celebrations. It symbolises our unity as a nation. It represents commitment to Australia and its people, the values we share and our common future. It also symbolises the sense of belonging to the country where we have been born or where we have decided to make our home. Australian citizenship is a shared identity, a common bond which unites all Australians while respecting our diversity.
Citizenship ceremonies have both personal and legal dimensions. Citizenship brings with it significant rights and responsibilities, including the right to vote, stand for public office, and travel on an Australian passport.
Most people are required to make the Pledge of Commitment as the final step in becoming an Australian citizen.
Once their application has been approved, arrangements are made for them to attend a Citizenship Ceremony at which they make the pledge. Once the pledge had been made before a person delegated by the Minister, the person is an Australian citizen.
An Australian Citizenship Affirmation is a statement that gives all Australians, not only our newest citizens, the opportunity to affirm their loyalty and commitment to Australia and its people.
Citizenship ceremonies are generally conducted by local government councils and can be held on Australia Day as part of the program of events. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection administers citizenship ceremonies. The Department notifies local government regarding new citizens in their area. There are clear protocols which must be followed in relation to Citizenship ceremonies. Find more information at theAustralian citizenship website.
If you intend to incorporate a Citizenship ceremony into your Australia Day event you may find this helpful. | <urn:uuid:2b37ce19-e6a5-43ef-9f02-f0388a4b373f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.australiaday.org.au/australia-day/australia-day-ceremonies/citizenship-ceremonies/?albumID=12&photoID=211 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00147-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963131 | 328 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Sea Energy Agriculture
Sea Energy Agriculture, Nature's Ideal Trace Element Blend for Farm, Livestock, Humans. By Maynard Murray, M.D.
Maynard Murray was a medical doctor who researched the crucial importance of minerals -- especially trace elements -- to plants and animals. Beginning in 1938 and continuing through the 1950's, Dr. Murray used sea solids -- mineral salts remaining after water is evaporated from ocean water -- as fertilizer on a variety of vegetables, fruits and grains. His extensive experiments demonstrated repeatedly and conclusively that plants fertilized with sea solids and animals fed sea-solid-fertilized feeds grow stronger and more resistant to disease.
Sea Energy Agriculture recounts Murray's experiments and presents his astounding conclusions. The work of this eco-ag pioneer was largely ignored during his lifetime, and his book became a lost classic -- out of print for more than 25 years. Now this rare volume is once again available, with a new forward and afterword by the founder of Acres U.S.A., Charles Walters.
- 109 pages with index. | <urn:uuid:02ea448f-f594-4f70-9a8f-b29e7b44ca29> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.organickingdom.com/sea-energy-agriculture-1196.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943124 | 219 | 2.65625 | 3 |
COMPUTERS can learn the meaning of words simply by plugging into Google. The finding could bring forward the day that true artificial intelligence is developed….
But Paul Vitanyi and Rudi Cilibrasi of the National Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, realised that a Google search can be used to measure how closely two words relate to each other. For instance, imagine a computer needs to understand what a hat is.
You can read the paper at KC Google.
Hat tip: Kolmogorov Mailing List
Any thoughts on the paper? | <urn:uuid:8d51a7ab-a183-43ba-b498-456777a1393d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://hunch.net/?p=13 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00173-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.88548 | 120 | 3.328125 | 3 |
FEMA Units Meeting Tribal Housing Shortfall
Lack of adequate housing on Native American tribal lands has become so critical that tribes have been acquiring mobile homes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The shelters, meant to be utilized during disasters, are being converted into living quarters for Native American families, New America Media reported.
When FEMA announced that it would give tribes 1,000 mobile homes unused after the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, applications from tribal governments poured in despite ominous news reports suggesting that the housing units might contain sickening levels of formaldehyde.
R. David Paulison, FEMA administrator from 2005 to 2009, told the National Congress of American Indians that 110 tribes requested more than 5,500 mobile homes. They turned out to be different from the post-Katrina “travel trailers,” the kind that are typically hooked to vehicles for vacation trips and that tests had shown emitted excessive formaldehyde, causing respiratory problems in some occupants.
Through 2009, 1,300 mobile homes were given to 88 tribes, which had to pay transportation and hookup costs, FEMA officials said in an email. Still, even more demand existed in Indian country for such impermanent housing, which most Americans would consider a last resort.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which announced in February the availability of another 500 mobile homes, is transferring 549 from FEMA’s unused inventory. Ninety-five tribes had requested more than 3,000.
“There’s so much unmet housing need in Indian country, any assistance with housing is always appreciated,” says Mellor Willie, a Navajo who is executive director of the National American Indian Housing Council. “The 500 homes alone could just barely meet the needs of one of our larger tribes.”
On tribal lands, where about 40% of Native Americans live, the shortage of decent housing is worse than in impoverished inner cities. The most recent estimates, from 1996 and 2003, indicate that between 90,000 and 200,000 units are needed to house Native Americans who are homeless or live in overcrowded or substandard dwellings. Forty percent of housing on reservations is considered inadequate, compared with 6% nationwide.
Because the 565 federally recognized tribes ceded their ancestral territory to the United States, the federal government holds tribal lands in trust and provides nearly all housing on reservations, primarily through targeted HUD programs. In 2003, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights described housing situations there as “a quiet crisis” and called for increased federal funding for Native American housing.
Instead, when inflation is taken into account, the spending power of that annual funding has continued to decline, as was happening at the time of the commission’s report. HUD funding for Native American housing has hovered around $700 million a year for more than a decade, except for an additional $500 million in stimulus funds in fiscal 2009.
Asked why the funding decline has persisted despite urgent needs, Willie says, “The American government and American people take a blind eye to the nation’s first Americans.”
Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., saw photos of thousands of FEMA’s unused mobile homes stored near the airport at Hope, Ark., and sponsored legislation in 2006 that authorized giving surplus units to tribal governments.
“It was a good effort to provide housing in places where there’s a desperate need for housing options,” says Perry Plumart, a spokesman for Johnson. “That housing need still exists.”
FEMA had purchased 144,000 mobile homes, travel trailers and park models for its disaster response to Katrina, but the agency’s regulations and local rules prohibited using them in flood zones, which cover most of southeastern Louisiana.
Johnson initially said 2,000 of the new, furnished three-bedroom homes with a life span of 30 years would be available to tribes. FEMA later reduced that number to 1,000, the agency’s estimate of how many were ready to be transported in 2007.
News reports of high formaldehyde levels in what media vaguely called “trailer” homes led Johnson to seek assurances from FEMA that the mobile homes he had requested were safe. Congressional hearings and federal officials clarified that the homes had to meet HUD safety standards for formaldehyde, which is used to pressure-treat wood products, while the “travel trailers” and “park models” bought by FEMA did not.
Between 2007 and 2009, 1,300 of the mobile homes were transferred to Native American tribes, which paid several thousand dollars to transport each unit, hook it to utilities and prepare a home site. Tribal governments were allowed to use HUD block grants to cover those costs.
Recipients include the Mescalero Apache in New Mexico, Standing Rock Sioux in North and South Dakota, Oglala Sioux in South Dakota and Cherokee in Oklahoma.
“They’ve been working out great. I haven’t heard of any real problems,” says Alvin Benally, executive director of the Mescalero Apache Housing Authority, which received at least 21 mobile homes from FEMA and another four in April from HUD.
Some northern tribes have experienced a problem that FEMA had cautioned about — most of the mobile homes are not designed for cold, snowy winters.
“They’re not insulated well enough for the North and South Dakota weather,” says Johnelle Leingang, an emergency coordinator for the Standing Rock Sioux. “Other than that, we’re grateful for them.”
Leingang says residents of the 26 mobile homes — who had been flooded out of their previous residences — have faced high electricity bills for heating, and some have experienced frozen and bursting pipes. While some residents fault the federal government, she said the Standing Rock government should have paid more attention to climate-related design issues.
“We needed them, and the last thing on our mind was, ‘Are they insulated?’ ” Leingang says.
The Standing Rock Sioux received 26 mobile homes and the Mescalero Apache at least 25. The Oglala Sioux and Cherokee each received 12. The Oglala had requested 300 for their Pine Ridge Reservation.
To help address the broader housing shortage, the National American Indian Housing Council has asked Congress to increase funding next year to $845 million, enough to compensate for inflation’s effects. The request runs counter to the push by conservative House Republicans to cut such discretionary spending programs.
But Willie also hopes to attract private investment to build new housing on tribal land.
Traditionally, banks have been reluctant to make mortgages on reservations because the borrowers cannot own the land on which the home would sit. A potential homeowner can lease a home site, but the U.S. Department of the Interior secretary must approve every lease. That process can take from two months to two years, Willie says, longer than banks are usually willing to keep financing available.
Legislation pending in Congress would eliminate the bottleneck by authorizing each tribal government to grant leases on its reservation after the Interior secretary has approved its review procedures. The Navajo Nation already has that authority under a 2000 federal law that applies only to that tribe, whose reservation straddling Arizona, New Mexico and Utah is the nation’s largest.
Tribes could lease land for residential and commercial properties, possibly stimulating creation of a real estate market that does not exist today.
“This fix could change the face of how economic development is done on tribal trust land,” Willie says. | <urn:uuid:38d5d1ab-1fd6-4e40-8a72-fc7efd7887d8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rvbusiness.com/2011/05/fema-units-meeting-tribal-housing-shortfall/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960141 | 1,562 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Bluetooth is well known to the public as a technology that provides a wireless link for local connectivity between a phone and a headset, or as a cable replacement. Its new extension, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a hallmark in the Bluetooth 4.0 specification adapted last year. As its name implies, BLE is intended for such energy-constrained applications as a sensor or a disposable device. BLE was designed to enable wireless connectivity with small devices running on a coin cell battery.
Generation “W” for wireless
In the modern world, wireless connectivity is considered a given in any more-or-less user-friendly device. In particular, local wireless connectivity has developed and successfully penetrated into many consumer products. The biggest leap to date is Wi-Fi: it is a standard feature in laptops, play stations, smart phones--you name it. Wi-Fi provides substantial bandwidth for data transfer, however it’s bulky based on the size of the protocol stack and it is definitely not lean in power consumption. Recent efforts to reduce Wi-Fi power requirements yielded Low Energy Wi-Fi, which is better suited to embedded M2M designs .
However, battery powered applications often do not require many data transfers; rather the opposite, wireless connectivity in such applications is used to send just a few bytes at very low duty cycles. IEEE 802.15.4 is a commonly used standard to create these types of networks. Yet, it only defines PHY/MAC layers, while actual network layers are determined independently. The ZigBee Alliance maintains the ZigBee standard, which is the best-known network layer running on top of 802.15.4. There are a number of other network protocols such as RF4CE, WirelessHART, and 6LoWPAN, optimized for different applications but that use common low layers defined by the 802.15.4 specification. In addition, a number of proprietary wireless protocols are successfully competing in the same space, such as Z-Wave in applications for home automation and ANT protocol in sports-related products.
The market for wireless solutions is still very segmented, not due to standardization difficulties, but because there are no “one-size-fits-all: solution.
Finding a place in the crowd
Bluetooth was considered to be in the Wi-Fi camp due to such factors as standardized data transfer with fairly high-power consumption. In its original release, Bluetooth supported 1Mbit/sec data transfer (Bluetooth 1.2). Since then, this number was increased to 3Mbit/sec with an Enhanced Data Rate version (Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR), and even further with a High-Speed version, Bluetooth 3.0 + HS. Now Bluetooth 4.0 moves to the other end of the spectrum targeting lower power, small size of data transfer with low duty cycle types of applications.
You may find yourself questioning if BLE even has a place in this game since applicable markets already have established technologies in both camps, proprietary and standard wireless protocols.
A place for BLE does exist, but it may not be easy to identify. BLE is intended for light duty cycle devices that support small data throughput and operate a long time on a coin-sized battery. Such wireless connectivity comes with a minimal price (inexpensive silicon, light MCU processing requirements, reduced memory footprint), and it can be used in applications related to the Body Area Network (BAN) which represents a connectivity bubble that moves along with the individual. After putting all requirements together it is easy to see that none of existing wireless solutions is a good fit in this case.
Let's first eliminate candidates that require a rechargeable battery or are capable of supporting streaming data--no Wi-Fi. The primary candidate for this job is an 802.15.4 based network and it has such multiple variations as ZigBee, 6LoWPAN, etc. In general, however, the average power consumption for a ZigBee node is in the range of 30ma, which is above the capacity of a coin cell battery.
Given that a ZigBee network with a 30ma power consumption budget allows nodes to be placed within a range of 100 feet, BLE is designed to work within a 30-foot range. BLE use cases circle around the user and their immediate surroundings. Since all devices are within a reachable distance, no retransmission using an intermediate node is required. It not only provides a cut in power consumption but also reduces network organization to a simple star type of connectivity.
It is fair to say that BLE has a respectable contestant from the camp of proprietary wireless technologies, the ANT protocol. Used with a Nordic ultra low power SoC, it operates within a required power budget and it has a compelling use case: ANT is used in Garmin devices that communicate with pedometers and other sport related products .
But, here is a rocket booster for BLE--under the Bluetooth umbrella, BLE is not only standardized, but will also inhabit over 2 billion cell phones, which will have regular Bluetooth and it smaller brother, Bluetooth LE.
Again, although it would rather artificially limit the BLE area of application, let+s state that BLE is optimized to enable wireless communication between a smart phone and low data rate, coin battery operated, potentially disposable device located in a close vicinity. On the top of that, let+s assume that BLE functionality comes virtually free and is already built into the cell phone as an addition to regular Bluetooth. Within this paradigm, BLE has an unbeatable stronghold against other contenders.
BLE Nuts and Bolts
BLE's over the air data rate is 1Mbit/s using GFSK modulation . This is a less complex radio than the Direct Spread Spectrum (DSS) unitized in 802.15.4, but most importantly it allows the reuse of the majority of existing elements of Bluetooth radios. It operates in the 2.4GHz ISM band using a 40-channel partition space out 2MHz apart. Although the specification defines a range of output RF power the same as for regular Bluetooth, all the way up to +10dBm, it is assumed that for most of BLE applications, such as BAN, 0dBm is a more suitable level for RF output due to power constrains. To mitigate interference in such a crowded band, BLE uses frequency hopping, but in contrast to regular Bluetooth, BLE stays longer on the same channel and makes timing requirements much more relaxed compared to regular Bluetooth. Three RF channels are dedicated for advertising functions that allow the discovery of devices available in the vicinity. Upon a connection request, the same channels are used for initial connection parameter exchanges. Once a device is discovered and connection is initiated, regular data channels are used for communication (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Bluetooth LE channel arrangements. The channel plan consists of 37 data communication channels and 3 advertising channels used for device discovery. Advertising channels are allocated in different parts of the spectrum to provide immunity against interference from 802.11/Wi-Fi
A BLE device may operate in different modes depending on required functionality. The main modes of operation are called the advertising mode, scanning mode, master device, and slave device. In advertising mode, the BLE device periodically transmits advertising information and may respond with more information upon request from other devices. The scanner device, on the other hand, listens advertising information transmitted by other devices and may request additional information if active scan mode is enabled. A scanner-only device works in passive mode whereby it only listens for advertising packets. In that case, only receiver functionality is required in the RF part of the design. Similarly, an advertising-only device may just have a transmitter part of the design. It definitely enables additional use cases with cost-sensitive applications. The fact that a stack may be partitioned in sections, which could be excluded if not used in a particular application, is a great opportunity to optimize the stack's size and use the MCU with a smaller FLASH/RAM memory footprint.
In order to establish a connection, one device has to be in advertising mode (and allow for a connection) and the other device in Initiator mode. It is similar to the scanner mode but with the intention to establish a connection. The initiator scans for a desirable device-advertising packet and consequently sends a connection request. Once a connection is established, the initiator assumes the role of master device and the advertiser becomes a Slave device. Slave devices may have only one connection at a time, while master devices may have multiple connections with different slave devices simultaneously. This asymmetrical approach allows slave devices to be very small in the sense of resources and hardware cost. Such a combination perfectly fits BLE's application paradigm. The master device in this case is most likely a cell phone that has ultimately more computation power compared to a sensor and may support a number of connections simultaneously with slave devices.
Basic BLE over the air packets include a 1 byte preamble, 4 byte access codes correlated with the RF channel number used, a PDU that can be between 2 to 39 bytes and 3 bytes of CRC. Hence the shortest packet would have 80 bits transmitted within 80usec., and the longest packet of 376 bits will be transmitted within less than 0.3 millisecond. This number is important considering that BLE single mode devices have a very strict power budget (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Bluetooth LE over-the-air frame breakdown. Different PDU types are used for advertising and data channels: the advertising channel carries the device’s discovery and connection establishment information; after a connection is established, a data channel PDU provides link control data and payload for higher level protocols.
The PDU for the advertising channel consists of the 16-bit PDU header, and depending on the type of advertising, the device address and up to 31 bytes of information. Also, the active scanner may request up to 31 bytes of additional information from the advertiser if the advertising mode allows such an operation. It means that a sizable portion of data can be received from the advertising device even without establishing a connection.
Advertising intervals can be set in a range of 20 ms to 10 s. It specifies the interval between consecutive advertising packets. Advertising is done sequentially on all the enabled channels.
For scanner mode, BLE specifies a scan window, which determines the duration of the scan as well as the scan interval, meaning how often it repeats.
When a connection is established, the initiator device (which will become a master) supplies the advertising device (which will become a slave device) with a set of critical data defining the channel and timing of the master-slave data exchange. In particular, this data specifies two important parameters: connection interval and slave latency. The connection interval determines the time between the start of the data packet exchange sequence called connection events. Latency, on the other hand, is a number of communication intervals that a slave may ignore without losing the connection. It gives the slave an opportunity to optimize and preserve power consumption. Once a connection is established, the slave may request an update of communication parameters to better fit the slave application.
The data channel PDU consists of a data packet header and up to 37 bytes of payload trailed by 4 bytes of Message Integrity Check (MIC) data if the link layer connection is encrypted. The data channel payload, depending on the packet header, may carry link layer control information or actual data for higher-level protocols.
Each communication event is started by the master transmission and it serves as an anchor point to calculate the time for the next event. During a communication event, the master and slave alternate sending and receiving packets until either side stops sending packets. The current event is considered closed and the data exchange is suspended until the next communication event.
Next: Part II--Single Mode vs. Dual Mode
About the Author
Mikhail Galeev is a recognized expert in the area of wireless communication. With a primary interest in research and implementation of wireless protocols, he has over 12 years of experience and has authored multiple publications and patents related to applications of Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, and other wireless sensor networks. Mikhail holds a Master of Engineering Management degree from Northwestern University in addition to a MS EE degree from the University of South Alabama. Mr. Galeev is the founder of Z-Focus Consulting, a company that develops software to enable BLE applications. He can be reached at: [email protected] | <urn:uuid:431d5ef7-6283-4738-8019-10bc01cefca8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1278927&piddl_msgorder=asc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927515 | 2,552 | 3.359375 | 3 |
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Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is a cancer of the cells lining the lymph or blood vessels. The illness is identified by purplish or reddish-brown lesions that form on the patient’s skin and typically spread to the major organs and orifices, particularly the mouth, nose and anus. These lesions often form with no additional symptoms, and although they look painful, they normally don’t cause any discomfort. Kaposi's sarcoma is a strain of the Kaposi's sarcoma herpes virus (KSHV) and is named after Dr. Moritz Kaposi, who first studied it in 1872.
In recent years, Kaposi's sarcoma has been most closely connected with those suffering from AIDS and is one of the first telltale signs of the person officially having AIDS versus only being HIV positive. A healthy immune system is normally able to fight off KS, but an AIDS patient’s weakened immune system is unable to fight the KSHV viral cells. Kaposi's sarcoma further diminishes the patient’s immune system, causing them to cease functioning. Many patients have the visible lesions removed for cosmetic reasons, although they may return.
The lesions that form are actually malignant tumors. In other words, the cancer cells can and will spread to other parts of the body. Currently, there are no preventative treatments available for Kaposi's sarcoma, just as there are no self-exams or biopsies that can catch it early, as with many other forms of cancer.
There are four ways that KS is usually treated: radiation, chemotherapy, surgery and immunotherapy. Many doctors are hesitant to attempt chemotherapy because of the potentially damaging effects it can have on a patient’s already delicate immune system. Immunotherapy uses interferons, which are substances that help boost the body’s immune system, to help the body fight the virus. In those with epidemic KS, anti-viral drugs are used to fight the AIDS virus as well as being combined with other methods to fight the KSHV virus.
There are four main types of KS. Epidemic or AIDS-related Kaposi's is the disease that occurs in people who have AIDS. Classic or Mediterranean affects the elderly of Mediterranean, Eastern European and Middle Eastern descent, usually men. Endemic (African) affects residents of equatorial Africa who are not HIV positive or suffering from AIDS. Iatrogenic Kaposi's sarcoma is the third group and is also called transplant-associated KS and is found in those who have had an organ transplant and as a result have a suppressed immune system to prevent rejection.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK! | <urn:uuid:9e5b6eb5-302a-4989-8dfb-7afe27b8e54e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-kaposis-sarcoma.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959235 | 608 | 3.46875 | 3 |
First James Webb Telescope Mirror Arrives at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
The first of 18 mirror segments that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will arrive this week at Marshall Space Flight Center to prepare them to meet the extreme temperatures of space. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will be the premier observatory of the next decade. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.
The mirrors will undergo testing at Marshall’s X-ray & Cryogenic Facility. This facility is the world’s largest X-ray telescope test facility and a unique, cryogenic, clean room optical test location. Cryogenic testing will take place in a 7,600 cubic foot helium cooled vacuum chamber, chilling the flight mirror from room temperature down to a frigid -414 degrees Fahrenheit. While the mirrors change temperature, engineers will precisely measure the structural stability of the hardware to ensure it will perform as designed once operating in extreme temperatures of space. Who:
Helen Cole, project manager for JWST mirror activities at the Marshall Center
Jeff Kegley, X-ray Cryogenic Facility testing manager When:
Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 11:00 a.m. CDT Where:
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Building 4718 To attend:
News media interested in covering the event should contact Jennifer Morcone in the Marshall Public and Employee Communications Office at 256-724-0314 no later than 9 a.m. Wednesday, December 10. Media must report to the Redstone Visitor Center at Gate 9, Interstate 565 interchange at Rideout Road/Research Park Boulevard. Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. News media will need two photo identifications and proof of car insurance.
For more information about the James Webb Space Telescope, please visit: http://jwst.gsfc.nasa.gov
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text-only version of this release | <urn:uuid:a860c50c-a2ca-4f6f-9132-f7bd9a4a6e49> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2008/M08-177.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.838317 | 432 | 2.703125 | 3 |
This week we're going to measure the speed of light using a chocolate bar and a microwave! Sounds impossible? Try it and see!
What you will need:
A large chocolate bar (at least 18cm by 8cm)
A piece of paper
A microwave oven
- Unwrap the chocolate and place it on the paper.
- If your microwave has a turntable, disable it by turning the glass upside down. Be very careful handling the glass plate - consider asking a grown up to do this for you.
- Put some water in the glass and put it at the back of the microwave.
- Place the paper with the chocolate bar in the microwave. Make sure that the longer side of the chocolate bar is parallel to the longer side of the microwave.
- Set the microwave for twenty seconds.
- Start the microwave, but make sure that you watch through the door.
- As soon as you see parts of the chocolate begining to melt, stop the microwave. NOTE: the chocolate will melt unevenly, so watch closely.
- Leave the chocolate on the paper and take it out of the microwave. Be careful because the chocolate will be hot.
- Put a toothpick in each soft, melted spot.
- Measure the distance between each toothpick and write it down.(Catherine Thomas, staff writer)
What's the Science? 科學原理
A microwave produces a series of standing waves to heat food. Normally the turntable moves round, ensuring that the food is heated uniformly. If it is disabled, hotspots will be created at the crest and the trough of the standing wave. In other words, the greatest heating (hotspots) occurs where the amplitude of the wave is the greatest. The water, oil and fat molecules in the chocolate will quickly melt under these circumstances. This allows you to measure the distance between each half wave (the distance between two toothpicks). One wavelength includes a crest and a trough. This is why you mulitply the distance between the toothpicks by two. Microwaves are electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light. Therefore, if you can measure the wavelength of the standing wave in a microwave, you can calculate the speed of light using the formula c = l * f.
1. turntable n.
轉盤 (zhuan3 pan2)
2. disable v.i/v.t.
使失去能力 (shi3 shi1 qu4 neng2 li4)
3. parallel adj.
平行的 (ping2 xing2 de5)
4. melt v.t/v.i.
溶化 (rong2 hua4)
5. wavelength n.
波長 (po1 chang2)
6. frequency n.
頻率 (pin2 lu4)
7. decimal point n.
小數點 (xiao3 shu4 dian3)
8. standing waves n.
駐波 (zhu4 po1)
9. crest n.
頂點 (ding2 dian3)
10. trough n.
波谷 (po1 gu3)
11. amplitude n.
振幅 (zhen4 fu2)
12. electromagnetic wave n.
電磁波 (dian4 ci2 po1)
微波爐製造一系列的駐波來加熱食物。通常轉盤之所以旋轉，是確保食物受熱均勻。如果轉盤不動，熱點會在駐波的波峰或波谷處產生。換句話說，最大加熱處（即熱點）發生在波振幅最大處。巧克力中的水分子，油分子和脂肪分子在這些條件下會迅速地溶化。藉此你可以測量出每半個波長間的距離（即兩支牙籤彼此間的距離）。一個波長包括了一個波峰和一個波谷。這也就是為什麼兩支牙籤間的距離要乘以二的原因。微波是電磁波，以光速進行。因此，如果你能測量出微波爐駐波的波長，你就可以利用光速公式 c=l * f 計算出光速了。
The measurement 測量方式
The equation that defines the speed of light is c = l * f
c is the speed of light
l is the wavelength
f is the frequency
To find out the frequency of your microwave, look for a label on the inside of the door or the back of the microwave. If you can't find it, don't worry, nearly all microwaves operate at a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz. Therefore, frequency (f) = 2,450,000,000.
To work out the wavelength, take the distance between the
toothpicks and multiply it by 2 (see "What's the science" to see why).
This is the wavelength in cm. You want the wavelength in m so move the decimal point 2 places back (eg 6.0cm will become 0.06m). | <urn:uuid:f9e5ba82-cbdd-4c05-84bf-bbbd104cf79b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2007/08/26/2003375968 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.684094 | 1,438 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Tenosynovitis: With tenosynovitis, the tendon is not inflamed but rather the surrounding lining, known as the tendon sheath. As the tendons slide through this inflamed lining during movement, it causes inflammation of the sheath surrounding a tendon. It can be accompanied by a grinding sensation on the tendon when joint movement is occurring. If the tendon sheath becomes inflamed, the tendon inside will rub against the irritated sheath causing pain and discomfort. Each one of these is accompanied by pain but can be treated differently. Ice and rest will help alleviate pain and inflammation but may not solve the problem. Rest alone may not solve the problem, but combined with light resistive exercises the tendons will adapt and repair themselves.
Examples of light resistive exercises are leg extensions performed with very light weight; double leg squats with little to no extra weight; aqua aerobics or deep water aqua jogging with a flotation belt; and riding a bicycle or stationary bike. These exercises should be performed three times per week and used in conjunction with anti-inflammatory treatments. If the problems persist you should seek treatment from a qualified medical professional.
The most common non-tendon related overuse injury is known as shin splints. This is a catch-all term used by athletes when describing any pain in the front of the lower leg. Technically called medial tibial stress syndrome, or MTSS, it is caused by micro-traumas along the medial or inner border of the tibia (large shin bone). MTSS is usually associated with general pain and discomfort along the shin and can be treated with ice and rest. Most MTSS can be avoided with the use of proper footwear.
Athletic shoes should be supportive and should fit perfectly on the date of purchase and not require a break in period. If the shoes require a break in period, they are not the right shoes. Most running specific stores can do a foot analysis and determine the right training shoes for you. If the shin pain becomes more localized or specific to one area, you should seek advice from a qualified medical professional, because MTSS can develop into stress fractures if left untreated.
Most overuse injuries can be prevented by taking certain precautions. A proper amount of recovery time is crucial when training for any sport. By allowing your body to naturally recover and heal injuries caused by chronic use can be avoided.
There are many misconceptions about what proper recovery is. Many athletes think that a light workout helps them recover from the more intense training days. This can be true over short periods of time. For example, a light workout once a week can cause the body to feel rested, but if this is persistent over the course of a few months, your body will continue to break down and overuse injuries can still occur.
A more useful form of recovery is to take one day off per week. This is a day when there is no workout performed. During this day off, the body has time to adapt to the training program that is being performed. By allowing the body one day of recovery, you are allowing damaged muscles and tendons to begin repairing themselves without further damage.
The right amount of sleep can also help you to avoid overuse injuries since the body repairs itself during sleep. Hormones are released in larger quantities during sleep which allow natural healing to occur. Periods of prolonged rest during the training season can also allow the body to heal and adapt to the training. Taking a week to have multiple days off and to train at a very light intensity can let your body fully recover and also prepare it for more intense training in the future. Rest and recovery is the key to avoiding overuse injuries.
If you are experiencing problems caused by chronic exercise, you should seek advice from a qualified medical professional such as an orthopedist, podiatrist, physical therapist, or a certified athletic trainer. They can help you get over your injury and keep you pain-free.
Athletic trainers are health care professionals who collaborate with physicians to optimize activity and participation of patients and clients. Athletic training encompasses the prevention, diagnosis, and intervention of emergency, acute, and chronic medical conditions involving impairment, functional limitations and disabilities. The California Athletic Trainers Association represents and supports members of the athletic training profession through communication and education. | <urn:uuid:777ccefa-b00f-4d80-81b1-c3b343da6259> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.active.com/fitness/Articles/How-to-Avoid-Common-Overuse-Injuries.htm?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951158 | 883 | 3 | 3 |
X-ray device traps airborne pathogens
Washington: A new filtering technology has shown promise in protecting lungs from allergens, viruses and ultrafine particles in the air, according to a new study led by an Indian-origin researcher.
The device, known as the SXC ESP, has been found to prevent respiratory and viral infections and inhalation-induced allergic reactions more efficiently than existing filter-based systems.
"Traditional air cleaners can trap viruses or other toxic particles in the filter, where they linger and grow, said Pratim Biswas, professor and head energy, environmental and chemical engineering at the Washington University, who led the research.
"Because many people in developed countries spend the majority of time indoors, properly maintaining indoor air quality is an absolute necessity to protect public health," added Biswas.
Ultimately, this technology could be incorporated into stand-alone air cleaners or scaled for use in aircraft cabins, offices and residential HVAC systems. It also could be used to clean up a diesel engine or power plant exhaust.
Researchers exposed mice with compromised immune systems to the downstream air stream passing through the unit that contacted infectious viruses, allergens, anthrax, smallpox and other particles in the air.
The sensitive mice survived, indicating that the SXC ESP was very effective in removing these biological agents from the air.
Michael Gidding, a bachelor`s in chemical engineering and a master`s in energy, environmental and chemical engineering, and Daniel Garcia, a May 2012 chemical engineering graduate, have teamed up to scale up this technology for commercial use.
Their startup, Aerosol Control Technologies (ACT), is based on the patented process Biswas developed.
There are many applications for the technology in the coal industry, Gidding says, from dust control and safety at the mine to flue-gas treatment at the power plant.
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Posted on 29. Jun, 2016 by Money Cactus.
physical object. To be more specific, it is the process of making solid 3 dimensional objects
from a simple digital file. This is done by layering materials until a product of related
dimensions and size is achieved.
Different 3D printers are used for different purpose. The process has become quite popular in
recent times because people can now easily turn their ideas into prototypes without having
access to large manufacturing facilities. In fact, 3D printing reduces the time between a great
concept and reality. You can print your ideas the same day they are conceived.
This gives an advantage as you will reach the market sooner and start selling earlier. For
established companies, this offers a head start and helps to stay ahead of the game from
This modern printing technology is loved and enjoyed by individuals and companies for various
reasons, some of which have been discussed below.
This method of creation will save you a lot of money. It does not require any heavy machinery,
molding tools or other expensive production facilities. Even though the rate of this additive
manufacturing technique is lower compared to traditional methods, it is a great way to make
Offers Opportunity to Get Feedback
Before taking the big business decisions, you can demonstrate the product to groups like target
audience, business partners, financers, etc. and request them to provide feedback. It’s a great
method to assess demand before starting production with full force.
Presents Immense Designing Possibilities
With this new option, your imaginations will take shape. You can design objects that cannot be
made with other printing methods. Digital art gets new meaning with 3D printing. Now, you can
build items that seem impossible. Even geometry ideas can be made into reality and 3-
dimensional figures now.
Compared to regular prototype printing methods, this type of printing is not too expensive. The
materials that are used for production are affordable and the process is quite simple. Actual
manufacturing cost of hundreds of dollars is saved as prototypes can be printed within little
expense of a few dollars using 3D printers.
Before making large investment on mass production, 3D printing the design help to assess the
product and lower risk. You can make the large investment now without any worry as you can
easily alter and redesign the mold. Errors in finished product is minimalized. It basically makes
business idea presentation better as audience will no longer have to imagine the upcoming
product. The exact representation of desired product is provided.
In fact, as production cost is low, cost of mistakes is low as well. You can try printing different
variations of a product and then design the one which is best.
When it comes to manufacturing, flexibility is very important. You can use 3D printers to do
several iterations of your product. As already mentioned, you can test different ideas without
putting too much financial stress on the company’s account.
Even with all of these benefits, the final product will be of great quality. It will be professional
and durable. You can use ABS and PLA materials to obtain real parts like snap fits, hinges,
clearance fits and dove tails which can be tested and fitted.
There is no doubt that this amazing technique of additive manufacturing has completely
revolutionized design and manufacturing process. These are all great advantages and may be it
is time you think about using it.
Posted on 26. Jun, 2016 by Money Cactus.
In this era of Globalization, communication across borders has become increasingly popular. International business and long-distance communication without aid of internet would cost thousands of dollars. Thanks to the technological advancement and introduction of VoIP, now individuals can contact each over the internet at minimum expense.
Voice over Internet Protocol, also known as VoIP, is very commonly used in all industries. You can easily make and receive calls via internet. The convenience and multiple other benefits of this systems are why it is a more preferable option over telephone networks. A VoIP business phone system that has all the features you expect. It can be conducted in 3 ways – via analog telephone adapter, IP phones and Pc to PC.
The process to make long distance calls using VoIP is very easy. Caller has to sign up with the VoIP service provider first. Then, he/she has to collect a local DID phone number and connect with the provided telephone adapter. The next step is to set up the different features and make both local and long-distance phone calls.
If you are still unaware of the features and advantages provided by this technology, or if you are yet to take full advantage of it, read below. The many benefits of using Voice over Internet Protocol have been outlined here.
Allows Greater Access as There Are No Physical Boundaries
Geographically, there are no boundaries for VoIP users. You can call from one end of the World to another end, and still enjoy cheap call rates. This process of communication makes it cost-effective. The system basically enables a person living outside United States to subscribe to a US phone number and pay the local rate.
If you own a company that outsources services from abroad to enjoy location advantages, you can be highly benefitted.
With this system, you and your business employees will get greater access to information. There are no limitations like the traditional telephone system.
Saves a Lot of Money
Shifting to a VoIP system can be the right choice for companies that are looking to cut down cost. It is the right economic decision as it reduces the total amount of money that a company spends on phone conversations.
This alternate method is so cheap mainly because it uses only one physical network. Traditional phone systems need multiple networks, especially when calls have to be routed across overseas network.
It Can Be Used for Much More than Voice Calls
Modern Communication is no longer restricted to voice calls. The VoIP system basically caters users with a variety of ways to communicate.
Individuals and businesses can easily send text, images and even videos to enhance communication.
As employees are now located all over the globe, platform like this one becomes an integral part of the business communication system.
It is impressive how you can send a file over this network even while talking. This basically enhances the experience and makes communication with staff and clients more effective.
Availability of Tele-Work Option
Today, business executives agree that work is no longer restricted to the office space. People can now work from home, moving vehicles and even from vacations. Remote working is a trend now and smartphones make the process much easier.
Tele work is the concept of working from another location. This basically helps maintain work flow and improves productivity.
These are some solid reasons to ditch the traditional phones and choose Voice over Internet Protocol to meet your international communication needs. You will be reducing cost and increasing connectivity. This system offers more features at a lower expense.
Posted on 25. Jun, 2016 by Money Cactus.
Dental problems are quite serious and shouldn’t be ignored. It can be caused by various reasons and lead to varying degrees of complications. Common concerns include gum disease, tooth erosion and tooth decay. Result of this could be weakened teeth. You may face loss of important dental functions and unappealing appearance may be a result.
You may also have to rush to the dentist for problems caused by accidents. Broken or chipped teeth also require expert attention, especially because oral region’s association with nerves can cause insufferable pain.
Today, there is a wide range of dental treatment options to keep your smile healthy and sparkling. The advancement of this industry allows individuals to get all teeth-related problems treated. The results are flawless and effective measures are taken to reduce pain.
If a perfect set of teeth is what you seek, there are many dental treatments you can choose from. Depending on your condition, the dentist can suggest something. He is experienced enough to realize how important his work is and works to enhance functionality and appearance of your teeth.
Laser Teeth Whitening
Laser teeth whitening is among the most common dental procedures. It is often carried out along with other processes but can be done individually as well. This whitening treatment basically provides patients with a beautiful glowing smile. Laser technology is used to make the system as precise as possible. It helps to get great results while ensuring that results look natural.
No- prep Veneers
No-prep veneers placement is a better version of normal veneer placement used to treat crooked and misshaped teeth. It is also used to fill gaps. This version takes less time and is very cost-effective as well. Patients are not required to go through a preparation phase. The dentist slices a thin sheet of the affected tooth so that it complements the veneer shape.
This procedure is minimally invasive and mode of treatment is long-lasting. Compared to the conventional method, it is less-time consuming.
Losing teeth can be a result of accidents or old age. When you are missing teeth, it impacts your smile and appearance immensely. It is not easy to ignore the gap but getting dental implants can help you gain your confidence back. This is a technique where a tooth root is placed in the jaw to hold the tooth or dental bridge in place. This is a very common dental restoration method. It can effectively help you get your beautiful smile back.
Aesthetic In-lays and On-lays
The in-lays and on-lays are used for aesthetic purpose – to improve a person’s smile. Many people choose this for placement of crowns. These can be made using various types of materials which are placed over damaged tooth. The only requirement is that the material has to be strong and tough. It is also colored to correctly match the natural teeth color of patient.
The purpose of aesthetic in-lays and on-lays is to reduce problems in structure of tooth. It ensures appealing yet natural teeth. It is especially great because it is easy to maintain and is comparatively more comfortable than amalgam filling and other options. There is no risk of discoloration of the in-lays and on-lays.
Cosmetic Gum Surgery
This method can change the amount of gum that is visible, and ultimately make you look more beautiful. Sometimes, gums recede as a result of periodontal disease or aging. This gum recession makes teeth look unnaturally long. This can be fixed with gingival grafts to add gum tissue. Another commonly used method is gum contouring which provides a symmetrical gum line.
Posted on 24. Jun, 2016 by Money Cactus.
These days, connectivity is everything. From the way you use your smartphone to keep in touch with family and friends to the development of useful business apps that help you implement better time management practices, smartphones, tablets and other devices have become an integral part of today’s world. But have you ever considered how the features offered by your smartphone can help you improve your financial situation? Here’s a closer look at how the connectivity offered by today’s technology can have a positive impact on your finances.
Knowledge is Power
The old saying that “knowledge is power” holds even greater weight in the digital age. After all, there’s a good reason that many companies now use knowledge management systems as a better way to retain knowledge. The easier it is for employees to gain access to training materials and the expertise of others in their field, the better results they will be able to achieve—something that benefits both them and their company. Likewise, the connectivity offered by smartphones and other modern devices provide a wealth of financial information at your fingertips for your personal benefit.
Personal finance websites offer a wide variety of financial information, ranging from budgeting tips to best practices for investing in the stock market. Implementing the knowledge that is made available through these resources can help you save money while simultaneously improving your ability to generate wealth.
Of course, whether or not you will ultimately take advantage of the vast amount of knowledge available through your smartphone is up to you. But with more personal finance websites on the Web than ever before, you really have no excuse when it comes to gaining access to shared financial knowledge. Just be sure that you turn to reputable sites for this information!
The power of your smartphone extends far beyond the information you can access online. Many companies have developed helpful personal finance applications that make it easier for you to create a customized budget and keep track of your spending habits and income so you can track and improve your savings.
The useful features offered by personal finance apps can go well beyond budgeting help. For example, some apps allow you to track the balances of your debit and credit cards, and will even alert you if there is a suspicious charge. Other apps send you reminders for bills and other recurring charges so that you make payments on time.
By using these apps, you not only take greater control of your current financial situation, you also protect yourself from major financial risks such as credit card fraud or defaulting on bill or loan payments.
Plan for the Future
The benefits of smartphone applications and internet knowledge don’t only apply to your immediate financial situation. For many of us, planning for retirement, the purchase of a home, or another major financial event can be the most difficult part of managing personal finances. Unexpected emergencies can also result in major financial struggles if you haven’t set aside money for a rainy day.
There’s no denying that trying to get your finances in order for major events such as these can be stressful. But with the help of smartphone apps and other tools, it becomes significantly easier to create savings and investment plans and adjust your budget so you can be better prepared for the future.
While managing your personal finances will never be a completely stress-free task, taking advantage of the resources available on your smartphone can make it significantly easier. As you use the knowledge available on reputable websites to guide your decisions and make use of personal finance apps to track your finances, you can take control of your wealth management—today and in the years ahead.
Posted on 23. Jun, 2016 by Money Cactus.
When individuals need financial help, they approach friends and family first. Another resort is to sell personal belongings. When all means fail, most people take personal loans. There are both advantages and disadvantages of this method but acting wisely can help you make the most out of the situation.
In times of financial crisis, most people choose to apply for personal loans. The best thing about this option is that it is quite easily available. Perhaps the main reason behind this is that the personal loan provider, the lender, does not have to follow too many compliances. In most cases, the creditor does not ask any questions or require the borrower to meet certain requirements. You too can find a legit direct lender with no third party that approves loans for poor credit profiles by contacting a personal loan brokerage service.
There is a disadvantage of this method of financing. Unlike the loans you take for housing or education, personal loans are accompanied with an extremely high interest rate. This is why most people warn against taking this loans.
This loan should not be taken for any consumption based expenses like paying for a car or a TV. It is not considered wise to increase unnecessary expense by funding a vacation and then paying for it with personal loan. However, this is ideal for anyone with unimpressive credit profile.
There are some other situations when you may opt for this loan option. A few of them have been listed below:
- This type of loan is best suited for times of emergency. However, you should only take it if you are absolutely certain that you will be able to pay back the amount within the predetermined time.
- When buying a new home, you might find that your mortgage loan does not cover the full purchase price of the property. In this case, you may take a personal loan to fill the gap and pay the remaining amount. While this is not ideal, it is an exceptional case where there is no other option. In the long run, you may even find that it was a good investment decision when the home’s value appreciates.
- If the personal loan can help you gain possession of an appreciating asset, it is a good idea. This way, it can help you earn a good amount of savings.
- If you find yourself in a situation where you have to pay very high interest rate for a loan and then find a personal loan offer with lower interest rate, it is wise to take the latter and repay the first loan. Settling the high interest loan will be a wise decision.
Overall, it is critical to understand that personal loan is great for times when there are no other options. It is the easy way out but the benefits can be enjoyed for short term only. It has significant negative impact in the long run and must be avoided when you aren’t sure about repaying on time.
Before choosing any personal loan, you must calculate whether it is the cheapest loan offer available. You should also check what the processing fee is and find out about prepayment penalty check. EMI and tenure are also 2 factors that you should emphasize on.
Always practice diligence and utilize your common sense before making any loan-related decision. You must always make sure that you are getting the best deal available. Do not make borrowing a habit and try to arrange money from other sources if possible. Even when you take personal loans, try to repay as soon as possible. | <urn:uuid:8567ed34-8276-4072-b180-c15f7fdfc570> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.moneycactus.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949495 | 3,622 | 2.703125 | 3 |
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|Title:||Spectacle and power: Military imagery and the British Army, 1803-1856|
|Author(s):||Myerly, Scott Hughes|
|Doctoral Committee Chair(s):||Arnstein, Walter L.|
|Department / Program:||History|
|Degree Granting Institution:||University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign|
|Abstract:||In the early nineteenth century, the British army placed a high priority on maintaining a splendid outward spectacle, but this was not merely the result of sartorial frivolity on the past of military commanders. Images constitute a fundamental means by which peoples' opinions and actions are influenced, and the British army between 1803 and 1856 utilized uniform, ritual and ceremony as components of their system of management. A relationship between images and the exercise of power clearly existed which has previously been overlooked by military and social historians.
Imagery played a vital role in maintaining control of an army which was underfed, ill-paid, understaffed, and yet charged with conquering and controlling an ever-expanding empire. Military imagery attracted recruits by counteracting the army's bad reputation among the civilian population, and it provided a focus of loyalty and morale within the ranks, helping to induce veterans to exert their last ounce of strength to perform their duty, even when they went without pay, food or hope. At the same time, the strict upkeep of the image served to promote discipline and obedience to the military hierarchy.
Military images also presented both a threat and an attraction to the civilian population. The imposing effects of the imagery helped the military put down civil disorder, and the army's opponents often adopted forms of the imagery. Yet military spectacles were extremely popular among civilians of all classes, as is indicated by the many manifestations of military themes in British popular culture, including the stage, music, street entertainments, folk songs, and dress. Because of the power inherent in these images, the military spectacle became a metaphor for some civilian groups during the formative years of British industrialization.
|Rights Information:||Copyright 1990 Myerly, Scott Hughes|
|Date Available in IDEALS:||2011-05-07|
|Identifier in Online Catalog:||AAI9026277| | <urn:uuid:9e54f63b-0f87-4e9f-83c9-8a5c54568efb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/19605 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00007-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910945 | 483 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Layers exposed in crater on Mars
Mawrth Vallis is an ancient channel on Mars believed to have been carved by catastrophic floods. The experts at JPL have detected clay minerals in this channel that they think were influenced by the presence of water. This enhanced-color image is from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005 and managed by JPL for NASA. It was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). The HiRISE’s mission is to explore the red planet’s geology at an extremely high resolution. | <urn:uuid:e73ac160-4d0a-40db-bf68-cbee76d4e967> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/photos/8-trail-blazing-images-from-nasas-jet-propulsion-laboratory/layers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00165-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961527 | 117 | 3 | 3 |
Date: June 1952
Creator: Healey, Gordon Daniel, 1909-
Description: The French nation has been prolific of consummate diplomatists all through history, but her annals record no more brilliant achievement than that of Theophile Delcassé and Paul Cambon when they brought Great Britain into a French alliance. Even those who disapprove the consequences of their act must admit the skill and the pertinacity with which the two statesmen pursued their purpose. Their difficulties were stupendous; British governments had for years stood aloof from Continental agreements, but precedent was forced to give way before the perspicacity and perseverance of these two French statesmen. Delcassé had contributed the Entente Cordiale to the French cause in 1904. This understanding pledged British diplomatic support to France in her imperialistic venture in Morocco-nothing more; but it also provided a foundation upon which Cambon could exercise his talents in leading Great Britain into a trap. The result of these activities was the equivalent of an Anglo-French alliance. The French, to accomplish their purpose, led the British into a series of military and naval conversations as a means of working out plans of joint operations whereby the latter could assist the former in case of a Franco-German war. The conversations had their official beginning in 1906 and ...
Contributing Partner: UNT Libraries | <urn:uuid:2f230ba0-c53b-4679-9521-74e4c149ea37> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/partners/UNT/browse/?fq=untl_decade%3A1950-1959&fq=str_year%3A1952&display=list | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970488 | 274 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Cat Heart Murmurs
A heart murmur indicates that blood is leaking from one of the heart's valves. This heart valve problem is common in older cats.
Updated: January 9, 2013, 12 p.m. EST
The average cat's heart, weighing less than one-tenth of an ounce, will beat more than 350 million times during a 13-year lifetime. The heart has four chambers with valves that regulate blood flow. The major veins bringing blood to the heart are called the vena cavas. Blood first enters the heart's right atrium, then passes through the tricuspid valve and flows into the right ventricle. The right ventricle contracts and sends blood into the pulmonic artery through the pulmonic valve. Blood then goes to the lungs where it becomes oxygenated. Oxygenated blood from the pulmonic vein enters the heart's left atrium, then passes into the left ventricle via the mitral valve. When the left ventricle contracts, blood shoots out of the heart through the aorta and circulates throughout the rest of the body.
The tricuspid and mitral valves regulate blood flow through the heart. In cats, deformities of these valves are the most common congenital cardiac malformations. A murmur, or squishing noise, indicates blood is leaking out of the valves during heart contraction. Instead of forming a tight seal, blood escapes around the valve. By listening to the heart with a stethoscope, vets can often detect valve problems. A murmur's intensity and volume does not correlate with the severity of valve damage.
Murmurs are common in older cats. Some kittens are born with murmurs and outgrow them; others have murmurs their entire lives without problems. Though uncommon in cats, some murmurs may progress and lead to congestive heart failure.
Give us your opinion on
Cat Heart Murmurs | <urn:uuid:6429f720-a92b-496b-ad5d-682591bb7689> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.catchannel.com/care/elderly/article_5638.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910517 | 397 | 3.21875 | 3 |
If a significant amount of heat flows from the object to the thermometer, the temp will change. A thermometer has a mass of 31.0g, specific heat capacity of c=815J/(kg.C), and temp of 12.0C. It is immersed in 119g of water, and final temp of water and thermometer is 41.5C. What was the temp of the water before the insertion of the thermometer?
I have no clue where to begin, can someone help me start off please.(Evilgrin) | <urn:uuid:ffe2bc82-b0c8-46fd-9f4f-03cff036771c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mathhelpforum.com/math-topics/163599-i-am-having-trouble-starting-print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923022 | 112 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The basic test for judging any foreign policy decision is easy to state but hard to apply: Does it serve the American national interest?
During the cold war, the guiding principle of US foreign policy was clear: the containment of communism. There was broad agreement that the Soviet Union represented a dire threat to American security. Every foreign policy decision was viewed through this prism, and defining the national interest wasn't difficult.
Today, defining the national interest is much harder. The administration has described expanding and strengthening the world's community of market-based democracies as the goal of American foreign policy. But this is abstract, giving only broad guidance to policy makers who have to make the tough decisions.
Every government in the world wants to involve the US in solving its problems. Yet even the world's only superpower can't solve every problem or address every tragedy - the American people will never support such a role. The president and his advisers must decide which issues matter for the US, and which do not. A decision to invest time and resources - or to risk the lives of Americans - must be based on a hard analysis of the US national interest.
The national interest has several components:
* To preserve the territorial integrity of the US and the safety and security of its people. Peace requires a strong US deterrent and a balance of power.
* To sustain US economic prosperity. To continue to improve the standard of living and the quality of life for all Americans, the US must open markets and advance the principles of the free market. We also need to be able to react to financial crises abroad to minimize their domestic impact.
* To promote democratic values. US support for freedom, individual rights, the rule of law, and democratic institutions around the world helps secure peace and stability among states, and advance human rights within states.
* To promote basic human rights - freedom from starvation and genocide, religious freedom, and freedom of political expression. Rights abuses violate core US values and undermine stability in nations where other US interests are at stake.
* To protect of the health and welfare of Americans. The global free flow of people and products means that Americans are no longer isolated from dangers elsewhere, including international crime, drugs, terrorism, and communicable diseases.
No other country in the world has such broadly defined national interests. Our interests are at stake in every corner of the world. On every continent the US has multiple political, economic, strategic, and humanitarian interests. When confronted with the many threats to the national interest we must prioritize those interests or be overwhelmed by them.
Not all interests fall into the same categories. Some US interests are vital - meaning we're prepared to go to war to defend them. They include protecting the US from nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC), or conventional military attack and preventing any hostile power from dominating Europe, the Middle East, Asia or the high seas. Some interests are vital, even if force can't protect them, such as preventing a collapse of the world economy.
The US also has several very important interests: to prevent the proliferation of NBC weapons and missiles anywhere; to maintain strong ties with our neighbors in the hemisphere and allies in Europe and Asia; to help resolve regional conflicts; to advance stability in Africa; to promote democracy and the rule of law; to foster US prosperity through free markets and an open trading system; and to promote respect for human rights.
The US has other important interests, which we can't disregard without jeopardizing our long-term security. These include fighting international drugs, crime and terrorism; reducing disease and global poverty; protecting the environment; and addressing population growth.
Setting priorities among these interests guides resource allocation.
Meeting all of the challenges to US foreign policy requires difficult decisions in allocating scarce resources. We simply can't do it all.
Focusing on the question of the US national interest won't resolve all differences over foreign policy. Reasonable people will disagree about priorities and resources. But asking the right questions will help us arrive at better answers.
* Rep. Lee H, Hamilton, Indiana., is the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee. | <urn:uuid:87fdc676-66ec-4400-8b71-956fb5996d2f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.csmonitor.com/1998/0330/033098.opin.opin.2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00007-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948326 | 833 | 2.890625 | 3 |
4. After my speech, the audience should be able distinguish between child abuse and child neglect and now how they can help with abused children
(Presentational Aid #1: Picture of two little girls) Take a look at this picture of these two little girls. You wouldn't know it but, one of these children is emotionally neglected. Believe it or not there are ways to tell. Child A, is happy and loves herself, but child B seems happy and actually has a very low self esteem that could affect her for the rest of her life, she also might not have any friends. You could actually prevent this child's illness. (presentational aid#2: bar graph) (5)Each year in the United States there are over 3,000,000 cases of child abuse, only 1/3 are confirmed child abuse or neglect. Each year 1,200 children die due to child abuse and neglect. Of these children eighty percent are under the age of five. Family members cause 90 percent of child abuse or neglect (6) If you have children now or plan to have children in the future then you can see how this is a problem that needs to be fixed. Just the thought of someone abusing your child must at least anger or even sadden you. (7) So if you see someone you love being abused or neglected then speak up and call 1-800-4-A-CHILD. (8) Many of you may not know what child neglect is, the legal definition is, usually arises from a parent's passive indifference to a child's well being, such as failing to feed a child or leaving a child alone for an extended period of time. This law is so indirect that it's harder to convict someone of child abuse or neglect until a person has actually caused harm to the child. (9-10) I hope this speech teaches you that there is something that you as individuals can do to help prevent child abuse or even help out abused children.
A. The most common form of child abuse is neglect. There are four types of neglect.
1. Physical neglect: the refusal of or extreme delay in seeking necessa | <urn:uuid:bd4fe870-9096-4a72-815e-b50097d5ab00> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.exampleessays.com/viewpaper/30741.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964925 | 436 | 3 | 3 |
There was an estimate of $30 billion to save the lives of 10 million women and children but this cost estimate does not include other heathcare improvements needed to save all of those lives. The actual cost estimate is about $100-200 billion, but those programs still seem worthwhile and cost justified.
A serious omission is that the price tag does not include HSS [Health system strengthening], i.e., the costs to scale up the system-wide components, including human resources, which would allow programs to function effectively. According to the WHO estimates for the HLTF, US$185.7 billion is needed for HSS. Again, a substantial proportion of this figure is highly relevant to saving the women and children.
The Consensus for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health suggests that US$30 billion will save “the lives of over 10 million women and children by 2015”, a suggestion that has gained traction among donors and MNCH advocates. But the US$30 billion alone is unlikely to save over 10 million lives, since it must be complemented by a huge amount of additional funding for human resources and other crosscutting health system components.
A recent UNFPA study estimates that meeting existing needs for family planning and maternal and newborn health alone would cost an additional US$12.8 billion annually. This estimate—which includes the costs of drugs and supplies, human resource costs, and other health systems costs needed for effective service delivery—indicates that many more resources are required for scaling up MNCH interventions than are stated in the PMNCH Consensus.
The US$30 billion program costs do not include the costs of HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria interventions relevant to MNCH (e.g., drugs to treat children with malaria). Nor do they include the costs to increase access to essential drugs for treating chronic and neglected tropical diseases. The additional costs of including interventions for HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria and essential drugs specifically for mothers, newborns, and children is unclear from the HLTF report. The report only gives the total figures for these four health programs across the whole population: US$15.13 billion is needed for HIV/AIDS, US$7.25 billion for malaria, US$4.78 billion for TB, and US$9.78 billion to increase access to essential drugs. A substantial proportion of these costs will be relevant to MNCH.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Reddit, or StumbleUpon. Thanks
How to Make Money | <urn:uuid:450bcf17-9e95-4fe8-9ab7-9af5f40434e8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/07/saving-10-million-women-and-children-by.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944993 | 517 | 2.8125 | 3 |
What does VCE mean in Educational?
This page is about the meanings of the acronym/abbreviation/shorthand VCE in the Community field in general and in the Educational terminology in particular.
Find a translation for VCE in other languages:
Select another language:
What does VCE mean?
- VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, is a leader in converged cloud infrastructure systems.VCE, through Vblock™ Systems, provides an optimized information technology system that accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for customers.VCE products enable IT organizations to:Standardize processes and applicationsImprove utilization and lower operational costsAccelerate technology adoption and innovationMaximize adaptability and investment protectionVblock Systems are available through an extensive partner network. They support horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating, and managing IT infrastructure. | <urn:uuid:9689fa80-2889-4c83-a88f-ccdd83a1aa15> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abbreviations.com/term/175887 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906871 | 215 | 2.59375 | 3 |
What does GERMANY mean in Famous?
This page is about the meanings of the acronym/abbreviation/shorthand GERMANY in the Community field in general and in the Famous terminology in particular.
Find a translation for GERMANY in other languages:
Select another language:
What does GERMANY mean?
- Germany, Federal Republic of Germany, Deutschland, FRG(noun)
- a republic in central Europe; split into East Germany and West Germany after World War II and reunited in 1990 | <urn:uuid:3d3e30fe-061b-43b3-9970-053c44d15395> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abbreviations.com/term/308230 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.876043 | 111 | 2.953125 | 3 |
By Jason Bardi | ucsf.edu | September 18, 2012
A once-promising discovery linking prostate cancer to an obscure retrovirus derived from mice was the result of an inadvertent laboratory contamination, a forensic analysis of tissue samples and lab experiments — some dating back nearly a decade — has confirmed.
The connection, which scientists have questioned repeatedly over the last couple years, was first proposed more than six years ago, when the telltale signature of the virus, known as XMRV, was detected in genetic material derived from tissue samples taken from men with prostate cancer.
Later studies failed to find the same signature, and researchers reported that while XMRV is a real, previously-undiscovered virus with interesting and useful properties, it is an infection of human prostate cancer cells in laboratories and not of prostate cancer patients.
Now, an analysis by a team of scientists led by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Cleveland Clinic and Abbott has uncovered the complete story behind this contamination.
As described this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the original association between XMRV and prostate cancer resulted from traces of XMRV that appear to have found their way into the prostate samples from other cells being handled in the same laboratory in 2003. These cells were also contaminated with the retrovirus.
"Everything arose from this presumed contamination event," said Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of laboratory medicine at UCSF and director of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center.
Anatomy of Lab Contamination
XMRV became a focus of research after its genetic signature was first found in prostate cancer samples in 2006. Similar studies in 2009 also detected the virus among samples taken from people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome — though both discoveries have now been called into question. The original publication related to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has since been retracted.
When the prostate connection first emerged, there was a lot of excitement in the field, said Chiu, because of the lesson from human papillomavirus, a virus known to cause cervical cancer in women. HPV taught doctors that a cancer caused by a virus could be prevented by giving people a vaccine.
For people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the 2009 news offered hope because it promised new tests that could definitively diagnose their condition — and possibly lead to treatment with antiviral drugs that block XMRV.
But the connection between the virus and both diseases began to unravel after a number of follow-up studies in several different laboratories failed to detect XMRV in tissue samples taken from men with prostate cancer and people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Other studies added to the doubt by providing strong evidence that XMRV may have arisen simply from laboratory contamination.
Working with the original groups that made the 2006 discovery, Chiu and his colleagues sought to definitively uncover how this contamination occurred. | <urn:uuid:f90e5d02-f13b-48d1-923a-918e4cc15c08> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://cancer.ucsf.edu/news/2012/09/18/study-confirms-erroneous-link-between-prostate-cancer-and-retrovirus-from-mice.4061 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963067 | 594 | 2.8125 | 3 |
| by Ananda W. P. Guruge
( October 30, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) May I begin by expressing my grateful thanks to the Indo-Sri Lanka Buddhist Network, SUCCESS Sri Lanka, German Dharmaduta Society, Buddhist Cultural Centre, Nedimala, International Buddhist Centre, Wellawatte, and in particular Venerable Kirama Wimalajoti Thero and Mr Senaka Weeraratna for the privilege accorded to me to speak to you on the role of Sri Lanka in the growth of Buddhism in India in the new millennium.
Being a part of the Indian subcontinent Sri Lanka’s relations with the mainland date back to the distant past. Even before the arrival of Aryans in our Island, trade relations are said to have existed between the two countries. According to the Tamil Buddhist classic Silapathikaram, a shipwreck happened near Sri Lanka and only one of its Tamil-speaking victims could speak the Naga language and seek assistance. Onesicritus, the admiral of the naval force of Alexander the Great around 320 before Christ has recorded that a regular maritime commercial route existed between Sri Lanka and the Indus Region in modern Pakistan.
He mentions the time taken to go from the Island to that region and compares the quality of Sri Lankan ships with his own. Megasthenes, the Greek Ambassador to the Mauryan court of Chandragupta makes reference to Sri Lanka in his book Indica. Asoka the Righteous makes two references to Tammapanni in his edicts and sent Buddhism through his own children Arahants Mahinda and Sanghamitta. The voyage of the latter bringing a sapling of the sacred bodhi-tree establishes that a regular sea-route connected the Indian port of Tamralipti in Bengal with Jambukola in the Jaffna Peninsula. Gokanna, the present day Trincomalee, was also a seaport, in addition to Mahatittha or Mantai, with connections to India.
It is with the establishment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka that our relations with the mainland became stronger, perennial and fruitful. Sri Lanka does owe an immense debt to India for giving us Buddhism along with significant cultural attributes contributing to the development of religion and philosophy, art and architecture, literature and a serene life-style. Ever since, Sri Lanka has also played an important role in the development of Buddhism in India.
A cursory survey of the history of Buddhism in India shows that Sri Lankans were deeply engaged in Buddhist activities in several main centers. The Sinhala Commentaries, which are said to be an initiative of Arahant Mahinda, continued in the Island until about the first century before Christ and appear to have been used by Indian Buddhist Sangha. It was the evolution of the languages in our two countries which made it difficult for the Indian Sangha to use our Sinhala commentaries seven centuries later. The impetus for Buddhaghosa, Dharmapala and Buddhadatta to translate them into Pali came from the fact that Sinhala commentaries were indispensable for the study of Buddhism in India as well.
A Prakrit inscription at Nagarjunakonda, dated around the second century of the current era, refers to a Sihalavihara there and credits its monks for the promotion of Buddhism in Kashmir, Gandhara, China, and several parts of the mainland. King Silamegha of Sri Lanka is known to have negotiated with the Gupta Emperor Samudragupta to establish a pilgrim rest in Buddha Gaya for the convenience of Sri Lankan pilgrims. An inscription by a Sri Lankan monk named Mahanama of that time as well as several epigraphical records show that the Vihara, thus established, was frequented by Sri Lankan pilgrims up to the time of the disappearance of Buddhism from India.
It is also well-known that Aryadeva, the renowned disciple of Nagarjuna and his successor as the abbot of Nalanda University, was a Sri Lankan prince. His work Catusshataka is a major contribution to the development of Mahayana Buddhism. Our history records several waves of Mahayana Buddhism influencing Sri Lanka. Of the three main monasteries of Anuradhapura, Abhayagiri and Jetavana were partial to the Mahayana tradition, used Sanskrit and had relations with Indian Institutions. Apart from the massive Buddha statues of Aukana, Maligawila, Buduruvagala and Galvihara, the gold plates with the Sanskrit text of Prajnaparamita, discovered in Jetavana, provide proof for the impact of Mahayana. So is the exquisite image of the seated Bodhisattva found in Weragala.
In India Fa-hien could not find a written Buddhist Vinaya and came to Sri Lanka in search of Vinaya texts. It is here that he found the Dharmaguptika Vinaya and enabled the Mahayana tradition to regulate its Sangha. The Kashmir King Gunavarman abdicated his throne and came to Abhayagiri Vihara and became a specialist in Vinaya before proceeding to China. Sanghamitra, a disciple of the Mahayana monks who were banished to South India by Gotabhaya came to Sri Lanka and prompted Mahasena to campaign against the Mahavihara. Hsuan-tsang or (Xuan Tsang) in the seventh century wanted to come to Sri Lanka for further studies of Buddhism. When prevented from doing so, he wrote the last chapter of his Si-yu-ki on the state of Buddhism in the Island on the basis of information he could gather in Tamil Nadu. It is also significant that Vajrabodhi, who hailed from India and his pupil Amogharajra departed for China from Sri Lanka.
It is also possible that Sri Lankan monks held positions of authority in Indian monasteries. Ajanta seems to have had such an eminent monk for the arrival of Sinhalas in Sri Lanka to be illustrated in one of the largest and most prominent murals in one of its caves. Thus was the close interaction between our two countries until Buddhism degenerated into Tantric practices and ultimately disappeared when Buddhist institutions and the Sangha succumbed to the Muslim onslaught around the twelfth century.
The restoration of Buddhism in India was therefore left to Sri Lanka and this was done by Anagarika Dharmapala who was guided and encouraged by Venerable Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala and Ven. Weligama Sumangala and ably supported in early stages by Colonel Henry Olcott and Sir Edwin Arnold. This was gratefully acknowledged by Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, as the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal, who presided over the golden jubilee celebrations of the Maha Bodhi Society in 1941 and declared that Anagarika Dharmapala has fully repaid the debt that Sri Lanka owed to India for the gift of Buddhism. The main contribution of Anagarika Dharmapala and Colonel Henry Olcott was that they made the intelligensia of India aware of the prestige their motherland accrued due to the Buddha. The campaign to have Buddhist shrines of India restored to the Buddhists had tremendous success in that the Sangha from Sri Lanka could be placed in them to assist pilgrims, develop the institutions and bring the doctrines and philosophy of Buddhism to popular attention. Buddhism ceased to be a lost religion in India and especially its egalitarian principles against caste became a source of solace to depressed communities and tribes. Both Anagarika Dharmapala and Colonel Olcott had a message for the 141 million untouchables in India that their redemption from the oppression of ‘high caste’ Hindus could be conversion to Buddhism.
An eminent untouchable of the Dalit caste to respond to this call was Babasahab Bhimrao Ambedkar who commenced his in-depth study of Buddhism quite early in his life. As described by Dr Narendranath Jawab in his book “The Untouchables,” Ambedkar inspired all around him to study Buddhism and to give the highest possible education to children. While urging them to use education as the social elevator for the untouchables, he advised them to seek spiritual upliftment through Buddhism. As the Minister of Law, drafting the Constitution of the Republic of India, he came to Sri Lanka to attend the founding conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in 1950. Foreseeing his role in the revival of Buddhism, Dr Gunapala Malalasekera introduced him on that occasion as a Bodhisattva. Further developing his conviction with Buddhist scholars he decided on October 14, 1956 – the year of the 2500 Buddha Jayanti - to embrace Buddhism as his personal religion. He took refuge in the Triple Gem and recited the five precepts in Nagpur at a ceremony presided over by the Sri Lankan scholar-monk Venerable Dr Hammalawa Saddhatissa Thero. Many thousand Indians of Dalit and other scheduled castes embraced Buddhism along with him. Urged by him, millions have followed in his footsteps and the current Buddhist population of India is estimated to be at least twenty million and growing.
Sri Lanka did play an effective role in the early stages of the new movement. Monks trained in Sri Lanka like Kosambi Dharmanand, Rahul Sankrityayan, Jagdish Kashyap and Anand Kausalyana provided the spiritual leadership to the new Buddhists. So did the Sri Lankan monks of the Maha Bodhi Society, as well as those from the Chakma Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. Books were produced in Hindi and Marathi. Monks like Venerable Rahul Bodhi spent long years in Sri Lanka to become conversant in monastic practice and have provided leadership to the new Sangha emanating from among them.
Even while Babasahab Bhimrao Ambedkar paved the way for mass conversion to Buddhism, the indigenous Indian Buddhists of Ladakh, who were adherents of the Tibetan tradition of Vajrayana grew in strength. The arrival of the His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama with a stream of Tibetan Buddhists and the establishment of Dharmasala as their spiritual centre further enhanced the influence and presence of Buddhists in India. Today the cooperation and interaction of these traditions have made Buddhism a living force in India. Their vocal presence in international Buddhist fora like the World Fellowship of Buddhists(WFB) and the World Sangha Council is quite impressive. The multiplicity of associations and societies causes some concern as the lack of communication, consultation and coordination among them results in dispersed effort. It also may indicate obstacles to unity and solidarity. Over the last several years, India under the leadership of the Ladakhi monk, Venerable Lama Lobzang has taken steps to set up the International Buddhist Confederation to present the collective wisdom of Buddhism to the world in a united voice. It was officially inaugurated in New Delhi in September 2013 in a founding conclave attended by a representative body of the international Buddhist community. It chalked out a comprehensive program of action ranging from the propagation of Buddhism to the preservation and development of the Buddhist heritage.
Role of Sri Lanka in the growth of Buddhism in India in the future
The question before us is whether Sri Lanka has a role to play in the growth of Buddhism in the new millennium. If we have a role what should be the road-map that we should adopt. Let me begin by listing what Sri Lanka has to offer India in the present situation. With the twenty three centuries of unbroken presence of Buddhism and a series of unique contributions made to the promotion of Buddhism in Asia in the past and all over the world in recent century or so, Sri Lanka has a wealth of experience which would be very helpful to India. Among them, the close relationship between the Sangha and the laity is of special significance. The Sri Lankan Sangha has tremendous experience in ensuring social well-being through education, spiritual development, social services and institution building. The high standard of Buddhist scholarship is revealed by an extensive and constantly growing treasure house of treatises, research papers and popular literature by both Sangha and lay scholars.
What the Indian Buddhists need most urgently is a committed Sangha with a very high level of education, comprehensive monastic training and expertise in organizing the lay society to sustain the Buddhist dispensation. Can the Sri Lankan Sangha undertake the task of providing facilities for the recruits to the Indian Sangha to acquire these qualifications through our temples, Pirivenas, the Buddhist and Pali University, the Bhikshu University of Anuradhapura and the Departments of Buddhist Studies in other universities?. The most important thing that both countries should do in collaboration is to safeguard and develop Pali Studies so that the language of the Buddha is preserved and the invaluable resources of Pali literature are utilized for the better understanding of Buddhism.
I am aware of several institutions which already exist to serve this purpose and many foreign monks are their current beneficiaries. All that is needed are more resources to cater to the increasing needs of the growing Sangha of India.
When speaking of the Sangha, it is necessary to highlight the importance of the Bhikkhuni Sasana to enlist Indian women to play an enhanced role in the promotion of Buddhism. Sri Lanka has over a couple of decades developed a viable order of Bhikkhunis with the capacity to ordain and train women. The development of a Bhikkhuni Sasana in India could be another of the initiatives which Sri Lanka is capable to embark upon.
Already in India are a fair number of Sri Lankan monks who are effectively engaged in safeguarding the sacred Buddhist shrines, assisting pilgrims and educating the people. Sri Lanka should be able to send more Dharmaduta monksto support the relatively meagre human resources at the disposal of the Indian Sangha.
Equally important is to involve the lay Buddhists of the two countries to cooperate in joint operations to promote Buddhism and attending to the needs and challenges they encounter. Solidarity and unity among them is a vital need. Buddhist channels in radio and television in the two countries can function as social media among Buddhists and develop intellectual and social communications. Similarly the sharing of information, opinion and knowledge through the Internet can be explored.
Exchange of students, seminars and conferences can bring scholars and students together. Pilgrimage already functions as a means of taking Sri Lankan Buddhists to sacred sites of India. A significant element of tourism could be added to the usual pilgrimage sites by adding popular centres of Buddhist art and architecture like Sanchi, Ajanta, Ellore, Karle, Bhaja and other cave temples of western India. Reciprocally, Indian Buddhists should be provided facilities to come as pilgrims and tourists to Sri Lanka to our sacred monuments to be inspired by how the Buddha’s teachings had impacted the cultural and spiritual development outside its borders.
There is no dearth of things that can be done to bring the Buddhists of the two countries to appreciate how each country has contributed to the promotion of Buddhism. Already Anagarika Dharmapla is remembered and honoured in India with statues, memorials and publications. The steps taken to erect a statue of Dr. Babasahab Bhimrao Ambedkarat the Headquarters of the Maha Bodhi Society in Colombo and establish an Ambedkar Centre in Arawwala, Pannipitiya to educate and train monastic and lay Buddhist leaders of India can go a long way in creating an awareness of this eminent Indian Buddhist leader’s services to humanity. Honouring those who have worked hard and struggled to revive and spread Buddhism in our two countries will be a direct way of encouraging the present and future leaders to emulate them.
The efforts of Buddhists to cooperate in joint activities will have significant benefits in building better understanding between the two countries. We have been neighbours whose interaction in diverse fields has had invaluable results. Ignorance of each other’s aspirations and the unintended consequences of what each country has done in self - interest, result in prejudices, misunderstanding and even hostility which are inevitable in the present world. Buddhism with its emphasis on loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity has the capacity to enhance tolerance, accommodation, and forbearance. It is a task for the Buddhists of the two countries to undertake together and severally. With our spiritual goals and training, we certainly can and should preserve and build upon the friendship between India and Sri Lanka.
(Text of speech delivered on Sunday October 27, 2013 at 2.30 p.m. at the "Sri Sambuddhathwa Jayanthi Mandiraya" ,Colombo 05. The talk was sponsored by the newly formed Indo – Sri Lanka Buddhist Network in association with SUCCESS Sri Lanka, German Dharmaduta Society, Buddhist Cultural Centre and International Buddhist Centre, Wellawatte, Colombo 06).
Courtesy: Sri Express | <urn:uuid:c125243c-c62e-432c-821c-069f6cd7ada2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2013/10/the-role-of-sri-lanka-in-growth-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955465 | 3,518 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The Fortress cost an enormous sum for the times, and Aquila was obliged also to sell the thick silver case containing the body of St. Bernardine from Siena. Escrivà planned a giant fortress, made of four bastions connected through mighty walls, 60 meters long, with a thickness of 30 metres at the bottom and 5 meters at top. The walls were surmounted by massive merlons, with openings for the archers and the long-distance cannons. All around the fortress was a ditch (never filled with water) 23 meters wide and 14 meters deep, aimed at defending the foundations from the enemy's artillery; the slanted walls would reject enemy fire to the sides; each bastion consisted of two separate and completely self-sufficient environments - called "case matte" - almost independent garrisons on their own. Also the aqueduct to the city was deviated so as to supply the fortress first of all.
Moreover, Don Pirro planned a special anti-mine corridor, a kind of empty space between the outer and inner walls which could be walked only by one man at a time (and which can be visited today), aiming at defending the castle in case of explosion in case enemy soldiers excavated tunnels to leave mines at the foundations. A whole hill was leveled down to supply the white stone necessary for the fortress, while the city's bells were melted to make the cannons.
The Fortress, which had been built not to defend the city, but to control it (many cannons pointed to the city) and to be a completely self-sufficient structure, was never used in a battles. Its cannons, always ready to fire, were silent throughout the centuries: the only victim was the city itself, whose decline began with the construction of the fortress and went on under the Spanish dominion. Between 1949 and 1951 the castle was restored, and chosen as the seat of the Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo. | <urn:uuid:b90af7e4-6d72-4c90-91e0-7c68a71927ff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.italyworldclub.com/landmarks/abruzzo/laquila/laquila_castello.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979236 | 394 | 3.3125 | 3 |
- Year Published: 1918
- Language: English
- Country of Origin: United States of America
- Source: Richards, L. E. (1918). Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children, For Use in Colleges, Normal Schools and Library Schools. Boston: Little, Brown & Co..
- Flesch–Kincaid Level: 1.8
- Word Count: 208
Richards, L. (1918). “The Cake”. Fairy Tales and Other Traditional Stories (Lit2Go Edition). Retrieved June 26, 2016, from
Richards, Laura. "“The Cake”." Fairy Tales and Other Traditional Stories. Lit2Go Edition. 1918. Web. <>. June 26, 2016.
Laura Richards, "“The Cake”," Fairy Tales and Other Traditional Stories, Lit2Go Edition, (1918), accessed June 26, 2016,.
A child quarrelled with his brother one day about a cake.
“It is my cake!” said the child.
“No, it is mine!” said his brother.
“You shall not have it!” said the child. “Give it to me this minute!” And he fell upon his brother and beat him.
Just then came by an Angel who knew the child.
“Who is this that you are beating?” asked the Angel.
“It is my brother,” said the child.
“No, but truly,” said the Angel, “who is it?”
“It is my brother, I tell you!” said the child.
“Oh no,” said the Angel, “that cannot be; and it seems a pity for you to tell an untruth, because that makes spots on your soul. If it were your brother, you would not beat him.”
“But he has my cake!” said the child.
“Oh,” said the Angel, “now I see my mistake. You mean that the cake is your brother; and that seems a pity, too, for it does not look like a very good cake,—and, besides, it is all crumbled to pieces.” | <urn:uuid:73d8df0a-4ffe-415f-acb2-5fb33707688a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/68/fairy-tales-and-other-traditional-stories/4861/the-cake/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963657 | 491 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Menachem Birnbaum was born in 1893 in Vienna. He was an Austrian book illustrator and portrait painter. Birnbaum was the second son of the Zionist and Jewish philosopher Nathan Birnbaum and the brother of fellow artist and bookmaker Uriel. Birnbaum lived in Berlin from 1911 until 1914 and again from 1919 until 1933. He then emigrated to the Netherlands. In the spring of 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo and with his relatives sent to a Polish concentration camp. Birnbaum probably died in Auschwitz in 1944. His works include Das Hohe Lied (The High Song) from Berlin in 1912; Der Aschmedaj (Newspaper), Berlin-Warsaw 1912; Chad Gadjo, Berlin 1920. | <urn:uuid:576083fc-7eae-4b47-9977-3bfd4f4e8f7d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.library.yale.edu/judaica/site/exhibits/haggadah/birnbaum.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00129-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97193 | 151 | 2.765625 | 3 |
America has never been short of controversial figures. Our history is filled with characters that are both idolized and villainized. People who study the lives of Alexander Hamilton or Andrew Jackson often find it difficult to remain neutral about their careers.
Douglas MacArthur is a particularly good example of these controversial Americans. Born 130 years ago on January 26, MacArthur still inspires incredible devotion and harsh criticism. Any American who sparks such extreme opinion must represent something deep and valuable in the national character.
MacArthur had an extensive military career, to say the least. His military history began in 1903 when he graduated from West Point with honors. He served with distinction in the First World War, where he commanded the 84th Infantry Brigade. His soldiers were among the first to cross no-man’s land in the final advance into German-held territory.
By 1918 he was near the top ranks of the military, and was selected as the army chief of staff in 1930. The timing of this promotion was unfortunate due to the economics of the time and his efforts were mostly directed at preserving the military’s meager strength during the Great Depression. He retired from the US Army in 1937, only to be recalled to active duty in July 1941.
He is best known for his command of the Pacific Theater in World War II. After escaping from enemy encirclement in the Philippines in 1942, he directed the Allied forces that pushed the Japanese back across the Pacific, island by island. In 1945 he received the surrender of the Japanese Imperial forces and, until 1951, directed the allied occupation of Japan.
When the Post published a series of articles about MacArthur in 1951, you would have been hard-pressed to find Americans not familiar with the man. He had commanded the first nine months of the Korean War on behalf of the United Nations forces. He had launched a decisive invasion on the Korean coast in the rear of North Korea’s army. His forces threw the communists back so decisively that a fearful Communist China launched a counterattack. President Truman ordered MacArthur to pull back American forces. MacArthur wanted to continue his advance and wage war in the style he knew best, without political complexities. He spoke out publicly against Truman’s decision, and Truman relieved him of command.
The Post published eight articles about MacArthur written by Col. Sid Huff, MacArthur’s aide for 15 years. The article presented a side of MacArthur not familiar to the American people. The series didn’t focus solely on his military leadership and war heroism, but also on his family, and the man “behind closed doors.”
In the first article from September 8, 1951, Huff talked about the General’s personal character. When asked by some if MacArthur was always the military man featured in the news and public, Huff responds,
“Actually the General is a very serious man who has been occupied for years with problems of grave import to America, and he so concentrates on what he is doing that there is little time left for any relaxation except the movies. He has no hobbies. He plays no games, such as golf or cards. He has no interest in ‘small talk.’ And he doesn’t enjoy meeting people merely for the sake of making new acquaintances. On the other hand, he has tremendous charm as well as a commanding, exciting personality; he can be tactful, gracious and even gallant, as the occasion commands, and he can and often does lean back in his favorite red-painted rocking chair and enjoys a real belly-laugh that makes the rafters ring.”
Huff describes MacArthur’s reaction to command being taken from him.
“Anybody who knows MacArthur soon realizes that he is sensitive to criticism. In a way, this sensitivity is his Achilles’ heal… MacArthur was widely criticized — much of the criticism arising from political motives — and the more he was criticized the harder he worked. He directed a masterful retirement in Korea and he seemed in public to be as unaffected by the attacks made on him personally as he had been earlier by the lavish praise he received when he was winning. But in the lonely watches of the night it hurt. It hurt him so keenly that his staff did everything possible to protect him. We even hid newspapers and magazines from him if they contained particularly unrestrained criticism…”
When notified of being relieved his military command, Huff says, MacArthur responded, “without much change of expression or demeanor. He didn’t like it, but it was an order.” MacArthur did not drag his feet. He tied up the loose ends and returned to the US.”
Even beyond the articles featured in The Post in 1951, MacArthur lived out his days rather quietly. Other than chairing the Board for the Remington Rand Corporation, he lived his final years in New York City. He died in Washington, DC in 1964.
MacArthur’s critics cannot be dismissed; they point to the general’s arrogance and self-absorption, his short-sighted preparations in the Philippines, his readiness to promote a war with China, and his political posturing in the ’40s and ’50s. They also compare MacArthur’s performance with those of Generals Eisenhower and Marshall — men who achieved greater things without his posturing or recklessness.
Still, MacArthur was a powerful figure to Americans during the war years. He became a symbol of America’s strength and determination. He inspired devotion and confidence, both of which proved valuable to our success in the World War. Any man who draws such lasting admiration from so many Americans must represent something great about our country.
In the 1977 Saturday Evening Post article “More Than A Star,” Gregory Peck described his role as the general in the movie, “MacArthur.”
“I came to this role with a grab bag full of prejudices… Now I’m full of admiration for the man. His faults were on such a grand scale they’re too obvious to discuss. They weren’t petty. There was no meanness in him and most of the things that MacArthur detractors say are based on idiosyncrasies — his long hair, his corncob pipe, his informal dress. It was kind of inverse snobbism — never wearing any medals. It was the theatricality of knowing less is more. When he stood with generals and admirals, he stood out in his simplicity. He made them all look silly.” | <urn:uuid:ad1c1901-5c95-453b-87f7-4b23b1bf06ec> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/01/23/history/post-perspective/controversial-hero.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984375 | 1,333 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Waitz, Georg (gāˈôrk vĪts) [key], 1813–86, German historian. In the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848 he defended the idea of a unified Germany, including Austria and Prussia. He was professor at Göttingen after 1849. His great knowledge of the literature and sources of history enabled him to direct the Monumenta Germaniae historica after 1875 and to prepare with Dahlmann an indispensable Quellenkunde zur deutschen Geschichte [sources on German history] (ed. 1869, 1874, 1883; 9th ed. 1931). Waitz also wrote an eight-volume work (1844–78) on German constitutional history to the middle of the 12th cent. | <urn:uuid:418b85cc-8cec-40ab-8756-8595ffe385b3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/people/waitz-georg.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907218 | 162 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII.
Part VIII: 'White Man's Land'
Though "sundown towns" enjoyed their heyday in the early 20th century particularly in the American Midwest, one of the first such towns was way out West, in the little coal town of Rock Springs, Wyoming. And it wasn't African Americans who were being driven out, but Chinese immigrants.
The 1885 incident that brought about this status was known as the "Rock Springs massacre." James Loewen describes it in Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism [pp. 50-51]:
- Rock Springs, Wyoming, built at a coal mine owned by the Union Pacific that was the biggest source of coal for its locomotives, was the site of one of the earliest expulsions. The railroad had hired hundreds of Chinese American miners, most of whom lived in a separate neighborhood, "Chinatown." On September 2, 1885, led by the Knights of Labor, at least 150 white miners and railroad workers, most of them armed, gave the Chinese "one hour to pack their belongings and leave town," according to historian Craig Storti. Then they attacked. "The Chinamen were fleeing like a herd of hunted antelope, making no resistance. Volley upon volley was fired after the fugitives," Storti tells. It was chaotic: "Most carried nothing at all, not even their money. Many hid in their homes, but the rioters then burned Chinatown, incinerating those who were hiding there. Storti quotes an eyewitness:
- The stench of burning human flesh was sickening and almost unendurable, and was plainly discernible for more than a mile along the railroad both east and west. ... Not a living Chinaman -- man, woman, or child -- was left in the town where 700 to 900 had lived the day before, and not a single house, shanty, or structure of any kind that had ever been inhabitaed by a Chinaman was left unburned.
Those who fled were hardly better off, because the temperature dropped below freezing that night, so scores died from exposure. According to Bill Bryson, this persecution in Rock Springs led to the expression "He doesn't have a Chinaman's chance."
The early Chinese in America were already in something of a limbo-land. Though there were no bars to their immigration to America, they were forbidden by law from becoming U.S. citizens. When they first arrived as part of the California Gold Rush of 1849, they were welcomed as significant parts of the labor force, especially because they tended to avoid direct competition with white miners and instead employed themselves in providing services such as laundry and eateries, as well as general labor. But as the gold ran out and the numbers of gold-seekers kept rising, their presence ceased to be welcome. As Henry Kittredge Norton observed:
- Thousands of Americans came flocking in to the mines. Rich surface claims soon became exhausted. These newcomers did not find it so easy as their predecessors had done to amass large fortunes in a few days. California did not fulfill the promise of the golden tales that had been told of her. These gold-seekers were disappointed. In the bitterness of their disappointment they turned upon the men of other races who were working side by side with them and accused them of stealing their wealth. They boldly asserted that California's gold belonged to them. The cry of "California for Americans" was raised and taken up on all sides.
The situation became intense as the labor pool tightened. As I explain in Strawberry Days:
- Worse yet, the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1869 -- symbolized by the driving of the Golden Spike -- threw thousands of Chinese workers into the already crowded labor market, adding to the intensity of resentment over the competition they represented. As early as 1862, anti-coolie clubs had formed in San Francisco, and they spread like a virus to every ward in the city.
By decade's end, Chinese constituted 10 percent of California's population, and the resentment festered. The first of many large "anti-Oriental" mass meetings occurred in San Francisco in July 1870; anti-Chinese agitation had become the most important issue in the state. It gathered steam for the next 12 years, led largely by labor organizers who used the Chinese worker issue as the chief recruiting tool for their fledgling movement. The issue culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, barring further immigration from China.
All Asians already were prevented by law from ever attaining American citizenship. The 1790 Immigration Act specified that naturalization was available only to "free white persons" -- language originally intended to ensure that African Americans and Native Americans were excluded from citizenship (in 1870, Congress updated the naturalization statutes to include Africans), but applied with equal vigor to Asians as they attempted to immigrate. Of course, any children of those immigrants born on American soil were entitled to full citizenship, though their parents might be barred, and this birthright would play a major role in later anti-Asian agitation.
A belief in the supremacy of the white race -- and the need for racial segregation -- was an often explicit, and always implicit, feature of the inflamed rhetoric aimed at excluding the Chinese. Speakers at rallies appealed to "racial purity" and "Western civilization" and described Asians in subhuman terms, simultaneously posing the most dire of threats, with a none-too-subtle sexual undertone. Moreover, agitators claimed, they were innately treacherous, as in a Knights of Labor pamphlet circulated in 1878:
- By his industry, suavity and apparent child-like innocence, seconded by unequaled patience and the keenest business ability, the Chinaman is always the winner. Let white men set over him whatever guards they may, he can surpass them in threading the by-ways of tortuousness. Dr. S. Wells Williams, in his standard work on China, "The Middle Kingdom," makes these remarks on the untruthfulness of the Chinese: "There is nothing which tries one so much, when living among them, as their disregard of truth; or renders him so indifferent to what calamities may befall so mendacious a race. An abiding impression of suspicion rests upon the mind toward everybody here, which chills the warmest wishes for their welfare. Their better traits diminish in the distance, and the patience is exhausted when in daily proximity and friction with this ancestor of sins."
The Marin Journal of March 30, 1876, ran an editorial on the "Chinese problem" that was fairly typical of the popular sentiment:
- That he is a slave, reduced to the lowest terms of beggarly economy, and is no fit competitor for an American freeman.
That he herds in scores, in small dens, where a white man and wife could hardly breathe, and has none of the wants of a cvilized white man.
That he has neither wife nor child, nor expects to have any.
That his sister is a prostitute from instinct, religion, education, and interest, and degrading to all around her.
That American men, women and children cannot be what free people should be, and compete with such degraded creatures in the labor market. ...
That the health, wealth, prosperity and happiness of our State demand their expulsion from our shores.
These sentiments were also part of the official government position on the "problem." The 1879 California Constitutional Convention, for instance, included an entire article (No. XIX) pertaining to the Chinese, which asserted:
- Section 4. The presence of foreigners ineligible to become citizens of the United States is declared to be dangerous to the well-being of the state, and the legislature shall discourage their immigration by all the means within its power. Asiatic coolieism is a form of human slavery, and is forever prohibited in this state.
As with all other manifestations of the eliminationist impulse, the rhetoric begat both the lawmaking and the violence that followed. Roger Daniels, in The Politics of Prejudice, describes this [p. 17]:
- The anti-Chinese movement did not confine itself to making speeches and holding torchlight parades. No one will ever know how many Chinese were murdered in California; in the best-known outrage, about twenty Chinese were shot and hanged in the sleepy village of Los Angeles one night in 1871. For many years Chinese, like slaves in the South, could not under any circumstances testify against white men in a California court. Congressional enactments during Reconstruction unintentionally improved their legal status, but Western juries were usually convinced that all Chinese were "born liars." Incidental brutality and casual assault were "John Chinaman's" daily lot; cutting of his queue was a favorite pastime for the larger bullies, and a shower of rocks was apt to greet him at any time. Little, if any, legal punishment was meted out for any crime against a Chinese ... Indignity and insult were not reserved for the laborer and the living; when a Chinese professor at Harvard died of pneumonia, the headline in the Los Angeles Times was "A Good Chinaman." ...
Most of this violence was scattered and periodic until 1885 and the Rock Springs Massacre. Its example seems to have sparked a wildfire of violence throughout the West, as Loewen notes:
- Copycat riots and expulsions then swept the West, including almost every town in Wyoming; Cripple Creek and later Silverton, Colorado; Hells Canyon, Oregon; Grass Creek and Corinne, Utah; and communities in most other western states.
The retreat of Chinese from Idaho was especially striking. In 1870, Chinese made up one-third of the population of Idaho. By 1910, almost none remained. In the 1880s, assaults and murder became common practice. In 1886, white Idahoans held an anti-Chinese convention in Boise, and a mass movement against the Chinese spread throughout the state, growing even worse after statehood in 1890. ...
The effect was especially notable in California, where the largest numbers of Chinese lived. Elmer Clarence Sandmeyer, in The Anti-Chinese Movement in California (1939), similarly describes the aftermath of Rock Springs:
- Shortly afterward the entire west coast became inflamed almost simultaneously. Tacoma burned its Chinese quarter, and Seattle, Olympia, and Portland might have done the same but for quick official action. In California developments ranged from new ordinances of regulation to the burning of Chinese quarters and the expulsion of the inhabitants. Among the localities where these actions occurred were Pasadena, Santa Barbara, Santa Crus, San Jose, Oakland, Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Red Bluff, Hollister, Merced, Yuba City, Petaluma, Redding, Anderson, Truckee, Lincoln, Sacramento, San Buenaventura, Napa, Gold Run, Sonoma, Vallejo, Placerville, Santa Rosa, Chico, Wheatland, Carson, Auburn, Nevada City, Dixon, and Los Angeles.
As these atrocities mounted, they attracted a certain amount of attention from East Coast whites who questioned the need for the violence, suggesting that perhaps the Chinese weren't quite the threat presented by the anti-Chinese whites on the West Coast. This prompted angry responses out West, including this outburst from the San Francisco Post on March 19, 1879:
- But only let the general government release our people from federal obligations, and with our own state laws and local enactments we will free ourselves from the leprous evil, or, failing in that, with the same right arms that founded this western empire, will prove to the world that the imperial Saxon race, though but a million strong, can maintain its claim even against four hundred million serfs to possess and forever hold untrammeled the fair continent of America ... The silence of the grave would be all that would tell of the Chinaman's existence here.
The Northwest was hardly immune. Three Chinese hops workers were murdered in their tents in the town of Saak (now Issaquah) near Seattle shortly after the Rock Springs event. The following year, on Feb. 7, a mob of local whites -- mostly comprising labor activists and utopianists whose eugenicist beliefs prompted their desire to remove the Chinese -- rounded up all 350 or so Chinese in the city and attempted to force them out of town. As I described it in Strawberry Days:
- [O]n February 7, 1886, a mob rounded up virtually every Chinese person in Seattle and began herding them toward the dock at the foot of Main Street, intending to put them aboard a waiting steamer for passage out of town. However, a contingent of local police and the volunteer Home Guard met the agitators at the pier and prevented the forced expulsion of their frightened captives, at least for a day.
Some 200 Chinese embarked for San Francisco the next morning. However, another 150 or so were forced to remain behind to catch the next boat, due six days later. As authorities tried escorting these Chinese back to their homes, the mob erupted in violence. Police fired into the crowd, and five members of the mob fell; one died. Martial law was declared by the governor and President Grover Cleveland.
Eventually, as all but a few Chinese left Seattle within the ensuing weeks, the passions cooled. And the city's nascent Chinese community nearly disappeared, at least for the time being.
Chinese emigration gradually ground to a trickle, and the remaining Chinese were forced to cluster into a handful of urban areas where they could be relatively safe, notably San Francisco, Los Angeles, and eventually Seattle again. But the demand for their labor never fully receded, and the industries that formerly employed them, particularly railroad, logging, and canning companies, soon began recruiting Japanese laborers to America in their place.
Rather predictably, the same kind of racial agitation against the Japanese arose in short order. In 1892, Dennis Kearney, an Irish firebrand who had helped lead the fight for Chinese exclusion, warned a San Francisco crowd about "the foreign Shylocks" who were bringing in the a fresh threat from Asia: "Japs ... are being brought here now in countless numbers to demoralize and discourage our labor market and to be educated ... at our expense ... We are paying out money [to allow] fully developed men who know no morals but vice to sit beside our ... daughters [and] to debauch [and] demoralize them."
As I explain in Strawberry Days:
Sentiments like his, though, flourished wherever Japanese immigrants showed their faces. In Washington state, a working force of about 400-500 Japanese laborers had established their presence in the White River Valley south of Seattle, which at the time was dominated by dairy and produce farms. In 1893, the local White River Journal published an editorial headlined "STOP THE JAPS," which included this observation:
- It is a common occurrence in these days to see from six to a dozen Japanese leave the trains and, loading themselves like pack horses, strike out for some one of the valley ranches. Though there is little as yet said about them we know that the sight is distasteful to the working men of this region.
The paper's campaign made little impact at first—most of the farmers apparently welcomed the hard-working Nikkei -- but a year later it weighed in with another editorial declaring that "The Japs Must Go." According to its account, some 50 people gathered in a room over a local store to discuss what to do about the influx of Japanese workers, the main objection being "the starvation wages which the Japs were willing to work for." The result was that the first anti-Japanese organization in the state was formed, and this time, the campaign had its desired effect. Eventually, a "citizens committee" passed a well-publicized resolution calling on all the valley's white farmers to discharge their Japanese help by May 1, 1894, and apparently most of them complied. Most of the Japanese dispersed to other locales, and the few who remained kept a low profile.
The anti-Japanese sentiments lingered and caught fresh life in 1900, when the presence of the Japanese had become unmistakable. In April of that year, the steamer Riojun Maru arrived in Seattle with some 1,000 Japanese men hoping to find work. The Hearst-owned Post-Intelligencer reported steadily on the stream of "little brown men," and noted that labor organizations were demanding that federal authorities enforce the exclusion laws -- except that there were no such laws for Japanese immigrants.
On April 20, the first large anti-Japanese meeting in the United States occurred when a group of over 100 citizens from the South King County town of Renton gathered to prepare and submit a petition to the county commissioners protesting the presence of Chinese and Japanese laborers on county road and bridge crews. Their efforts were rebuffed when the commission explained that those crews were hired by private contractors who were free to employ whoever they pleased.
Once stirred to life, the racial animus hovered like a poisonous cloud. Anti-Japanese sentiment wound up playing a role in that year's election in Tacoma, Washington's second-largest city to the south of Seattle. Tacoma unionists tried to spur a campaign to urge Congress to exclude all Asians, but backed away when it became clear that such a move might cause the Japanese government to retaliate by cutting off millions of dollars in trade. Still, whites were seen handing out fliers to laborers on their way to the polls, declaring: “FELLOW WORKINGMEN BEWARE! Do you know why 1,500 Japanese are in Tacoma? . . . These Japanese are to take the place of our own white laborers in mills and factories in the event of the election of Louis D. Campbell as mayor of Tacoma, who will provide the necessary protection to the employers to carry such an outrage into effect.” The scare tactics failed; Campbell was elected, and Japanese workers continued to arrive.
An incident in Sumner, in rural Pierce County not far from Tacoma, on the eve of the election revealed the violent undercurrent of the agitation. A group of whites, spurred on by local politicians who also were using anti-Japanese rhetoric as an election ploy, marched upon a boardinghouse for Japanese hops pickers "and threatened to kill them if they didn't leave." As the mob fired shots into the house, the unarmed workers fled for their lives; fortunately, no one was killed.
All along the Pacific Coast, rumors were running rampant that the Chinese Exclusion Act, up for renewal in 1902, was going to be undermined or done away with completely by insidious legislative forces from the East Coast. Combined with continuing alarms over the arrival of Japanese, sentiments were ripe for a resurgence in anti-Asian fearmongering. Leaping onto that particular stage with gusto was San Francisco’s mayor, James Duval Phelan.
A banker and native son, born in San Francisco in 1861, Phelan was elected mayor in 1896 as a Democrat and his tenure was largely undistinguished. But in 1900, he caught national attention when the city’s Board of Health "discovered" an ostensible victim of bubonic plague in the Chinatown district. Phelan declared a quarantine and blamed conditions among the Japanese and Chinese. The "plague scare" was widely reported in the nation's press, and Phelan had to scramble as local businessmen descended on him to protest that the scare was ruining their trade. The mayor quickly backed down and blamed the health board's overzealousness. In fact, the only problem a health board inspector had been able to observe among the Japanese was that he found three Japanese men in a single tub in a local bathhouse; evidently, the inspectors were unaware that this style of washing was common in the men's homeland.
Phelan also was the featured speaker at a mass rally against the Japanese, organized on May 7, 1900, in San Francisco largely by local unions. He sounded a note that would continue to ring for nearly half a century:
- The Japanese are starting the same tide of immigration which we thought we had checked twenty years ago. ... The Chinese and the Japanese are not bona fide citizens. They are not the stuff of which American citizens can be made. ... Personally we have nothing against the Japanese, but as they will not assimilate with us and their social life is so different from ours, let them keep at a respectful distance.
Phelan was defeated in the 1902 election, for reasons more to do with labor unrest than with the "plague scare" fiasco, though that was hardly the end of his career. Nor did his nascent campaign against the Japanese go away. In early 1905, the San Francisco Chronicle -- previously the model of Republican restraint, but in the midst of a fierce newspaper war with William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner -- began running a series of shrill articles decrying the growing presence of Japanese in the city’s midst. The headlines shrieked:
- THE YELLOW PERIL—HOW JAPANESE CROWD OUT THE WHITE RACE
JAPANESE A MENACE TO AMERICAN WOMEN
BROWN ARTISANS STEAL BRAINS OF WHITES
The campaign continued for months, during which the Asiatic Exclusion League was born in San Francisco, dedicated to repelling all elements of Japanese society from the city's midst. Its statement of principles noted that "no large community of foreigners, so cocky, with such racial, social and religious prejudices, can abide long in this country without serious friction." And the racial animus was plain: "As long as California is white man's country, it will remain one of the grandest and best states in the union, but the moment the Golden State is subjected to an unlimited Asiatic coolie invasion there will be no more California," declared a League newsletter. As one speaker at a League meeting put it: "An eternal law of nature has decreed that the white cannot assimilate the blood of another without corrupting the very springs of civilization."
Anti-Asian animosity came to the fore in the wake of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. First, James Phelan—placed in charge both of the local Red Cross and several city committees—spearheaded a drive (ultimately unsuccessful) to remove Chinatown, destroyed in the quake, south of the city to Hunters Point. Then in October, the city's school board, acting under pressure from the Asiatic Exclusion League, decided to order all Japanese children -- previously intermingled with white children -- to begin attending the city's segregated Chinese-only school. When news of this reached Japan, a nation whose pride and military might were riding high in the wake of its victory in the Russo-Japanese war, an uproar ensued. Many sabers were rattled on both sides, with threats of war between the two nations rumored for weeks as a result of the school board's slight.
Finally, President Theodore Roosevelt defused the situation by negotiating what became known as the "Gentlemen’s Agreement," completed in March 1907: Roosevelt persuaded the Board of Education to back off and allow Japanese children to continue attending general public schools, while in turn the Japanese government would agree to halt issuing any further passports to its laborers trying to reach America. Thus came to an abrupt end the first great wave of Japanese emigration to America.
There was one exception permitted: Japanese workers already in the United States could send home for their wives. It seemed like a minor and humane concession at the time, but within a few years it became the focus of a fresh wave of racial antipathy.
The agitation against the Japanese never really quieted down, and by 1912 it was bubbling along again in the California Legislature, where anti-immigrant measures such as the "Alien Land Law" forbidding "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from owning property. Its passage in 1913 so angered people in Japan that "a crowd of some 20,000 Japanese in Tokyo cheered wildly as a member of the Diet demanded the sending of the Imperial Fleet to California to protect Japanese subjects and maintain the nation's dignity," and the Japanese government protested angrily to the Wilson Administration, to no avail. But as was often the case, the agitation proved contagious elsewhere.
The spousal exception to the Gentleman's Agreement was the major focus of the agitation. Indeed, in the years since 1907, Japanese immigration had continued apace because of the influx of Japanese women -- called "picture brides" -- who came to America through arranged marriages. Worse yet, they were giving birth to citizen children, and this prospect set off real panic among the anti-Japanese agitators.
In 1919 in Seattle, a campaign against the presence of Japanese farmers was spearheaded by a man named Miller Freeman, who had been agitating against them since 1907, and had even formed a state "naval militia" to help defend Puget Sound waters in the event of Japanese invasion. The pretext in 1919 was the return of World War I veterans to the job market, where they were having difficulty finding work; as chairman of the state's Veterans Welfare Commission, Freeman quickly determined that the Japanese were at the root of this problem, as they were so many others, in Freeman's view.
His opening salvo was a July speech before a group of 170 grocery, laundry and retail store owners that he titled, "This is a White Man's Country." In it, Freeman decried the steady stream of picture brides into the region since 1907, declaring that Japanese mothers bore five times as many children as white women. If the trend were not forestalled, he warned, the entire Pacific Coast would soon be overrun completely with Japanese. And, he said, they now owned and controlled large amounts of property in the state.
Freeman's speech brought a pointed response from Sumikiyo Arima, publisher of the Japanese North American Times: "The opinion of the commission is a great mistake ... If there is, as the commission asserts, need to restrict Japanese immigration more severely than it is now, it must mean to restrict Japanese brides who come to America to live with their husbands. But not to allow young Japanese in this country to bring their brides to live with would be inhuman, unjust and un-Christian. Besides, Japanese women are never in competition with returning soldiers."
The Seattle Star, one of the city's three major papers, decided to make the debate into a cause celebre. It published Arima's response on July 25, and the next day, ran Freeman's response with an 84-point banner headline:
- DEPORT JAPANESE
Demanded by Secretary of Veterans' Commission
Beneath the lead-in was a small portrait of Miller Freeman, with a caption: "Sees Menace in Japanese Here." The first paragraph laid out Freeman's case:
- That by getting control of 47 per cent of Seattle's hotels, and by leasing land when forbidden to own it, Japanese violate the spirit of the "gentleman's agreement" between the United States and Japan, was the charge made Friday by Miller Freeman, secretary of the veterans' welfare commission.
The story went on to detail how the Japanese "controlled" 218 of the hotels in Seattle (it would later turn out that "control" included mere managerial status, not necessarily ownership), and worse yet, were taking over all the state's prime farmland: "Practically all the best farming lands in the vicinity of Seattle are in the hands of the Japanese—a condition true of nearly all of the farming land adjacent to all the cities of the Pacific Coast.
"The law forbade foreigners to own land, and the spirit of the law is to prevent them from realizing the profits of our agricultural acreage. Yet these Japanese come here, lease the land, cultivate it, and take the cream. And the spirit of the law and the 'gentleman's agreement' is violated."
As a result of this travesty, Freeman claimed, World War I veterans returning home from Europe were being shut out of the labor market: "By gaining control of business, the Japanese is crowding our returning veterans out of a chance to get a new start." And if the trend continued, he warned, the result would be inevitable: "In the face of the flow of Japanese to the Pacific Coast, white people are ceasing to move here from the East. Eventually the whites will be forced to go elsewhere to make a living. ... Thus, the Japanese will eventually hold the balance of power in politics on the Pacific Coast. They will vote solid, and will control political affairs. Japan retains control of her people everywhere, notwithstanding that they may be accepted as citizens by the countries of their adoption."
As Freeman would make clear on numerous other occasions, even those American-born Japanese were not racial equals and could never mix with white society. They were Japanese through and through, and thus their citizenship was of dubious nature at best. Despite later contentions that he had no prejudice against the Japanese, this racial separatism was a cornerstone of Freeman's argument as he presented it in the pages of the Star.
He voiced it largely by sprinkling his writing and speeches (including his remarks to the Star) with popular aphorisms: "The Japanese cannot be assimilated. Once a Japanese, always a Japanese. Our mixed marriages—failures all—prove this. 'East is East, and West is West, and ne'er the twain shall meet.' Oil and water do not mix."
And his conclusion became a political benchmark: "It is my personal view, as a citizen, that the time has arrived for plain speech on this question. I am for a white man's Pacific coast. I am for the Japanese on their own side of the fence. I not only favor stopping all further immigration, but believe this government should approach Japan with the view to working out a gradual system of deportation of old Japanese now here."
The headlines continued over the next weeks:
- MORE REVELATIONS MADE IN JAP MENACE
JAPANESE PICTURE BRIDES ARE SWARMING HERE
ASK CIVIC PROBE OF JAP PROBLEM
SHALL WE DODGE JAP ISSUE!
The stories varied slightly in topic, but their underlying narrative was the same: that neither the Japanese immigrants nor their citizen children could ever become "real Americans" -- "There is no hope now or in the future for their assimilation," Freeman declared -- and so their growing presence could have no other outcome than to drive off Caucasians.
On the crusade's second day, an editorial beneath the headline asked: "Is This To Remain White Man's Land?":
- Miller Freeman's proposal in The Star of Saturday to deport the Japanese from the Pacific Coast and to put up the bars against future immigration from Japan has aroused a storm and it has brought Seattle up-standing—face to face with a problem that cannot be settled secretly and cannot be put off much longer.
The Japs are here. They are rapidly gaining control of the best farming land near Seattle. They are in control of the Seattle markets.
... Multiplying five times as rapidly as the whites, the Japs must some day—unless the problem is met now—absolutely control this coast. Just as Hawaii and the Sacramento Valley have been Japanized, so will the state of Washington.
Eventually Freeman's campaign produced a congressional hearing in Seattle, at which the leader of the local chapter of the American Legion declared: "This is the zero hour of Americanism, and we should stand for 100 percent Americanism. The republic was founded for Americans, and not for Japanese, who are un-American."
The next year, Freeman successfully pushed for passage of a state Alien Land Law in the state legislature. Freeman outlined his reasoning in a speech: "Certainly I did not start out with any prejudice against the Japanese," he said. "And the more I observe of them, the more I admire their perseverance and efficiency.
"They are not inferior to us; in fact, they constantly demonstrate their ability to beat the white man at his own game in farming, fishing and business. They will work harder, deprive themselves of every comfort and luxury, make beasts of burden of their women and stick together, making a combination that Americans cannot defeat."
This was a common refrain among the anti-Japanese agitators, and it was modeled on arguments proferred natonally by eugenicists of the period, supported by popular literature and self-proclaimed "scientists" who used the questionable methodology of the day to lend an academic veneer to longstanding racial prejudices.
Among the most popular of the time were Lothrop Stoddard and Madison Grant, who boasted credentials from Harvard and Yale universities, respectively. They approached the matter of race ostensibly from anthropological and biological perspectives, but in fact did little more than clothe white supremacism in pseudo-scientific language. Wrote Grant, in his 1916 tome The Passing of the Great Race:
We Americans must realize that the altruistic ideals which have controlled our social development during the past century, and the maudlin sentimentalism that has made America "an asylum for the oppressed," are sweeping the nation toward a racial abyss. If the Melting Pot is allowed to boil without control, and we continue to follow our national motto and deliberately blind ourselves to all "distinctions of race, creed, or color," the type of native American of Colonial descent will become as extinct as the Athenian of the age of Pericles, and the Viking of the days of Rollo.
And as Stoddard would later write in The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy -- a 1922 work complete with admiring introduction from Grant -- the real threat was not blacks in the South, but Asians: "There is no immediate danger of the world being swamped by black blood. But there is a very imminent danger that the white stocks may be swamped by Asiatic blood."
Both books were national bestsellers that underwent multiple printings. And their core arguments -- which became entwined with deeply cherished beliefs about the nature of race -- became the rhetorical core of the battle to exclude the Japanese. Ultimately the issue was couched, like many racial issues of the preceding century, in the terminology of eugenics, a popular pseudo science that saw careful racial breeding as the source of social and personal good health. Thus many of the campaigns against nonwhites cast the race in question as not merely subhuman, but pernicious vermin who posed a serious threat to the "health" of the white race. As James Phelan, arguing for exclusion in California, put it: "The rats are in the granary. They have gotten in under the door and they are breeding with alarming rapidity. We must get rid of them or lose the granary."
The eugenicists uniformly accorded Asians an advanced position in the sciences and arts and acknowledged their intellectual capacities, but considered them as lacking a moral dimension that ultimately rendered them an inferior race. As Grant put it: "These races vary intellectually and morally just as they do physically. Moral, intellectual, and spiritual attributes are as persistent as physical characters, and are transmitted unchanged from generation to generation." This lack of a moral sense inherent in the race made them potentially dangerous as economic or military competitors, according to this assessment, because they lacked the normal restraints that "decent" white folk took for granted as part of the fabric of a healthy society.
Freeman contended that the Japanese already had a leg up on establishing their hold in the Northwest. In an editorial in the Washington Farmer, he proclaimed: "Practically all the best farming lands in the vicinity of Seattle are in the hands of the Japanese ... The free city market established by the city of Seattle for the benefit of all the people is controlled by the Japanese. They are establishing many commission houses and within a short time will have a virtual monopoly and sell all farm products."
Thus, when the Washington legislature convened early in 1921, a flood of anti-Japanese bills awaited. Only the centerpiece "Alien Land Law" succeeded, passing the House 71-19 and the Senate 36-2, and it was signed into law by the governor in short order.
As I explained in Strawberry Days:
- Flush with political victory, Miller Freeman had the final say on the matter. In an article addressed to the Japanese community, he minced no words: "The people of this country never invited you here. You came into this country of your own responsibility, large numbers after our citizens supposed that Japanese immigration had been suppressed. You came notwithstanding you knew you were not welcome. You have created an abnormal situation in our midst for which you are to blame."
... New Mexico passed an alien land law in 1922, and Oregon, Montana, and Idaho all followed suit in 1923. Washington's legislature tightened its own alien land law in 1923 by empowering the attorney general to seize the property of anyone who leased or sold to ineligible aliens.
The United States Supreme Court weighed in as well. Its 1922 ruling in Ozawa v. United States officially sanctioned the exclusion of all Asian races. A Japanese immigrant named Takao Ozawa -- arguing that he had been almost entirely raised and educated in the United States, was a product of its universities, and was a Christian who spoke English in his home -- sought to overturn a district court ruling that denied him the right to seek citizenship. And though the court agreed that he was "well qualified by character and education for citizenship," it denied his appeal on the grounds that immigration laws limited naturalization to "free white persons and aliens of African nativity." Then, in 1923, the court upheld the constitutionality of Washington's alien land law with its Terrace v. Thompson ruling (in a case involving a King County landowner named Terrace who openly declared his wish to lease his land to an Issei farmer, and sued the state's attorney general over efforts to enforce the alien land law) which found that an alien ineligible for citizenship did not enjoy equal protection under the law.
The final blow came in 1924, when Albert Johnson, using his offices as chair of the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee, introduced a bill that would limit immigration to a 2 percent quota for each nationality, but further prohibiting the admission of any "aliens ineligible for citizenship." The bill easily passed the House, but once in the Senate, the provisions were altered to allow for a Japanese quota as well. However, Republican Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts then stood up in the Senate and denounced a letter from the Japanese ambassador—which had warned of “grave consequences” for relations between the two nations if the measure were to pass—as a "veiled threat" against the United States. Lodge led a stampede of support for the House version of the bill, and the era of the Gentlemen's Agreement was over. Signed shortly afterward by President Calvin Coolidge, complete Japanese exclusion was now the law. Officially called the Immigration Act of 1924, it became known popularly as the Asian Exclusion Act. (Its final clause: "The terms 'wife' and 'husband' do not include a wife husband by reason of a proxy or picture marriage.")
Taken in isolation, these little acts of racial mean-spiritedness may have seemed of little moment. But in fact they had consequences that eventually exploded into the history books. In Japan, the public had been closely watching the passage of the alien land laws with mounting outrage. And when news of the passage of the Asian Exclusion Act was announced, mass riots broke out in Tokyo and other cities. As Pearl Buck would later observe, the then-nascent movement for American-style democracy, which had been slowly gaining momentum in Japan, was effectively wiped out overnight. The military authoritarians who would control the nation for the next 20 years gained complete political mastery, and one of the cornerstones of their rule was a bellicose anti-Americanism that would finally reach fruition in late 1941.
The 1924 Asian Exclusion Act was also a landmark in many other respects as well. Previously, immigration to America had been largely an open affair, with anyone who could prove a "sponsor" being allowed to come to its shores -- though of course, citizenship was a restricted matter. Now -- largely because of nakedly racist agitation aimed at keeping out the "unassimilable" and "alien" Asian races -- the borders were closed for the first time, and the entire concept of an "illegal immigrant" sprung into being.
With Japanese immigration effectively halted altogether, the remaining community settled in, the majority of them employed in farming. Most of them had families and citizen children, many of whom were just coming of age when America went to war with Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The agitation against them had largely subsided, but the mythology that had arisen twenty years before -- particularly the widespread "Yellow Peril" conspiracy theories positing that these immigrants were secret footsoldiers of the emperor sent to prepare for an invasion, and ready to turn traitor when the signal for invasion was given -- was still very much alive. And after Pearl Harbor, it flamed fully back to life.
There was a great deal of hysteria along the Pacific Coast in the weeks and months after Pearl Harbor, including sightings of phantom warplanes over Los Angeles and reports of "arrows of fire" near Seattle pointing the way to defense installations. Soon, the need to "lock up" the "dirty Japs" in their midst was a popular topic and was on the tongues of most of the coast's politicians and on the pages of its newspapers.
Such a removal would not be without problems, warned some. "Approximately 95 percent of the vegetables grown here are raised by the Japanese," noted J.R. Davidson, market master for the Pike Place Public Market in Seattle. "About 35 percent of the sellers in the market are Japanese. Many white persons are leaving the produce business to take defense jobs, which are not open to the Japanese." Letter writers to the local newspapers raised the same concern.
Their fears were quickly derided. Wrote Charlotte Drysdale of Seattle in a letter to the Post-Intelligencer:
It has been interesting to note how many contributors have been afraid we would have no garden truck if the Japs are sent to concentration areas. We had gardens long before the Japs were imported about the turn of the century, to work for a very low wage (a move for which we are still paying dearly) and we can still have them after we have no Japs.
Isn't that discounting American ability just a little too low?
And by Americans I mean not the children of the races ineligible to naturalization. The mere fact that a child is born in this country should not give him the rights and privileges of citizenship.
The fourteenth amendment, granting automatic citizenship to American born, was placed there for the protection of the Negro and at that time the great infiltration of Japs was not even thought of. In recent years there has been so much fear of hurting the feelings of these people that no one has had the courage to try to rectify the situation. Now it would seem that the time is ripe to put things right, for once and for all time.
She was not alone in this sentiment. Senator Tom Stewart of Tennessee proposed stripping citizenship from anyone of Japanese descent. The Japanese, charged Stewart on the Senate floor, "are among our worst enemies. They are cowardly and immoral. They are different from Americans in every conceivable way, and no Japanese who ever lived anywhere should have a right to claim American citizenship. A Jap is a Jap anywhere you find him, and his taking an oath of allegiance to this country would not help, even if he should be permitted to do so. They do not believe in God and have no respect for an oath. They have been plotting for years against the Americas and their democracies."
The press became the chief cheerleaders for removing the Japanese. The Seattle Times ran a news story alerting its readers: "Hundreds of alien and American-born Japanese are living near strategic defense units, a police survey showed today. ... There are Japanese in the neighborhood of every reservoir, bridge and defense project."
The Times also ran columns by noted conservative Henry McLemore, who frequently attacked the presence of Japanese descendants on the West Coast. In one column, headlined, "This Is War! Stop Worrying About Hurting Jap Feelings," McLemore fulminated:
- I am for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior. I don't mean a nice part of the interior, either. Herd 'em up, pack 'em off and give 'em the inside room of the badlands. Let 'em be pinched, hurt, hungry and dead up against it. ... Personally, I hate the Japanese. And that goes for all of them.
His sentiments were shared by many of the locals. Wrote W.M. Mason of Seattle, in a letter to the editor of the Post-Intelligencer:
- If there be those who would say we can't do this to citizens, let them remember that we took this country from the Indians, killed thousands of them, arbitrarily moved other thousands from their homes to far distant lands, and to this day have denied them the rights, duties and privileges of citizenship.
If we could do that to the Indians, we can do something about the Japs.
Let's do it now!
With Pearl Harbor as a pretext, the national voices of white supremacism rose to assert themselves in the fore. "This is a race war," proclaimed Mississippi Congressman John Rankin on the House floor. "The white man's civilization has come into conflict with Japanese barbarism. ... Once a Jap always a Jap. You cannot change him. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. ... I say it is of vital importance that we get rid of every Japanese, whether in Hawaii or on the mainland. ... I'm for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska, and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps... Damn them! Let's get rid of them now!"
Moreover, as Testsuden Kashima details in his Judgment Without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment during World War II, government bureaucrats had been preparing for some years for the possible roundup and incarceration of Japanese Americans, largely because "Yellow Peril" beliefs about the threat posed by "disloyal" Japanese were pervasive at the highest levels of government, including the president. The bureaucratic machinery, particularly among military planners at the West Coast Command in San Francisco, began grinding into action -- and by early April, they had declared it a "military necessity" to evacuate every Japanese person, citizen or not, from the Pacific coast.
At first the plan was to make this a "voluntary evacuation", mostly to the states of the interior West. But shortly after the government announced this, the governors of those Western states held a meeting with War Relocation Authority officials in Salt Lake City at which they declared, adamantly, that the only terms under which they could accept such evacuees was under armed guard and behind barbed wire. Within a week, the WRA shut down its "voluntary" program and proceeded to make plans for incarcerating the entire population of Japanese Americans on the coast -- some 110,000 of them -- in concentration camps in the interior.
Evacuation notices started appearing in May in communities throughout the coast, and by the end of June, nearly the entire population of evacuees had been herded into temporary "assembly centers" while the camps in the interior were built. By summer's end, the 10 camps, located largely in hostile desert environments, were largely complete and began to be filled. By the war's end, some 120,000 people occupied them.
The entire episode was predicated on the failure to distinguish between Japanese nationals and Japanese American citizens, not to mention the even finer distinction involving the Issei immigrants, the vast majority of whom had been in the United States for over 20 years and who would likely otherwise have naturalized by then but for being legally forbidden to do so. Throughout the war, headlines regularly referred to the enemy "Japs" -- as did headlines regarding the evacuation and subsequent events in the WRA's relocation centers. Consistent with popular sentiments prior to the war and during the evacuation debate, letters to the editor as well as political pronouncements made no differentiation between the citizens who once had been their neighbors and the foreign enemies their sons were fighting.
As I observe in Strawberry Days:
- Washington's congressional delegation had a particular propensity in this regard. In addition to the damage already wrought by Democratic Senator Mon Wallgren, who had chaired one of the early congressional committees recommending evacuation in 1942, Congressman Henry Jackson, a respected Everett Democrat, took up the anti-Japanese cause with particular relish for the war's duration. Not only was he an enthusiast of the evacuation, he was a stern advocate of the campaign to keep the Japanese from returning to the Pacific Coast -- both during and after the war. He was often seconded in this regard by his Seattle colleague, Democratic Congressman Warren Magnuson, who had a habit of raising groundless alarms about an imminent invasion of the Pacific Coast by the Japanese.
... In May 1943, Jackson began protesting in Congress against the army's policy of allowing Japanese American soldiers to visit the Pacific Coast on furlough; apparently, wearing an American uniform wasn't assurance enough of Nisei loyalty. Jackson sponsored a resolution calling for a complete investigation of "the Japanese situation," and his congressional colleagues were critical of the use of any Japanese Americans in combat. Rep. John Costello of California sounded the familiar refrain that "you can’t tell a good Jap from a bad Jap."
Jackson penned a speech that he never delivered on the subject, but it was clear he was opposed to Japanese Americans ever returning to his home district:
- What is to be the eventual disposition of the Japanese alien and native ... is the second aspect of this problem of the Pacific. Are we to return them to their former homes and businesses on the Pacific Coast to face the active antagonism of their neighbors? Shall they again, as happened in World War I, compete economically for jobs and businesses with returning war veterans?
The House Committee On Un-American Activities chaired by Texas Democrat Martin Dies (known as the Dies Committee) also joined in on the action, partly at the urging of Jackson and others. A New Jersey Republican named J. Parnell Thomas flew out to Los Angeles and, without visiting a camp, declared that the WRA was pampering the internees. Thomas also demanded the agency halt its policy of "releasing disloyal Japs" -- that is, end its policy of relocating evacuees in jobs outside the camps.
The Dies Committee hearings provided a steady stream of scandalous headlines for a few months, bolstered by the reports of the unrest at Manzanar and Tule Lake. ... Dies himself held press conferences demanding that the WRA bring back all the Japanese it had relocated out of the camps and keep them interned for the duration of the war, claiming he had evidence that race riots in Detroit the week before had been the secret handiwork of an officer in the Japanese Army. Subsequent headlines detailed more wild allegations, including tales of elderly Issei secretly plotting a kamikaze attack on local forests, setting the West ablaze; caches of food being buried in the desert in a plot to aid the invading Japanese; and claims that the Japanese internees were being fed better in the camps than were American G.I.s (which may have been true, since much of the evacuees' food source was the camp farms they operated). Dies wrapped up his exploration of the "Japanese question" later that summer by reiterating demands that the WRA alter its policies -- but besides making headlines in the press, these pronouncements had little apparent effect on the changes that were already in motion at the WRA. And the Dies Committee would soon be more stridently focused on the looming "Red Menace."
The interest groups chimed in as well. The American Legion joined in on the rising anti-Japanese sentiments with its denunciation of the WRA's policy of "coddling the Japs," and longtime anti-Asian groups like the Native Sons of the Golden West (whose demeanor and behavior historically included vigilantism) became active in agitating alongside newer groups like the Pearl Harbor League. Some of these groups distributed signs proclaiming: "We don't want any Japs back here -- EVER!" These signs gained prominence in places like Kent, in the heart of what had been a thriving Japanese community in the White River Valley; the town's mayor, a barber, displayed the warning prominently in his shop, and earned a Time magazine appearance for it, pointing at the sign.
As it became evident, in late 1944, that the camps were going to be closed (thanks largely to the Supreme Court ruling in Endo ex parte), the agitation against allowing them to return became feverish. A Bainbridge Island man named Lambert Schuyler published independently a little pamphlet that had wide distribution titled: The Japs Must Not Come Back! Schuyler's core arguments were not very distinguishable from those offered twenty years before by the exclusionists:
As a nation we stand prejudiced against orientals. This is something which our bleeding-heart idealists have overlooked. They claim our basic laws, the principles upon which America rests, are unanimously in favor of regarding all men as equals. The fact remains, however, that according to our statute books all men are created equal except those with yellow skins. Any race, color or creed, say our laws, may become naturalized citizens of our country except the Japanese, Chinese and Hindu. These are judged unfit for assimilation in our society.
Mind you, we on the Pacific Coast are glad of it. What irks us is the loop-hole in our Constitution through which orientals may purchase the farm next door to us and defy us to kick them out. The loop-hole is this—all babies are created equal providing they are born in the United States. The Japs, Chinese and Hindus are no exception to this rule. Oriental babies born here are automatically American citizens. ... Obviously this is a contradiction of principle which cannot be justified within the bounds of either religious or political idealism.
For Schuyler, in keeping with the anti-Japanese tradition, the tenets of white supremacism and pseudoscientific racial eugenics were paramount:
The dividing lines between the races are necessary to prevent mixed breeding. The white race does want to survive!
There is no dodging it. This is a white man's country. The white man runs it. And he is not going to let his own rules of behavior drive him from his own soil. So, as long as we remain a people of spirit we will refuse to sanction the mixing of colored blood with ours. Japanese in America will never be the social equals of the whites for the simple reason that they are not assimilable. Germans? Italians? Jews? Yes. We can assimilate any of the whites. But the colored races are different. We reserve the right to reject from our midst those who are not patently assimilable.
His final solution: designate a passel of Pacific islands permanent territories of the United States, and then remove all persons of Japanese descent to this new permanent homeland. Of course, no one of Japanese blood would be permitted to become a permanent resident of the mainland afterward.
Schuyler was hardly alone. Up and down the coast, in a number of semi-rural communities that had formerly hosted Japanese families but mostly were in the process of becoming suburbs as part of the postwar boom, jingoes began organizing community meetings aimed at repelling their return. The one that circulated around Bellevue in April 1945 read:
- DO YOU WANT JAPS FOR YOUR NEIGHBORS AGAIN?
Free MASS MEETING—Monday, April 2, 8 P.M., Bellevue
George H. Crandell, an attorney who lived on Hunts Point, headed up the Japanese Exclusion League. He claimed to the local paper, the Bellevue American, that a "Jap spy ring was operating on the West Coast" and that the return of the Japanese from the internment camps would pose a military threat until the war with Japan was over.
"Dozens of local organizations are springing up along the Coast in the so-called Japanese 'hot beds’ where they were thickly colonized before the war," Crandell told the American. "Each organization is trying to keep the Japs from trying to come back into that particular area ... Unless we do something about it, the Japs are going to move in with us. And surely none of us want that."
Crandell also had even grander motives. "We've got to do more than keep the Japs out of our own back yard. That won't solve anything. We've got to get them off the entire Pacific Coast, and we've got to do it legally and peaceably. But we've got to do it permanently, and it can be done if we're all willing to put a shoulder to the wheel."
The American also obliquely hinted at economic interests behind the gathering: the meeting, its story said, was sponsored by "a large committee of Eastside business men and women who oppose resettlement of the Japs in this area."
The League a little while later published a newsletter filled with articles about the various kinds of threat the returning Japanese presented. It included an editorial titled "A Program That All Can Back!" which outlined the League's political agenda:
Almost daily letters come into the headquarters of the Japanese Exclusion League from persons who are anti-Jap but who confess their inability to go along with the League's program because "it sets a precedent that will undermine the fundamentals of the Constitution and imperil other minority programs."
Let's re-inspect the program and see:
Item 1. Induce the government to keep all Japs out of the Western Defense Command until the war is over. That's just good sense, with a war on. If only one among them was a saboteur, the exclusion of all, to prevent his dirty work, would be justified. And we heard a man, close to the military intelligence service, say in a public speech that six known Japanese spies were now operating in Seattle alone.
Item 2. Deport all alien Japs and all disloyal Japs. Who will argue that this is either un-American or unnecessary?
Item 3. Stimulate interest in a national post-war election (so the soldiers can participate) to amend the Federal Constitution and provide that, after a certain date, NO MORE descendants of persons not eligible for citizenship may automatically become citizens merely because their alien mothers were here when they were born.
Japanese now constitute only one-tenth of 1 per cent of our population. No great danger there. The peril lies in permitting fast-breeding races that are not assimilable to go unchecked, and to make American citizens of them as fast as they are spawned. Give them a few years and they will make good of their boast of dominating America. And they'll do it without firing a shot. They will VOTE OUR COUNTRY AWAY FROM US.
If that kind of law is un-American, we set a bad precedent many years ago. We had such a law once. And we kicked it out the window.
The April 2 meeting attracted about 500 people, and Crandell, as expected, launched into his expected diatribe against the evacuees, concluding that "the one and only way to solve the Japanese question is to exclude them forever from all American territory!" Another speaker asked for a show of hands from all "who favor exclusion of all American-born Japanese from this country," and about 400 hands went up. However, the meeting broke up after some in the audience began heckling the speakers. The same fate befell a similar meeting scheduled for the same evening in Seattle. And in Bellevue, a counter-meeting was held a couple of weeks later denouncing any attempt to keep Japanese farmers from returning to their homes.
In the end, the forces opposing the Japanese families' return to the newly developing suburbs won out, not so much by virtue of having scared them away or intimidated them, but largely because of economic forces interacting with the conditions created a generation earlier.
At the time of the evacuation, as a lingering effect of the Alien Land Laws, very few of the Japanese farming families owned their own farms; most still lived the itinerant tract-to-tract lifestyle of the truck farmers whose efforts had turned so many of these formerly marginal lands into valuable properties ripe for development. After the camps closed, many of the evacuees found that their former farms were in the process of being platted for suburban neighborhoods, or that in any event the white landowners were intent on doing the same.
The result was that after the war, the Japanese evacuees largely resettled in urban areas and took up occupations other than farming. Whereas at the time of the relocation, over 60 percent of the evacuees were employed in agriculture, after the war less than 20 percent were so engaged.
On the other hand, the blindly elminationist bigotry that had erupted during wartime -- which had indeed characterized nearly the entire history of Asian American immigration -- had played its course. The exclusion of Chinese and Filipinos, both allies in the war, was dropped in 1944, as was the prohibition against their naturalization.
And the American public -- instructed, no doubt, by the remarkable example of the segregated all-Japanese 442nd Regimental Combat Team, whose blood sacrifice as the most decorated unit of World War II gained national attention -- gradually shifted its attitudes about the ability of Japanese immigrants to become fully American. With the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952, even Japanese immigrants were finally permitted to become U.S. citizens.
More important, widespread attitudes about the inability of Asians to assimilate in American society were, over time, demolished utterly. Nowadays, hardly an eyebrow is even raised at the kind of interracial marriage between Asians and Caucasians that seemed such a horrific prospect in the 1920s.
However, influence of the eliminationist bigotry that had informed the transformation of American immigration law during these years was never fully erased. By early in the 21st century, it would come creeping back out of the woodwork.
Next: The Structural Legacy | <urn:uuid:4cd730e4-c56a-4969-ab4b-ea23e29c3808> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/01/eliminationism-in-america-viii.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976136 | 12,945 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Can the people of the Horn of Africa establish a common union based on justice and equality?
We’re witnessing lately the formation of sub-regional unions and the coming together of nations who share adjacent geographic locations, interests and common destiny. These unions are necessitated, among other things, by their mutual inter-connection and desire to survive collectively in this rapidly changing globalized world, and to compete internationally.
It has been established that no nation can participate and succeed in the fierce global political and economic competition, alone, without the backing and protection of regional and continental groupings. That is why the nations of Europe have formed the European Union (EU), and the American continent has the OAS (Organization of American States). The African continent is represented politically by the African Union (AU), while the Middle East and the wider Asian continent have several formations such as The Arab League (AL), the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). These continental, regional and sub-regional groupings, serve as a bulwark and protection (for smaller nations within them) against unfair competition, exploitation and environment pollution, by the predatory powerful countries of the world. They also foster and promote inter-regional cooperation and development.
But before such regional integration is formed, it is important for the constituent parts – that is, the peoples and nations inside the mega union – to feel to belong to the project and own it. The communal and citizens’ rights within nation states must be respected and safeguarded, and the citizenry must be given the right to choose to join such a union through referendum. To a certain extent the EU has succeeded in this endeavor by giving its member states and those applying to join it to so through the referendum process.
The people and nations of the Horn of Africa, unlike other parts of the continent, share many commonalities which can help them set up strong alliances and play their role in the global competitions. But this can only take place if historical injustices are addressed and the inhabitants of this region are accorded equal rights and opportunities to decide their destiny.
Finding just solutions to the long simmering mishandled historical causes is a pre-requisite to achieving stable geographical alliances, be them federalisms or confederation of states. Anything short of that is tantamount to a flammable material waiting to be ignited at the slightest moment.
The breakup of the former Soviet Union and the old Yugoslavia illustrate this matter very well. And if it is thought that separation through self-determination is a thing of the past, and a relic of the 20th century, the rise of independency-seeking nationalists in elections held in Quebec, Scotland, Catalonia and the Basque region in Spain, point to the other direction. But while Europe and North America have embraced inclusionary politics of their minorities, and granted them the right to self-determination, the same cannot be said about the African continent: Eritrea and South Sudan, which are the latest African nations to emerge, managed to break-away from the brutal colonization of Ethiopia and Sudan after a long, bloody and bitter struggle for independence which had cost them dearly.
The main reason such disintegrations occur is that people were coerced to such nation states and federations or that they feel the original compact system and ensuing social contract was done without their consent. Nations states that have emerged out of this perverse situation, and who do nothing to ameliorate this thorny issue, risky imploding and eventually disintegrating.
The Somalis in the Ogaden are determined to free themselves from the grip of black colonialism imposed on them by Abyssinia kingdoms of late 19th century and successive Ethiopian regimes. After that, they are ready to live in harmony with other nations and peoples of the Horn of Africa, and set up together a lasting union based on freedom, equality, justice and development through regional integration and mutual cooperation and co-existence.
Ogaden News Agency (ONA) | <urn:uuid:d309b918-8959-46d0-a6f1-53c529d7f652> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://onlf.org/?p=423 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00168-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950845 | 805 | 2.890625 | 3 |
HowTo:Do Your Taxes
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“In the 1940s, an infinite number of monkeys were seated before an infinite number of typewriters, and they came up with the tax code.”
“In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to a military prison for improperly filing their taxes. They promptly escaped into the Los Angeles underground.”
Some of you might think that taxes are "evil" or "wrong", and in a non-communist state, you'd be correct. However, this is the United State of America, and taxes are a "necessary evil" (as some boring, completely devoid-of-humor-type-people might say).
This guide will explain to you how to do your taxes - the easy way!
edit Steps to Filing
First, we will discuss the very important first-steps to this easy process. After that, we will discuss the filling out of the personal information. We will then discuss the filling-out of the very boring, numerical information. After that, we'll have a glass of merlot. When finished with the entire bottle of merlot, we'll continue filling out numbers and then sign our name. After that, we'll explain how to mail the form to your government.
edit Important First Steps
- Get the proper form. Often, these will come in the mail. If one does not arrive in the mail, seek one out at your local library. If you're not sure which one to use, just take one of each - the government loves to waste paper (and, incidentally, tax dollars) and has printed many more forms than its citizens will ever need.
- Get your W-2. Your employer will give you one of these. If you work "under the table", you won't get one of these, and you shouldn't be reading this article.
- Grab at least twenty random forms from your local governmental branch and fill them out. Turn them in with your other forms to look organized.
- Leave both of these in a pile of useless papers until April 15th.
- Panic on April 15th.
edit Not-So-Important Second Steps
- Make sure you use blue or black ink, as the creatures at the IRS are incapable of seeing the color red.
- Print your name neatly in the space that says "Your first name and initial". The "initial" they are talking about is your middle one. If you don't have a middle initial or name, use form 1040-EJ to explain (in 400 words or less) why you do not have a middle initial. Make sure you attach it if you must use it.
- Print your last name in the box labeled "Last name".
- Write your Social Security Number in the "Social Security Number" area. Don't let anybody else see this number, or you could end up a victim of identity fraud.
- Write your mother's father's mother's maiden name in the box labeled "nonsense".
- Mark the box that says "single" whether you're single or married - the government doesn't need to pry into your personal life. Consequently, if you are homosexual - do not mark this box - in protest of the lack of gay rights in this country.
- Write a 500 word essay on pros and cons of The United States Constitution in the box marked "CON".
- Write your neighbor's address in the box that says "home address". Under absolutely no circumstances, write your home address in the box, as you do not want the government to know where you live.
edit The Numbers Game
- Write your "wages" in the box at the end of line 7. You can get this information from your W2 (that form that your [douche bag / really nice] boss gives you).
- Enter your taxable income in box 8a.
- Enter your tax-exempt income in box 8b. This number will probably be "0", as the government does not approve of tax-exempt income.
- Enter alimony received in the box at the end of line 11. Also, do not forget to write a "thank-you note" to your ex-husband and spend the remainder of the year bragging to everybody about being the heartless bitch that you are.
- Enter any money gained (or lost) by sheep-farming farming in the Falklands in the box on line 18.
- Write-down any money gained through "unemployment benefits" in the box on line 19.
- Enter "other income" in the box on line 21. "Other income" includes money and gifts received for sexual favors, income from the sale of narcotics, illegal weapons, prostitution, slavery, child pornography, the sale of chickens and chicken eggs, the sale of cows' milk, and any money received for performing back-alley abortions.
- Add the amounts of lines 7 through 21. If this number exceeds 10, you're fucked.
In this section, we will discuss drinking a glass of Merlot, an important step in the Tax-Filing-Process.
- Open a decent bottle of Merlot.
- Pour it into a decent wine glass.
- Gently insert nose into glass and inhale. No, not like that! You're trying to sample the smell of the wine, not actually inhale the wine.
- Swish it around to "look cool".
- Sip it some more.
- Repeat process until the bottle is empty.
- Drive to local liquor store and buy another bottle, and start over again.
edit Drinking and Filing (also known as Filing Under the Influence)
- Write the amount from line 37 in the box on line 38.
- Check the box in 39a labeled "You were born before January 1st, ____", if you were, in fact, born before January 1st of the year on the form.
- Check the box in 39a labeled "Lame" if you have a bum leg or listen to punk rock music.
- Check the box in 39a labeled "Blind" if you are blind.
- Check the box in 39a labeled "Moron" if you find Carlos Mencia to be funny.
- Check the box "Your spouse was born before January 2nd, ____", if your spouse was born before January 2nd of the year on the form.
- Check the box in 39a labeled "Bored" if you are bored and tired of filling out your tax form.
- Subtract line 40 from line 38, then write that number in the box on line 41.
- If line 38 is over $112,875, or you provide housing to a person displaced by Hurricane Katrina (The New Orleans Saints do not count), see page 36. Otherwise, multiply $3,300 by the total number of exemptions claimed on line 6d. Then add pi squared to the mean number of times you eat at fast food restaurants (per week), divide that number by the number of full-time prostitutes you know, and add 10. Do nothing with this number.
- In line 49, enter the amount of earnings from Pimpin'.
- In line 50a, enter the amount of earned from sale of weapons to rogue, terrorist nations.
- In line 50b, enter the amount earned from the sale of weapons to Israel.
- Add the number of Federal income tax withheld from Forms W-2 and 1099, then write it in box "64". Make sure you write it very messily, and in Roman numerals, as to confuse the IRS.
- If line 72 is more than line 63, you can subtract line 63 from line 72. This is the amount of taxes you overpaid. Write this in box 73.
- Line 74a contains a box where you print the amount from line 73 that you wish to have refunded. Nobody is sure why this box is needed.
- Line 74b has a box for the routing number for your bank account. Refer back to earlier statements about "identity fraud" when considering using this.
- In line 76, subtract line 72 from line 63, and this will be the amount that you owe the vampires.
edit Mail Call
1. Put the forms in an envelope.
2. Take them back out.
3. Read the mailing address from the forms.
4. Write the address on the envelope.
5. Put the forms back in the envelope.
6. Put a postage stamp on the envelope.
7. Place the envelope in a postage box.
8. Remember that you forgot to do steps 2-4.
edit Proposed Obama Administration Tax Changes
President Barak Obama has proposed the following changes to simplify the complex United States tax forms. The proposed 1040BAMA forms will have only five lines and will greatly reduce the time it takes to prepare taxes. The proposed form follows:
1. Did you work?
(no) Go to line 2.
(yes) Go to line 4.
2. How much would you like to receive for your tax refund? ____________
3. Send in your request. (finished)
4. How much did you make this year? ____________
5. Send it in. (finished)
edit What You Have Learned
Absolutely nothing? Good.
A lot? You haven't been paying attention!
edit See also
“Keep it secret, keep it safe.”
- ↑ Choose only one.
- ↑ Working for McDonalds.
- ↑ Decent Merlot is not made in America.
- ↑ Chicago Bears FTW
- ↑ 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628... and a lot more numbers.
- ↑ While the IRS understands that it's not easy, they still tax you on it.
- ↑ Refer back to line 50a.
- ↑ The answer is 9. | <urn:uuid:1a1f6d77-2388-423c-a278-10b5eefb54be> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Tax_evasion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00074-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933477 | 2,129 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Track Santa online With Google Earth
It’s that time of year again: the Northern American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is partnering with Google to track Santa, so all the world's good boys and girls can follow along online. This is not just an opportunity for you and your kids to see how close Santa is to your house, but it's also a chance to teach your children a little something about the world.
Use the Google Earth Browser Plug-in
Santa began his annual journey at 2 a.m. ET on Thursday, and Google and NORAD have developed many different ways to keep tabs on the jolly old elf this season. One of the best ways to do so is through the Google Earth Web browser plug-in available for Windows and Mac OS X users.
On Windows, the plug-in works with Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 6 or higher, Firefox 2.0 or higher, and Flock. Mac users can use the plug-in with Safari and Firefox 3.0 or higher and some Chromium builds. Google Chrome for Mac does not currently support the Google Earth browser plug-in. You will not be able to track Santa this year using the Google Earth desktop client.
Once you’ve installed the plug-in, go to noradsanta.org to track Santa’s progress using Google Earth in Google Maps. You can follow Santa’s trail of presents, called his “Sparkles Trail,” to see where Saint Nick has been. Clicking on any of the present icons will give you a user-generated image in a pop-up window courtesy of Google’s Panoramio. From the window, you can take a look at more Panoramio images from that stop on Santa’s tour, follow a link to learn more about that location on Wikipedia or zoom in on Google Maps to take a closer look.
There are also YouTube videos you can watch along the way narrated by NORAD officers and staff. In one video, NORAD explains how they’ve been able to determine Santa’s speed by observing the old man's sleigh by observing Santa and Japan’s bullet train in relation to Mount Fuji. It turns out that Santa travels at a rate 100 times greater than the speed of the Bullet Train, approximately 17,000 miles per hour. To learn more about using Google Earth to track Santa check out Google’s brief slideshow.
Twitter, Facebook, Mobile and Picasa Web albums
If you don’t have access to the Google Earth plug-in, you can keep up to date with Santa’s travels through Twitter, the NORAD Santa Facebook page, and a Picasa Web album. You can also use Google Maps for mobile at m.noradsanta.org or receive mobile SMS updates by entering your phone number at the bottom of the Norad Santa homepage. Each SMS update includes a link to a Google Map.
There are numerous ways to track Santa thanks to Google and NORAD this season. Not only will you have some fun, but your kids will learn a little bit of geography along the way. | <urn:uuid:73ecc243-b911-4f49-92db-d6fb679a4604> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.macworld.com/article/1145316/santa_norad.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893022 | 647 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The human nose can distinguish at least 1 trillion different odors, millions more than previously estimated, US researchers said on Thursday.
For decades, scientists accepted that humans could detect only 10,000 scents, putting the sense of smell well below the capabilities of sight and hearing.
“Our analysis shows that the human capacity for discriminating smells is much larger than anyone anticipated, said study co-author Leslie Vosshall, head of Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior.
The previous estimate for the nose’s capabilities — which are carried out with the help of 400 olfactory receptors — dated to the 1920s and was not backed by data.
Researchers have estimated that the human eye and its mere three receptors can distinguish several million colors and that the ear can discriminate 340,000 sounds.
“For smell, nobody ever took the time to test,” Vosshall said.
To conduct their research, scientists subjected 26 participants to mixtures made with 128 different odorant molecules that individually might evoke grass, citrus or various chemicals, but were combined in groupings of up to 30.
“We didn’t want them to be explicitly recognizable, so most of our mixtures were pretty nasty and weird,” Vosshall said. “We wanted people to pay attention to ‘here’s this really complex thing — can I pick another complex thing as being different?’”
Volunteers would sample three vials of scents at a time — two that were the same and one that was different — to see if they could detect which was the outlier, completing 264 such comparisons.
Although volunteers’ abilities varied greatly, they could on average discern the difference between vials with up to 51 percent of the same components, with fewer volunteers detecting a difference once the mixtures shared more components.
Researchers then extrapolated how many odors the average person could detect if all possible combinations of the 128 odorants were sampled, coming to their estimate of at least 1 trillion.
Lead researcher Andreas Keller, also of Rockefeller University, said the number is almost certainly too low given that there are numerous other odorants that can mix in countless ways in the real world.
He said our ancestors relied more on the sense of smell, but that refrigeration and the development of personal hygiene have limited odors in the modern world.
“This could explain our attitude that smell is unimportant, compared to hearing and vision,” Keller said.
He added that upright posture, which raised humans’ noses far from the ground where odors often emanate, may also have contributed.
The sense of smell is closely linked to human behavior and the researchers said that studying it could shed light on how the human brain processes complex information.
The study was published in the journal Science. | <urn:uuid:239b00da-b53e-4a3d-b116-32946ce38cd8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2014/03/22/2003586295 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965112 | 586 | 3.90625 | 4 |
Chris Messana was the first guy to share a tweet containing a hashtag back on August of 2008. Since then, hashtags have become the most popular communicational medium of choice for television shows, political campaigns, educational news and updates, commercials, and also an icon of the 21st century pop culture.
So, what is a hashtag ?
Here is what Twitter said about it : " The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Hashtags are a great way to build community around content."
Who can use Hashtags?
To be able to use a hashtag, you only need to have an active Twitter account. Hahstags are embedded within tweets and they do not belong to anyone. Once the hashtag is created and goes viral, nobody can control it and everybody can use it.
How can I create a hashtag ?
It is very easy to create a hashtag but before you do so, you need to have a clear objective behind creating such a hashtag. For instance, as a teacher, I would create a hashtag for my ICT students and label that hashtag #ictclass. Now I can easily add #ictclass to anything I find online related to what I teach in this class and any student accessing the hashtag #ictclass would be able to see all the tweets with the cited hashtag.
- The 17 Best Twitter Hashtags for Education (2012 )
- A Quick Guide to Twitter Educational Hashtags
- What Teachers Need to Know about Hashtags
- A Must Have Guide on Using Twitter in your Classroom
Hashtags enable you to :
- Categorize tweets that contain relevant keywords or phrases
- Hashtags help tweets get popular and be displayed in search result pages
- They can occur anywhere be it the end , middle or beginning of the Tweet
- Hashtags make it easy to aggregate like-minded Twitter users under a certain category
Examples of some great educational hashtags :
This is one of my favorite hashtags on Twitter. It provides you with news, tips, tools.....etc on the use of technology in education
If you are interested in discovering and learning more about the use of educational apps in teaching, edapp is a hashtag to follow.
This is one of the popular hashtags and it is a great way for you to meet other teachers from all around the world and stay updated about the trending topics in education.
This one stands for education reform and it speaks for itself , when you join this chat you will have the chance to explore what educators are sharing on educational issues.
Using this hashtag you can connect with other people interested in online and electronic learning and also distance learning.
This hashtag stands for mobile learning and it features all the tweets relating to the use of mobile devices in learning.
This is a hashtag that allows you to stay updated about the issues related to science, technology and education.
This is hashtag created by Edutopia last May it stands for New Teacher chat | <urn:uuid:8bb8a70b-5bed-4278-8ad3-c6083036bb0d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/05/a-simple-guide-on-use-of-hashtag-for.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00142-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91927 | 609 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Control of spacecraft and other systems requires reliable real-time estimates of system state. Unfortunately, the complete state is not always observable. State Estimation takes all the telemetry seen so far and uses it to determine the underlying behavior of the system at any point in time. It includes fault detection and isolation and continuous system parameter estimation.
The Exploration Vision includes many complex vehicles and systems that can benefit from this technology. This includes habitats, which require estimates of the state of their life-support and other systems, and reusable launch vehicles which can greatly benefit from state estimation techniques that can track gradual degradation of systems and components to not only enable intelligent control and detect faults, but also to predict future faults to make maintenance more efficient and reduce vehicle turnaround times.
We use differential equations to model the system. A complex system can be thought of as having a number of discrete modes which consist of the possible control regimes the system could be in (for example, a thruster being on or off), plus various faults that could occur (for example, a valve being stuck open). Each of these discrete modes may have a different set of differential equations that govern the continuous behavior of the system (for example, the flow of propellant through a series of pipes and valves to a thruster). We call this a hybrid model.
To maintain an uncertain state estimate over the states of such a model, we use an approach known as Bayesian belief updating. At a high level, the idea is to maintain a probability distribution that represents our belief about the state of the system, given all the telemetry seen so far, and update that distribution whenever new telemetry arrives to reflect the new evidence. Because doing this exactly is intractable for the kinds of hybrid models we are interested in, we approximate it using particle filtering algorithms.
Particle filtering is a Monte Carlo approach to state estimation that is extensively used in signal processing, and more recently in robot localization algorithms such as SLAM. It works by representing the probability distribution over the states of the system as a set of samples, each of which represents a possible state of the complete system. When new telemetry arrives, each sample randomly predicts a possible future state, and is then compared with the observation. Samples which are inconsistent with the observation are discarded, and are replaced at the next step by samples that do predict the observation well.
Spacecraft typically have tightly constrained on-board processing capabilities which can make even approximate state estimation impractical. One attractive feature of particle filters is that they can easily be adapted to scarce computational resources by simply reducing the number of samples, although with a corresponding loss of accuracy in the state estimate. We have developed a number of innovative extensions to the basic particle filtering algorithm specifically to address this issue, including combining traditional approaches to diagnosis with hybrid state estimation to create algorithms that can produce state estimates with relatively low computational requirements when the system is operating nominally, but will use additional resources to refine the state estimate if it becomes particularly uncertain, or if a fault is likely to have occurred.
The technology has been demonstrated on the K-9 rover test bed and has been shown to accurately track the state of the system even in the presence of extremely noisy telemetry data, and can also reliably estimate continuous parameters of the system, even when those parameters are gradual system faults that cannot be directly observed.
State Estimation is the problem of determining the current state of a complex system such as a spacecraft, given the stream of telemetry that has been seen from the system’s sensors so far. In the past, state estimation has mostly been seen as diagnosis—detecting and identifying faults when they occur—but safe and effective autonomous control of systems requires estimating all aspects of system state. In addition, estimating continuous system parameters such as battery charge has also become increasingly important.
State estimation is critical for a number of reasons: Accurate state estimates make control much easier, and allow better control actions to be selected. In addition, state estimation is a superset of diagnosis, so faults and undesirable states can be detected to allow remedial actions to be taken. Finally, state estimation can provide prognostic information, identifying components or systems that are likely to fail soon and should be repaired or replaced.
A key aspect of state estimation is that it is rarely certain. There is inevitably some ambiguity in the sensor data received from a system, and it is of great use to have a state estimate that represents this uncertainty explicitly. This is for several reasons: First, a probability distribution representing the uncertainty can summarize all the telemetry received by the state estimator so far, making it easier to keep the state estimate up to date. Secondly, this probabilistic representation is of use in decision making by allowing the effects of planned future actions to be evaluated in states that have low probability but potentially catastrophic outcomes, rather than only in the most likely state. Finally, probabilistic information is of use for prognostics and maintenance, providing information about components that could have failed, or are degraded but not yet faulty. | <urn:uuid:928334f1-dd97-4ef0-9f47-8081976e9ba3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/technology-onepagers/state-estimation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93968 | 1,019 | 2.828125 | 3 |
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Serra da Capivara National Park and Fundação Museu do Homem Americano (FUMDHAM), Brazil; *University of Paris / University of Pernambuco; **Dept. of Earth Sciences, Université Claude Bernard, Lyon; ~Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Biological Anthropology Laboratory, National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France; Dept. Nuclear Physics, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National University / Earth System Science Department, Univ. California, Irvine
Pedra Furada in northeastern Brazil represents possibly the oldest known human site in the Americas. Since C-14 dates of 48-32,000 BP were reported in a Nature article (Guidon and Delibrias 1986), the sites Paleoindian components have been highly controversial, challenged (though not refuted) by many North American researchers (e.g. Meltzer, Adovasio, and Dillehay 1994). Yet the site has solid evidence of non-Clovis, Paleoindian occupations including human remains, plus a unique rock painting tradition from at least 12,000-6,000 BP. In March, 2002, Athena Review (AR) asked archaeologist Niède Guidon and her colleagues to explain the current status of the findings, including both Paleoindian skeletal and subsistence remains, and the abundant rock paintings at Serra da Capivara National Park, which contains Pedra Furada (figs.1,2). Much of the interview is given here (for full text, see printed issue of AR, V3, no.2)
Fig.1: Sandstone outcrops at Capivara National Park in Brazil, containing the Pedra Furada Rock Shelter (photo: FUMDHAM).]
Dating of Pedra Furada:
AR: Based on your 1986 Nature article and several recent web reports, your sites have a wide range of dates, some as early as 48-30,000 years BP with two hearth samples dated at 32,000 BP, and evidence of cave painting (a fragment with two ochre-drawn lines) associated with a 17,000 year old C-14 dated hearth. How are these dates holding up as your work progresses?
Niède Guidon: These dates are holding well. Once we learned that the Department of Earth Sciences of the Australian National University had developed a new chemical technique to decontaminate small quantities of charcoal to be dated by AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry), we sent samples to Canberra from the same charcoal dated in 1988/91 by the Gif laboratory in France. The results are given here by Dr. Guaciara M. dos Santos.
Guaciara dos Santos: A comprehensive chronology of human activity at the Boqueirão da Pedra Furada (BPF) site, the oldest archaeological site found at the Capivara National Park (fig.3), has been established by reliable radiocarbon dates on charcoal excavated from different levels. The sub-phase BPF 1, the lowest layer with definite evidence of human activity in the Pedra Furada Rock Shelter, gave radiocarbon results ranging from 35,000 to greater than 48,000 BP (Guidon and Arnaud 1991; Parenti 1996). For the oldest samples, the 48,000 lower limit is imposed by the residuals remaining after conventional acid-wash or acid-base-acid chemical pre-treatments. These pre-treatments are intended to decontaminate samples with traces of extraneous, more modern carbon which may be present, as the result of exposure of charcoal in this layer to the environment.
A new ABOX-SC (acid-base-wet oxidation followed by stepped combustion) procedure, developed by Bird et al. (1999), which has been instrumental in establishing secure radiocarbon dates of greater than 40,000 for the human occupation of Australia (Turney et al. 2001), has now been applied by me to charcoal from the oldest occupation layer of the Pedra Furada site. This more rigorous chemical pre-treatment, which was followed by a stepped combustion (SC) procedure to remove any residual contamination, decontaminates samples from charcoal and wood (Bird et al. 1999; Santos et al. 2001), enabling credible radiocarbon dating to around 55,000 BP.
A total of seven charcoal samples from hearths at site BPF 1 were subjected to the full ABOX-SC procedure and their radiocarbon contents were determined by accelerator mass spectrometry at the Australian National University. Five of the samples proved to be even beyond the limit of this new technique, returning ages of greater than 56,000 BP. Finite ages of 53,000 and 55,000 BP were obtained for the remaining two (Santos et al., in manuscript).
These new results push back the time of human occupation at the Pedra Furada site by at least another 8,000 years relative to the previous results. Hence, it appears that humans were already at this site about 60,000 years ago, and possibly even earlier.
Fabio Parenti: The radiocarbon dates at the site of Pedra Furada, totaling 52 in my final report (Parenti, in press) are fully confirmed by new AMS techniques, especially for the oldest unit, Pedra Furada 1, which is now dated to at least 50,000 years BP.
[Fig.2: Paleoindian site locations in east Brazil including Serra da Capivara National Park and Lagoa Santa.]
Early Human and Subsistence Remains from Pedra Furada and Related Sites:
AR: You reported in a web interview on finding human remains (3 fossilized teeth and a skull fragment) at Garrincho from about 15,000 years old. How were they dated, and did they have any remarkable features?
Niède Guidon and Evelyne Peyre: The human teeth we dated were found at a limestone site at Garrincho. The measured radiocarbon date (Beta 136204) was 12,210 +/- 40 BP (Peyre et al. 2000; box 1). They are the oldest human remains we have found until now. Presently we are waiting for dates on 5 additional burials we excavated in December, 2001 in the entrance of a limestone cave, underneath a wall with rock art.
The morphological features of these teeth were published in France (Peyre et al. 1998). The most important aspects are as follows:
Incisor I: Based on its generally large shape and its compressed appearance, this incisor can be considered to be archaic. Its wear pattern (index of flattening), intermediate between that of the Neanderthals and those observed in Europe at the end of the Late Pleistocene, or worldwide in the Holocene, is equal to the Near Eastern Qafzeh people at the middle of the Late Pleistocene. Like the latter, the compressed appearance results in a strong buccal-lingual diameter, that has no equivalent since the end of the Late Pleistocene except with the maximum recorded in the Australian series. The large crown of this incisor, which is only surpassed by Wadjack II (from Indonesia, at the beginning of the Holocene), resembles the averages of men from the middle of the Late Pleistocene in Europe and the Near East, and the most recent Australian series. It is, therefore, a type of modern Homo sapiens, like the fossils at Qafzeh.
Molar 1: This molar is archaic, as much by its form which is very slightly flattened, as by its large size. Its crown approaches the maximum observed for most of the human remains since the end of the Late Pleistocene, and is as large as the average of those observed in the middle of the Late Pleistocene among the Neanderthals and modern humans at Qafzeh. Subsequently, any series of equivalent averages are the exception, such as the European series at Predmostí at the end of the Late Pleistocene and the Australian series from the Holocene. The strong buccal-lingual diameter of this tooth is, however, surpassed by certain fossils from the end of the Late Pleistocene in Australia, and at the beginning of the Holocene in Indonesia (Wadjak I). Its slight flattening, on the order of the present day averages of Africa and Asia, recalls that of Predmostí and the Neanderthals. In conclusion, the crown dimensions, both absolute and relative, of the Garrincho molar are close to the averages seen in the middle of the Late Pleistocene.
Claude Guérin: The cranial fragment from Garrincho consists of the anterior-inferior (front lower) section of the left parietal bone. It is remarkable for its thickness - an archaic trait - and for the presence of a rare anomaly, a temporal-parietal, endo-exo cranial fossa (hole in bone through which arteries pass). The teeth, as noted, consist of one I/1 (incisor) which by its size and its compressed appearance render it archaic, and by being remarkably well worn despite its youthful age. An M1 (molar) in a fragment of the maxilla is archaic due to its large size and the fact that it is only slightly flattened. It has an extra mesio-lingual root.
AR: In a recent (1999) paper by Guérin et al., a 9,700 year old female skeleton (fig.3) was mentioned as being found at Toca da Janela da Barra do Antonião near Serra da Capivara Park. What notable physical features or archaeological associations does she have? Is she in any way comparable to the (roughly contemporary) skeletal remains from the Logoa Santa region (fig.2), including Luzia from Lapo Vermelha, or others from Santana do Riacho 1 (Neves 2001; Chatters 2001)?
Niède Guidon and Evelyne Peyre: These human remains which we call the Dame dAntonião (fig.3) were found near a fire protected by stones. The burial and the skeleton were described in 1993 (Peyre 1993). This woman, who well represents early South American skeletons, has some archaic features. These include certain robust and archaic cranial characteristics, such as the height of the mandibular symphysis (front of the jaw), the rather small gonial angle (at the back of the jaw, between the horizontally and vertically positioned bone), the large teeth, and the average thickness of the cranial wall.
Claude Guérin: The Dame dAntonião does have some archaic characteristics (like the thickness of the cranial wall), but less so than the specimens from Garrincho, which is logical because she is not as old. Like the 3 teeth and skull fragment from Garrincho, she is associated with megafaunal remains (fig.5).
[Fig.3: Skeleton of La Dame dAntonião, dated at 9,670 + 140 BP and found at Toca da Janela da Barra do Antoniã (photo: courtesy Evelyne Peyre).]
AR: What resources (i.e. plants, animals, raw materials for tools) were available to Paleoindians in northeastern Brazil in the terminal Pleistocene? Are there any new findings on what people were doing here and/or refinements on the environmental reconstruction based on current fieldwork and analysis?
Niède Guidon: Throughout the Pleistocene and until 9,000 BP, the mountains of this region were covered by rain forest. On the plains were prairies and hundreds of lakes. Herds of American horses and paleo-llamas lived there. The fauna was extremely rich and disappeared only at 6,000 BP.
The climate changed more or less after 9,000 BP. During our excavations we found ancient river valleys, which until 9,000 BP were very big. The vegetation also was rich. It is for these reasons that so many Indians lived here for so long of a time. Actually our excavations are looking for detailed information on the climate change and, chiefly, on the paleogeography of the region. We are mapping all the changes the drainage system of the region had during the last 30,000 years BP.
It was this opulence that permited these prehistoric people to develop a very impressive culture, a high culture, not materially but spiritually. We see this in the very elaborate paintings. Raw materials used for the lithic industry were locally available flint, chalcedony, metaquartzite, and quartz.
As for recent environmental changes, until the arrival of the white colonists there were rivers here. In 1970, the first time I came here, the river still flowed, and in the town of São Raimundo Nonato there were big forests and at least 10 lakes full of aquatic birds, with aquatic vegetation. Today we have the caatinga, the dry forest; the river is dry and the lakes have disappeared, covered by garbage so the owners could build houses on top of them. The present-day poverty of northeastern Brazil is the result of 5 centuries of bad agricultural technology and the destruction of the forests to sell the wood.
Fabio Parenti: In the last 15 years, the main source of palaeoclimatic information in São Raimundo Nonato region has been the very rich mammalian faunal assemblages recovered in the caves of Precambrian limestone outcrops. However, several new sources of data are currently under study: charcoal from hearths and campfires of rock shelters, pollen from coprolites and marsh sediments, speleothemes from limestone caves, and, from nearby, Optico-Luminescence (OL) chronology of eolic dune fields in the São Francisco region.
AR: We are very intrigued about how your work and discoveries have contributed to creating new paradigms about the earliest people in the New World. Now that there are more definite preClovis sites, and there is mounting evidence that some Paleoindians were not specialized big game hunters, but more generalized hunters and gatherers, what kind of evidence for early subsistence is there at Pedra Furada?
Niède Guidon: It seems, by the paintings, that they used spearthrowers and not bows (fig.4). We think that they used spearthrowers and traps to hunt.
At Pedra Furada we have found a lithic industry (using quartzite, flint, chalcedony, and quartz) very rich in quantity, but the number of tool types is restricted and generally not too elaborated. They had a nearby raw material source and did not conserve it. Only flint was used with parsimony. We also found a piece of horn transformed into a perforator.
[Fig.4: Scene from Toca do João Arsena of people with spears and spearthrowers, and large animal at right. This is an example of the middle phase of the Nordeste Tradition of rock painting at Serra da Capivara (photo: FUMDHAM).]
Since the lithic artifacts are very simple, with few pieces elaborated or showing very good technique, Claude Guérin thinks that they were not able to hunt big animals such as the giant sloth, sabertooth cat, and mastodon. But they had lots of horses and paleo-llamas and aquatic birds. As the region is a geological boundary, it presented several different ecosystems and offered very diversified natural goods and raw materials. If Eden existed it was here! By the way, we also have thousands of snakes!
Claude Guérin: At Antonião, some artifacts resembling those from Pedra Furada are associated with megafauna (figs.5). People of that period were certainly not specialists in hunting large game because their weapons were too primitive, and besides, we have never found a butchery site. These were hunter-gatherers who took what they could find byhappenstance, and who must have scavenged a lot of carrion because the animal remains are both very abundant and very varied.
As for Garrincho Man, he must have been trapped in the site in the same way as the animals because they are closely associated. Moreover, we have not found a single artifact in this deposit.
[Fig.5: Fossilized giant sloth skull from Toca da Janela da Barra do Antonião, one of many Pleistocene cave sites in the same karstic area as Pedra Furada (photos: courtesy Claude Guérin).]
AR: Among the tools shown in your (1986) Nature article are those termed blunt points (fig.6). What kind of function might these have had? Is this lithic terminology partly derived from Old World usages on Mousterian or other kinds of points? If so, do you think there has been any misunderstanding of the details of your site due to a use of Old World terminology?
Niède Guidon: We suppose that these points were used to make holes in wood, leather and, as some of them have retouched sides, they were also probably used as scrapers. People had the same needs all over the world and the same genetic heritage so the answers to the different problems they faced were more or less the same. Yes, I always use the same terminology used in France, why not? It does not mean that the technological evolution in America was the same as in Europe. The climate was different so the needs also are different. But two lithic pieces with the same morphology may have the same names, I think.
[Fig.6: Three of the 560 artifacts recovered from Pedra Furada 1 up through 1986 in layers dating from before 32,000 to about 25,000 BP: a) retouched, notched point on a quartz flake; b,c) blunt points or scrapers with up to 4 convergent flake scars, with traces of utilization (from Guidon and Delibrias 1986, p.771; FUMDHAM).]
AR: Some have proposed that the earliest Pedra Furada charcoal dates may be from natural fires (cf. Meltzer, Adovasio, and Dillehay 1994). Why do you think your findings, which seem very compelling, have not been fully accepted by some other New World archaeologists who have found preClovis sites?
Niède Guidon: I cannot understand why. Perhaps because when you are the first to discover something, people want to kill you because you disturbed the placid waters of the lake. The theories on the peopling of America are only theories, and in prehistory it is not possible to say that something does not exist only because we do not find them. A theory is not a law, but may and must be changed each time new facts are discovered. And I am sure of our discoveries because our team is very good with specialists in different sciences. I have degrees in both Natural History and Prehistory, and decades of fieldwork. I know when I am digging a place where people placed stones in order to make a fire inside the structure, and when I am facing a natural fire. And forest fires were not common events in the rain forest before the arrival of white men.
Fabio Parenti: Essentially for three reasons: a) lack of detailed publications; b) the very peculiarity of such old dates, with poor undisputable evidence; c) lack of direct participation in the field effort of an international team (isolation of Brazilian archaeologists).
Rock Paintings at Pedra Furada:
AR: How old are these rock paintings, and how have they been dated?
Anne-Marie Pessis: The rock art in Brazil, and in South America in general, is not as old as that in Europe, although in some cases this is challenged. The data available up to now suggest that some paintings in northeast Brazil date to around 12,000 years BP. These have been grouped into the Nordeste [Northeast] Tradition. Dating for the Nordeste Tradition was established from cliff fragments with rock art discovered in archaeological strata, thereby dating the panels detachment from the walls of the shelter.
Direct dating of paintings is not common in Brazil. In Europe, by contrast, painters often used pigment containing a high proportion of carbon which can be directly radiocarbon dated, thus producing some old dates. However, by using other methods in the Serra da Capivara National Park, we do have several cases of reliable dating of paintings. One example, dated by associated stratigraphy, was discovered during excavations at Toca do Baixão do Perna shelter.Charcoal from the top of a hearth found in the sediment layer that covered the wall with paintings gave dates of 9,650 +/- 100 BP (Beta 32972), and the charcoal from the bottom of the hearth, 20 cm below the painted figures, was dated 10,530 +/- 110 BP (Beta 32971).
[Fig.7: Human and animal figures including deer at Toca da Extrema II (photo: FUMDHAM).]
At another site, Toca da Ema do Sítio do Brás, two big blocks with several figures belonging to the Nordeste Tradition spalled from the wall, falling to the ground. Afterwards, sediments covered them until they were discovered during excavation of the site when we just turned them over and found the figures. The charcoal from these sediments was dated from 9,290 to 9,000 BP (calibrated; Beta 148100).
As a third and older example, excavations at shelter Toca do Boqueirão da Pedra Furada yielded a little piece of the wall on which some lines had been drawn with red ink, that lacked any diagnostic traits of the Nordeste Tradition. Charcoal from a hearth found in the same strata gave dates of 29,860 +/- 650 years BP (GIF 6651). So we can affirm that at least 29,000 years BP prehistoric people in this area prepared pigments that could be used for different purposes, and that they used them to make abstract or non-representational designs - signs, geometrical figures. It is possible that at first these drawings were made only for fun, without any social significance, but what is sure is that they did prepare and use these pigments on them.
[Fig.8: Painting of deer from Toca das Figuras do Angical I (photo: FUMDHAM).]
Niède Guidon: In 1991 Prof. Baffa from the Physics Department of the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto, dated a layer of calcite that was covering two red anthropomorphic figures at the site Toca da Bastiana (fig.3). The calcite dated to 17,000 years old. In 2000 Prof. Shigueo Watanabe from the Physics Department of the University de São Paulo at São Paulo, dated by TL and ESR the calcium oxalate of the same calcite at 30,000-40,000 BP. Dr. Marvin Rowe from Texas A&M University, however, dated the oxalate crust in 2,540 +/- 60 years BP. So there we have a big problem. We are now excavating the shelter, and we found 2 burials. We are waiting for the dates of these burials. We also have some samples of charcoal pigments from the Pedra Furada rock art at the laboratory of Gif in France waiting to be radiocarbon dated by the AMS method. Until now it has been impossible to directly date the pigments.
AR: In terms of style, how do the paintings correspond to anything that has been found elsewhere in the world, contemporaneous or not? Do they seem to have a strong psychological dimension such as that in some Amazonian art?
Anne-Marie Pessis: In the National Park and particularly in the shelter Toca do Boqueirão da Pedra Furada there is a sample of the whole Nordeste Tradition evolution. It begins with the oldest figures, which were the first paintings on the rock walls, through the ones that show the evolution of the techniques, the themes and the scenography, till the figures of the last period after which they disappeared completely, suddenly, silently without any record of a conflict, or genocide or integration with another new cultural group. The main characteristic of the Nordeste Tradition are the narrative figures that represent actions of daily life as well as ceremonial events (figs.7-9). Its possible to find in the world other groups that used the narrative themes in their rock art. The paintings of the Spanish Levant present some stylistic similarities in the human and animal figures with the Nordeste Tradition. But the big difference is the way the components of the message are presented, how the figures are chosen and assembled on the wall, the technical devices they used to represent time and the space and the techniques of perspective.
[Fig.9: Detail of rock painting in a niche at Toca do Boqueirão da Pedra Furada, showing people and animals including crocodiles, a puma, deer and llamas (photo: FUMDHAM).]
The non-identified figures are abstract forms with a universal character that may be perceived and used by all the members of the human species, independently of their cultural origins. They may have differences in the drawing techniques, in the morphology, and complexity, but they have similarities all over the world.
AR: What materials and techniques were used to create the petroglyphs at Pedra Furada? Were any pigments utilized other than charcoal, and the ochre mentioned in the 1986 Nature article?
Anne-Marie Pessis: The pigments used in the rock art were prepared with ochre and clay of different colors, very common in the rock formations near the shelters. These sources of raw material were used for millennia. The ochre, or iron oxide, was the most used pigment, so the red color is the most frequent in several different tones, from the very faint to deep red. These tonalities were obtained through mixture of different pigments - red, yellow, orange, and brown - and by heating the pigments at different temperatures and humidity.
Other colors were also used in the rock art of the Nordeste Tradition, such as yellow, white, black and gray. Chemical analysis has shown that in some cases, burned bones were used to make the black pigment, but there is not enough organic material to date it.
Some very thin lines that were made by the Nordeste Tradition demanded some very skillful drawing techniques. They learned how to prepare the pigment to obtain the exact consistency needed to paint the areas they wanted, without having the colors leach down. The irregularity of the sandstone rock surface didnt help to make very tiny and delicate figures.
They used various techniques to prepare the pigments. The excavations at the shelter Toca do Sítio do Meio uncovered a piece of sandstone with a central concavity where there are water erosion marks and some grooves produced by an instrument. It was a palette covered with red pigment, used as the painters palettes of today. Associated charcoal was radiocarbon dated to 8,920 +/- 50 years BP (LY 10134).
The first tools used to make marks on the rocks were the fingers. But prehistoric people had to discover instruments that replaced the use of the hands in order to be able to make very delicate drawings. Nature offered fibers, the hairs of animals, and the spines of plants like the cactus (Cactaceae). These were the first instruments people used to make the drawings, looking for a way to translate their mental images into these material images.
AR: What is the sequence of change over time (in style, preservation, materials used, etc.) in the petroglyphs at Pedra Furada?
Anne-Marie Pessis: The class of rock art we call the Nordeste Tradition seems to have lasted in this region over a period of 6,000 years in a non-stop process of stylistic evolution. The oldest rock art in the National Park is characterized by the dynamic nature of the figures and represented scenes. Human and animal illustrations show play activity (actions ludiques) with the subjects caught at the maximum point of the action, whose theme can be recognized (fig.10). The variability of the compositions are extreme and create an air of unity to the painted panel.
[Fig.10: Example of actions ludiques, in a rock painting at Toca do Veado showing dancing figures (photo: FUMDHAM).]
As time passed, coinciding with the growth of the population, its possible to perceive a diversification of the paintings in the themes as well as in the techniques and rules of graphic presentation. This is a transitional period, where artists attempted many different and more perfect ways to represent time and space. These transformations on the rock art, however, did not change the identity of the original figures.
During this period of graphic transitions, we infer corresponding demographic changes with a multiplication and diversification of groups, and the establishment of new cultural identities. These seem to create circumstances of confrontation and divergences, prior to the appearance of a new social, territorial and ecological equilibrium. Population increase in the territory and resulting cultural differentiation create rivalries and quarrels, reflected in the rock art with the appearance of new themes. Scenes representing violent themes are characteristic of this transition (fig.21). But, at the same time, there are several demonstrations of technical improvements and a more complex scenography.
In the final phase of this transition process, a new system of graphic presentation appears in which the ornamentation appears privileged, and represented with so high a degree of detail and precision that it is possible to perceive individual differences between the figures (fig.11). These figures have different morphologic patterns than earlier in the Nordeste Tradition and are framed on rectangular forms, covered by ornaments, but beside all these changes the original characteristics of the Nordeste Tradition are still present. The most important trait of this final period is a tendency to keep the message hermetic; the figures are more emblematic and different than in earlier phases. Each one of the three moments of the stylistic evolution of this tradition have eponymous sites with a very clear dominance of each one of the graphic profiles.
[Fig.11: Example of the final Nordeste Tradition phase depicting rectangular human forms and ornamentation, from Toca do Morcego (photo: FUMDHAM).]
Research and Educational Facilities at Parque Serra da Capivara:
AR: We understand you are working with The Capivara National Park to promote education and tourism of Pedra Furada and its surroundings. Can you explain more about your program, including the museum on early people in South America, and what our readers can expect when they visit?
Niède Guidon: The Brazilian government commissioned our foundation, FUMDHAM, to prepare the management plan of the National Park Serra da Capivara and to define the policies for its protection. The sites of the Park are on the UNESCO list of the sites of the World Heritage. We understood that it is impossible to preserve culture and nature when people living nearby are poor and ignorant. So we developed a conservation program based on the social and economic development of the region, through education and health. Working in association with the National School of Health, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, we built 5 schools all around the park. These schools are different from the public schools in Brazil; the kids come at 7 AM and stay in school until 5 PM, and they receive meals and health care. In the morning they have normal official class and in the afternoon they have sports and art (music, theater, movies, dance).
We built all the structures in the National Park - roads, Visitors Center, paths, rest areas, and 103 shelters with paintings prepared to receive visitors without endangering the paintings or the archaeological strata (fig.30). We bought 3,000 hectares adjoining the Park and prepared the architectural plans for a Hotel Resort and an Archaeological Park, named Arkeopolis. The international airport Serra da Capivara will be finished in 2002.
We have a huge structure: museum, laboratories, offices, theater, and auditorium in the town of São Raimundo Nonato. At the field nearby the National Park Serra da Capivara we have a Visitors Center, 5 schools and 3 farms where we are breeding wild animals.
AR: How should potential visitors get in touch with you and with the museum (i.e. email, website address, or fax)?
Niède Guidon: Anyone interested should write:
Fundação Museu Do Homem Americano (FUMDHAM); Fundação Seridó, Av. Boa Viagem 5212, Ana Nery, 816., Recife 51030-000; Brazil.
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]. Web address: www.fumdham.com.br Fax: 55 89 582 12 93 Telephone: 55 89 582 16 12
Bird, M.I., L.K. Ayliffe, L.K. Fifield, C.S.M. Turney, R.G. Cresswell, T.T. Barrows and B. David. 1999. Radiocarbon dating of old charcoal using a wet oxidation-stepped combustion procedure. Radiocarbon 41(2):127-140.
Fifield, L.K., M.I. Bird, C.S.M. Turney, P.A. Hausladen, G.M. Santos, di Tada 2001. Radiocarbon Dating of Human Occupation of Australia prior to 40 ka BP - Sucesses and Pitfalls. Radiocarbon 43(2):1139-1145.
Fladmark, K. 1979. Routes: Alternative Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America. American Antiquity 44:55-69.
Gruhn, R. 1994. The Pacific Coast Route of Initial Entry: An Overview. In R. Bonnichsen and D.G. Steele (eds.) Methods and Theory for Investigating the Peopling of the Americas. pp.249-256. Corvalis, Center for Study of the First Americans, Oregon State Univ.
Guidon, N., and B. Arnaud. 1991. The chronology of the New World: Two faces of one reality. World Arch. 23(2):167-178.
Guidon, N. and Delibrias, G. 1986. Carbon-14 dates point to man in the Americas 32,000 years ago. Nature 321:769-771.
Meltzer, D.J., J.M. Adovasio and T.D. Dillehay. 1994. On a Pleistocene human occupation at Pedra Furada, Brazil. Antiquity 68:695-714.
Morales, Reinaldo 2002. Website on the Nordeste Tradition. http//www.geocities.com/sotto/workshop/ 7724/nordeste2.html.
Parenti, F. 1996. Questions about the Upper Pleistocene Prehistory in Northeastern Brazil: Pedra Furada Rock Shelter in its Regional Context. Proceedings of the International Meeting on the Peopling of the Americas. São Raimundo Nonato, Piauí, Brazil, Fumdhamentos, 1(1):15-53.
Peyre, E. 1993. Nouvelle découverte dun Homme préhistorique américain: une femme de 9,700 ans au Brésil. Comptes Rendus de lAcadémie des Sciences de Paris t. 316, Série II, p.839-842.
Peyre, E., C. Guérin, N. Guidon, et Y. Coppens. 1998. Des restes humains pléistocènes dans la grotte du Garrincho, Piauí, Brésil. Comptes Rendus de lAcadémie des Sciences de Paris 327, série II, 335-360.
Peyre, E., C. Guérin, N. Guidon, et Y. Coppens. 2000. Resultados da datação de dentes humanos da Toca do Garrincho, Piauí, Brasil. Clio-série Arqueológica nº 14 - Anais da X Reunião Científica da SAB. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco 2000, Recife, Brasil, 75-86.
Santos, G.M., M.I. Bird, B. Pillans, L.K. Fifield, B.V. Alloway, J. Chappell, P.A. Hausladen and A. Arneth. 2001. Radiocarbon dating of wood using different pretreatment procedures: Application to the chronology of Rotoehu Ash, New Zealand. Radiocarbon 43(2):239-248.
Stanford, D. 1999. Iberia, not Siberia. Paper presented at the Clovis and Beyond Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Turney, C.S.M., M.I. Bird, L.K. Fifield, R.G. Roberts, M. Smith, C.E. Dortch, R. Grun, E. Lawson, L.K. Ayliffe, G.H. Miller, J. Dortch, and R.G. Cresswell. 2001. Early Human Occupation at Devils Lair, Southwestern Australia 50,000 Years Ago. Quaternary Research 55:3-13.
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Copyright © 1996-2003 Athena Publications, Inc. (All Rights Reserved). | <urn:uuid:fc3f815a-5d03-432c-bb2d-6eac91dafb22> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.athenapub.com/10pfurad.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933843 | 8,024 | 2.953125 | 3 |
July 26, 2014
Researchers Create Vaccine For Dust Mite Allergies
Richard C. Lewis, University of Iowa
Vaccine reduced lung inflammation to allergens in lab and animal testsIf you’re allergic to dust mites (and chances are you are), help may be on the way.
Researchers at the University of Iowa have developed a vaccine that can combat dust-mite allergies by naturally switching the body’s immune response. In animal tests, the nano-sized vaccine package lowered lung inflammation by 83 percent despite repeated exposure to the allergens, according to the paper, published in the AAPS (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists) Journal. One big reason why it works, the researchers contend, is because the vaccine package contains a booster that alters the body’s inflammatory response to dust-mite allergens.
“What is new about this is we have developed a vaccine against dust-mite allergens that hasn’t been used before," says Aliasger Salem, professor in pharmaceutical sciences at the UI and a corresponding author on the paper.
Dust mites are ubiquitous, microscopic buggers who burrow in mattresses, sofas, and other homey spots. They are found in 84 percent of households in the United States, according to a published, national survey. Preying on skin cells on the body, the mites trigger allergies and breathing difficulties among 45 percent of those who suffer from asthma, according to some studies. Prolonged exposure can cause lung damage.
Treatment is limited to getting temporary relief from inhalers or undergoing regular exposure to build up tolerance, which is long term and holds no guarantee of success.
“Our research explores a novel approach to treating mite allergy in which specially-encapsulated miniscule particles are administered with sequences of bacterial DNA that direct the immune system to suppress allergic immune responses," says Peter Thorne, public health professor at the UI and a contributing author on the paper. "This work suggests a way forward to alleviate mite-induced asthma in allergy sufferers.”
The paper’s first author is Vijaya Joshi, a graduate fellow in pharmacy at the UI. Contributing authors, all from the UI, include Andrea Dodd, Xuefang Jing, Amaraporn Wongrakpanich and Katherine Gibson-Corley.
The National Institutes of Health (grant numbers: P30 ES005605, R21 CA1 13345-01, R21 CA1 28414-01), the American Cancer Society and the UI’s Lyle and Sharon Bighley professorship funded the research. | <urn:uuid:ffe2b7ef-a39d-4280-bdc2-ebfdb8f8de70> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113199556/dust-mite-allergy-vaccine-072614/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907744 | 539 | 3.328125 | 3 |
The situation in Antioch surely was tense: Paul and Peter, two leaders in the church, were in open conflict. And Paul holds nothing back as he calls Peter to account for his behavior.
What reasons does Paul give for publicly confronting Peter? Gal. 2:11–14.
As Paul saw it, the problem was not that Peter had decided to eat with the visitors from Jerusalem. Ancient traditions about hospitality certainly would have required as much.
The issue was “the truth of the gospel.” That is, it wasn’t just an issue of fellowship or dining practices. Peter’s actions, in a real sense, compromised the whole message of the gospel.
During Paul’s meeting in Jerusalem with Peter and the other apostles, they had come to the conclusion that Gentiles could enjoy all of the blessings in Christ without first having to submit to circumcision. Peter’s action now put that agreement in jeopardy. Where once Jewish and Gentile Christians had joined in an environment of open fellowship, now the congregation was divided, and this held the prospect of a divided church in the future.
From Paul’s perspective, Peter’s behavior implied that the Gentile Christians were second-rate believers at best, and he believed that Peter’s actions would place strong pressure upon the Gentiles to conform if they wanted to experience full fellowship. Thus Paul says, “ ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’ ” (Gal. 2:14, ESV). The phrase “to live like Jews” can be more literally translated “to judaize.” This word was a common expression that meant “to adopt a Jewish way of life.” It was used of Gentiles who attended a synagogue and participated in other Jewish customs. It was also the reason that Paul’s opponents in Galatia, whom he calls the false brothers, are often referred to as “the Judaizers.”
As if Peter’s actions weren’t bad enough, Barnabas got caught up in this behavior, as well—someone who also should have known better. What a clear example of the power of “peer pressure”! How can we learn to protect ourselves from being swayed in the wrong direction by those around us? | <urn:uuid:f118d41a-c35f-4397-96d8-b72679a0c6b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ssnet.org/blog/pauls-concern/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976536 | 500 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Moyer, Cheryl A. MPH; Arnold, Louise PhD; Quaintance, Jennifer PhD; Braddock, Clarence MD; Spickard, Anderson III MD; Wilson, Dorian MD; Rominski, Sarah MPH; Stern, David T. MD, PhD
Humanism, a critical component of caring for patients, must be a key outcome of medical education. Defined as “a way of being,” humanism manifests through altruism, integrity, respect for others, and compassion.1 It comprises a “physician's attitudes and actions that demonstrate interest in and respect for the patient and that address the patient's concerns and values.”2 Humanism has been considered an important component of professionalism since the groundbreaking work leading to the Charter on Medical Professionalism, originally published by the American Board of Internal Medicine in the mid-1990s.3–5
Since then, many medical schools have developed programs to promote humanism in learners. These programs typically create experiences that promote perspective taking, offer opportunities for reflection, and provide high-quality mentoring.6 The timing of such programs is important, however, as interventions during the preclinical years are often overshadowed by the more powerful experiences of the clinical years.7 One study showed that students in their later years of medical school reported attitudes that were significantly more doctor-centered or paternalistic than those of students in their earlier years of training.7 That study notwithstanding, anecdotal reports supply much of the data on the impact and student perceptions of programs focused on the development of humanism.8 It is also likely that factors outside traditional medical education may play a significant role in students' development and practice of humanism.
We sought to learn more about medical students' beliefs and attitudes regarding the development and practice of humanism through their experiences both inside and outside medical school. The study reported here reflects a multi-institution, multi-stage project with two objectives: (1) to develop a conceptual framework to enhance medical educators' understanding of the factors that are the most influential in medical students' development of humanism and (2) to explore fourth-year medical students' thoughts and attitudes regarding the most critical factors that encourage or inhibit the development and practice of humanism in medicine. We hope our framework and findings will inform decision making concerning the admissions process as well as curricular and extracurricular offerings during medical training.
Our research took place in four stages: First, we conducted focus groups of medical students. Second, we developed a conceptual framework to guide further inquiry. Third, we developed a student survey reflecting the components of our conceptual framework. Fourth, we implemented the survey and analyzed the results.
Between August 2006 and February 2007, our research team conducted 16 focus groups at four U.S. medical schools (University of Michigan Medical School, University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and Stanford University School of Medicine). Researchers at three of these medical schools used identical sets of questions and probes for 12 of the focus groups, all of which took place in 2006. At the fourth university, researchers added a few specific items reflecting the knowledge gained during the first 12 focus groups to confirm or refute themes that had begun to emerge. They conducted 4 focus groups in early 2007. IRB approval for the focus groups was obtained at each school.
We recruited focus-group participants via broadcast e-mails sent to fourth-year medical students in 2006 for the first 12 groups and in early 2007 for the remaining 4 groups. Participants were offered dinner and a $20 incentive. They were told that the researchers were interested in their thoughts about how medical students develop humanism and that their participation would be anonymous and limited to a single, one- to two-hour session. Participants were told that, for the purpose of the focus-group discussion, humanism should be thought of as encompassing respect, compassion, empathy, and integrity.
We asked participants to refrain from using their names and to maintain confidentiality of all responses given during the course of the focus group. We assigned each participant an ID number for the duration of the session, and each was referred to in the discourse by his or her number (e.g., “Respondent 1 said …”).
We recorded all focus groups and transcribed all recordings verbatim. Researchers at all four schools reviewed and coded all transcripts independently. We convened for an all-day working session in January 2007 to discuss themes that emerged and to use those themes to generate a conceptual framework to address the promotion and inhibition of humanism during medical training. Researchers at three of the four schools had completed their focus groups before the working session. Researchers from the fourth school participated in the working session and adjusted their focus-group script to elaborate on, clarify, and test some of the issues raised during the working session. We then analyzed their focus-group transcripts with an eye toward confirming or disputing what we had learned from the focus groups at the other three schools.
To develop our conceptual framework, we first created a list of the major themes that had emerged from more than 250 pages of transcribed focus-group data, and we grouped the themes into categories. We then reviewed existing conceptual frameworks for behavior development, including those focused on environmental influences, the “three Es” (expectation, experiences, and evaluation),9 the PRECEDE/PROCEED framework,10 and the common sociologic framework depicting the confluence of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and community-related factors. These conceptual frameworks provided a starting point around which we discussed the themes emerging from the focus-group data. We endeavored to build a model that took into account students' beliefs about how humanism is learned and their ideas about learning humanism over time.
We used our conceptual framework to generate a 102-item, standardized, self-administered survey that addressed various aspects of the development and practice of humanism. Items in the survey reflected the types, characteristics, and processing of experiences described in the conceptual framework. Each factor illustrated in the conceptual framework was incorporated into at least one item in the survey, although some items reflected more than one factor simultaneously. The survey included demographic questions (respondent's age, gender, marital status, number of children, educational debt, specialty choice) as well as Likert-scaled questions assessing which factors outside medical school, which experiences during medical school, and which types of situations promoted or inhibited humanism. Questions also assessed which people during medical school were most pivotal in the respondent's development or inhibition of humanism, and which types of experiences respondents thought should be built into the medical school curriculum.
In March 2007, we pilot-tested the survey at one of the four medical schools with 19 fourth-year medical students (the target cohort). As a result of the pilot-testing, we made minor revisions to the wording to ensure maximal comprehension and clarity.
We devised a sampling frame based on the Association of American Medical Colleges' 2006 list of medical schools enrolling students in the United States. In the absence of prior survey data with which to calculate the necessary sample size, and cognizant of our need to ensure a nationally representative sample, we chose a sampling strategy to ensure geographic diversity and a balance of public and private institutions and to deliver a 10% sample of the approximately 15,000 annual U.S. medical school graduates. It was our expectation that this sample size would far exceed the risk for type II (beta) sampling error. Assuming that we would achieve a response rate of slightly less than 50%, we arrived at a sample size of 3,000 graduating medical students to enroll 1,500 participants in the study. We then randomly selected medical schools from each region of the United States in turn, until the sample size was achieved. We contacted the deans (or designees) of each selected school in March 2007 and invited them to participate. Of the 25 schools we selected, the deans (or designees) of 20 agreed to allow students to participate.* There were no differences between selected schools that participated and selected schools that did not in terms of presence of a humanism honor society, humanism awards, size of the student body, public/private status, or geographic region. All participating schools' IRBs approved or exempted the research.
Survey data collection
We administered the survey at the 20 schools from April to May 2007 and repeated the same survey protocol at 19 of the schools from February to April 2008. We used participating schools' listservs to solicit fourth-year medical students by e-mail, sending a follow-up reminder if needed. Students who completed the survey were given the opportunity to enter their identifying information in a separate survey file to allow us to send them a $10 gift card as an incentive for participating. We collected data via Survey Monkey and downloaded all data to a Microsoft Excel file. The Excel file was cleaned, edited, and uploaded to SPSS (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois) for analysis and interpretation.
Survey data analysis
We used descriptive statistics to characterize key features of the respondents, and we then calculated frequencies to identify those experiences that respondents characterized as the most and least influential in promoting humanism. We compared the 2007 and 2008 survey data to determine potential sampling differences using Student's t tests and chi-square analysis. We also compared respondents' chosen specialties with 2007 and 2008 National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) data to determine whether our sample reflected national distribution of medical students' specialty choices. We explored possible differences by gender, marital status, debt burden, or primary care specialty choice in the factors mentioned by students as promoting or inhibiting humanism. These comparisons were made using ANOVA, Student's t tests, and chi-square analysis. A P value of .01 was taken to be statistically significant.
Conceptual framework development
The data we collected from the focus groups held at the first three medical schools (12 focus groups; 57 fourth-year students and 7 first-year residents) were corroborated by the data collected from focus groups at the fourth school (4 focus groups; 12 fourth-year students and 4 first-year residents). Thus, despite our explicit attempt to challenge some of our early key findings, our data were similar across all four schools. Overall, focus-group data yielded many themes and sub-themes regarding the promotion or inhibition of humanism, including experiences during childhood, family upbringing, educational environment, personal experiences with illness, role models' effectiveness, seeing people “cut corners” or treat patients rudely, the impact of exhaustion, and being involved in the care of terminally ill patients. We categorized and aggregated similar themes and sub-themes to create a conceptual framework for the development of medical students' humanism (Figure 1). Key factors include the types of experiences before and during medical school, the characteristics of those experiences, and whether the student had an opportunity to process those experiences. All of these factors are situated within the broader environmental context, which includes institutional norms, policies and procedures, and workload.
A total of 1,170 students responded to the survey (592 in 2007 and 578 in 2008; for demographics, see Table 1). Their chosen specialties reflected national averages, within one or two percentage points, in most fields (comparison with NRMP data, not shown). The experiences that students rated mostly highly in terms of promoting humanism were exposure to positive role models, getting to know patients and their families well, and volunteer experiences before and during medical school (Table 2). They ranked formal recognition for humanism among the factors least influential in promoting humanism. Students rated being postcall or tired, on an extremely busy service, or having limited patient contact as the experiences most likely to inhibit the practice of humanism (Table 3). Table 4 reports the levels of importance students placed on various processing experiences as ways to facilitate the development of humanism.
Students felt strongly that some of the activities discussed in the survey should be built into the medical curriculum to encourage humanism. These are listed below.
Early in medical school
* 82.3% (963) felt that an anatomy course cadaver/family memorial ceremony was important.
* 78.6% (920) recommended early preclinical patient experiences (e.g., shadowing).
* 69.2% (810) recommended holding a white coat ceremony (a ceremony at the beginning of the first year, where students are presented with their first white coat and humanism is emphasized).
As part of the curriculum
* 86.6% (1,013) felt community volunteer work should be made part of the curriculum.
* 80.0% (936) thought international clinical experiences should be included in the curriculum.
As part of mentoring
* 85.6% (1,001) would like opportunities to watch and discuss positive role models.
* 78.4% (917) would like the chance to talk with a mentor about their experiences as medical students.
* 75.5% (883) would like opportunities to reflect on their experiences as medical students.
* 76.0% (889) would like feedback on humanistic behaviors.
Table 5 compares participants' responses by gender, marital status, debt level, and primary care as a chosen specialty. Generally, female respondents and students who chose primary care were likely to rank promoting and processing factors as significantly more important than did their male, non-primary-care counterparts. Respondents with lower levels of debt were more likely than those with higher levels of debt to rate exposure to positive role models and getting to know patients and their families well as important factors in promoting humanism. Marital status did not have a significant effect on respondents' ratings.
Table 6 contrasts the characteristics of those respondents who reported that they planned to go into primary care with those who selected all other specialties. Although there were significant differences between the groups in terms of the importance they assigned to promoting and processing factors, the only significant difference between the groups in terms of demographic factors is gender: 67.2% (370/551) of those going into primary care were women, whereas 48.7% (274/563) of those going into non-primary-care specialties were women (P < .001).
This study provides a conceptual framework to enhance medical educators' understanding of how humanism develops during medical training. The framework we present here—supported by survey data from 1,170 fourth-year medical students—suggests that it is not just the types of experiences that are important. Rather, the characteristics of those experiences and students' opportunity and ability to process the experiences are also pivotal in the development and practice of humanism.
Several themes emerged from our findings. Students reported that experiences of greatest intensity had the largest effect on their development of humanism. Of the students who had the following experiences, 95.7% cited getting to know a patient and his or her family well, 89.2% cited being involved in a case where the patient dies, 89.1% listed being exposed to terminally ill patients, and 78.1% listed participating in rotations with intense patient content as promoting humanism. Students also rated their participatory learning experiences, such as volunteer clinics (89.3%) and international clinical rotations (81.8%), as having strong, positive effects on their development and practice of humanism.
Exposure to positive role models (96.7% of those who had that experience) and watching and discussing positive role models (79.3% of all respondents) figured highly in students' ratings of factors that promoted humanism. Good mentors demonstrate for students on a daily basis what it means to be a caring, competent, and humanistic physician.2 Mentoring includes articulating for students what physicians are thinking as they work through various challenges and exactly how they go about building humanism into their daily practice.11,12 Our initial focus-group data and open-ended responses from students (data not shown) suggest that students are looking to their mentors for specific behavior, activities, and wording to help them integrate humanistic concepts into their own practice as physicians.
We were not surprised to find that factors inhibiting humanism included those that were considered stressful. Most of the respondents (81.8%) reported that being postcall or tired somewhat or strongly inhibited the practice of humanism; 78.7% reported the same was true for having a busy workload with a high patient census.
This study also suggests significant differences in the way women and students going into primary care think about the development, facilitation, and inhibition of the practice of humanism. Our findings further suggest that students with lower debt levels rate experiences as more likely to promote humanism than do those with higher debt levels. These observations warrant further research regarding the implications. The potential overlap in these categories should also be noted: Students going into primary care are more likely to be female and to have lower debt burdens. Is one of these factors a stronger predictor than the others in terms of attitudes toward the development of humanism? In addition, as noted above, our results suggest that stressful situations inhibit humanism. Economic stress, such as having a high debt load, may inhibit the practice of humanism as well. In that case, is the significance of debt burden that we observed simply a marker for stress?
Our findings also raise the following questions: Does promoting humanism outside primary care require different strategies? Do male and female physician learners require different approaches? Could policies to reduce debt burden affect attitudes toward humanism? And, perhaps most fundamentally, can humanism be taught effectively to learners who are not “primed” to believe in its importance?
Limitations caution the interpretation of these results. The response rate was lower than we had anticipated. Although 1,170 students completed the survey, we had aimed for 1,500 participants, approximately 10% of the annual 15,000 U.S. medical school graduates. Thus, the survey population may not be representative of all graduates. Of note, we compared our sample with the national sample of graduating medical students entering the National Resident Matching Program in 2007 and 2008 and found no differences with respect to gender, age, and specialty choice (data not shown). In addition, we cannot control for selection bias, given the voluntary nature of participation in the study. Finally, the students who completed our survey may have been those most interested in humanism.
On the basis of the themes that emerged from our focus-group and nationwide survey data, we offer several recommendations for enhancing the development of humanism among medical trainees before they enter medical school and after they matriculate. Students in this study considered the richest experiences to be those in which they were heavily involved with patients and their families, active in community service and palliative situations, and exposed to superb role modeling.
Targeting premedical students.
We believe that the results of this study suggest that premedical programs may want to consider integrating into their curricula discussions of issues such as students' upbringing, religion, volunteerism, and personal experiences with illness. Medical school admissions committees may wish to consider asking applicants to discuss those experiences that prospective students view as the most formative.
Targeting matriculated medical students.
Our findings suggest that medical schools should include or enhance early clinical experiences and prioritize close contact with patients and their family members. Student involvement with community, regional, and international volunteer programs should also be strongly encouraged and supported. Medical schools should also explore ways to expose students to the care of terminally ill patients. The growth in specialized palliative care services at hospitals and hospices offers opportunities to formally integrate students into these activities as one way of assisting in their development of humanism.
Medical schools need to identify and alter educational environments that inhibit humanism. They should also explore ways to minimize fatigue and to institute programs that help students alleviate stress. They should give medical students opportunities to receive faculty feedback on humanistic performance and time to reflect on especially challenging cases. Perhaps most important, medical schools need to explore, develop, and support programs that enhance students' exposure to positive faculty role models.
The authors would like to acknowledge Barbara Packer, Sandra Gold, Ann Bruder, Allison Sole, and Emily Sippola for their contributions to this article.
This research was made possible through a grant from the Health Care Foundation of New Jersey and the Arnold P. Gold Foundation for Humanism in Medicine.
All research reported here was reviewed and approved or exempted by the University of Michigan institutional review board. The focus-group research was approved (HUM00006677); the anonymous survey research was exempted from ongoing review (HUM00011008). Each school participating in the focus groups or student survey received from its IRB approval, exemption, or notification of deference to the University of Michigan's umbrella application.
Preliminary results of this research were presented as a poster at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. | <urn:uuid:06bdc570-0974-4ec9-b9c7-f372c8652e49> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2010/11000/What_Factors_Create_a_Humanistic_Doctor__A.46.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966644 | 4,297 | 2.84375 | 3 |
A CCD scanner boasts higher depth of field than its CIS counterpart. This is achieved by using an objective lens and a system of mirrors:
For your convenience, there is only one mirror in the picture,
although a typical scanner has at least three or four of them
CCD scanners are more widespread than CIS ones. This is obviously due to the fact that you usually buy a scanner not only to digitize text documents, but also to scan photographs and color images. If this is the case, the user would want to have a scanner with an accurate and realistic color reproduction, and a CCD scanner is much more reliable especially for reproducing color tones, lights and halftones than a CIS scanner. For your reference: standard CCD scanners have a color dispersion error of around ±20%, while CIS devices have an error of ±40%.
Schematic representation of a CIS sensor
CIS array consists of a line of LEDs that illumine the original, the self-focusing micro-lenses and the sensors themselves. The whole construction is quite compact, so this is a general rule that a contact-sensor scanner is always a little thinner than its CCD counterpart. This type of scanners also consumes little power and is highly mechanically stable. However, their functionality is somewhat limited as they don’t generally support slide-adapters and automatic document feeders.
Because of the technology peculiarities, CIS array provides a relatively low focal range. For example, CCD scanners have a focal range of ±30mm, while CIS ones of only ±3mm. In other words, if you place a thick book onto the bed of such a scanner, you will get a scan with a blurred band in the center, where the original doesn’t touch the glass. A CCD device would produce a sharp image, since it features a system of mirrors and a focusing lens. However, you have to “pay” for this better quality: the bulky mirror system doesn’t allow a CCD scanner to become as thin as its CIS analog. Note also that the optical system of a CCD scanner should meet strict requirements, so those rumors about some scanner models using “plastic mirrors” are quite groundless. | <urn:uuid:226465a7-68ba-490b-bb9d-f65efd9f2055> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/display/scanner-an_2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955887 | 459 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Topic: Plato’s Theory of Ideas
Student: Milena Sadžak
Date: december, 2001
Author’s introductionary remark:
Still innocent and so naïve, the common human consciousness slowly began to raise itself, giving birth thereat to great men, who will forever remain in the hearts of the “consecrated”. One of those great men
Plato as a philosopher. Plato as an artist. Plato as the birth of concsiousness of its own limitedness. Plato as my own flight from reality.
and inexperienced, and having read one small but important part of Plato’s great treasury of dialogues, I stood lost and confused. It is impossible for a philosopher to believe in the existence of two simultaneous worlds. But that is what his words are saying to me. Did he truly believe that our souls had existed in that perfect world, prior to their birth? Being certain that Plato did not think so, and having realized the boundaries of my understanding, I’ve consulted people who dedicated their lives to this great philosopher. I must admit that it was just then that my confusion reached its utmost point. I have never seen so many confronted opinions on the same topic. Well, we have the dialogues right in front of us, what is the thing that’s keeping us from realizing Plato’s thought as it is, and at least reduce the number of confrontations? I know what my obstacle is: youth, lack of experience, lack of knowledge, but what is theirs?
CONCLUSION: The young common human consciousness created a genius, but a young one, such as itself. Youth as such carries with it the impossibility of valid thought-word transmission. The space is too big. In time, the young common consciousness perfects itself. Its improvement implies the improvement of individual consciousness. The possibility to validly transmit thought-word is greater, therefore the interspace is reduced, and the number of dissacords in interpretations of philosophical works is reduced as well. Plato still belongs to the young common consciousness, therefore, we have inummerable explanations of one and the same thing.
Theory of Ideas
Nowadays, Plato is rightfully considered the originator of idealism. To explain in details what the concept of idealism means represents a great difficulty and demands great effort, so I will merely define idealism as a philosophy which reduces all existence to forms of thought, or in Plato’s case, idea.
The word “idea” originates from the Greek word “eidos” which literally means “appearance, image”.
In Plato’s thought, “idea” represents the first principle, cause, form, shape, essence.
The very title “Theory of Ideas” points to observation, contemplation of the first causes of all things. Contemplation represents a mental/spiritual condition which consists of deep reflection, not related to any action, through which a man forgets about himself and his surroundings (Svetislav Maric, Dictionary of Philosophy). The theory of Ideas literally means a deep reflection related with the first cause of things.
In the following passage, I will try to explain Plato’s theory of Ideas the way my mind has concieved it, emphasizing my limitedness due to my youth and lack of experience and knowledge.
WHAT DID PLATO WANT TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIS DIALOGUES?
According to Plato, Ideas, i.e. generalia, represent the only truth. What is true, actually exists. What is true isn’t subject to decay. Generalia actually exist. Generalia are reality, actuality. Reality and actuality doesn’t decay. Reality exists because there are generalia; generalia constitute reality.
On the other hand, a question arises: what is that which is true and not subject to decay in the being of a human. It is certainly not the body. It is the soul. The soul, as the thinking part of human’s being. The soul as that which is thinking.
But we arrive to a contradiction:
The reality is the only truth.
The soul is the only truth.
According to the principle of contradiction, only one of these propositions can be true. Plato’s dialogues claim that generalia which constitute reality, are true, not subject to decay, but on the other hand, the same dialogues claim that the soul is true and not subject to decay. The only way we can avoid the problem of contradiction is to identify the soul and reality.
THE SOUL IS REALITY.
The ultimate purpose of the soul is to think itself, to think generalia. The soul, thinking itself, will percieve reality as it is and we can then say that the man who has directed his soul towards this goal has the true konwledge.
WHY DOES PLATO CLAIM THAT THE WORLD AROUND US, THE WORLD WE OBSERVE WITH OUR EYES, IS JUST AN ILLUSION?
We already stated that generalia actually exist, that they are the only truth, that they constitute reality. The soul learns about generalia by reflecting itself. But in the process of knowledge, the lower cognitive power in relation to the soul, is sensuality. Man’s senses cover up the true essence of things. It’s necessary to reach the essence, but sight, hearing, touch give to the understanding the information about objects that is not in concordance with what those objects really are, because senses can not reach the essence of things. Senses register only “relative features” (variable characteristics due to which the objects of the same category mutually differ) of things, they do not register the things’ Ideas which are permanent and stable. As the ideas are the only truth, and what we see are not ideas, it follows that we see the un-truth, falsehood. Relity corresponds to the truth, illusion corresponds to falsehood.
THE WORLD WE PERCEIVE BY OUR SENSES IS AN ILLUSION.
In book VI of The Republic (509d), Plato’s trying to explain, through Socrates’ words, the distance between illusion, i.e. things that our senses show us, and the truth. The difference is so great, that the Ideas as such (involved in all things, as their essence) and things, whose relative features we register by our senses, can be observed as “two separate worlds”. To make it clear, all objects have their Ideas, but we can not reach those Ideas through our senses. What our senses are telling us is far from the truth that only the soul can reach. What is, and what appears to be, seem to be two separate worlds.
THE GREATER DISTANCE FROM THE TRUTH – THE GREATER DISTANCE FROM REAL KNOWLEDGE
We have already stated that Idea is the greatest truth. We will show on an example what is the thing that’s most distant form the truth.
The Idea of man is the greatest truth. But we do not see the Idea. That Idea of man (the same one for all men), together with individual “relative features” will give us the individual man. Considering we have moved away from the truth, that individual man is an illusion. The greater degree of illusion is a picture of that individual man. Through the picture, we are the the farthest from the truth, from the Idea, because in this last case we don’t have the truth covered up with lies, but the picture of the truth covered up with lies, i.e. with relative features. Therefore, the soul still isn’t thinking itself, it hasn’t got that ability; her only ability is pictorial representation – εικαςία, i.e. the ability to guess. The soul, having seen the pictures, i.e. εικονες of plants, animals, machines, shadows, will be far from the truth, from real knowledge. Man, whose soul has the ability to guess possesses only opinions – δόξα. It takes a lot more then senses have to offer to obtain knowledge.
A STEP CLOSER TO THE TRUTH
Idea, generality, essence of man, together with relative features (the variable characteristics we register through our senses due to which people mutually differ) constitutes the individual man. Relative features hide his real essence, hide the truth. Therefore we are still dealing with illusion. The soul still isn’t thinking itself. Her ability is on a higher stage in relation to εικαςία, her ability is faith, experience, trust – πίςτις. The soul still isn’t reaching real knowledge, observing plants, animals, machines. Man possesses only opinions – δόξα.
What can be concluded? Namely, if we rely on our senses as the only cognitive power, we will never arrive to real knowledge, because that which is visible is also untrue, false.
In Plato’s theory of Ideas, besides the Ideas that are invisible, there is another group of objects that are also invisible. There’s a lot of these objects, similar and equal ones, and it is therefore impossible to assign them under the category of “generalia”; since those objects can not be registered by senses, we can not consider them an illusion of the region of visible things. Those objects are mathematical objects, namely, numbers, lines, triangles,... they do not exist in nature by themselves, but we can relect them. In addition to the fact that they represent forms of our thought (as, let’s say, we can reflect a “man”), they also have their Ideas.
These mathematical objects are:
(invisible) Numbers by themselves (unity, duality, trinity,...)
(invisible) Geometrical entities (points by themselves, lines by themselves, squares by themselves, diagonals by themselves,...)
Thus a mathematician, while solving a problem, will go in this order (as Russel explains, in his History of western philosophy):
“Let the traingle ABC have equal sides...”
For the sake of easier assertion, the mathematician draws a picture of the triangle. He reflects the triangle by itself, not the Idea of the triangle. The mathematician will prove the fictitious equal-sided triangle, and not thereat bring into question whether ABC is equal-sided. Because of that, even if the mathematician doesn’t deal with pictures, mathematics will never tell him what he is, because he starts with the assumption “Let...”, it will only tell him “What would be if...”
That’s why Plato doesn’t permit that mathematicians have true knowledge, but – released of senses and led by understanding – the mathematician is the closest to the ideas, much closer than the common man led by senses and experience.
To repeat the ability of the mathematical soul – her ability is understanding – διάνοια, but it does not reflect itself, it doesn’t reflect ideas, but mathematical things – υποθέςεις – hypothesis.
WHO CAN REACH THE TRUTH AND HOW?
Ideas – άρχαι, essences, substance, generalia, true beings, causes, principles, are the truth. The Idea of Good heads them, and has a special place in Plato’s philosophy. The problem related to it will have to be put aside.
Ideas of: ANIMALS, PLANTS, MACHINES, NUMBERS (unity, duality, trinity,…), GEOMETRICAL ENTITIES (point, diagonal, square,…)
Ideas have actual existence, they are reality and enable its existence.
The soul learns of reality by reflecting itself. Its ability is meditation - ν ό η ς ι ς, - i.e. intutition (latin: intuitio – inner vision).
Now we’re discussing real knowledge, true learning of reality, something pure, unsoiled by subjectivity.
Is everyone capable of knowing reality?
Plato has shown us that the mathematician’s close to konwing reality, but has also pointed out his mistake. Therefore, there is only one possibility of learning the eternal truth, thereis only one way, one method.
In his dialogue The Republic (book VI, 511b), Plato speaks of that method:
“And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible,
you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge
which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic (t ò δ ι α λ ή γ η ς θ α ι),
using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses--
that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world
which is above hypotheses, in order that she may soar beyond
them to the first principle of the whole; and clinging to this
and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she
descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from
ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends”.
That means that the first area of the invisible is the one of mathematical entities. The second area of the invisible can be reached by the mind (soul) alone.
Mind makes hypotheses, using the power of dialectic. Those hypotheses are not principles, tenets, they are not Ideas. They are only points of departure to the area of that which is without hypotheses. From the point of departure we reach Ideas, generalia, principles, tenets which exist by them selves and for themselves. The mind reaches them, conceives them and then goes down again, using thereat the very Ideas, and reaches them with their help. This method is called dialectic. According to Hegel, dialectic is the motion of thought; pure thought by itself and for itself moves only in such pure thoughts. Dialectic shows the necessary motion of pure concepts, it is a observation of pure thought by itself and for itself.
Thus, dialectic the key, the dialectician is the expert. Greek word δ ι α λ ε γ ω μ α ι literally means to converse, to discuss.
According to Plato, the dialectican is only he who sees things in their connections. Dialectic is some kind of “cornerstone for other sciences and it represents theor ultimate goal.” The dialectician is a philosopher, and as such, he alone conceives things as they are. He conceives reality and in it reflects his worthiness of being the ruler of the republic.
Only a philosophical soul reflects itself, it is the only one to conceive reality, and, for the sake of conjuring the distance of non-philosophers from reality, Plato gives a brilliant comparison of the state of non-philosophical consciousness with the state of the cave prisoners’ consciousness in book X of his Republic.
The non-philosopehr is the prisoner of the cave, and he is observing shadows (made by artificial light – fire), believing that they are real. He has no desire to escape from the cave. He is in the dark, but he enjoys it. “The caveman” needs the Sun to see the things as they are (the eyes are equivalent to the soul, which the philosopher observes with), i.e. the soul must be illuminated with the right consciousness of its own condition.
The exit of the prisoners from the cave onto the sunlight and observation of object illuminated by it is identical with philosophical revealing of reality through dialectic. The philosophical soul has the ability of meditation and it obtains true knowledge.
Naturally, this is only a subjective review of Plato’s theory of Ideas done by a freshman student of Philosophy. A multitude of difficulties was omitted. Considering that I’ve pointed out on the very beginning of this paper the problem og various interpretations of Plato’s philosophy, it would be illogical not to present, at least briefly, some other accounts of Plato’s philosophy, like the one of Branko Bošnjak, for example.
Namely, according to Bošnjak, Plato realizes that absolute equity, goodness, beauty as ideals can not survive in the society we live in, therefore there must be another world, an ideal world where these ideals also exist. The same case is with perfect geometrical images, which we can not find in nature. That means that they also exist in that perfect world. This is actually about pure dualism: on one hand there;s the perfect, ideal world, and on the other there’s the material, sensual world, which includes man. The world of Ideas is the Being, and the material world is the copy of that ideal Being. Plato, aware of that dualism, is trying to connect these two worlds in the following ways:
PRESENCE – ideas are in some way present in things as the general, essential element in them. If the presence of Ideas in things is greater, the more permanent and stable those things will be.
IMITATION – All things receive their shape from Ideas.
PARTICIPATION – Similar to presence: the greater the participation of things in the ideals, the greater is their degree of perfection.
The world of Man is not an ideal one, but it can approach the ideal and when it moves in that direction, it will obtain greater sense and permanence. According to Plato, there’s a multitude of Ideas, but they are alligned in a hierarchy, so that they make a system; on its top is the Idea of Good, as a basis of the entire system of Ideas.
This would be one of the numerous accounts of Plato’s philosophy. It is best to direct oneself to the very source, to draw from it, to persist, and in time, the image will appear on its own, and “the consecrated” can believe in it. | <urn:uuid:514a9c46-038a-4086-bb01-9bb8433ee2ab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=38952 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949435 | 3,830 | 2.9375 | 3 |
The National Portrait Gallery’s newest exhibit spans more than a century and includes 105 artworks in a variety of forms. But what really sets this exhibit apart is its focus.
“Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” is the first major art exhibition to explore the influence of gender and sexuality. While the exhibit focuses primarily on gay and lesbian influences on American portraiture, it includes a wide variety of sexual identities.
According to exhibit co-curator David Ward, planning for the exhibit began nearly three years ago when he and co-curator Jonathan Katz worked together on an exhibit about the American poet Walt Whitman.
“It’s a show people have been thinking about but nobody’s done it,” Ward said. “I’m glad we’ve done it.”
An 1891 photograph of Whitman taken by Thomas Eakins is featured in this exhibit. It’s thought that Whitman was bisexual or homosexual. In fact, his poetry collection “Leaves of Grass” was abhorred when first published in 1855 because it was considered deeply immoral, with clear sexual references throughout.
Starting from that literary opening, the exhibit is very much a history of sexual difference in American culture and how it was then reflected in art. But associating that theme with these works is, in many cases, a first.
“We’re addressing a history that has very rarely, if ever, seen public play,” Katz said. “For most of these works this is the first time their homoerotic context has been brought forward.”
The works on display in “Hide/Seek” vary just as much in content as they do in form. While many of the portraits are traditional images of a person, a large portion is made up of abstract portraits, which Katz and Ward said reflect the theme that sexual differences are taboo.
For example, Marsden Hartley’s “Painting No. 47, Berlin” is a disarray of bright colors, shapes and a few numbers and letters. But it is in fact an abstract portrait of Karl von Freyburg, a German officer Hartley fell in love with just as World War I began and who died in battle. Without actually painting von Freyburg, Hartley depicted him with his initials, age and symbols of his military rank.
Another nontraditional portrait sits in a pile in a corner of the gallery. “Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)” by Felix Gonzalez-Torres is a heap of colorfully wrapped candy that visitors are invited to eat. The work is a memorial to Gonzalez-Torres’ partner who died of AIDS, and the spread of the candy is meant to turn him into a martyr and represent the spread of AIDS.
Some artists featured in the exhibit, such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, gave permission to have their work displayed in the context of “Hide/Seek.”
Johns and Rauschenberg were romantically involved for a time; several of their works are displayed. Their influence on each other’s artwork is apparent, especially as their art is displayed near each other.
Ward said the show brings forward a topic that was known but not discussed for a long time. But Ward said he also hopes “Hide/Seek” will revitalize interest in American portraiture.
“Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” runs through Feb. 13. | <urn:uuid:3e5da3f0-8411-4b36-9610-a4ffa2b04500> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rollcall.com/issues/56_45/-200289-1.html?pg=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978621 | 746 | 2.90625 | 3 |
When most of us think of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster we think about leaks of contaminated water, criminal gangs hiring ill-trained workers to work on cleaning up radioactive materials on the site, ice-dams to stop water flowing, or government announcements that never improve anything.
What we often don't think about are the victims. More than 150,000 people were made victims by this disaster, most are still victims. But these days there is little coverage of their daily lives and the problems they continue to face.
They have compelling stories to tell. To learn about the stories, and to expose the shameful neglect of victims, Greenpeace Japan brought six international witnesses to tour the Fukushima area the week of 17 February 2014, and to meet five victims.
Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba, presents his his family tree going back hundreds of years to the Greenpeace witnesses.
The witnesses heard about the victims' exposure to high doses of radiation in the early days of the disaster and the government misinformation about the risks. They heard about worries over long-term effects and about children; many still play where there is too much radiation. They heard about abandoned farms, where edible food may never grow again, or the pain farmers felt when they had to kill off their dairy cows. The heard about the strong yearning for lost family life, and for communities and important traditions now lost. You can meet the victims on our website.
The spin from the Japanese government these days is that the Fukushima disaster is over. This spin allows it to abandon the victims. Instead of helping people, the government is spending more time planning the Olympics for 2020 and trying to sell nuclear technology to other countries.
The victims on the tour are doing what they can to fight back. Kenichi Hasegawa, a farmer, and Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of an evacuated town, have both travelled to other countries to talk about the poor treatment of victims. All speak out.
The story of shameful treatment is about more than five people; it's about the tens of thousands who still haven't been able to rebuild their lives, as David McNeill writes for us.
Around 100,000 people from the Fukushima area are still living in two-room temporary living quarters. They had to flee a world they loved to live crammed together in buildings that are already falling apart.
Fukushima: Don't Forget – that is the goal of the witness tour. The witnesses committed to telling the stories in their home countries so this tragedy and the impact on people won't be forgotten. They will talk about the Fukushima stories to enhance their own anti-nuclear work. People everywhere need to know that the shameful treatment of Fukushima victims is what will happen anywhere there is another nuclear disaster.
Brian Blomme is a communications manager with Greenpeace International. He was on the witness tour to Fukushima. | <urn:uuid:2b64b98c-0c27-48c3-b2ed-60ba3423f77f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/fukushima-victims/blog/48279/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00124-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971557 | 585 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 is an international satellite mission that will extend into the next decade the continuous climate record of sea surface height measurements begun in 1992 by the joint NASA/Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) Topex/Poseidon mission and continued in 2001 by the NASA/CNES Jason-1 mission. This multi-decadal record has already helped scientists study global sea level rise and better understand how ocean circula-tion and climate change are related.
Developed and proven through the joint efforts of NASA and CNES, high-precision ocean altimetry measures the distance between a satellite and the ocean surface to within a few centimeters. Accurate observations of variations in sea surface height-also known as ocean topography-provide scientists with information about the speed and direction of ocean cur-rents and heat stored in the ocean. This information, in turn, reveals global climate variations.
With OSTM/Jason-2, ocean altimetry has come of age. The mission will serve as a bridge to transition collection of these measurements to the world's weather and climate forecasting agencies, which will use them for short- and seasonal-to-long-range weather and climate forecasting.
Sea level rise is one of the most important consequences and indicators of global climate change. From Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1 we know mean sea level has risen by about three millimeters (0.12 inches) a year since 1993. This is about twice the estimates from tide gauges for the previous century, indicating a possible recent acceleration. OSTM/Jason-2 will further monitor this trend and allow us to better understand year-to-year variations.
The speedup of ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica is a wild card in predicting future sea level rise. Measurements from Jason-1 and OSTM/Jason-2, coupled with informa-tion from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission, will provide crucial information on the rela-tive contributions of glacier melting and ocean heating to sea level change.
Earth's oceans are a thermostat for our planet, keeping it from heating up quickly. More than 80 percent of the heat from global warming over the past 50 years has been absorbed by the oceans. Scientists want to know how much more heat the oceans can absorb, and how the warmer water affects Earth's atmosphere. OSTM/Jason-2 will help them better calculate the oceans' ability to store heat.
The mission will also allow us to better understand large-scale climate phenomena like El Niño and La Niña, which can have wide-reaching effects.
OSTM/Jason-2 data will be used in applications as diverse as, for example, routing ships, improving the safety and efficiency of offshore industry operations, managing fisheries, forecast-ing hurricanes and monitoring river and lake levels.
OSTM/Jason-2's primary payload includes five instruments similar to those aboard Jason-1, along with three experimental instruments. Its main instrument is an altimeter that precisely measures the distance from the satellite to the ocean surface. Its radiometer measures the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which can distort the altimeter measurements. Three location systems combine to measure the satellite's precise position in orbit. Instrument advances since Jason-1 will allow scientists to monitor the ocean in coastal regions with increased accuracy, almost 50 percent closer to coastlines that are home to nearly half of Earth's population than before. OSTM/Jason-2 is designed to last at least three years.
After its launch from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket, OSTM/Jason-2 will be placed in the same orbit (1,336 kilometers) as Jason-1 at an inclination of 66 degrees to the equator. It will repeat its ground track every 10 days, covering 95 percent of the world's ice-free oceans. A tandem mission with Jason-1 will further improve tide models in coastal and shallow seas and help scientists better understand the dynamics of ocean currents and eddies.
OSTM/Jason-2 is a collaboration between NASA; the Na-tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); CNES; and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). CNES is provid-ing the spacecraft, NASA and CNES are jointly providing the payload instruments and NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center is responsible for Delta II launch management and countdown operations. After completing the on-orbit commissioning of the spacecraft, CNES will hand over its operation and control to NOAA. NOAA and EUMETSAT will generate the near-real-time products and distribute them to users. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. | <urn:uuid:8043c3ae-79ca-4c62-8c8d-ff2ad2154d0f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ostm/overview/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908793 | 1,010 | 3.625 | 4 |
Managing your time
Life can be so busy! Whether or not you think yours is busy now, managing your time is an essential skill for both study and work--structuring your time effectively is vital to success.
You have a whole day ahead of you. Your assignment is due in two days but you'll spend the entire day working on it. It'll be fine. You sit at your desk, pull out your books, sort a few things, wander about a bit, make a phone call, read the question again, make a few notes, have lunch, send an email, have another coffee, start reading a chapter and ... suddenly the day is gone and you've got that meeting tonight and no assignment. But you've been studying all day?
Wrong! You need to learn and use organising and time management skills. Planning and efficiency are extremely important and do not necessarily come naturally.
Timetabling is the place to start. To help you plan your time efficiently, you will need three kinds of timetables:
- a term planner to map out key events/tasks for the term
- a weekly timetable so you can structure your time in the short term while allowing flexibility
- a diary with daily 'things to do' lists to keep you on track.
You can use your school's planner or make your own. Enter in important events, like assignment deadlines, exam dates and major tasks and family/social commitments. Put this up above your study desk (you do have one, I hope!!!). It gives you an overall view of the extra busy times so you can organise around them.
You need copies of a blank weekly timetable in one-hour blocks. Each week fill in:
- lesson times
- chores/domestic commitments
- other classes/sport time
- leisure/free time
Note: If you do not build in free time you will resent your timetable and not keep to it. Exercise is also important to keep your mind fresh and alert. Try to do some exercise at least a couple of times a week.
- Divide the rest of your time into homework and study time.
The 'things to do' list is important and should be included in a diary so you can carry it with you and shuffle things around when necessary. Each night you need to make yourself a list of what to do the next day, for example:
- read Biology textbook Chapter 2
- analyse English essay question and start thinking about how I will answer it.
Beware a whole day set aside for study. This can be difficult to use effectively. If you must study a whole day, draw up a timetable for this day and keep to it.
Try to study three different subjects per day, or at least engage in three distinct tasks. Changing tasks produces a new energy surge. People tend to wind down if they work on the same thing for too long. Work in intensive blocks with short regular breaks. Up to two hours on one subject is usually enough. An intensive two-hour work session can cover as much ground as a whole day of half-hearted shuffling about. Schedule adequate computer time. It always takes longer than you think. Have a plan of action in case of technological hitches. 'The computer was down' is no excuse!
Think about when your brain works best. This could be in the morning, at night or in the middle of the afternoon. Plan your 'things to do' list accordingly. If you are going to read a difficult text for the first time, do not start at 10.00pm unless you are a natural night owl! Do something less demanding in your 'low' times: organise your notes; write the next day's 'things to do' list. Get out of the house. Work in a library or other suitable space if that gives you fewer distractions.Review class notes on the same day. The more time goes by the less able you are to 'reconstruct' the ideas and commit any new ideas to memory.
Re-read all your notes every week. Build this time into your timetable. Obviously, it will take more time each week as your notes pile up but it will dramatically reduce your exam study time at the end of the term and make you confident that you know your subjects. Organise your notes and do not borrow notes from others. Taking detailed notes in class will save you heaps of time later. Re-writing and adding to your notes is a great way to revise what you've learned. Keep all your notes in labelled files in chronological order. If you have missed or know you are going to miss a class, see the teacher. Other people's notes are not very helpful - they reflect someone else's interpretation, often in a way that might not make sense to you.
Time management - Tips from PASS leaders | <urn:uuid:a4f74fd9-0dd3-455e-8c47-d4ebb63e4df7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.deakin.edu.au/students/study-support/peer-learning/year-11-and-12-study-skills/time-management | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00163-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955081 | 985 | 2.8125 | 3 |
The ritual foods of Passover tell the biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt and the story of the ancient rabbis who wrote the Haggadah. One contemporary rabbi, Jill Jacobs, adds: “During the seder, we don't just tell the story of the Exodus, we see, smell, feel and taste liberation.” What follows is a brief description of many of the special foods of Passover.
|Credit: Dan Bruell/flickr
First, let’s focus on the foods that are placed on a ceremonial plate, usually in the middle of the table or somewhere where everyone can easily see it. This special plate is called the Seder Plate. The traditional foods on this plate are:
- Maror – a bitter herb, often horseradish, or bitter greens like chicory or endive. It’s supposed to be uncomfortably hot! It represents the bitterness of slavery. (You can see people taking a “maror challenge” using very, very hot horseradish here.)
- Chazeret – a bitter vegetable or green, often Romaine lettuce. It’s also a symbol of the bitterness of slavery, but it gets used in a different part of the seder than the Maror.
- Karpas – a leafy green, very often parsley. Represents the rebirth of spring.
- Bay-tzah – a roasted egg. Also represents the rebirth of spring and the national birth, or rebirth, of the Jewish people from out of the constraints of bondage. The roasting recalls the Passover sacrifice brought to the Temple in Jerusalem in ancient times.
- Z’roah – a shank bone of a lamb. Represents the Passover offering of a lamb made at the ancient Temple in Jerusalem in the early spring. Sometimes a chicken neck is substituted, and in vegetarian homes, a beet or a carrot may be substituted.
- Charoset is a sweet, thick or chunky fruit and nut spread that symbolizes the mortar that Jewish slaves used in their hard labors building cities and brick buildings for the Pharaohs. Jews of European descent usually make it with apples, nuts, honey, sweet wine and cinnamon. Jews from other lands have other ingredients, but it is always ground or chopped to resemble mortar, and is usually brown in overall color.
In some more liberal Jewish households, people add other symbolic foods to their seder plates to call attention to issues of oppression, liberation, justice and inclusivity. Two of these new items that growing numbers of Jews are adding to their seder plates are:
- An orange – Putting an orange on the seder plate was an idea originated by Dr. Susannah Heschel in the 1980s. It represented the inclusion of LGBTQ and other marginalized people in the Jewish community, and the fruitfulness that these members of the community bring to Jewish life. Somehow, the new custom she shared with her guests morphed into a fast-traveling urban legend, and the story changed so that the orange was said to represent the inclusion of women in Jewish religious leadership roles. Today, for many, the orange symbolizes all of the above.
- Olives are sometimes included as a call for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. For a short accompanying reading, click here and scroll to the bottom of the web page.
- Other symbolic foods have been added to the seder plate over the years – Passover is a very flexible holiday, and different families and communities adapt it to their concerns and passions. If you’d like to read about other examples of this kind of ritual innovation, click here, here, or here.
There are also important symbolic foods on the Passover seder table that aren’t placed on the seder plate.
- Matzah is unleavened bread – flat, porous, crumbly and pretty tasteless. It is the primary story-telling food at Passover. It is the only bread that is eaten with a Passover seder meal, and throughout the weeklong holiday. The plural of the Hebrew word matzah is matzot, with a long “o” sound.
According to the Exodus story, the enslaved ancestors of the Jewish people hurried to flee Egypt once Pharaoh had finally agreed to let them go. They wanted to bring provisions with them, including bread that was baking in communal ovens. But in their desperate haste to get out of Egypt before the Pharaoh changed his mind, their bread didn’t have time to rise, so the slaves took it as it was, flat and dry, and hurried towards freedom. For the whole week of Passover, the tradition is for Jews to refrain from eating bread or baked goods that have had time to rise – that are leavened – and instead to eat only matzah, which is also known as “the bread of slavery,” “the bread of poverty,” and “the bread of affliction.”
At the beginning of the seder, the hosts place three matzot, piled on top of each other, on a plate. Some families have a cloth matzah cover, which has three cloth partitions inside, so you can slide one piece of Matzah into each of the interior sections. During the seder, as mentioned above, there’s a point at which we take the middle matzah and break it in half. Apart from the three pieces of matzah that are used ceremonially during the seder, people also have lots of boxes or platters of matzah on the table so that everyone can have however much they want during the festive meal.
- Salt water – people place one or more bowls of salt water on the table for the seder. At one point early in the seder, there’s a ritual activity in which everyone dips the green vegetable from the seder plate into the salt water and eats it. The salty water represents the tears of slaves, as well as the waters of the Red Sea that parted so the Jews could cross into freedom.
Also see our Passover Recipes index.
The Guide to Passover for Interfaith Families is also available in PDF | <urn:uuid:c133d9e5-d106-40a9-ab4a-c0f78ee5635d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.interfaithfamily.com/holidays/passover_and_easter/Passover_Foods_Foods_That_Tell_the_Seder_Story.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954632 | 1,282 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Part 1 | Part 2
While the movement towards socialism and interventionism in America had been slowly gathering steam in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was during the Franklin Roosevelt administration in the 1930s that the statist revolution was won in the United States. It was Roosevelt, more than anyone else, who brought an end to one of the most amazing freedom experiments of all time — a society in which people were free to engage in economic enterprise without government control, to keep everything they earned, to decide for themselves what to do with their own money, and to transact business with sound money (i.e., gold coins and silver coins). It was Roosevelt’s New Deal that ended America’s era of economic liberty and ushered in the era of socialism and regulation — the era of the welfare state and regulated economy — the era of out-of-control federal spending, debt, and inflation.
The battle between the economic libertarians and the economic statists had been brewing for decades. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Progressives began expounding their philosophy of economic statism, which they had acquired from German socialists. They were trying their best to convince Americans of the benefits of socialism and regulation. And they were meeting with some success.
In 1890, for example, the Sherman Antitrust Law was enacted. The idea behind the law was that economic liberty enabled firms to merge and combine into big companies, thereby lessening or even eliminating competition. Therefore, the statists argued, state intervention was necessary to prevent monopolies or big businesses that would exploit workers and oppress consumers.
What statists missed, however, was the fact that a free society is not about competition or even preserving competition. A free society is about freedom, and freedom encompasses the right to do whatever one wants with his own money and his own property, so long as it doesn’t involve coercion. If two companies wished to merge their operations, the principles of economic liberty entitled them to do that, given that it was their money and their property. The fact that the competition between the firms was eliminated was irrelevant from the standpoint of economic freedom.
The Industrial Revolution
In their attempt to subject economic activity to government control, the statists pointed to the horrific business conditions that characterized the Industrial Revolution — the long working hours in the factories, the unsafe working conditions, and child labor. Regulation was needed, they argued, to protect people from such things.
The statists, however, missed an important point: the reason that people were subjecting themselves to such conditions was to survive. In pointing out the horrors of the Industrial Revolution, statists ignored what life had been like prior to the Industrial Revolution. Life had been much worse in terms of economic conditions. Starvation and illness made life spans extremely short, including the life spans of children. Most people were desperately poor, barely eking out a living. Often-times, they would have many children, knowing that only a few of them would survive into adulthood.
The Industrial Revolution changed that. After it, the entire family had a chance to survive. Of course it was difficult. Of course working conditions were horrific. But why would anyone expect otherwise, given that society was going from a situation of abject poverty to one of the gradual accumulation of capital and wealth?
As Adam Smith had pointed out in The Wealth of Nations, one of the keys to rising standards of living in society lies in savings, which is then converted into capital, which businesses use to purchase tools and equipment that increase productivity. As productivity rises, the firm’s revenues increase, which enables it to pay higher wages and improve work conditions.
But that process obviously takes time, sometimes a few generations. The first generation barely ekes out a living, but most people survive. The children build on the small nest egg their parents leave them and then pass on a larger inheritance to their children. The grandchildren do even better. Meanwhile, living standards for nearly everyone in society rise, and people find that it’s no longer necessary to send their children into the factories to work. Over time, the accumulation of capital makes people in society better off.
That’s what the statists couldn’t see. It wasn’t that Americans loved sending their children into the horrible working conditions of the factories. The only way they could save their children from starvation was by sending them into the factories. Gradually, not only would the free market improve workplace conditions, it would enable people to begin leaving their children at home with one of the parents.
One can get a glimpse of the battle between economic libertarians and the statists that was taking place in the late 1800s and early 1900s by reading the Supreme Court’s opinions in such legal cases as the Slaughterhouse Cases and Lochner v. New York.
The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) involved a Louisiana state law that gave a legal monopoly to one particular slaughterhouse in the city of New Orleans. All competing slaughterhouses were required to shut down. The law was sold as a public-benefit measure, but the evidence later established that it was more the result of bribes paid to the legislators. While the competing slaughterhouses lost their lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court, the dissenting opinions in those cases provide a fascinating insight into the fundamental principles of economic liberty.
Lochner v. New York (1905) involved maximum-hours legislation that had been enacted by the state to protect workers from having to work too many hours. The U.S. Supreme Court declared the law to be in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The majority opinion makes fascinating reading. The Court held that liberty of contract between an employer and an employee is part of the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
The end of economic liberty
Notwithstanding the decision in Lochner, however, the Progressives continued making headway with their statist philosophy. In 1913 the proponents of economic liberty suffered a double blow with the enactment of the Sixteenth Amendment and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. Some 20 years later, the federal income tax and the central bank would play major roles in the Roosevelt economic revolution.
Throughout the 1920s, the Federal Reserve was expanding the supply of Federal Reserve bills and notes, creating a false sense of prosperity — the phenomenon that we today call a “bubble.” But keep in mind that at that time, gold coins and silver coins were still the official money of the United States and had been since the founding of the republic. The federal bills and notes were promises to pay money — promises to pay gold and silver. When Federal Reserve officials realized that they had dangerously overexpanded the quantity of bills and notes to a potential default situation, they panicked and overcontracted. As Milton Friedman and economists of the Austrian School have shown, it was that overcontraction that precipitated the stock market crash of 1929, which led to the Great Depression and to a revolutionary change in the economic system of the United States.
The Great Depression was all the statists needed to get their philosophy and programs adopted in America. People were scared, and the federal government promised to keep them safe. By that time, many Americans had been subjected to the public (i.e., government) school systems and, therefore, were more compliant and submissive and more willing to trust government officials.
The statist strategy was ingenious. First of all, the statists blamed the Great Depression on “the failures of free enterprise” and then argued that Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were simply reforms to “save free enterprise.”
The truth was that Roosevelt’s New Deal was modeled on the statist programs that were being adopted in the 1930s in Italy and Germany under Mussolini and Hitler.
The primary purpose of the federal government became to take care of the citizenry, adopting a paternalistic role in the life of the American people. That was when Social Security, a program that gave money to seniors, came into being. Not surprisingly, it was already in effect in Hitler’s Germany, given that the idea of Social Security had originated under the regime of Otto von Bismarck, the so-called Iron Chancellor of Germany, who himself had gotten the idea from German socialists. (That’s why today the U.S. Social Security Administration has a bust of Bismarck prominently displayed on its website.)
Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration, which put businesses and industries into cartels that had the power to set wages, prices, and production, was similar to what Mussolini was doing with fascism in Italy. In fact, Roosevelt’s infamous “Blue Eagle” campaign, whereby businessmen were intimidated into embracing and supporting the NRA, could easily have come out of Mussolini’s playbook.
Government–business “partnerships” were also an important part of the New Deal, just as they were under the economic programs of both Hitler and Mussolini.
One of the main things that Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini had in common was their over-arching commitment to the importance of massive government spending. All three rulers believed that federal spending was a key to restoring economic prosperity to the nation.
Removing the obstacle
Roosevelt, however, faced one big obstacle: the gold standard. If he expanded the quantity of federal bills and notes, at some point people would start redeeming them for gold and silver. He couldn’t have that. So he came up with a solution that would open the floodgates of federal spending. He declared that gold and silver would no longer be the official money of the United States. He nationalized gold in the hands of private Americans and ordered them to turn in their gold to the government. He also made it a felony offense to own gold, and he decreed that the paper bills and notes of the federal government would thereafter constitute the official money of the United States. His nationalization of gold was no different, in principle, from the nationalization of industries being carried out by Joseph Stalin, the socialist-communist ruler of the Soviet Union.
Once the statists were freed from the constraints on spending provided by the gold standard, there was nothing to prevent federal officials from going on massive spending sprees, both on welfarism and warfarism, which is precisely what they did. Decade after decade, federal spending soared, to such a point that U.S. officials had to sever the tie between gold and the dollar in international affairs in 1973, since foreign banks were increasingly redeeming their debt instruments for gold.
When tax revenues failed to keep up with the spending binges, the feds simply went into the private capital markets and borrowed the difference, setting the stages for ever-increasing levels of debt for which U.S. taxpayers would ultimately be liable.
As the amount of federal debt soared, U.S. officials resorted to the tried-and-true method for liquidating debt that had long characterized crooked and corrupt regimes: inflation. That’s what the Federal Reserve was for — to print the money to pay the debt, so that public officials wouldn’t have to raise taxes to do so. That’s why the paper dollar today is worth about 5 percent of its value in 1913, when the Fed was established. Over the decades, as federal spending and federal debt skyrocketed, the Fed simply expanded the money supply and debased the currency. As prices rose in society as a direct consequence of the debasement, federal officials simply blamed the increasing prices on such things as greed, speculation, and the rich.
For decades, the private sector was able to manage the ever-increasing loads of taxation that were being imposed on it, both for welfare spending and warfare spending. But over a long period of time, libertarians continued warning that such a system of massive welfarism, warfarism, spending, borrowing, taxation, regulation, and inflation was ultimately going to lead the nation into bankruptcy.
The statists, on the other hand, kept assuring people that everything was okay. Happy days could last forever, especially since the Federal Reserve could print whatever amount of money was necessary to get the economy humming again.
Today, however, things seem to be coming to a head. Greece is providing a signal of what lies ahead. For decades, Greek governments have been expanding the size and payments of their welfare state. When tax revenues couldn’t keep up with spending, the governments resorted to borrowing. But the debt has gotten so large that investors have lost confidence in the government. Today, the Greek government faces the prospect of default on its indebtedness, especially if foreign governments fail to provide cash infusions and loan guarantees. It’s the ultimate crack-up in the statist welfare state.
It’s the same position that the United States is in. Spending continues to soar out of control, as does the government’s debt. American statists say that the United States is more prosperous than Greece, which is true. But they’re ignoring a critical component: America’s warfare state — the national security state — the U.S. empire — now consists of hundreds of military bases all over the world that must be maintained, along with the occupations of two foreign countries, foreign aid to numerous dictatorships and democracies, and millions of people in the private sector who are now dependent on military largess.
Everyone knows that the recipients of America’s welfare largess and warfare largess are going to vehemently oppose any reduction in their payments as much as Greek welfare recipients are resisting any reduction in their dole. Once a person begins receiving government largess, he’s going to hang onto it as though his life depends on it, because in his mind his life does depend on it.
Meanwhile, the statists refuse to acknowledge that the root causes of America’s woes are its welfare state and its warfare state. Believing that the welfare state and warfare state must be permanent features of American life, they propose reforms, which usually involve the policies that got them into the mess in the first place — more spending, more borrowing, more inflation — more statism.
But the real causes of the problems are the statist paradigms themselves — the welfare state and the warfare state. Those two paradigms constitute a cancerous overlay on the foundational principles of our nation — the principles of fundamental, God-given rights and a limited-government, constitutional republic.
It is both of the paradigms — the welfare state and the warfare state — that must be challenged and dismantled if we are to restore the founding principles of economic liberty and free markets to our nation.
Part 1 | Part 2
This article originally appeared in the December 2011 edition of Freedom Daily. | <urn:uuid:153f1824-3caf-4285-959d-4a509afdbf32> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/economic-liberty-and-its-abandonment-part-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97751 | 3,037 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have demonstrated that nanoscale semiconductor particles called "nanocrystal quantum dots" offer the necessary performance for efficient emission of laser light. The research appears in the October 13 issue of Science.
The demonstrated performance opens the door for developing novel optical and optoelectronic devices, such as tunable lasers, optical amplifiers, and light emitting diodes, from assemblies of these invisibly small particles.
"Our results provide a proof-of-principle and should motivate the development of nanocrystal quantum-dot-based lasers and amplifiers," said Los Alamos' Victor Klimov, who led the research effort.
Quantum dots are so small that quantum mechanical effects come into play in controlling their behavior. Quantum mechanics apply in the microscopic realm but its effects are largely unseen and unfelt in our macroscopic world.
Quantum dot lasers work like other semiconductor lasers, such as those found in home-audio compact disc players. Just as in the semiconductor laser chip in a CD player, the goal of a quantum dot laser is to manipulate the material into a high energy state and then properly convert it to a low energy state. The result is the net release of energy, which emerges as a photon.
The challenge, however, is that there are competing mechanisms by which the energy can be released, such as vibrational energy or electron kinetic energy. In quantum dots, the electrons are confined within a very small volume that forces them to strongly interact with each other. These strong interactions can lead to deactivation of the dot through the so-called "Auger process," preventing it from emitting a photon.
The Los Alamos-led researchers examined quantum dots formed of several types of crystalline material. They showed that the quantum dots exhibit sufficiently large optical gain for stimulated emission to overcome the nonradiative Auger process. Stimulated emission, or lasing, was only possible, however, when the dots were densely packed in the sample.
Quantum dots offer this performance over a range of temperatures, making them suitable for a variety of applications, and also can be "tuned" to emit at different wavelengths, or colors. The emission wavelength of a quantum dot is a function of its size, so by making dots of different sizes scientists can create light of different colors.
The quantum dot material Klimov and his colleagues worked with is easily manipulated through well-established chemical synthesis methods. Fabricating densely packed quantum dot arrays should be a straightforward material processing challenge.
In addition to Klimov, the Los Alamos team of researchers included postdoctoral fellows Jennifer Hollingsworth, Alexander Mikhailovsky, Su Xu and student researcher Anton Malko. The MIT team was led by Professor Moungi Bawendi.
In Los Alamos, the quantum dot research was funded by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program.
The Los Alamos group conducted most of its research prior to this summer's Cerro Grande Fire, which hit the group very hard. Several postdoctoral researchers on the team lost data and equipment in the fire and much of Klimov's optics equipment was damaged.
Klimov joined Los Alamos in 1995. He received his master's and doctoral degrees from Moscow State University and has worked there and at the Moscow Institute of Geodesy, first as an assistant professor and later as an associate professor. In 1993, for his pioneering studies of semiconductor quantum dots he was awarded the highest Russian academic degree, Dr. of Sciences. Klimov was also awarded the 2000 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows Prize for his recent work on nanocrystal quantum dots.
Bawendi Quantum Dot Research
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New Composite Material Goes Negative On Physics
Minneapolis - March 22, 2000
Physicists at the University of California, San Diego have produced a new class of composite materials with unusual physical properties that scientists theorized might be possible, but have never before been able to produce in nature.
|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.| | <urn:uuid:13321a05-a3bb-4224-86e7-6b51cd1131bf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.spacedaily.com/news/materials-00f.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937326 | 1,057 | 3.65625 | 4 |
), the king of Cilicia, fought on Pompey's side against Caesar, in B. C. 48, but was pardoned by Caesar, and allowed to retain his dominions.
After the death of Caesar he joined C. Cassius, and sub. sequently espoused the side of Antony against Octavian.
He was killed in a sea-fight in B. C. 31, while fighting under Sosius against M. Agrippa. His name is variously written in the ancient authors, but we learn from coins that Tarcondimotus is the correct form (D. C. 41.63
. 14; Strab. xiv. p.676
; Cic. Fam. 15.1
; Flor. 4.2.5
; Plut. Ant. 61.
) The sons of Tarcondimotus deserted Antony after the battle of Actium, and united themselves to Octavian; but Philopator, who had succeeded his father, was deprived by Octavian of the part of Cappadocian Pontus, which he held. In B. C. 20, however, Tarcondimotus, one of the sons, received from Octavian all the possessions of his father, with the exception of a few places on the coast. (D. C. 51.2 | <urn:uuid:f93e8615-d403-4e50-baaa-b879ed61c752> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:alphabetic%20letter=T:entry%20group=2:entry=tarcondimotus-bio-1&toc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DF | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965377 | 287 | 2.875 | 3 |
Our nation’s natural resources and access to affordable energy are under assault from environmentalists, business interests and progressive politicians. Their plan is to raise the price of fossil fuels to make renewable energy economically competitive.
But too many Americans already face significant financial difficulties due to soaring energy costs and rising food prices. For example, a May 2011 USA Today/Gallup poll found that seven in ten Americans say high gasoline prices are causing them personal financial hardship.
Lower-income families are hardest hit by soaring energy prices. A recent study concluded that these households are spending nearly a quarter of their incomes on energy costs. Considering income inequalities, energy price increases have a disproportionately large effect on black and Hispanic households.
This crisis reverberates. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, cites higher gasoline prices for disappointing sales. A poll conducted by the wholesaler website DollarDays.com found 25 percent of small business owners fear high fuel prices will lead to layoffs.
President Obama’s energy policy is a major contributor to this economic pain. Instead of taking advantage of our nation’s abundant supply of domestic natural resources — coal, oil and natural gas currently provide about 85 percent of our energy needs — Obama is waging a war on fossil fuels.
Obama’s energy policy is designed to raise the costs and reduce the supply of fossil fuels through regulation of natural resource development and use.
Unfortunately for America, it’s the only way Obama can make renewable energy competitive to meet his goal of generating 80 percent of electricity from “clean” energy sources by 2035.
It’s a command-and-control energy policy where the federal government takes an active role in picking energy winners and losers, causing energy prices to “skyrocket” while stifling economic growth and driving jobs overseas.
The winners in President Obama’s energy policy are the well-connected corporate and social elite, while the losers are the hardworking Americans. It’s fundamentally a wealth transfer mechanism from middle- and lower-class households to corporate heads and billionaire investors who want to profit from renewable energy.
While campaigning for the White House, then-Senator Obama admitted his cap-and-trade emissions policy would make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.” This proposal failed in the Senate, but now President Obama is wielding his executive powers to discourage the use of fossil fuels by allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
By cracking down on emissions such as carbon dioxide, which is released when fossil fuels are burned, EPA regulations would raise the price of energy with a particularly devastating effect on coal-fired electricity generation. Coal is a cheap and abundant natural resource that currently provides about half of our country’s electricity.
Since the beginning of Obama’s deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, the approval process for drilling permits has been extremely slow. As a result of the uncertainty surrounding drilling approvals, seven deepwater rigs have left the Gulf, taking their high-paying jobs with them. | <urn:uuid:78028d8e-b8a1-46d5-b168-fbb4c9b44f46> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/03/obamas-energy-policies-benefit-the-powerful-at-everyone-elses-expense/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941384 | 621 | 2.59375 | 3 |
|Name: _________________________||Period: ___________________|
This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. Whom does Fisby call to try to unload Lotus Blossom?
2. Who helps Lotus Blossom to move?
3. Why will the person sitting on top of the bundles not fall off?
4. What did the children want to see on the trip?
5. What is Fisby wearing when Col. Purdy calls him?
Short Essay Questions
1. What is the subtitle of Plan B? What is funny about the title? Why?
2. What is the daughter going on the trip for? What must she bring along? How does this complicate the trip?
3. Why is it funny when McLean describes that his "Japanese beetles are eating up my Chinese peas?" Is there a bigger significance to this than the plant names? Is there irony in this comment?
4. What do the villagers want to build instead of a schoolhouse? What does this say about the values of the villagers? What does this say about Fisby?
5. How is Lotus Blossom going to remember Fisby? What is she going to do in remembrance?
6. What does Col. Purdy explain to Fisby about America's involvement in expansion? When does Purdy think America's troops will be gone from Okinawa? How does this affect his state-of-mind as far as responsibility goes?
7. What do you think is the difference between the goods made by the villagers and those sold in the 5&10 cent stores? Discuss machine vs. handmade.
8. What speech is Fisby going to give when he arrives in Tobiki? What does Sakini call the speech? Why? What does this tell the audience about the history of the island and its people?
9. The poles surrounding the wresting pen have different colored cloth on each of them. What do the colors symbolize? What does this tell us about the culture of the villagers?
10. When Fisby offers Capt. McLean tsukemomo, McLean declines saying he just ate something. What? What is important about what Capt. McLean just ate? How does this outline the conflict between McLean and Fisby?
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
How is the chrysanthemum a symbol throughout the play? What different meanings does it have as the play evolves? Describe the difference between the bud and a chrysanthemum in full bloom. Do you think Fisby ever understands the significance of the flower as the villagers do?
Essay Topic 2
What does Mr. Oshira say to Fisby about teahouses in the big cities? How does the description of the teahouses in the big cities convince Fisby to build a teahouse? What specifically does Oshira say that convinces Fisby? How will the other villagers react to a teahouse being built in their community? What insight does Oshira share that makes Fisby believe it is the right thing to do?
Essay Topic 3
What is the government's concept of education regarding a pentagon-shaped school? What is the importance of the shape and how does education theory stem from the physical building?
This section contains 1,047 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:7e9256dc-fff6-4b63-ae44-faa7c3aae995> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/teahouseaugustmoon/test5.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954336 | 732 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The GAT is a standardized assessment of an applicant's general reasoning ability, and it measures learning capacity, observational skills and problem solving ability. It provides an objective measure that is free from language and cultural bias. All the information needed to respond to each question is presented within the test item itself. Clear instructions will be given to ensure that applicants understand how to attempt the test.
The GAT is an abilities test, and it tells whether a student has strong underlying mental capabilities. This is in contrast to achievement tests which are subject based, and that assess a student's learned skills and knowledge. Abilities tests and achievement tests complement each other, and shed light on different aspects of a student's capabilities. When used together, they provide a good overall assessment of the quality of an applicant.
Introduction to General Ability Test
Test Registration Notice (Year 1 Admission)
The 2016 DSA-Sec (Year 1 admission)
The online registration will start on 9 May 2016, 12pm.
Student applicants and parents/guardians are to read through the ensuing information available in these website before registering for the test.
Please submit your DSA application to the respective schools that you are interested for admission. All DSA application must be submitted before the DSA application closing date stipulated by the individual schools.
To aviod: Should any applicants registered GAT without submitting DSA application to school(s) or after the individual school's DSA application closing date.Applicants will not be considered for DSA in that particular school(s).
There are limited places for each GAT test date, applicants are strongly advised to register early. To register, please click here.
For more information on DSA application, please contact the respective school(s) you are interested for admission.
Test Registration Notice (Year 3 Admission) | <urn:uuid:d2668c38-2fd1-4e12-af1e-6fdaa04460f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gat.sg/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920398 | 370 | 2.578125 | 3 |
ANTIDEPRESSANT SIDE EFFECTS
Antidepressants include a class of drugs known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or “SSRIs,” such as fluoxetine (Prozac), manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company, sertraline (Zoloft), manufactured by Pfizer, escitalopram (Lexapro) and citalopram (Celexa) manufactured by Forest Labs. Antidepressants also include a class of drugs known as Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors or "SNRIs" such as venlafaxine hydrochloride (Effexor), manufactured by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and duloxetine hydrochloride (Cymbalta) manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company.
The next time you see an antidepressant commercial, watch carefully. You will see that, when the drug company explains that depression is a “serious medical illness” caused by a “chemical imbalance in the brain,” it will be prefaced with the word may, i.e., “depression may be caused by a biochemical imbalance in the brain.” They must preface this statement with may because this theory has not been scientifically established. Some argue that this unproven theory has been propagated by the pharmaceutical industry in order to sell psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs.
In addition to depression, SSRIs are marketed for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (“OCD”), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”), Social Anxiety Disorder (“SAD”) and Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (“PMDD”) and Panic Disorder. The various SSRI companies have also experimented with their respective SSRIs for other indications including obesity, drug abuse and smoking cessation, however these indications have not been marketed. For the existing indications SSRI manufacturers make over Six Billion Dollars ($6,000,000,000) per year from SSRIs.
Few people take the time to read the label. If they did, they would probably find the information confusing because drug companies rarely come right out and state what side effects their drugs cause. The reason is strictly economic. Most drug companies would rather not disclose any adverse information about their drugs, particularly if a competing drug company does not have the same disclosures. In fact, the three primary SSRI manufacturers have met and worked together to keep truly serious adverse side effects out of their labels, to avoid a class wide negative effect.
Notwithstanding the pharmaceutical industry’s motive in keeping you in the dark, consumers should be given both sides of the story in order to make an informed choice about their lives and their health.
This website discusses the known side effects of SSRIs candidly and freely. Each side effect discussed below has long been known to the SSRI manufacturers, but actively suppressed from members of the public and their treating physicians.
This website is dedicated to revealing these side effects, as well as exposing the myths about these drugs.
Please pick any of the topics for a complete and comprehensive discussion.
© Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | <urn:uuid:798fc60d-2f88-4509-8eb8-195f0f12adfc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.antidepressantadversereactions.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00109-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948212 | 676 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Motivation – one of my favourite words in education. It plays a very important role in the classroom, making learning a pleasant and creative experience.
I am a great proponent of the notion that if the teacher is motivated and enthusiastic, that he or she can work wonders in the classroom. Students can immediately realise which teacher is there because they love being there and which one is the opposite.
The presence of a motivated teacher can be so important for students. Many are the times when students came into my class with problems of their own or with a low interest in learning, but then told me afterwards that they saw how happy I was to be in class with them. They really appreciated it and it gave them the boost they needed.
Once, a student came in looking rather worried; I thought he must have had some kind of personal issue eating away at him. He later started laughing and smiling with me and the others, and at the end he came up and said: “I came into class today feeling I could not handle it and when I saw your smile, and I started talking to the other students, I completely forgot about my problems!”
A great source of motivation can come from good, constructive and genuine praise. Taking students aside after the lesson, or even during the lesson, and letting them know where they are doing well or remarking on something they did great that day can work wonders. You can immediately see them light up!
Sometimes teachers focus on mistakes their students make or on what students do or not do. Sometimes we tell them, “Be careful with your gerunds”, or “Today you didn’t use the present tenses that well”, or “Your relative clauses need work”. It is important to remember to give praise where it is due! Regardless of age, people benefit from, and are lifted up by, knowing that they are doing well and in what areas they are doing especially well.
If educators are lifelong learners and are sharing their learning experiences with their students, that can also boost the students’ motivation. Students see that their teachers are also interested in becoming better and empathize with that. That empathy can develop into something of great significance. The learners have in front of them someone who is also in the process of learning: someone who can understand them.
Two months ago, I was attending two courses in pedagogy at the college where I teach in the evenings. These courses were in German – a language I am currently learning. My students were interested in seeing how I faced difficulties (and there were lots of them, I assure you!), in how I studied and in what gave me the strength to continue. Sharing these things with my students were moments in which we bonded more. They could see that I also have problems in my studies and got to hear how I managed to find solutions to these problems. That’s very powerful.
Working to motivate students takes patience and tempered persistence. It’s been my experience that students acknowledge and appreciate an educator who cares not only about their learning, but also about them as individuals. | <urn:uuid:98339bfc-76a4-462a-b040-84fe4bb3dd16> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://itdi.pro/blog/2012/06/25/motivating-our-students-vicky-loras/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00045-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988544 | 637 | 3.203125 | 3 |
By ROBERT BALFANZ and JOHN BRIDGELAND
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Four successive U.S. presidents have set similar national goals to end the high school dropout crisis, only to see deadlines come and go without much progress. Until recently.
After 30 years of flat-lining graduation rates since the early 1970s, and more than 1 million students dropping out of high school every year, significant progress has been made over the last decade. Graduation rates have risen from 71 percent in 2001 to 81 percent in 2012. Gains have been so strong since 2006 that, for the first time, the nation has crossed the 80 percent threshold and is on pace to meet its 90 percent high school graduation rate goal by the Class of 2020.
Progress has been driven within the very populations that had the furthest to climb - with 15 percentage point gains among Hispanics and 9 percent point gains among African-Americans. The number of "dropout factories" - those schools graduating 60 percent or fewer of their students - has declined by nearly 650 schools, with 1.2 million fewer students attending them.
The gains over the last decade translated into 1.7 million more students graduating, instead of dropping out. Reaching the national goal by the Class of 2020 - those students in the sixth grade today - would mean an additional 2 million students would graduate from current levels, with huge consequences to them, our economy and civic life.
High school graduates earn $1 million more over their lifetimes than dropouts. As former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise's Alliance for Excellent Education reports, reaching the 90 percent goal for just one high school class would create as many as 65,700 new jobs and boost the national economy by as much as $10.9 billion. What's more, high school graduates are more likely to vote and volunteer. Dropouts are far more likely to be poor, unemployed, incarcerated, and absent from the civic lives of their communities than graduates. The stakes are high.
So what will it actually take to reach the 90 percent goal? America cannot reach its goal without closing the opportunity gap. Graduation gaps between low-income students and their middle-to-higher-income peers reach nearly 30 percentage points in some states. The majority of states must significantly close these gaps for the nation to reach its goal.
A similar challenge is represented by how we educate students with disabilities, who represent 13 percent of all students. In Nevada, graduation rates for students with disabilities are at 24 percent, while in Montana rates equal 81 percent. The fact that some states are doing much better for low-income students and those with disabilities means that this is not an unfixable problem of poverty or ability.
Progress is possible and hope abounds. The dropout crisis went from a "silent epidemic" a decade ago to a top national and state priority. Better data and strong accountability for increasing graduation rates played key roles. School reforms, including higher expectations, more personalized learning environments, leadership from administrators and teachers in the lower-performing schools, early warning systems that identified patterns of attendance, behavior, and performance in reading and math that signaled trouble, and high quality alternative schools all have made a difference. Supports for students - from parents, counselors, mentors, tutors and national service corps members - helped create a culture where "every student counts."
States like Tennessee, urban school districts like New York and Chicago, and rural districts such as Washington County, Md., have all seen significant gains in high school graduation rates. The poster school for "Dropout Nation" - Shelbyville, Ind. - raised its graduation rate from the low 70s in 2005 to 93 percent by 2013. The greatest gains in all these examples and nationally have come since 2006, when graduating from high school became more challenging, with more course credits, AP courses and exit exams required to graduate. Progress has been about rising to a standard of excellence.
America has significant social and economic issues to address and our trust in institutions and one another is at historic lows. Progress in improving student achievement and graduation rates could boost the life prospects for millions of young people and restore our nation's confidence that we can tackle our greatest challenges.
Robert Balfanz is director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, and John Bridgeland is CEO of Civic Enterprises; they are co-authors of "Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic." | <urn:uuid:1725f1dd-00d4-4808-b507-f9ade58378ea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.paducahsun.com/opinion/050514_PS_Dropout_column_for_Monday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968144 | 912 | 2.640625 | 3 |
A recent publication by Iowa State University researchers titled "The Effects of Video Game Violence on Physiological Desensitization to Real-Life Violence" appears to show a strong empirical link between desensitization to violence and exposure to violent video games. The researchers measured the participants physiological response to real-life violent stimuli. Those exposed to violent video games had a significantly lower response to the violent stimuli than those who had been exposed to non-violent video games.
To avoid confounding variables such as a predisposition toward violent tendencies, the participants were randomly assigned to the violent or non-violent game groups. While those in the violent game group did not show an immediate physiological difference than their non-violent game cohorts, they seemed less able to achieve an expected level of arousal when exposed to real-life violent stimuli. As on researcher stated, "It appears that individuals who play violent video games habituate or 'get used to' all the violence and eventually become physiologically numb to it."
News source: Iowa State University | <urn:uuid:714eea58-0afe-4853-8614-19c1e382ff29> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.neowin.net/news/link-shown-between-video-games-and-violence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945985 | 205 | 3.09375 | 3 |
I started to dig a hole yesterday, and it occurred to me that it would be a great instructable, despite (or rather because) of it is a simple thing. So this instructable covers the technique of digging a rectangular hole as a sample of doing it in any other shape.
There are many ways and many reasons for digging a hole, but the tools are the same: spade, shovel, and maybe a pickaxe. However if you need a pickaxe, it is better to hire machinery to do the job. You can save a lot of time, physical efforts and even save yourself from pain (backache).
So, this instructable is about to do it by hands and with a lot of physical effort. What is - anyhow - a great workout
Step 1: First step: to measure
I missed to take pictures from the very beginning, but you can do it without them.
Use your tape measure to sign the four corners of hole. You can make marks with your shovel, or just put four stones there for each corners. If you need/like to be more precise, then use poles and lines to mark sides and corners.
Do not forget to use you measuring tools (tape measure, spirit level meter, else) during the digging process. You can save lot of your efforts with just this little care.
Once you dig the hole, you will have to shovel away the dirt that was scooped up by the hole.
You might be surprised by the fact that the volume of loosened earth is greater than you think. And the deeper you dig, the more storage space you need, and you need it close to the hole. If there is no such area then you will need a wheelbarrow too.
So you have your determination, your hands, tools, the measured place of hole, and storage space very close to it. You are ready to start digging now. | <urn:uuid:d4f2d7e6-966a-4873-9059-1b48392f8d3f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-hand-dig-a-hole/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962967 | 393 | 2.71875 | 3 |
American writer Olivia Ward Bush-Banks (1869–1944) was a poet and playwright best known for celebrating both her African-American and Montauk heritages in her works. She founded the Bush-Banks School of Expression in Chicago to foster emerging African-American talents. Some of her plays supported an interracial culture controversial for her day, and were not produced during her lifetime.
Olivia Ward Bush Banks had two distinct ethnic identities and strongly identified with both of them. Born at the height of Reconstruction on February 27, 1869, in the Long Island village of Sag Harbor, New York, Olivia Ward was the youngest daughter of Abraham Ward and Eliza Draper. Sag Harbor, located in the eastern portion of Long Island known as the Hamptons, was historically commercially active in fishing, and Abraham probably worked as a fisherman. Both of Ward's parents were of mixed ethnicity, partially African American and partially Montauk Indian. (The Montauk were a tribe of Native Americans who had traditionally lived in the portion of Long Island covering the present-day Hamptons.) These two identities influenced Bush-Banks throughout her life; writing in the introduction to The Collected Works of Olivia Ward Bush-Banks , Bernice F. Guilliaume noted that "in sum, [Bush-Banks] represented a living anachronism of assimilation and transculturalism on North America's eastern seaboard."
Bush-Banks's mother died when the child was nine months old, and her father relocated with Bush-Banks and her two elder sisters to Providence, Rhode Island. Her father remarried in 1871, leaving Bush-Banks in the care of her maternal aunt, Maria Draper. Draper greatly influenced Bush-Banks as a child, who attributed her aunt's determination and strength to her Native American heritage and upbringing. Bush-Banks completed her education at Providence High School, where she received training in nursing and developed an interest in drama and literature. Her high school drama instructor, a woman known only as Miss Dodge, recognized Bush-Banks's youthful talent with dramatic interpretation and gave the young girl private drama lessons. Dodge's style was called Behavior Drama; the exact method and style of this technique remains unclear, but seems to have relied on emotional delivery and interpretation of texts. Bush-Banks herself later taught drama using this technique.
A few years after graduating from high school, Bush-Banks married Frank Bush. The couple had two daughters, Rosa Olivia (Rosamund) and Marie. The marriage was not a happy one—Bush-Banks once referred to it as "most extremely unfortunate"—and the two were divorced by 1895. Bush-Banks solely supported herself and her two young children and, after 1890, her now-aged aunt Maria Draper.
After her divorce, Bush-Banks moved frequently back and forth between Providence and nearby Boston in order to find work to support her family. One method she used to generate income was poetry writing. In 1899 she published her first volume, Original Poems . The collection contained ten poems, which American National Biography described as "including elegies extolling African-American courage and virtue ('Crispus Attucks,' 'The Hero of San Juan Hill'), imaginative odes to faith and perseverance ('My Dream of the New Year'), and verses celebrating the ecstasies of religion ('Treasured Moments,' 'The Walk to Emmaus')." Preeminent African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar praised the volume, and the prominent African-American publication Voice of the Negro reprinted several poems from the volume.
Some record of Bush-Banks's time in Boston exists. Sometime around 1900, she because the assistant drama director the Robert Gould Shaw Community House, a Boston settlement house. (Settlement houses, which had become popular in the United States toward the end of the 1800s, were community organizations dedicated to alleviating urban poverty and homelessness through education and self-improvement.) She seems to have worked there as late as 1914. During that era Bush-Banks continued to write and publish works, contributing to Colored American Magazine between 1900 and 1904. Bush-Banks was literary editor of Boston's Citizen magazine for a time, and participated in the Northeastern Federation of Women's Clubs.
In 1914 Bush-Banks's second poetry collection, Driftwood , was published. This work includes 25 poems and two prose pieces, including elegies to figures notable for their importance to the African American community such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Bush-Banks's only published play, Memories of Calvary: An Easter Sketch , was published around 1917 and was the last of her works to be strongly influenced by religion.
Sometimes after 1916 Bush-Banks married Anthony Banks, a porter on the popular Pullman train cars. This marriage took her to Chicago. There she founded the Bush-Banks School of Expression in order to support emerging African-American talents in literature, drama, music, dance, and visual arts. She also taught drama in the Chicago public school system, having become deeply drawn to the medium while teaching at the Robert Shaw Community House in Boston.
While living in Chicago, Bush-Banks wrote a play titled Indian Trails: or Trail of the Montauk . This play today survives only in fragments, but seems to have reflected Bush-Banks's identification with her Native American lineage. The work drew upon her familiarity with Montauk language and culture. In 1910 the Montauk tribe had been officially declared extinct following a New York State Supreme Court case, Wyandank Pharaoh v. Jane Benson et al. , by all accounts much to the surprise and dismay of the 75 members of the tribe standing in the courtroom at the time of the announcement. Bush-Banks's play was presumably written in reaction to this event, and is estimated to date from sometime around 1920. The work reflected the decreasing cultural unity among tribal members, but at the same time promoted future unity when, at its end, later European settlers agreed to return the lands to the native people.
Bush-Banks and her daughter Rosa Olivia (Rosamund) had at some time become estranged, probably due to differences in personality and to Bush-Banks's apparent disapproval of her daughter's husband. In 1929, and before the two could reconcile, Rosa Olivia passed away.
Bush-Banks's other daughter, Marie Bush Horton, remained close to her mother. Beginning in 1928 and continuing through the early 1940s, Bush-Banks split her time between Chicago and New York City, where Horton lived. From the 1920s on, Bush-Banks identified more closely with the African-American rather than Native American part of her heritage. Although it remains unclear how much time Bush-Banks spent in New York City and how much in Chicago, it is known that she was active in the intellectual and artistic scene that developed as part of the Harlem Renaissance. The first mainstream flowering of African-American culture, the Harlem Renaissance marked the growth of unique and prominent African-American voices, including Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and W.E.B. DuBois. The era is also remembered for its fostering of jazz talents and band leaders in the packed nightclubs of New York City's Harlem neighborhood, long an African-American stronghold.
Bush-Banks's activities in the Great Depression era of the 1930s reflect her association with the Harlem Renaissance. She was part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project in 1936. The Works Progress Administration sought to create jobs for Americans and often supported arts endeavors. She also worked under the Works Progress Administration as a drama instructor at the Abyssinia Community Center in Harlem between 1936 and 1939, during which time she taught using Miss Dodge's Behavior Drama technique. In 1936 Bush-Banks completed an adult teacher education program and at last became a certified teacher. Also in the 1930s, she served as the "Cultural Art" columnist for the New Rochelle Westchester Record-Courier .
As the 1930s progressed, Bush-Banks became increasingly disillusioned with the Harlem Renaissance. This is reflected in her works as early as about 1929 in the brief piece "Greenwich Village Highlights," and continued with 1932's "New Year Musings," 1933's "Black Communism," and finally 1935's one-act play "A Shantytown Scandal." All of these works, like most of Bush-Banks's later works, were unpublished. The work that was considered her greatest contribution to the Harlem Renaissance movement is a story cycle known as "Aunt Viney's Sketches." These stories may have been written as a reaction to Paul Laurence Dunbar's short story "Viney's Free Papers." Bush-Banks's Aunt Viney is a fully mature African-American woman who has developed a strong sense of folk wisdom during her years, and the stories themselves comment on both the Great Depression and the world of Harlem. The stories use vernacular language and identify themselves intensely with African-American culture. Although Bush-Banks began an application for a copyright with the Library of Congress for the stories in 1937, the application was never fully completed and the stories were not published.
While in New York City, Bush-Banks seems to have been influenced by her daughter Marie Bush Horton and granddaughter Helen on a personal, rather than professional, level. Bush-Banks's religious affiliation shifted during her lifetime. Some speculate her father had been a Mormon and polygamist, with two concurrent wives between 1865 and 1869. Notable Black American Women commented that "whatever religious upbringing she received as a child does not seem to have satisfied her when she became an adult." Bush-Banks was interested in the Baha'i faith, a religion that sees all major world religions as differing expressions of one unified God. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Bush-Banks was a member of New York City's Community Church, run by Minister John Haynes Holmes. Bush Horton and her daughter had become Seventh Day Adventists, and Bush-Banks ultimately converted to this religion.
Bush-Banks died in New York City on April 8, 1944, at the age of 75. Her published works total two books of poetry; one play; two poems published in magazines, "A Picture" (1900) and "On the Long Island Indian" (1916); and three essays also published in magazines, "Undercurrents of Social Life" (1900), "Echoes from the Cabin Song" (1932), and "Essay on John Greene" (1932). Her unpublished works are more numerous and reflect an evolving cultural voice in the first part of the twentieth century. Bush-Banks expressed both the Native American part of her heritage in the early portion of her work, particularly the play Indian Trails: or Trail of the Montauk , and the African-American portion of herself in her more mature works. Although Bush-Banks was not as well known as many of her Harlem Renaissance contemporaries, her writings on the era have contributed to our contemporary understanding of the time, and an examination of her overall creative works hav enriched many surveys of early twentieth-century American poetry, drama, and thought.
Guillaume, Bernice F., The Collected Works of Olivia Ward Bush-Banks , Oxford University Press, 1991.
"African American Women Writers Biographies," http://www.digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19/bio2.html" (January 7, 2007).
"Bush-Banks, Olivia Ward," American National Biography Online , http://www.anb.org.ezproxy.libraries.wright.edu (January 7, 2007).
"Olivia Ward Bush-Banks," Notable Black American Women , reproduced in Biography Resource Center , http://www.galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC (January 7, 2007). | <urn:uuid:b4200ad7-fe94-48fb-9733-478bafc0f534> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.notablebiographies.com/supp/Supplement-A-Bu-and-Obituaries/Bush-Banks-Olivia-Ward.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972106 | 2,485 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Why is there a British memorial to President Kennedy?
In his speech at the inauguration of the Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede in May 1965, Harold Macmillan first spoke of the anger and grief, the ‘bitterness of the loss of one of those rare personalities who seemed born to bridge the gulf dividing races and creeds and help to build the unity of all mankind.’ He then noted that the bereavement was not just a public disaster but ‘to each one of us, a personal, individual, private grief’. Her Majesty the Queen said: ‘The unprecedented intensity of that wave of grief, mixed with something akin to despair, which swept over our people at the news of President Kennedy’s assassination, was a measure of the extent to which we recognised what he had already accomplished, and of the high hopes that rode with him in a future that was not to be.’
Only twenty years after the end of World War Two, President Kennedy articulated a re-energised vision for world peace, and a renewed vision for public service in which the individual was again encouraged to believe that even a necessarily limited area of engagement in the world could contribute to the common good. Harold Wilson commented: ‘His life brought new hope and vitality to a tired world.’
These twin strands – the breadth of his vision coupled with his oratory in calling for action, alongside the vigour and attractiveness of his personality – meant that his assassination evoked more than simply shock at so brutal a death. Television ensured that Kennedy’s speeches - and their particular energy - had been widely heard; his personal charm had been experienced in people’s homes. To quote the Queen again: ‘Abroad, peace for a shrinking world; at home, a just and compassionate society. These were the themes of his Presidency. But it is his own example as a man that we remember…his courage, both moral and physical; his dedication to public service; the distinction of heart and mind, the joyful enthusiasm, the wit and style which he brought to all he did; his love of liberty and of his fellow men.' Out of this profound sense of loss, a number of funds were started in Britain, and on 5th December 1963 the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, having consulted with the leaders of the Labour and Liberal parties, announced that he would be establishing a committee chaired by Lord Franks, a former British Ambassador to Washington, to recommend the form an appropriate British memorial should take. Subsequently, a national appeal for funds was launched by the then Lord Mayor of London, Sir James Harman.
To read the full text of the speeches made on 14th May, 1965 please click here.
To download the BBC archive footage click here.
To see photos of the Commemoration held on 22nd November 2013 click here
What is the British memorial to President Kennedy?
The memorial has two expressions. Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe was commissioned to design ‘a memorial in landscape and stone’ on Crown land at Runnymede which was, in May 1965, bequeathed to the American people in perpetuity under the control and management of the Kennedy Memorial Trust. (Runnymede was seen as a particularly appropriate location given the signing of Magna Carta there in 1215, the foundational document for English – and American – civil liberties.) In addition, it was agreed that a ‘living memorial’ consisting of scholarships for British graduate students would be established, ‘thereby recalling the President’s interest in bringing into fruitful combination the disciplines of traditional humane studies and modern technology and so making their strength effective in the activities of government and in the direction of world affairs.’
Senator Edward Kennedy, speaking in May 1964, called the establishing of the Kennedy Scholarships ‘the most ambitious’ of all the memorials and, in a private conversation in 2001, referred to them as ‘something I just know that President Kennedy, my brother, would have valued very, very highly’. At Runnymede in May 1965, Harold Macmillan explained: ‘The second object, to which the bulk of the funds will be devoted, is the foundation of the Kennedy Scholarships….There will thus be, through the coming years, a succession of Kennedy Scholars who will keep his memory fresh and fruitful in a field perhaps closest to him – among young men and women – young people of parts and promise, whose lives, we trust, will be devoted to the causes he had at heart.’
The Runnymede Memorial was opened by the Queen in May 1965 and the first group of Kennedy Scholars went over to Harvard and MIT to begin their courses of study in September 1966.
Since then, 505 British students have been awarded Kennedy Scholarships. Many have gone on to distinguish themselves in academia, public service, the professions, politics, the media, business and other varied careers.
Every autumn a national competition takes place to select the next group of Scholars for the following academic year. The Trustees are keen to attract a strong and diverse field of candidates from throughout the UK. | <urn:uuid:0c48976e-fd50-4804-b742-61f3db3b1ffe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.kennedytrust.org.uk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971539 | 1,057 | 3.109375 | 3 |
The terms routing, switching, forwarding and bridging have different meanings that have changed over time.
This article provide a practical and workable definition of “What Is a Network Service ?”
Containers virtualize at the operating system level, Hypervisors virtualize at the hardware level. Hypervisors abstract the operating system from hardware, containers abstract the application from the operation system. Hypervisors consumes storage space for each instance. Containers use a single storage space plus smaller deltas for each layer and thus are much more efficient. Containers can boot and be […]
Notes on the CheckPoint firewall clustering solution based on a review of the documentation in August 2014.
I was asked to explain the concept of abstraction in software and IT infrastructure to a group of people who had limited technical capability. It needed to be simple and relevant to every day people.
Here is what I came up with.
Short version – I’d like you to read just these if nothing else.
- A data centre uses a lot of electricity. It’s dangerous.
- Just in case you didn’t pay attention – Electricity is really dangerous. Right, can we move on ?
- You should be scared of being electrocuted. That will keep you safe.
- When electrocution happens, the muscles in your limbs contract. This causes arms and hands to wrap around or clench objects.
- Someone who is being electrocuted can’t let go because of this
- If you touch a person being electrocuted, you will get an electric shock too, and may also be injured.
- The BEST thing to do is to turn the power off.
- Know where the power kill switch is for Data Centre. Or at least the breaker for the area that you are in.
- Don’t work in the Data Centre alone.
- Learn resuscitation. People who have been electrocuted are likely to have breathing problems and heart failure.
People shouldn’t die at work. Think seriously about going home everyday and what you can do to make that happen.
Most engineers think that cable is simply plug and play. And mostly, that true. In recent years, Ethernet standards and manufacturing Here are 20 things that Network Engineers have forgotten or don’t know about network cabling in a two part series on things I have learned in twenty years of looking after networks.
BPDU Guard and Root Guard are enhancements to Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) enhancements that improve the reliability of the protocol to unexpected events ad are primarily to ensure design enforcement ( integrity / security). There they must configured in specific locations in the networks.
Short Answer is “It depends, but usually yes.” Long answer follows with a discussion of launch power, receiver sensitivity, and cable losses. | <urn:uuid:14f5dc63-f6f2-4eb1-a07e-e6e1a81e9eb0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://etherealmind.com/tag/basics-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934569 | 584 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The CLOSUP Energy & Environmental Policy Initiative Fracking Project
Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as "fracking," and new horizontal drilling techniques are creating significant opportunities to expand natural gas production across the United States. However, the absence of comprehensive federal legislation regarding hydraulic fracturing has placed the regulation of unconventional gas drilling primarily within the purview of state and local governments.
To improve understanding of state and local policy issues related to fracking, CLOSUP launched a multi-faceted research project on the topic as part of the Center's Energy and Environmental Policy Initiative (EEPI). The CLOSUP Fracking Project began in the fall of 2012 with a public opinion survey on a wide range of issues related to hydraulic fracturing in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two states that share many things in common, but that have significantly different recent experiences with fracking.
The CLOSUP Fracking Project will include survey research, case studies, web-based information resources, events, policy reports, and more, with the goal of informing policy debate around the issue of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.
See below for links to CLOSUP Fracking Project resources, including policy reports and additional web-based resources including a timeline covering the history and developments of hydraulic fracturing and a database of fracking-related legislation in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Most Recent Reports:
- American Views on Fracking (May 2015)
- Public Perceptions of Hydraulic Fracturing in Three Marcellus Shale States (May 2015)
- Taxing Fracking: The Politics of State Severance Taxes in the Shale Era (April 2015)
- Public Opinion on Hydraulic Fracturing in the Province of Quebec: A Comparison with Michigan and Pennsylvania (October 2014)
- Opportunity, Risk, and Public Acceptability: The Question of Shale Gas Exploitation in Québec (October 2014)
- Shale Governance in the European Union: Principles and Practice (October 2014)
- National Surveys on Energy and Environment: Public Perceptions of Shale Gas Extraction and Hydraulic Fracturing in New York and Pennsylvania (September 2014)
- Fracking as a community issue in Michigan (June 2014)
- View the report from CLOSUP's Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS)
- Note: In a June 14, 2014 blog at Energyindepth.org, the Independent Petroleum Association of America criticized this CLOSUP MPPS report and survey and made statements that are not supported by MPPS data. CLOSUP disputes IPAA's characterization of the MPPS findings. Read more here.
- Shale Gas and Hydraulic Fracturing in the Great Lakes Region: Current Issues and Public Opinion (April 2014)
- View the report
Additional Fracking Resources:
The timeline and database listed below were originally created as supplementary resources for the 2013 Issues in Energy and Environmental Policy report Public Opinion on Fracking: Perspectives from Michigan and Pennsylvania.
- Fracking Timeline
This site contains an interactive timeline of hydraulic fracturing, including developments in Michigan & Pennsylvania.
- Recent Michigan & Pennsylvania Fracking Laws and Bills
This database includes links to recent bills in both the Michigan & Pennsylvania legislatures on a range of issues related to hydraulic fracturing.
- Review of Policy Research: Conventional Politics for Unconventional Drilling? Lessons from Pennsylvania's Early Move into Fracking Policy Development
This article by Barry Rabe and Christopher Borick examines the development of fracking within the state of Pennsylvania.
Recent CLOSUP Events on Fracking:
- Jan. 13, 2014: A Vote of No Confidence? Why Local Governments Take Action in Response to Shale Gas Development
- Dec. 4, 2013: Using information disclosure to achieve policy goals: How experience with the Toxics Release Inventory can inform action on shale gas fracking
See the presentations from the event:
For more information on the CLOSUP Fracking Project, contact CLOSUP staff at 734-647-4091 or by email to [email protected].
EEPI Fracking Project Resources
|Additional Fracking Resources|
| Policy Points Videos
More on the Energy & Environmental Policy Initiative
- EEPI activities in the news, media, & blogs | <urn:uuid:94be7f25-a0b5-4e21-97d4-240834959db2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://closup.umich.edu/fracking/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900784 | 864 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Circuit Complexity and Neural Networks
Neural networks usually work adequately on small problems but can run into trouble when they are scaled up to problems involving large amounts of input data. Circuit Complexity and Neural Networks addresses the important question of how well neural networks scale - that is, how fast the computation time and number of neurons grow as the problem size increases. It surveys recent research in circuit complexity (a robust branch of theoretical computer science) and applies this work to a theoretical understanding of the problem of scalability.Most research in neural networks focuses on learning, yet it is important to understand the physical limitations of the network before the resources needed to solve a certain problem can be calculated. One of the aims of this book is to compare the complexity of neural networks and the complexity of conventional computers, looking at the computational ability and resources (neurons and time) that are a necessary part of the foundations of neural network learning.Circuit Complexity and Neural Networks contains a significant amount of background material on conventional complexity theory that will enable neural network scientists to learn about how complexity theory applies to their discipline, and allow complexity theorists to see how their discipline applies to neural networks. | <urn:uuid:aab9ad2e-61b2-4f13-8e17-db9b91adf4dc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/circuit-complexity-and-neural-networks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932357 | 235 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The idea of capturing solar power in space for use as energy on Earth has been around since the beginning of the space age. In the last few years, however, scientists around the globe -- and several r...
esearchers at the Energy Department’s own Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) -- have shown how recent technological developments could make this concept a reality.
Did you work on this visual? Claim credit! | <urn:uuid:dac83799-269b-4010-9c2c-cb820b99e6c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://visual.ly/space-based-solar-power | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392069.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939274 | 87 | 2.75 | 3 |
KARACHI: As we celebrate the ‘Sindh Festival’ with great fanfare, it would be a suitable time to ask the Sindh government to share any vision, strategies, plans and projects that it may have to protect and promote the unique culture and lifestyle of this multi-cultural province.
The protection of livelihoods and indigenous lifestyles of the communities residing in rural Karachi can be cited as one such urgent challenge. This is urgent in view of the uncontrolled urban sprawl in the city.
Karachi’s urbanised settlements and its rural hinterland, though distinct in their socio-economic, administrative and environmental profiles, are linked inextricably by history and geography and can very effectively supplement the city’s sustainable growth as they can provide food security and act as a barrier to uncontrolled urbanisation.
The consequences of urban sprawl can be seen in the rapidly diminishing natural supportive resources such as water and fertile soil, which in turn threaten the agro-livestock based livelihoods, residential security and cultural uniqueness of Karachi’s oldest inhabitants.
Historically, Karachi has been a conglomeration of neighbourhoods – villages or goths – that included not only the ancient villages of Jokhios, Memons and Mir Bahars on the fringes of the old town, but also the picturesque and characteristic neighbourhoods of Silwats who lived in the central area of the city. The Silwats had migrated centuries ago from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan (now part of modern-day India) to live in the capital of Sindh.
Karachi’s goths can be categorised into rural, coastal and ‘urbanised’. Sindhi and Balochi speaking communities that still inhabit most of these goths have also historically been the dominant ethnicities yielding influence in the region. Karachi lies at the foothill of the Khirthar range of hills and is not part of the Indus delta. It constitutes part of the territories of the chieftains who controlled the Hub Malir region and the Makran coast. This region, though part of Balochistan, has been a Sindhi-speaking area right up to the ‘Jamdom’ of Lasbella, the most important regional chiefdom. In the seventeenth century, the region was in control of the Kalmati Maliks who had dominated the area perhaps since the thirteenth century.
According to the findings of the study – Informal Sector Housing Study of goths in Karachi, 1990, by Abdul Hamid Shaikh, in the early periods, the settlements in Karachi were mostly characterised by fishing villages. A British commander, Carless, who was deputed with the task of surveying the coast of Karachi in the 18th century, wrote that the population of Karachi largely consisted of seamen and fishermen – the total population nearly 14,000. The British surveyed the goths of Karachi in 1885 that were progressively converted into grazing land and then agricultural land through cultivation due to the increasing demand for vegetables and fruits in the market.
Speaking about the existential threat faced by the rural Karachi’s inhabitants, it can best be qualified as a threat to its land use. The agriculture and grazing-based land use and its associated economy and culture are now being altered at an alarming pace through unplanned urbanisation. With the change in land use, the overall cultural, socio-economic and financial profile of the area is being transformed and distorted beyond recognition.
Here arises the need to create private-sector linkages for assistance and investment in setting up agricultural support services and infrastructure – more employment opportunities for youth and create a financial incentive to sustain the agro-urban economy and its associated livelihoods. Before this is possible, however, it is important to declare that the land in these outskirts of the city will be used for agricultural purposes only. It is also important to invest in the protection and sustenance of the valuable resources such as water and land.
The writer is an urban planner and runs a non-profit organisation based in Karachi city focusing on urban sustainability issues. He can be reached at [email protected]
Published in The Express Tribune, February 10th, 2014. | <urn:uuid:d8e775d4-0fa8-47e6-9947-2a3a85f1f1de> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tribune.com.pk/story/669686/save-a-city-karachis-oldest-inhabitants-in-danger-of-losing-their-identity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956115 | 861 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Ask Dr. SETI ®
Part of being able to copy the beacon signal is knowing what frequency it's on. Your job is to compensate for Doppler shift by knowing where the beacon is (shown on the status page), knowing where you are, and calculating the shift caused by the moon's relative motion. Our job is to keep the beacon on the stated frequency, 1296 MHz exactly, to the best of our ability.
Realistically, due to the physics of the EME path, frequency accuracy of more than ten Hz or so isn't critical. Even so, it's fun to keep it right, and we have to have some way to know if it's even that close. So, disregarding the two-watches theory, we use two watches. Specifically:
1: An atomic standard - an Efratom Rubidium standard. This has a typical accuracy of parts in 10^11th power, or 1 Hz in 100 GHz.
2: A GPS standard, which uses a disciplined quartz oscillator whose frequency is controlled by reception of GPS satellites.
This, too, has long-term errors that are even smaller than the Rb oscillator, although its short-term stability is slightly poorer. This standard was contributed to the project by Trimble Navigation.
Both standards derive their frequency accuracy independently, so as long as they agree they can both be assumed to be correct. Periodically we calibrate a high-quality quartz standard oscillator (H-P105B) against the atomic standards, so that if the two should somehow vary the quartz standard can determine which is correct. This hasn't been necessary yet.
The GPS standard (or the Rb standard - they're both the on same frequency) are then used to drive the timebase input of a H-P5334B counter, which is IEEE-488 controllable and has three input channels. One channel can directly measure the 1296 MHz output signal of the H-P 8660A frequency synthesizer. (Can anyone say eBay again)? The synthesizer is adjustable in 1 Hz steps, and the computer commands it to 1296000000 as well as controlling the output level in 1 dB steps. In addition to using an atomic standard as the timebase for the counter, that same signal, the other standard, along with the 1296 MHz signal are measured in turn during the beacon transmission interval.
Although the raw data usually indicates that the synthesizer is low by 2-4 Hz, we have determined that this is an artifact of the counter, which also measures its own timebase low by, typically .01 Hz (in 10 MHz.). Backup measurement by spectrum analysis and other instruments gives us confidence that the synthesizer is within +/- 2 Hz, and more likely +/- 1 Hz of being correct.
entire website copyright © The SETI League, Inc.
this page last updated 4 January 2003
Top of Page | <urn:uuid:b7d4aac5-ccfb-431e-ac7b-1657e0412a91> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://setileague.org/eme/freq.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941641 | 595 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Learning To Take Scientific Notes
During the 1997-1999 Antarctic field seasons, scientists from Italy, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom traveled to the Ross Sea near McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Their goal was to recover and analyze sediment cores from beneath the sea floor. The drill rig was set up on the Ross Sea ice near a small peninsula known as Cape Roberts, thus the project name is the Cape Roberts Project.
The cores were studied for two main reasons:
1) Use digital photographs of the core samples examined in the Cape Roberts Project to show students what scientists can study in geology. These can be accessed at:
2) Use overhead of Cape Roberts science notes to show an example of how these notes would be taken. Use overhead of "key" to show the various symbols used in these science notes. Explain that for this lesson, you will be using similar, but fewer notations.
3) Distribute student data collection pages, meter sticks and smaller metric rulers, plain white paper, and lengths of PVC pipe with edible sediment cores.
4) Students will examine sediment core and make notations on their data collection sheet that describe the various types of sediments, fossils, and glacial pebbles and cobbles in their section of core. These will be completed using the scale on the collection sheet. 5 cm of core equals 1 cm on the data sheet.
5) The teacher should circulate around the class to help with measurements, notations, and to answer questions. When the class period is over, collect all materials and edible core samples and store in a refrigerator until next class period. Each length of PVC pipe should be marked with the group member's names.
6) In a subsequent lesson, students can finish taking notes if they didn't finish in first lesson. In addition, each student in the group will mark their sediment core with a toothpick/flag to indicate where they would like to take a small sample. They take that sample, using a small cylindrical cookie cutter.
7) Students may eat their samples after examining them and after class discussion.
After students complete data collection sheets, discussion should focus on what they learned about taking accurate field notes and how important this is for scientists. | <urn:uuid:59ca0ab9-12bc-4641-93e9-966fde5c46cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tea.armadaproject.org/activity/tea_trummelcoreactivity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935152 | 462 | 4.0625 | 4 |
These four-dimensional objects are built layer by layer in a 3D printer. But given time – the fourth dimension – these devices can automatically morph into a different shape, and thereby even change their function.
Researchers at Purdue University have outlined a way to mass-produce circuits made of liquid-metal alloys using inkjet-printing technology, paving the way for “soft robots” and other kinds of flexible electronics.
Early Sunday morning, SpaceX mission CRS-4 lifted off from Cape Canaveral towards the International Space Station, carrying with it the first 3D printer that will operate in zero gravity. When the astronauts aboard the ISS use the 3D printer, they will become the first humans to ever manufacture goods away from planet Earth. It’s not quite the Moon- or Mars-based factory that we’ve always dreamed of, but it’s a very important first step towards manufacturing goods outside of Earth’s gravity, and thus the eventual colonization and industrialization of the Solar System.
Adobe is about to try to make 3D printing a whole-lot easier and more predictable with a free update to Photoshop CC that verifies and fixes models before they are sent to the printer. It has also added a cool new perspective correction tool and other features.
A team from Harvard is working with special nanoparticle inks that could make 3D printing batteries and other components a reality. This might be the push 3D printing needs to kick off that manufacturing revolution we’ve been hearing so much about.
Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox. | <urn:uuid:4bceb49f-595e-4f8c-9496-c1fb73583ae5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.extremetech.com/tag/3d-printers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903822 | 331 | 3.125 | 3 |
Hemophilia is an inherited bleeding disorder in which the blood does not clot properly. This can lead to spontaneous bleeding as well as bleeding following injuries or surgery.
Blood contains many proteins called clotting factors that can help to stop bleeding. People with hemophilia have low levels of either factor VIII (8) or factor IX (9). The severity of hemophilia that a person has is determined by the amount of factor in the blood. The lower the amount of the factor, the more likely it is that bleeding will occur which can lead to serious health problems.
Hemophilia is caused by a mutation or change, in one of the genes, that provides instructions for making the clotting factor proteins needed to form a blood clot. This change or mutation can prevent the clotting protein from working properly or to be missing altogether. These genes are located on the X chromosome. Males have one X and one Y chromosome (XY) and females have two X chromosomes (XX). Males inherit the X chromosome from their mothers and the Y chromosome from their fathers. Females inherit one X chromosome from each parent.
The X chromosome contains many genes that are not present on the Y chromosome. This means that males only have one copy of most of the genes on the X chromosome, whereas females have 2 copies. Thus, males can have a disease like hemophilia if they inherit an affected X chromosome that has a mutation in either the factor VIII or factor IX gene. Females can also have hemophilia, but this is much rarer. In such cases both X chromosomes are affected or one is affected and the other is missing or inactive. In these females, bleeding symptoms may be similar to males with hemophilia.
A female with one affected X chromosome is a "carrier" of hemophilia. Sometimes a female who is a carrier can have symptoms of hemophilia. In addition, she can pass the affected X chromosome with the clotting factor gene mutation on to her children. Learn more about the inheritance pattern for hemophilia.
Even though hemophilia runs in families, some families have no prior history of family members with hemophilia. Sometimes, there are carrier females in the family, but no affected boys, just by chance. However, about one-third of the time, the baby with hemophilia is the first one in the family to be affected with a mutation in the gene for the clotting factor.
Hemophilia can result in:
- Bleeding within joints that can lead to chronic joint disease and pain
- Bleeding in the head and sometimes in the brain which can cause long term problems, such as seizures and paralysis
- Death can occur if the bleeding cannot be stopped or if it occurs in a vital organ such as the brain.
"Do the 5"
Key prevention messages from the National Hemophilia Foundation’s National Prevention Program
Tips for Healthy Living
- Get an annual comprehensive checkup at a hemophilia treatment center.
- Get vaccinated—Hepatitis A and B are preventable.
- Treat bleeds early and adequately.
- Exercise and maintain a healthy weight to protect your joints.
- Get tested regularly for blood-borne infections.
There are several different types of hemophilia. The following two are the most common:
- Hemophilia A (Classic Hemophilia)
This type is caused by a lack or decrease of clotting factor VIII.
- Hemophilia B (Christmas Disease)
This type is caused by a lack or decrease of clotting factor IX.
Signs and Symptoms
Common signs of hemophilia include:
- Bleeding into the joints. This can cause swelling and pain or tightness in the joints; it often affects the knees, elbows, and ankles.
- Bleeding into the skin (which is bruising) or muscle and soft tissue causing a build-up of blood in the area (called a hematoma).
- Bleeding of the mouth and gums, and bleeding that is hard to stop after losing a tooth.
- Bleeding after circumcision (surgery performed on male babies to remove the hood of skin, called the foreskin, covering the head of the penis).
- Bleeding after having shots, such as vaccinations.
- Bleeding in the head of an infant after a difficult delivery.
- Blood in the urine or stool.
- Frequent and hard-to-stop nosebleeds.
Who is Affected
Hemophilia occurs in about 1 of every 5,000 male births. Currently, about 20,000 males in the United States are living with the disorder. Hemophilia A is about four times as common as hemophilia B, and about half of those affected have the severe form. Hemophilia affects people from all racial and ethnic groups.
Many people who have or have had family members with hemophilia will ask that their baby boys get tested soon after birth.
About one-third of babies who are diagnosed with hemophilia have a new mutation not present in other family members. In these cases, a doctor might check for hemophilia if a newborn is showing certain signs of hemophilia.
To make a diagnosis, doctors would perform certain blood tests to show if the blood is clotting properly. If it does not, then they would do clotting factor tests, also called factor assays, to diagnose the cause of the bleeding disorder. These blood tests would show the type of hemophilia and the severity.
The best way to treat hemophilia is to replace the missing blood clotting factor so that the blood can clot properly. This is done by infusing (administering through a vein) commercially prepared factor concentrates. People with hemophilia can learn how to perform these infusions themselves so that they can stop bleeding episodes and, by performing the infusions on a regular basis, can even prevent most bleeding episodes.
Good quality medical care from doctors and nurses who know a lot about the disorder can help prevent some serious problems. Often the best choice for care is to visit a comprehensive Hemophilia Treatment Center (HTC). An HTC not only provides care to address all issues related to the disorder, but also provides health education that helps people with hemophilia stay healthy.
Learn more about treatment
About 15-20 percent of people with hemophilia develop an antibody (called an inhibitor) that stops the clotting factors from being able to clot the blood and stop bleeding. Treatment of bleeding episodes becomes extremely difficult, and the cost of care for a person with an inhibitor can skyrocket because more clotting factor or a different type of clotting factor is needed. People with inhibitors often experience more joint disease and other problems from bleeding that result in a reduced quality of life.
- Page last reviewed: August 26, 2014
- Page last updated: August 26, 2014
- Content source: | <urn:uuid:29de7db5-f9c0-48e5-b97f-e52fca2af57a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/hemophilia/facts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946714 | 1,422 | 4.25 | 4 |
SAN DIEGO July 8, 2014 In a study published yesterday in the scientific journal Nature Immunology, a group at the La Jolla Institute (LJI) led by Pandurangan Vijayanand, Ph.D. identify new genes that likely contribute to asthma, a disease that currently affects over 200 million people world wide.
An organism's genetic material, also known as its genome, can be divided into small sections or 'neighborhoods.' Scientists can determine which genetic neighborhoods in a cell are active, or primed for gene production, by looking for a marker on the genome called an enhancer. An enhancer can increase the production of genes in its immediate neighborhood. The goal of the published study is to find genes whose neighborhoods are active in diseased cells, but inactive in healthy cells. Genes that are in active neighborhoods in diseased cells are likely to contribute to disease, and can potentially be targeted with drug treatments.
In order to find genetic neighborhoods that are active in asthmatic disease, the scientists in Vijayanand's group focus their experiments on memory cells, which develop abnormally in asthma patients. Memory cells are responsible for quickly responding to foreign substances called antigens that the host has been exposed to previously. Air passage inflammation, which characterizes asthma, is mediated by an overactive response to inhaled antigens by memory cells.
By applying his technique in small populations of abnormal memory cells, Vijayanand highlights 33 genetic neighborhoods that are highly active in diseased cells, but inactive in healthy cells, shifting the focus of asthma research to specific genes that are located in these neighborhoods.
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that are less precise, have previously identified 1,500 potential target regions associated with asthmatic disease. According to Vijayanand, these targets are too numerous to study individually, and as a result, the field has remained focused on just a few molecules for discovery of new asthma treatments. Using their approach, Vijayanand's team searched the 1,500 targets for those that have the greatest likelihood of contributing to asthmatic disease. "Our unbiased and hypothesis-free approach has revealed a staggering but manageable number of new molecules that could play a role in asthma, and thus are potentially novel therapeutic targets," said Vijayanand.
Vijayanand and his team completed the study using different amounts of cells from the blood of healthy individuals and asthmatic patients. They did so in order to determine the smallest number of cells that were required for their technique, and found that it works with as little as 10,000 cells, which is significantly less than the millions of cells required to use other methods. Vijayanand envisions using this technique in situations where access to cells is limited, such as tumor biopsy for cancer.
The frequency of asthma is rising across the developed world as well as in several large developing countries. Treatment for asthma usually includes long-term nonspecific medication, as there is no cure at present.
Vijayanand says this study provides information that can be the starting point for many avenues of research and treatment. He says, "our study provides a rich and comprehensive resource that will be useful to the scientific community, enabling investigators to conduct their own detailed studies of the functional significance of the novel genes and enhancers that we have identified."
|Contact: Daniel Moyer|
La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology | <urn:uuid:a391d606-c12c-42ba-880e-162f5e5749c9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/LJI-develops-new-approach-to-identify-genes-poised-to-respond-in-asthma-patients-127456-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970716 | 699 | 3.484375 | 3 |
(Salt Lake City, UT) – During the fall of 2010, the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) Oral Health Program (OHP) conducted a survey to assess oral health status among Utah children in first through third grades. The survey collected information on factors such as access to dental care, tooth decay, urgent treatment needs, sealant placement, and fluoride exposure.
The results indicate that Utah children have healthier teeth today when compared to five years ago. Overall dental decay fell from 55% in 2005 to 51% in 2010 for children ages 6 to 8. Untreated decay has decreased as well, from 21% in 2005 to 17% in 2010, which is substantially better than the federal Healthy People 2010 goal of 21%. However, dental sealants (thin, plastic coatings applied to the surfaces of the back teeth to prevent decay) remain underused in Utah. The study found just 36% of 8-year-olds had sealants, compared to 45% in 2005.
Among 6- to 9-year-old children who received a dental screening, more than half (52%) had prior tooth decay, while close to one-fifth (17%) had current untreated cavities. Just over a quarter (26%) of children had sealants present on a least one permanent molar. Of those screened, 2% had extensive tooth decay, infection, and/or pain.
“This means these children needed urgent dental care,” says State Dental Director Dr. Steven J. Steed. “If we take that two percent sample and apply it across the state, we believe there are more than 2,600 first, second and third graders who need to see a dentist today.”
Poverty and lack of dental insurance have repeatedly been shown to affect oral health status. More than one-fifth (22%) of parents surveyed in 2010 reported their child had no dental insurance, and 13% said there was a time during the past year when their child needed dental care but was unable to get it. The reasons most frequently cited for not getting care were “could not afford it” and “no insurance”.
Children with private dental insurance were also less likely than the uninsured to have filled or unfilled cavities or to have lost a tooth due to decay (45% vs. 55%). Untreated decay was twice as prevalent (27% vs. 13%) among children without dental insurance. And Hispanic and non-white children were more likely to have unmet needs compared to the overall population surveyed.
“There is a common belief among immigrants in the myth that it is inevitable to lose most of your teeth at an early age,” said Mauricio Agramont, Midvale Community Program Manager. “This is a direct result of a lack of access to basic oral health information and preventive care,” he said. “The gap in knowledge that Latino immigrants bring with them to this country is passed on to their children, creating a vicious cycle of poor dental health.”
Community water fluoridation has been considered the cornerstone of dental decay prevention and the most economical way to deliver the benefit of fluoride to all residents of a community. The UDOH study found that children who received long-term optimal levels of fluoride, either from fluoridated water or supplements, had 42% fewer decayed and filled tooth surfaces compared to children who had no fluoride exposure.
Although dental decay is preventable, it remains the most common chronic childhood disease. The OHP promotes dental education and decay prevention methods such as checkups, sealants, and fluoride (varnish, rinses, water, and supplements) for all youth. For more information or a copy of the complete report, contact the OHP at 801-538-9177 or visit the web site at | <urn:uuid:6f369299-7dd7-4d10-bce2-72aa5c91096a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://udohnews.blogspot.com/2012/02/utah-kids-have-fewer-cavities-but-too.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00105-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973158 | 781 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Edward Sapir (18841939). Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech. 1921.
developed in ceremonialism; the more advanced and highly specialized culture of Polynesia)?
The man in the street does not stop to analyze his position in the general scheme of humanity. He feels that he is the representative of some strongly integrated portion of humanitynow thought of as a nationality, now as a raceand that everything that pertains to him as a typical representative of this large group somehow belongs together. If he is an Englishman, he feels himself to be a member of the Anglo-Saxon race, the genius of which race has fashioned the English language and the Anglo-Saxon culture of which the language is the expression. Science is colder. It inquires if these three types of classificationracial, linguistic, and culturalare congruent, if their association is an inherently necessary one or is merely a matter of external history. The answer to the inquiry is not encouraging to race sentimentalists. Historians and anthropologists find that races, languages, and cultures are not distributed in parallel fashion, that their areas of distribution intercross in the most bewildering fashion, and that the history of each is apt to follow a distinctive course. Races intermingle in a way that languages do not. On the other hand, languages may spread far beyond their original home, invading the territory of new races and of new culture spheres. A language may even die out in its primary area and live on among peoples violently hostile to the persons of its original speakers. Further, the accidents of history are constantly rearranging the borders of culture areas without necessarily effacing the existing linguistic cleavages. If we can once thoroughly convince ourselves that race, in its only intelligible, that is biological, | <urn:uuid:98eca9b6-ef9a-4f59-bf74-210e93d0d64e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bartleby.com/186/pages/page222.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953705 | 361 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Analysis of a Hydraulic Turbine
Much effort is being made to develop efficient and cost-effective renewable energy solutions (see Ref.). In conventional hydropower, as well as in the more recent quest to harness the energy from waves and tides, well designed turbomachinery is essential. We feature the analysis of a new hydraulic turbine design to power a generator providing between 1.0 and 1.2 kW for remote dwellings not connected to an electrical supply grid. The analysis was performed by SIM&TEC S.A. using ADINA.
In the analysis, the turbine was modeled to determine its characteristic curves of torque and power vs. rotational speed. The figures are provided to give an idea of the general trend of the results, but do not include numerical data due to client confidentiality requirements. The movie above shows the calculated flow through the rotating turbine.
Figure 1 shows the geometry of the turbine. The finite element mesh used is shown in Figures 2 and 3.
In the fluid model, a rotating mesh (shown in red in Figure 2) attached to the blades was defined and a separate fixed mesh (green in Figure 2) was also defined, with a sliding surface between these two meshes. The rotating turbine is shown in the movie above.
Band plots from the analysis results are shown in Figures 4 to 6.
To investigate the effect of river flow turbulence on the results, different values of free flow turbulence intensity (It) were considered. The numerical results were obtained modeling the flow with two different turbulence models: the standard k-ε model and the SST (Shear Stress Transport) model that combines the k-ε model in the free flow and the k-ω model close to the walls. As shown in the Figures 7 to 9, both sets of results are almost coincident. | <urn:uuid:2545f36a-a90a-44f0-94d5-abdd93d6388b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.adina.com/newsgH65.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945817 | 367 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Leadership and Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations. It does this by taking a system approach. That is, it interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the whole person, whole group, whole organization, and whole social system. Its purpose is to build better relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives.
Related Journals of Leadership and Organization Behaviour
Entrepreneurship & Organization Management,Business and Economics Journal,Journal of International Business Studies ,Academy of Management Perspectives, Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Management and Organization Review Strategic, Entrepreneurship Journal, Transportation Research, Journal of Common Market Studies, International Journal of Electronic Commerce. | <urn:uuid:7f024665-c5ad-495e-a54a-cd3f596c4d92> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.omicsonline.org/scholarly/leadership-and-organization-behaviour-journals-articles-ppts-list.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.86699 | 164 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Molar Incisor Hypomineralisation: prevalence in Jordanian children and clinical characteristics.
AIM: To investigate Molar Incisor Hypomineralisation (MIH) in
Jordanian children in terms of prevalence, distribution and severity of
defects. METHODS: A cross-sectional national study with a representative
sample was used. A multistage random sampling system yielded 3,666, 7-9
year-old schoolchildren, from 97 public, private and UNRWA schools from
Amman, Irbid and Al-Karak. A questionnaire of six sections was sent to
the parents with a consent form to participate in the study. A total of
3,241 children participated resulting in a response rate of 88.4%. A
single calibrated investigator examined all children using established
criteria for MIH and molar hypomineralisation (MH). Analysis of data was
performed with a p value set at 0.05. RESULTS: Of the children examined,
570 (17.6%) were diagnosed with MIH with more females affected than
males (53% vs. 47%). The 570 subjects were distributed as MIH cases in
196 children (34.4%) and MH cases in 374 children (65.6%) given that at
least one incisor was erupted. Mandibular molars and maxillary central
incisors were more frequently affected (p<0.05). No significant
difference was found between right and left sides of the mouth. Most
defects were mild in severity (44%) and severity increased with age and
was related to the number of teeth affected (p<0.05). MIH teeth were
more severely affected than MH teeth. CONCLUSIONS: MIH was common among
7-9 year-old Jordanian children with a prevalence of 17.6% and was
gender related. MH was more common than MIH and can be considered a mild
form of an MIH spectrum. Majority of MIH and MH cases were mild in
nature but demonstrated an age-related severity.
Key words: molar-incisor-hypomineralisation, molar hypomineralisation, prevalence
(Care and treatment)
Dental caries (Research)
Children (Physiological aspects)
|Publication:||Name: European Archives of Paediatric Dentistry Publisher: European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry Audience: Academic Format: Magazine/Journal Subject: Health Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry ISSN: 1818-6300|
|Issue:||Date: Feb, 2011 Source Volume: 12 Source Issue: 1|
|Topic:||Event Code: 310 Science & research|
|Product:||Product Code: E121920 Children|
|Geographic:||Geographic Scope: Jordan Geographic Code: 7JORD Jordan|
Molar-Incisor-Hypomineralisation (MIH) is defined as hypomineralisation of systemic origin of one to four first permanent molars (FPM) and is frequently associated with affected incisors [Weerheijm et al., 2001a]. The lesions in the FPMs are often seen together with those in the maxillary and, more rarely, the mandibular incisors. These findings indicate a systemic upset during the first years of a child's life, more precisely during the period in which the crowns of FPMs and incisors are mineralized [Koch et al., 1987; Jalevik and Noren, 2000; Weerheijm et al., 2001a].
Paediatric dentists in Europe and Australia are now aware of MIH and a majority considers it to be a clinical problem [Weerheijm and Mejare, 2003; Arrow, 2008]. Due to the complication and difficulties in management of MIH, children at risk of this condition should be identified prior to FPM eruption, based upon a relevant history of putative aetiological factors in the first 3 years of life and from careful study under magnification of the unerupted molar crowns on any available radiographs [William et al., 2006]. However, only a limited number of studies concerning prevalence data of MIH have been available. Comparable and representative prevalence studies are lacking [Jalevik et al., 2001; Jasulaityte et al., 2007]. The limited prevalence data for MIH reflects several diagnostic classifications [Jalevik et al., 2001].
Prevalence. Based on the criteria of Weerheijm , the prevalence ranges from 4% to 25% [William et al., 2006]. Following the establishment of the diagnostic criteria, the prevalence of MIH seems to vary from 3.6% to 25% in European countries, while there are no epidemiological data on its prevalence from North America [William et al., 2006; Jasulaityte et al., 2007]. In East Asia a single study has reported a prevalence of MIH in Hong Kong to be 2.8% in a sample of 2,635 children with a mean age of 12 years [Cho et al., 2008]. Prevalence studies in the Middle East are still lacking [He and Swain, 2007]. A single study in Greece with a small sample size of 250 children, 7-12 years old, reported prevalence of 14.8% [Lygidakis et al., 2008]. The aim of this study was, therefore, to investigate the prevalence of MIH in Jordanian Arab population, and to define the clinical features, severity and distribution of the defects in the affected individuals.
Methods and materials
Study population. In this cross-sectional national study, a cluster random sample was chosen from the cities of Irbid, Amman and Al-Karak representing the Northern, Middle and Southern parts of Jordan, respectively. A weighted multistage random sampling was adopted to select the children. The first stage comprised a list of all schools teaching 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades (ages 7-9 years) which was obtained from the Ministry of Education in Jordan. A random selection of 5% of the schools [(private, public and The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)), (females, males and mixed)] using random selection tables was performed. The second stage comprised the random selection of 25% of students. The total sample size included 97 schools with 34 in Irbid, 49 in Amman and 14 in AL-Karak, and 3,666 students in total.
Diagnosis of MIH and exclusion criteria. MIH and molar hypomineralisation (MH) were diagnosed clinically based on the diagnostic criteria established by Weerheijm (Table 1). Children were considered as having MIH when one or more FPM with or without the involvement of the incisors, when at least one of the incisors is erupted, meeting the diagnostic criteria [Weerheijm et al., 2003]. Children were considered as having MH when one or more FPMs without the involvement of the incisors meet the diagnostic criteria [Chawla et al., 2008b]. All hypomineralised lesions regardless of their size were considered for the diagnosis of the defect. The degree of severity of MIH was determined according to Wetzel and Reckel Scale (Table 1) [Preusser et al., 2007].
Participants with all four FPMs and at least one incisor erupted were included in the study. Partially erupted molars and incisors were included in the examination. FPMs with preformed metal crowns were diagnosed as atypical restorations and were considered cases of MIH. Absence of a FPM due to extraction was related to the condition of other teeth in the dentition. Subjects with all FPMs extracted not due to orthodontic reasons, with MIH signs in any remaining incisors, were diagnosed with MIH.
Changes in dental enamel such as amelogenesis imperfecta, dentinogenesis imperfecta, hypoplasia, diffuse opacities, white spot lesions, tetracycline staining, erosion, fluorosis, white cuspal and marginal ridges were excluded from the study. Opacities noted only on the incisors, or incisors with composite resin restorations with no molar involvement were not diagnosed as MIH.
Examiner reproducibility. The same investigator (MA) who carried out all examinations was extensively trained and calibrated to perform the dental examination and diagnose MIH/MH. Calibration of intra-examiner reproducibility was assessed on a group of 20 children aged 7-9 years old at Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Dental Teaching Centre R=0.95. The examiner was re-calibrated during the study and reproducibility assessed every time one tenth of the sample was examined by re-examination of the first child in that group. In total, 178 children were reexamined during the study and intra-examiner reproducibility was found to be R=0.995 according to Cronbach's Alpha test.
Clinical examination. This was performed by the calibrated investigator in schools where children were examined sitting in an ordinary chair using daylight supplemented with a head light and a portable penlight torch. Examination utilized individually wrapped and sterilized mouth mirrors, probe, gauze and dental gloves. Teeth were dried with gauze and if necessary, cotton rolls were used to remove any residual debris. A full mouth inspection was performed and data was recorded. The examination form contained a section on the demographic data including the name, age, gender, school and residence, and a chart for data entry of the diagnosis and severity of MIH.
Case de-identification and data management. Following data collection, subjects were de-identified and re-coded for anonymity. The analysis of data was carried out using Statistical Package for Social Sciences Computer Software (SPSS 17.0, Inc, and Chicago, USA). A probability value of less than 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant.
After initial screening and recruitment of children, parents of 3,241 children signed and returned the consent form resulting in a response rate of 88.4%. Examinations were performed during the period between March and June 2009.
Biographic and demographic distribution. The total number of children in the sample was 3,241, with slightly more males than females [1702 (52.5%) vs. 1539 (47.5%)]; the mean age was 8.4 [+ or -] 0.7 years. The distribution of the sample among the three territories was as follows: 1,298 children from Irbid (North), 1,723 from Amman (Middle) and 220 from AL-Karak (South). According to school type 1,897 children were from government schools, 1,067 from private schools and 277 from UNRWA schools.
Prevalence of Molar Incisor Hypomineralisation. By the end of the study, 570 children with MIH were identified, indicating an overall prevalence of 17.6% in Jordan. Distribution of the affected sample is shown in Table 2. The dentitions diagnosed with enamel hypomineralisation were distributed as follows: MIH cases in 196 children (34.4%), of which almost equal numbers of males and females were affected [99 (17.4%) vs. 97 (17%)]; the remaining 374 cases (65.6%) were MH given that at least one incisor was erupted. Of those children, girls were more affected than boys [205 (36%) vs. 169 (29.6%)] but with no statistical significance (P=0.226). There was no significant relationship between MH and MIH between males and females in the different age groups.
The 196 children diagnosed with MIH were distributed as follows: 95 children (48.5%) with hypomineralised molars and incisors with all incisors erupted, 101 (51.5%) children with hypomineralised molars and incisors and not all incisors erupted. The 374 children with MH were distributed as: 174 children (46.5%) with a single hypomineralised molar only, 96 children (26%) with 2 affected molars, 46 children (12%) with 3 molars and 28 children (7.5%) with all molars affected with MH and 30 children (8%) with affected permanent and primary molars. Not all incisors were erupted in 173 of those diagnosed with MH (46.3%).
Distribution of the affected teeth in the MIH children. Overall there were 1,487 teeth affected in the 570 children; 1,147 molars and 340 incisors as shown in Figure 1. In the molar group, mandibular molars were more frequently affected than maxillary ones (613 (53.4%) vs. 534 (46.6)). Chi-Square analysis of the results indicated a statistically significant relationship with a p value of <0.02. No significant differences existed between hypomineralised maxillary right and left molars (P=0.665) or between hypomineralised mandibular right and left molars (P=0.069).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
In the incisor group, maxillary incisors were more frequently affected than mandibular ones with a statistically significant difference (P=0.00), but no difference was found between maxillary right and left incisors (P=0.562) and mandibular right and left incisors (P=0.482). In the case of central incisors, significantly more maxillary central incisors were involved (p=0.00). A difference was found between maxillary and mandibular incisors (P=0.00) with maxillary central incisors being more affected than their mandibular counterparts, however no significant difference was found between maxillary right and left central incisors (P=0.790) or mandibular right and left central incisors (P=0.577). In contrast, lower lateral incisors were more affected than maxillary lateral incisors but without any significant difference (P=0.206). Overall, the mandibular right molar was the most frequently affected (22%) while maxillary left lateral incisor was the least commonly affected (0.3%).
Distribution of children and teeth affected with all "index" teeth erupted. In order to examine and evaluate further the distribution of all affected teeth in MIH children, a sub-group of children with all their 12 'index' teeth (all FPM, and all maxillary and mandibular central and lateral incisors) erupted was formed; 296 children aged 7-9 years, 123 boys and 173 girls fulfilling these criteria were included. This subgroup of children recorded 731 affected teeth, 555 molars and 176 incisors, the mean number of affected teeth per child being 2.5; 1.9 for molars and 0.6 for incisors.
In contrast to what might be expected from the presence of all erupted 'index' teeth, the percentage of children that had both molars and incisors affected was lower in this group, 32.1% compared with 36.9% in the group of MIH where all index teeth were not erupted and to 34% in the group of all MIH children but without significant difference (p=0.213). The remaining 67.9% had only molars affected. However, the type of teeth most commonly affected in the 'index' group was exactly the same as in the previous 'all MIH children' group, indicating the reliability of our previous findings. Table 3 illustrates the distribution of children by combination of affected teeth in MIH cases with all 'index' teeth affected.
Overall in descending order the associations most frequently found were: two molars/one incisor (16%), one molar/one incisor (15%), three molars/one incisor (14%), two molars/ two incisors (10%) and one molar/two incisors (9%). The remaining associations were much less frequently found.
Prevalence of the severity of MIH. From the total of 1,147 molars affected with MIH according to Wetzel and Reckel Scale, 508 molars (44%) presented with mild lesions, 163 molars (14%) were considered to be moderate and 476 molars (42%) with severe lesions. From the total of 340 incisors affected with MIH, only four incisors presented with severe hypomineralisation while the majority of cases were considered mild in nature (301 incisors, 89%). Moderate cases accounted for only 1% of incisors.
As age increased the clinical severity of affected teeth became more prevalent. Regarding molars, there was an age related statistically significant reduction of mild cases and an increase of severe cases (P=0.000). By 7 and 8 years of age, the most common degree of severity was the mild form affecting 67 (51.1%) and 161 (47.8) respectively of the molars affected in that age group. While at 9 years of age, 312 (46%) of molars affected were had the severe form (Table 3). For incisors, the most common degree of severity was the mild form regardless of age of the child (Table 4).
A statistically significant relationship (P=0.000) was found between the number of affected molars in each case and the severity of defect suggesting a trend that as the number of affected molars increased the severity of the defect increased.
Study sample. This cross-sectional large-scale epidemiological national survey with a representative sample used a random multi-staged sample to ensure representation of three geographic areas in Jordan and three different types of schools. The final sample size of 3,241 schoolchildren was almost equally distributed between males and females.
The age range chosen in the study (7-9 years) was considered most appropriate for the proper assessment of MIH. As at this age, in most children, all 4 FPMs would have erupted, and the majority of incisors. In addition, the risks that enamel hypomineralisation would be masked by caries and/or restorations were minimal. In order to assure consistency in sample examination, a single investigator was used after calibration prior to the commencement of the study and whose reliability was tested prior to and during the study.
Aspects of diagnostic criteria. To define a 'true' prevalence of MIH in Jordan, the diagnostic criteria recommended by the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry [Weerheijm, 2003] were used. Thus any visible defect, regardless of size, was included in contrast to other studies where defects equal to or larger than 2 mm were considered [Alaluusua et al., 1996a; Jalevik et al., 2001; Leppaniemi et al., 2001; Calderara et al., 2005]. Children with only one affected molar were included and subjects with all FPMs extracted, not due to orthodontic reasons, with MIH signs in one other index tooth, were diagnosed as MIH.
Prevalence of MIH. The overall prevalence of MIH was 17.6% among 7-9 year-old school children in Jordan. Although comparing epidemiological studies from different countries is not applicable because of variations in criteria, sample selection, lesions included and aetiological and environmental factors exist, this study showed that MIH in Jordan was moderately prevalent by comparison with data for other countries.
The prevalence of MIH in Jordan appears to be close to that reported in Sweden (18.4%) among 7-8 year-olds, Finland (17%) among 7-8 year olds and (19.3%) among 7-13 year -olds [Alaluusua et al., 1996a; Jalevik et al., 2001; Leppaniemi et al., 2001]. The high percentages of MIH recorded in some of the previous studies may be attributed to smaller sample sizes, examination of special groups, such as those with prolonged breast feeding or pre-term birth histories, or as a result of using different indices and diagnostic criteria not differentiating between demarcated and diffuse opacities [Alaluusua et al., 1996b; Aine et al., 2000, Leppaniemi et al., 2001; Arrow, 2008].
Comparing the results herein to the only study of the prevalence of MIH in East Asia by Cho et al. in Hong Kong, it was much higher in Jordan (17.6% vs. 2.8%) despite the fact that both studies utilized the same diagnostic criteria. The difference may be because the mean age of children examined in Hong Kong was 12.0 years. When older children are studied, high caries activity, wear and restorations could have superimposed the developmental defects that might be obscured by restorative treatment.
Only two studies were part of large-scale epidemiological national surveys [Koch et al., 1987; Kosem et al., 2004]. In the study by Koch et al. six age groups of children (born in 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1974) were examined when they were 8-13 year olds. Children born in 1970 (examined at 9 years of age) had a prevalence of 15.4%, which is close to the prevalence of our study in spite of differences in the diagnostic criteria utilized. Kosem et al. reported the prevalence of MIH in 2,339 Slovenian adolescents, 12-18 year old children to be 14%.
Gender predilection was evident in this study with girls more affected than boys (53% vs. 47%). It is speculated that as girls are more advanced than boys in dental development, affected FPMs may be more advanced in their eruption. This would expose hypomineralised molars to masticatory forces and leading to post eruptive breakdown compared with boys of the same age [Chawla et al., 2008a].
The results of the current study demonstrated a significant relationship between the occurrence of MIH and age. A higher prevalence was reported in 9 year olds compared with 7 and 8 year olds (58.2% vs. 11.6% and 30.2% respectively). That increased prevalence may also be related to a specific environmental factor in the year of birth of the group examined.
Clinical characteristics of MIH. Upon assessing the clinical characteristics of MIH in the population studied, a wide spectrum of the defect was noted. The MH cases were twice as common than MIH (65.6% vs. 34.4%). In the sub-group of children with all their molars and incisors 'index' teeth erupted, similar percentages were also found (67.9% vs. 32.1%). This supports the description of the clinical characteristics mentioned and emphasises the higher prevalence of MH over MIH in Jordanian children.
Although not proven with certainty, variation in the susceptibility of maxillary and mandibular molars to MIH was emphasised in this study. Mandibular molars were more frequently affected than maxillary ones. This was in agreement with Jasulaityte et al. and Jalevik et al. but contradicted other studies that found a similar distribution of hypomineralised molars between arches [Weerheijm et al., 2001b; Cho et al., 2008, Chawla et al., 2008a], and that more maxillary molars were affected than mandibular [Leppaniemi et al., 2001; Preusser et al., 2007; Muratbegovic et al., 2007; Lygidakis et al., 2008].
Several factors may explain the arch difference of MH prevalence as maxillary and mandibular molars may be examined under differing conditions. The sitting position of children during examination, the lighting source may obscure the MH lesions in maxillary molars, and whether teeth were examined wet or dry. The higher prevalence of MH in the mandible could also be due to earlier eruption than maxillary molars [Nanda, 1960]. Erupting earlier, hypomineralised mandibular molars may be examined better, may have already under gone post-eruptive enamel breakdown or may be carious making them more obviously affected than maxillary molars.
As with all other studies, maxillary incisors were more frequently affected than mandibular. In central incisors, similar differences were found between arches and between sides of the mouth. In contrast, mandibular lateral incisors were more affected than maxillary ones but without a significant difference (P=0.827), in agreement with Jasulaityte et al. . This may be explained as the majority of maxillary lateral incisors not being erupted or assessed due to less than half of a crown being erupted and lesions not noticed, contradicting Preusser et al. and Lygidakis et al. , who reported maxillary lateral incisors more affected than mandibular ones. The age group of the children in the two studies extended up to 12 year-olds increasing a chance of full eruption of maxillary lateral incisors at the time of examination [Preusser et al., 2007; Lygidakis et al., 2008].
Severity of MIH. In agreement with other reports investigating the same age group, most of the defects noticed and recorded in this study were mild in severity (44%) [Jalevik et al., 2001; Preusser et al., 2007; Jasulaityte et al., 2007]. As hypomineralised teeth erupt, they are very susceptible to dental caries and post-eruptive enamel breakdown because of mastication. As soon as an affected tooth erupts it is likely that its condition will deteriorate quickly with destruction explaining why fewer teeth are detected with moderate severity which might explain the age-dependant findings as supported in previously published studies [Leppaniemi et al., 2001; Jasulaityte et al., 2007].
A noteworthy finding was the association between teeth affected in the cases of MIH and the degree of severity. This association may be the result of the variation in timing, duration and severity of an insult or combination of insults affecting ameloblasts during the maturation stage of amelogenesis [Jalevik et al., 2001; Leppaniemi et al., 2001; Jasulaityte et al., 2007; Lygidakis et al., 2008]. A higher percentage of children with affected molars and incisors had severe hypomineralisation (44%) than the children with only one type of teeth affected (40%). Involvement of both molars and incisors may be related to more severe insults acting for a longer time on ameloblasts.
Comparing affected dentitions, the mean number of affected FPMs and their severity of hypomineralisation was higher in dentitions with MIH than MH. Chawla et al. [2008a] speculated that MIH and MH form an 'MIH spectrum' of developmental defects of enamel, where MIH is the more severe form of hypomineralisation, affecting both FPMs and permanent incisors, and MH is the milder form, affecting FPMs only. As the precipitating condition or conditions increase in severity and/ or duration, more teeth are affected and the effects on mineralisation become more apparent [Chawla et al., 2008a]. The findings in this study support such a suggestion.
Molar-incisor hypomineralisation (MIH) was common among 7-9 year old Jordanian school-children with a prevalence of 17.6% with a predilection for girls and place of residence. Molar Hypomineralisation (MH) was commoner than MIH, even in cases where all 'index' teeth were erupted. Variation in the susceptibility of maxillary and mandibular teeth was noted, with mandibular molars more affected than maxillary ones while in the incisor group maxillary incisors are more commonly affected. The majority of MIH and MH cases in Jordan children were mild in nature but demonstrated an age-related severity and was directly proportionate to the number of teeth affected.
Aine L, Backstrom MC, Maki R, et al. Enamel defects in primary and permanent teeth of children born prematurely. J Oral Pathol Oral Med 2000;29:403-409.
Alaluusua S, Lukinmaa PL, Vartiainen T, et al. Polychlorinated dibenzo-pdioxins and di-benzofurans via mother's milk may cause development defects in the child's teeth. Environ Toxicol Pharmacol 1996a;1:193-197.
Alaluusua S, Lukinmaa PL, Koskimies M, et al. Developmental dental defects associated with long breast-feeding. Eur J Oral Sci 1996b;104:493-497.
Arrow P. Prevalence of developmental enamel defects of the first Permanent molars among school children in Western Australia. Aust Dent J 2008;53:250-259.
Calderara PC, Gerthoux PM, Mocarelli P. The prevalence of molar-incisor hypomineralisation in a group of Italian school children. Eur J Peadiatr Dent 2005;2:79-83.
Chawla N, Messer LB, Silva M. Clinical Studies on Molar-Incisor-Hypominer alisation Part 1: Distribution and Putative Associations. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 2008a;9:180-190.
Chawla N, Messer LB, Silva M. Clinical Studies on Molar-Incisor-Hypomineral isation. Part 2: Development of a Severity Index. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 2008b;9:191-199.
Cho S, Ki Y, Chu V. Molar incisor hypomineralisation in Hong Kong Chinese children. Int J Paediatr Dent 2008;18:348-352.
He L, Swain V. Enamel- A 'metallic-like' deformable biocomposite. J Dent 2007;35:431-437.
Jalevik B, Dietz W, Noren J. G. Scanning electron micrograph analysis of hypomineralised enamel in permanent first molars. Int J Paediatr Dent 2005;15:233-240.
Jalevik B, Klingberg G, Barregard L, Noren JG. The prevalence of demarcated opacities in permanent first molars in a group of Swedish children. Acta Odontol Scand 2001;59:255-260.
Jalevik B, Noren JG. Enamel hypomineralisation of permanent first molars. A morphological study and survey of possible aetiological factors. Int J Paediatr Dent 2000;10:278-289.
Jalevik B, Klingberg GA. Dental treatment, dental fear and behaviour management problems in children with severe enamel hypomineralisation of their permanent first molars. Int J Paediatr Dent 2002;12:24-32.
Jasulaityte L, Veerkamp J.S, Weerheijm K.L. Molar incisor hypomineralisation: review and prevalence data from a study of primary school children in Kaunas. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 2007;8:87-94.
Koch G, Hallonsten A-L, Ludvigsson N. Epidemiologic study of idiopathic enamel hypomineralisation in permanent teeth of Swedish children. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 1987;15: 279-285.
Kosem R, Senk Erpic A, Kosir N, Kastelec D. Prevalence of enamel defects with emphasis on molar-incisor-hypomineralisation in Slovenian children and adolescents (abstract). Barcelona, Spain. 7th Congress of the EAPD 2004.
Leppaniemi A, Lukinmaa PL, Alaluusua S. Nonfluo-ride hypomineralisation in the permanent first molars and their impact on the treatment need. Caries Res 2001;35:36-40.
Lygidakis NA, Dimou G, Briseniou E. Molar-Incisor-Hypomineralisation (MIH). Retrospective clinical study in Greek children I. Prevalence and defect characteristics. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 2008;9:200-206.
Muratbegovic A, Markovic N, Ganibegovic Selimovic M. Molar-incisorhypomineralisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina: etiology and clinical consequences in medium caries activity population. Eur Arch Paediatr Dent 2007;8:189-194.
Nanda RS. Eruption of human teeth. Am J Orthod 1960;46:363-378.
Preusser SE, Ferring V, Wleklinski C, Wetzel WE. Prevalence and severity of molar-incisor-hypomineralisation in a region of Germany--a brief communication. J Public Health Dent 2007;67:148-150.
Weerheijm KL, Jalevik B, Alaluusua S. Molar-incisor hypomineralisation. Caries Res 2001a;35:390-391.
Weerheijm KL, Groen HJ, Beentjes V, Poorterman JHG. Prevalence of cheese molars in eleven year old Dutch children. J Dent Child 2001b;68:259-262.
Weerheijm KL, Mejare I. Molar incisor hypomineralisation: A questionnaire inventory of its occurrence in member countries of the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry (EAPD). Int J Paediatr Dent 2003;13:411-416.
Weerheijm KL. Molar Incisor Hypomineralisation. Eur J Oral Science 2003;3:115-120.
Weerheijm KL, Duggal M, Mejare I, et al. Judgement criteria for molar incisor hypomineralisation (MIH) in epidemiologic stud-ies: a summary of the European meeting on MIH held in Athens, 2003. Eur J Paediatr Dent 2003;4:110-113.
William V, Messer LB, Burrow M. Molar Incisor Hypomineralisation: Review and Recommendations for Clinical Management. Pediatr Dent 2006;28:224-232.
F.I. Zawaideh, S.H. Al-Jundi, M.H. Al-Jaljoli
Dept. Paediatric Dentistry, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan.
Postal address: Dr. F.I. Zawadieh. P.O. Box 488, Irbid 211-10 Jordan.
Table 1. Diagnostic criteria and degree of severity of MIH Diagnostic criteria: 1. Demarcated opacities 2. Posteruptive enamel break down 3. Atypical restoration 4. Extraction of molars due to MIH 5. Failure of eruption of a molar or an incisor Other changes in dental enamel such as amelogenesis imperfecta, hypoplasia, diffuse opacities, white spot lesions, tetracycline staining, erosion, flourosis, white cuspal and marginal ridges should be excluded. Wetzel and Reckel scale of the degree of severity: 1. Isolated white and cream to yellowish-brown discolourations on the chewing surface and upper part of the crown. 2. Hypomineralised yellowish-brown enamel affecting more or less all the humps on the top of the crown, but with only a slight loss of substance. Large-scale mineral deficiency with distinct yellowish brown discolourations and defects in crown morphology resulting from extensive loss of enamel. Table 2. Distribution of MIH in a population of Jordanian children based on biographic and demographic details. Population Criteria Diagnosis P value No MIH MIH n % n % Gender Male 1,434 (84.3%) 268 (15.7%) 0.004 * Female 1,237 (80.4%) 302 (19.6%) Age in 7.0 304 (82.2%) 66 (17.8%) 0.05 * years 8.0 995 (85.3%) 172 (14.7%) 9.0 1,372 (80.5%) 331 (19.5%) * Statistically significant relationship (p<0.05) Table 3. The distribution of affected teeth in a group of Jordanian children with MIH with all 'index' teeth erupted. Teeth affected Molars with: One Two Three Four Total molar molars molars molars n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) Alone 95 55 34 17 201 (32.1%) (18.6%) (11.5%) (5.7%) (68%) +1 incisor 15 16 14 5 50 (5.1%) (5.4%) (4.7%) (1.7%) (17%) +2 incisors 9 10 5 5 29 (3%) (3.4%) (1.7%) (1.7%) (10%) +3 incisors 3 1 4 2 10 (1%) (0.3%) (1.4%) (0.7%) (3%) +4 incisors 0 1 3 1 5 (0%) (0.3%) (1%) (0.3%) (1.7%) +5 incisors 0 0 0 0 0 (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) +6 incisors 0 0 0 1 1 (0%) (0%) (0%) (0.3%) (0.3%) +7 incisors 0 0 0 0 0 (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) +8 incisors 0 0 0 0 0 (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) (0%) Total 122 83 60 31 296 (41%) (28%) (20%) (11%) (100%) Table 4. Distribution of 1,147 affected MIH molars in a population of Jordanian children according to degree of severity and age. Age of child Degree of severity Total number P value of affected molars 7 years old Mild 67 (51.1%) Moderate 22 (16.8%) Severe 42 (32.1%) Total 131 (100%) 8 years old Mild 161 (47.8%) 0.000 * Moderate 54 (16%) Severe 122 (36.2%) Total 337 (100%) 9 years old Mild 280 (41.2%) Moderate 87 (12.8%) Severe 312 (46%) Total 679 (100%) * Pearson correlation, statistically significant relationship (p<0.05) Table 5. Distribution of 340 MIH affected incisors in a population of Jordanian children according to degree of severity and age. Age Degree of severity Total number P value of affected incisors 7 years old Mild 30 (86%) Moderate 5 (14%) Severe 0 (0%) Total 35 (100%) 8 years old Mild 100 (90%) 0.000 * Moderate 9 (8%) Severe 2 (2%) Total 111 (100%) 9 years old Mild 171 (88%) Moderate 21 (11%) Severe 2 (1%) Total 194 (100%) * Pearson correlation, statistically significant relationship (P<0.05)
|Gale Copyright:||Copyright 2011 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.| | <urn:uuid:2abd4c57-9dc1-440e-95da-853209e36243> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.biomedsearch.com/article/Molar-Incisor-Hypomineralisation-prevalence-in/277106724.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930115 | 8,398 | 2.984375 | 3 |
King Henry II Biography
Facts and interesting information about this famous Medieval King of England - King Henry II Biography
Short Biography about the life of King Henry II of England
The following biography, short history and interesting facts provide helpful information for history courses and history coursework about the life of King Henry II King of England:
- Country of Origin / Nationality: French / English
- Also Known by the Nicknames: "Curt Mantle" (because he wore practical short cloaks), "Fitz Empress" ( meaning the son of an Empress: Matilda) and also "The Lion of Justice" which was a nickname first given to his grandfather Henry I
- The word Angevin derives from Anjou (the father of King Henry II was Geoffrey of Anjou)
- The word Plantagenet derives from the French plant 'genet' and a spray of this broom blossom was worn by King Henry II in his cap. This nickname became "Plantagenet;" which became a kind of surname to the kings of England.
- Lifetime: 1133 – 1189
- Period he reigned as King of England: 1154–1189
- Born: King Henry II was born on 5 March 1133 at Le Mans
- Close family connections or relatives: Grandson of King Henry I. He was the son of Queen Matilda and Geoffrey of Anjou
- King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine had the following children:
- Henry the Young King (1155–1183)
- Richard I (1157–1199)
- Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany (1158–1186)
- Matilda, Duchess of Saxony (1156–1189)
- Leonora of England (1161–1214)
- Joan Plantagenet (1165–1199)
- John (1167–1216)
- King Henry II had two illegitimate children:
- Geoffrey, Archbishop of York (1152–1226)
- William de Longespee, 3rd Earl of Salisbury (1176- 1226)
- Henry II Married: Eleanor of Aquitaine on 18 May 1152
- Date succeeded to the throne of England: 1154. His coronation was on 19 December 1154
- Date when King Henry II died: 6 July 1189 at the Chateau Chinon. King Henry II was buried Fontevraud Abbey
- Character of King Henry II: Clever, strong, determined and spirited. He had a terrible temper
- Accomplishments and Achievements or why King Henry II was famous: He was the first of the Plantagenet or Angevin Kings. He made Ireland a part of his vast domain. He struggled with Thomas Beckett who ended up being murdered in Canterbury Cathedral
King Henry II
The story and biography of King Henry II which contains interesting information, facts & the history about the life of King Henry II
Timeline of King Henry II
The story of King Henry I ( Nicknames : "Curt Mantle", "Fitz Empress" and "The Lion of Justice")
Henry Fitz-Empress was the first king of the Plantagenet family, also called the House of Anjou. He followed King Stephen as King of England. A strong king who pulled down almost all the Castles that had been built in Stephen's time to gain control and power over the barons. Henry was an extremely powerful king who was lord of nearly half France.
The story of King Henry I and Thomas a Becket
King Henry II ruled England well and made many laws. One was that, if a priest or monk was thought to have committed any crime, he should be tried by a king's judge, instead of a bishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket, refused to consent to this law. Thomas a Becket and King Henry II had once been great friends but this refusal led to their argument. King Henry was so angry with him that Thomas a Becket was forced to leave England, and take shelter with the King of France. Six years passed by before a temporary reconciliation was made. The archbishop realised that the king still hated him. Just after his return, Thomas a Becket laid under censure some persons who had given offence. They went and complained to the king, and Henry exclaimed in passion, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Four of his knights who heard these words set forth to Canterbury. The archbishop guessed why they were come; but he would not flee again, and waited for them by the altar in the cathedral, not even letting the doors be shut. There they slew him. King Henry was devastated by this act which had been prompted by his own words. After three years King Henry showed his penitence by entering Canterbury Cathedral barefoot and knelt before the tomb of Thomas a Becket. The penitence continued with every priest or monk in turn to strike him with a rod.
The story of King Henry I and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine
Whilst the dispute with Thomas a Becket was going on, the Earl of Pembroke, called Strongbow, one of Henry's nobles, had gone over to Ireland and obtained a little kingdom there, which he professed to hold for King Henry. The Kings of England became became Lords of Ireland, though for a long time they only had the Province of Leinster, and were always at war with the Irish around. Henry was a most powerful king; but his latter years were very unhappy. His wife was a difficult woman, and her sons were all disobedient and rebellious. Once all the three eldest sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, and their mother, left the court, and began to make war upon him. King Henry was much stronger and soon forced them to submit. Queen Eleanor was incarcerated in a strong castle in England as long as he lived. Her sons were much more fond of her than of their father, and they thought this usage so hard, that they were all the more ready to break out against him.
King Henry I and his son, Henry the Young King
In 1170, his eldest son Henry ( known as Henry the Young King) was crowned king of England as Henry III. Historians know him as Henry "the Young King" so as not to confuse him with the later king of this name who was his nephew. The battle between father and son raged on when Henry, who was leading an army against his father, when he was taken ill, and felt himself dying. He sent an entreaty that his father would forgive him, and come to see him. But the young man had so often been false and treacherous, that Henry feared it was only a trick to get him as a prisoner, and only sent his ring and a message of pardon; and young Henry died, pressing the ring to his lips, and longing to hear his father's voice.
King Henry I and his other sons, Geoffrey, Richard and John
Geoffrey, his third son, was killed by a fall from his horse, and there were only two sons left alive, Richard and John. News came that the Mohammedans in the Holy Land had won Jerusalem back again; and the Pope called on all Christian princes to go on a crusade to recover the Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The kings of England and France, young Richard, and many more, were roused to take the cross; but while arrangements for going were being made, a fresh dispute about them arose, and Richard went away in a rage, got his friends together, and, with King Philip of France to help him, began to make war on King Henry. His father was feeble, and worn out, and could not resist as in former times. He fell ill, and gave up the struggle, saying he would grant all they asked. The list of Richard's friends whom he was to pardon was brought to him, and the first name he saw in it was that of John, his youngest son, and his favourite, the one who had never before rebelled. His heart was broken and in the year 1189, Henry II died.
Famous Medieval Kings - King Henry II
Interesting facts and information with a short biography about the Medieval Life, Times and history of King Henry II. Additional useful details, facts, history, biography, timeline and information about the lives of all of the Medieval Kings of England and the important events which occurred during their times, can be accessed via the Medieval Life and Times Sitemap. The content of this article on Medieval life and times provides free educational details, facts and information for reference and research for schools, colleges and homework for history courses and history coursework. | <urn:uuid:396ea7eb-3ff0-4de4-a028-6d772b225264> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-kings/king-henry-ii-biography.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985283 | 1,807 | 3.625 | 4 |
"Use of Research in Teaching and Learning"
The pressure to produce in the education profession has increased tremendously and seems to be coming from every quarter, from parents to politicians. The concern has spawned another periodic reform movement that involves a host of professional organizations as well as individual attempts at restructuring curriculum. The politicians have stepped in and demanded accountability by testing without regard to reliability or validity. Unfortunately, there seems to be a great chasm between the cognitive scientist and the educational theorist and an even wider gap between the theorist and the practitioner. In order to change the scientific literacy rate from its current 7% of the U.S. population by an order of magnitude, we need to do something beyond designing a few learning cycles that incorporate some social science and writing skills or worse continue to beat teachers and students with tests and more tests.
We need to develop some educational engineers that have the ability to actually meld together the educational philosophies of the likes of Comenius, Dewey, Ausubel and Piaget into a working schema to deliver truly integrated subject matter in a logical, natural, and systematic format. Until this is done, we will not improve the science literacy rate by a factor of 10 and will be lucky to improve it by 10%.
Integration, sequence, timing and delivery are the key factors. What learning theory scientifically addresses all of these components of the educational process and points to a pragmatic approach for implementation? What curriculum has been developed that is based on appropriate theoretical postulates and holistically and faithfully follows them to pragmatic propositions? What curriculum materials are available that facilitate the delivery of the theory-based curriculum in a rightful manner? What program helps build a meaningful, useful cognitive structure of knowledge and skills in the minds of our youth?
Without specific and truthful answers to these questions attempts at teacher education reform will yield low returns regardless of increased funding, legislation, time or testing. | <urn:uuid:391fffea-e780-4345-a6cf-bb9af7d7ddc8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.umsl.edu/~sep/curriculum.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955017 | 381 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Top positive review
22 people found this helpful
Required for anyone who is serious about interface design
on January 15, 2003
The field of interface and interaction design is formally known as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It is significant that a large amount of HCI deals with non-programming issues such as psychological approaches to end-user experience, social manners of the audience, and more. Interaction Design and The Essential Guide to User Interface Design provide a comprehensive overview of the essentials of interface design.
Beyond Interaction Design is an important book for designing effective and capable interfaces to software applications.
Interaction Design is a meat and potatoes book about HCI. Rather than focusing on the software that drives the application, the book analyzes how users actually interact with the system. This interaction is what ultimately will determine whether a system is successful or unproductive.
The book provides a comprehensive look at the entire set of requirements involved with design. The authors show that there is much more to systems design than end-user requirements and CGI scripts. Effective HCI is a multi-disciplinary area including psychology, sociology, anthropology, information systems, and computer science.
The authors write that their book is called "Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction" because it is concerned with the broader scope of issues, topics, and paradigms than has been traditionally written in other books. The book notes that there has never been a greater need for interactions designers and usability engineers to develop current and next-generation interaction technologies. To be successful in the interface design game, programmers need a mixed set of skills, which is not an easy task.
Interaction Design comprises 15 densely packed chapters that integrate all of the various cognitive, social, and other issues that are germane to interaction design. Chapter 1 provides an overview of what makes for good and bad design. Chapter 3 gets into the psychological aspect of HCI and looks at cognition and how users interact with the systems they implement. None of the book makes for easy reading, as the topics at hand are often multifaceted and complex. Chapter 6 deals with the process of interaction design and for the most part ends the psychological approach, while Chapters 7 through 10 deal with the actual design of the system.
The book has a number of real-world case studies, and also includes interviews with various authorities on HCI. However, it does not get into specific technologies (Solaris, Linux, etc.). Also, each chapter concludes with a number of references, which can be used as a launching pad for more information.
I highly recommend Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction for anyone who is serious about interface design. Your users will appreciate it. | <urn:uuid:396643fe-58cb-46a1-af1e-604eac1fef63> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/0470018666/?showViewpoints=1&k=Interaction%20Design%3A%20Beyond%20Human-Computer%20Interaction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948463 | 551 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Bird's nests? Bird's saliva?
Yes, but there's something more about it that you may not know
before. Have you ever wondered why people, especially the Chinese
are fond of bird's nests? And why are they so expensive? A kilo
of unprocessed raw bird's nests costs 100,000-120,000 baht (1USD
= around 40 baht).
Since the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907), the Chinese have regarded
bird's nest soup the supreme delicacy with rich medicinal properties.
They drink it as a tonic to boost the function of the lungs.
Here, Thaiways is introducing to you some interesting information
about bird's nests.
From which species of swift do we get the edible bird's nests?
There are three species of swifts in Thailand that produce edible
nests viz. the Edible-nest Swiftlet, Pacific Swift and Black-nest
Swiftlet. The nests of the first two species are white while
those of the last are black with feathers, dust and droppings
mixed together, and are considered of low quality. Even though
most bird's nests in Thailand are products of Edible-nest Swiftlets,
in the east of Thailand, especially in Trat Province, most nests
harvested are of Pacific Swifts.
The appearances of nests
Edible-nest Swiftlets and Pacific Swifts build their white nests
in the form of a half cup. The nests are constructed by glutinous
strands of starch-like saliva of the birds. Sometimes the nests
are mixed with their feathers.
Black-nest Swiftlets build larger nests when compared with the
Edible-nest Swiftlets and the Pacific Swifts. These birds construct
nests with their feathers which are conjoined with their saliva.
All species build their nests on the ledges of limestone caves
or in the cracks of granite mountains, the height of which is
more than 10 metres. Inside these caves, the air usually has
The first harvest begins in March which corresponds with the
mating season. The female birds will construct the nests for
laying eggs. They build the nests during the night and go
looking for food during the day. It will take 30-35 days to
finish a nest. Thus, the excellent opportunity for the collectors
to harvest the nests is by day when the mother birds are not
in the cave. The harvest must be done before they lay eggs.
Otherwise, the eggs will be damaged. And as a result, the
female birds will no longer lay eggs for the rest of the year.
However, if the collectors collect the nests too soon, the
quality of the nests will not meet standard because they have
not been fully developed.
The difficult and risky harvesting
a reason why bird's nests are expensive.
When they see the nests disappeared, the
mother-to-be birds, out of their instinct to maintain their
species, will build a second nest. That is why after the first
harvest, the collector will wait one month for the birds to
construct a new nest. After the second nests are harvested,
another three months will be allowed to pass before the third
nests are ready for harvesting for the last time of the year
The third nests are the nest where the
baby birds live and grow. The reason to wait for three months
is to allow time for the baby birds to hatch out of the eggs
and to grow up strong enough to fly and forage. The mother
birds will spend one month to incubate. After the third nests
were harvested, the cave will be isolated until the next year.
Bird's nests packed for distribution
Levels of bird's nests quality
The expensive high-quality nests are the first nests harvested
for the first time in the harvesting season. The bird's nests
collected during this time are white and less contaminated.
The third nests, are more dirty because they are harvested after
the baby birds have grown up and left the nests. These nests
need to be cleaned up more than the earlier ones.
The prices of the first nests are very high. A kilo of unprocessed
nests costs 100,000-120,000 baht, while that of the third nests
are lower. In former times, only the emperors or the well-to-do
would be able to taste the genuine bird's nests. However, if
we take into consideration the danger one must face when climbing
to get a bird's nest, the prices are reasonable.
Ethics of the bird's nest concessionaires
The operators must strictly hold on to the conservation principles
which aim to sustainably make the most of bird's nests. That
is to utilize them for the longest possible period of time
and produce the least waste. Harvesting the nests especially
for the third time means that although the nests are of poor
quality, they had better be collected than be allowed to decay
since the baby birds have already left the nests. Concessionaires
must not break the rules of birds's nest harvesting because
it will lead to devastation.
Beliefs about reddish brown nests
It is believed that the bird's nests of reddish brown colour
are produced by the mother birds who have to rebuild the nests
for several times until their saliva becomes blood. The reddish
brown bird's nests thus, are rated as the supreme delicacy
rich in nutritions which gourmets will pay any costs to taste
Recently, many researchers have found that what causes the
reddish brown colour is the chemical reaction among oxygen,
iron and humidity which results in rust. Humidity also stimulates
the rust to be absorbed into the nest making them reddish
brown. There are actually no more nutritions in this kind
of nests than in the others.
Bird's nests are believed to act as a tonic for the lungs
and can help keep the function of respiratory system homeostatic.
They are also excellent for boosting the blood circulation
system for children, patients in recovering stage, women after
delivery and the old. Bird's nest soup is praised as a superb
tonic so full of benefits that it is prohibited to add cooking
oil or other seasonings to it.
A research studying the bird's nest has found that it can
help stimulate the process of the cell formation as well.
In addition, the scientists of Thailand Institute of Scientific
and Technological Research (TISTR) have found that the following
chemical compounds are contained in the bird's nest:
Water 5.11%, Protein 60.9%, Calcium 0.85%, Potassium 0.05%,
Besides, in 1963, there was an overseas study about bird's
nests. It indicated that the chemical compounds extracted
from bird's nests effectively prohibited the process of Haemagglutination
which caused the common cold and influenza.
Bird's nest sources in Thailand
In Thailand, the southern region, including especially Krabi,
Phuket and Nakhon Si Thammarat, is the largest area producing
bird's nests. In addition, there is another producing source
in the eastern provinces such as Rayong and Trat.
How to cook bird's nests
1.Clean the nests in fresh water two to three times. Soak
them in water for 1-2 hours until they are swollen. Then use
forceps to remove the impurities. After that, wash them for
another two times. Then, take bird's nests out of the water
and leave them to drip.
2. Stew bird's nests in a pot, using low heat. The water in
the pot must cover every part of the bird's nests. After stewing
for 15 minutes, add rock sugar. Continue stewing it for an
3. Another way to cook bird's nest is just heat it in water
until it is boiling. Then add sugar and remove the heat.
4. Cleaned or cooked bird's nest should be kept in a refrigerator.
If you are in Bangkok, it is very convenient to try bird's
nest soup. Most restaurants in Chinatown on Yaowarat Road
serve it. And if you are in other major tourist provinces
such as Phuket, you can order bird's nest soup at almost any
Special thanks to A.P.B. Phuket Bird's Nest for giving
Thaiways useful information and photos. | <urn:uuid:f5319c40-ef5a-4aba-a67f-09a249f77cdf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thaiwaysmagazine.com/thai_article/2224_bird_nests/bird_nests.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937196 | 1,787 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Summary: The immune system works through a combination of multi-celled, interrelated and interdependent activity. The cytokine environment determines how immune cells respond. Without a properly functioning immune system you’re susceptible to disease. A more fully functional immune system will aid the body in eliminating almost any disease.
Cytokines are easily damaged in today’s environment. Cytokines are damaged or destroyed through a number of ways and without them your immune system can’t respond, or doesn’t respond properly, as is the case with autoimmune diseases.
All in all the immune system is a very effective system and more powerful than you can imagine. It’s the reason you can live in a world that has always had tiny foreign things; bacteria, virus, parasites, yeast, etc. trying to use you as a new “home”. Add to this a number of other problems the immune system has to contend with and you’ve got one busy system overwhelmed with work.
If You Get Sick Your Immune System
Doesn’t Care What Name You Call It
If those invaders, for example, are successful, you get sick. If not, you might not notice, or hardly notice that a battle has been waged and you won – which actually goes on constantly. If you do get sick (and your immune system doesn’t care what name you call your illness) you expect to recover. And you do, as long as your immune system has the brains and brawn to do the job. Your immune system keeps you healthy.
Each Kind of Cell Has A Specific Job To Do
Your immune system is spread out over your entire body. It’s not an organ or any kind of stationary mass. It has many different kinds of cells, each with its own job to do. These cells come from your bone marrow.
Some cells get special training to understand their job and they get this in the thymus gland. Some are “born” knowing what to do. The cells make a choice about what kind of immune cell they’re going to be when they “grow up” however no one seems to have a “for sure” idea about how they do that. There are many other associated immune factors as well. It’s a complicated system and one that the most advanced researchers still don’t fully understand.
Immune Cells Depend On Each Other
There are lots of different immune cells and they’re dependent on one another to work because they have different jobs to do. Some immune cells kill viruses and cancer cells directly like Natural Killer cells. They know what to do and they just do it, if all is well.
Others, like T-cells, are even more deadly in their power but are slower to react and need help in identifying who and where in your body the problem might be. They need other special cells that “help” them like B-cells for instance.
The Macrophage is another cell. It’s very good at killing bacteria and cleans up any kind of “garbage” it comes across. It’s a good “siren” for danger as well. If there’s not something serious going on, it spends a lot of time just ambling through your body gobbling up whatever “foreign thing” it bumps into.
T Cells – Th1, Th2, T Suppressor Cells and Autoimmune
T cells are pretty interesting because since mother nature made them so lethal, she also made them more difficult to “get going”. These aren’t the kind of cells you’d want running amuck. They’re the ones that get special training so they know what’s “you” from what’s not “you”. There are different kinds.
T-helper cells are the “brains” of the bunch but don’t kill anything themselves. There are two different kinds of them; Th1 and Th2. These two are intended to be balanced as they coordinate other immune system activity.
If Th2 numbers get too high too long, conditions like allergy, inflammation, autoimmune disorders, cancer and pain are more likely to exist and Th1 is depressed. Th1 cells are great against viruses and bacteria among other things. The “choice” between Th1 and Th2 is influenced by cytokines (discussion coming up). Whatever cell “choice” is made between Th1 and Th2, that choice will tell other cells in the immune system to “do as they’re doing”.
T-killer cells are as their name suggests. And T-suppressor cells are the ones who say, “we’ve won - stop the attack”. Inactivity of T-suppressor cells is implicated in autoimmune diseases.
Cells Must Communicate And They Do It With Cytokines
Since the immune system is made up of lots of different kinds of cells spread out all over, and, since they depend on each other, they absolutely must communicate. And they do.
They communicate with things called cytokines. They’re also called communication molecules, information molecules or messenger molecules. These are little hormone like proteins. They tell immune cells to grow in number, they tell them where the action is, and they tell them when the enemy has been destroyed among other things.
“Pathways” of communication are made between immune system cells. If it can, each kind of immune cell generates a certain specific cytokine(s). Cytokines determine whether Th1 or Th2 helper T cells are dominate in any given area based on information given by NK cells and macrophages. What if the NK cells aren’t working right? There are many different cytokines.
Without Cytokines Your Immune System Is Deaf, Dumb And Blind
These cytokines are pretty important because the immune system can’t respond without them and the choice made by T helper cells (Th1-Th2) depends on them. Your immune system might not know anything was going on, or what to do about it if it did, or would respond incorrectly.
You may have heard of interleukins or interferons? They’re cytokines; communication molecules. Your immune cells could be as happy as can be but without those cytokines giving direction your immune cells are clueless. How, and if, the immune system responds depends on the cytokine “environment”.
Immune Systems Weaken With Age But You’re
Still Making Lots Of Immune Cells So What’s The Problem?
You’ve probably heard that the immune system weakens as you age. However, we produce the same amount of immune cells (in bone marrow) when we’re very old as we did when we were young.
Barring damage to your bone marrow (chemotherapy for instance), it’s likely you’re still producing immune cells in good numbers! If that’s true, then why cancer, and viral infections, and bacterial infections, and autoimmune disease and chemical intolerance, and the seemingly hundreds of diseases chronically plaguing people today?
And why does your immune system weaken as you age if you’re still producing immune cells in good numbers?
There has to be other reasons.
Reasons for Poor Immune Function: Drains And Stressors
Those “other reasons” are related to the times we live in. Each of these potential problem areas can affect hundreds of functions and many organs in your body, but they also affect the immune system. They can destroy cells and wipe out cytokines (communication). They are a stressor and drain on immune function. The following is a highly condensed version of what you can read about in greater detail by clicking the buttons on the left.
Stressors and Burdens – Condensed Version
poor nutrition – lack of essential factors the immune system needs to operate; example: NK cells (immune cells) won’t work without iodine poor digestion – results in the same lack of factors as poor nutrition; the digestive system “steals” enzymes from the immune system; causes other problems; example: increased toxic load stress – increased cortisol knocks out cytokine pathways hormone imbalance – depresses thymus gland (trains T-cells), knocks out cytokine pathways among other things toxins – causes free radicals that bind and knock out cytokines free radicals – a big deal and behind some other factors listed; knocks out cytokines, promotes cell and gene mutations; associated with a multitude of problems EBV, CMV and HIV – directly damages immune system by infecting immune cells themselves Antibiotic overuse – kills good bacteria that promote immune function; increases strength of remaining bacteria through bacterial mutation Radiation – causes the worst free radicals causing damage to cells and cytokines
Stop The Revolving Door Of Immune System Damage
Paying attention to these “Stressors and Burdens” can’t in and of itself replace cytokines but it can help stop the revolving door of immune support.
A Dysfunctional Immune System Will Eventually Get A Name
You won’t know your immune system isn’t working because the immune system doesn’t have any nerves (pain) to tell you something’s wrong. The symptoms you’ll get will be the result of whatever illness your immune systems’ lack of function finally becomes.
This Drug, That Drug And This Other Drug
Conventional medicine says if you have this “label” or symptom, take this drug. Or more likely, this drug, that drug and this other drug. Sometimes it’s necessary. Drugs stimulate or depress one activity in your body. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Unfortunately, other activities get stimulated or depressed unintentionally and those are called side effects. Antibiotics have their own issues, as do antivirals.
Supporting Immune Function Will Support Just About Everything
Everything in your body is interrelated. The idea behind health “naturally” is to raise your entire level of functioning by supplying those things your body needs. | <urn:uuid:54874129-650d-4322-bf9b-b97343b5d0f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.immunesystemetc.com/immune101.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938633 | 2,141 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Money and the Mechanism of Exchange
The English System of Metallic Currency
I now come to describe in more detail the system of metallic currency which has existed in England for more than half a century, and which seems to be the best of all as regards the principles on which coins of three different metals are combined into composite legal tender. The legal regulations under which the English coinage is issued and circulated, can be ascertained with ease and certainty, thanks to the Act of Parliament (33 Victoria, ch. 10), which Mr. Lowe caused to be passed to simplify and consolidate the statutes on the subject.
English Gold Coin.
The English sovereign is the principal legal tender and the standard of value. It is defined as consisting of 123.27447 grains (7.98805 grams) of English standard gold, composed of eleven parts of fine gold, and one part of alloy, chiefly copper. The sovereign ought, therefore, in theory, to contain 113.00160 grains, or 7.32235 grams, of pure gold. But as it is evidently impossible to make coins of any precise weight, or to maintain them of that weight when in circulation, the weight stated is only that standard weight to which the mint workmen should aim to attain as closely as possible, both in each individual piece, and in the average.
From the weight of the sovereign we deduce the mint price of gold. For if we divide the number of grains in the sovereign into the number of grains —namely, 480—in the troy ounce, we ascertain exactly how many sovereigns and portions of a sovereign the mint ought to return for each ounce delivered in. This we find to be 3.89375, which is equivalent to £3 17s. 10½d. It comes to exactly the same thing to say in terms of the old mint indentures that twenty-pounds' weight troy of gold are to be coined into 934 sovereigns, and one half-sovereign. I have heard of people who protested against the government fixing the price at which gold should be bought and sold by the mint, and who yet allowed that the sovereign must have some fixed weight. But the fixed price is convertible with the fixed weight, and vice versâ. Either follows from the other.
In practice the weight of a coin is always a matter of limits, and there must be limits both for the weight as sent out and that at which it can legally remain in circulation. The remedy is the technical name for the allowance made to the mint-master for imperfection of workmanship, and is defined by the Act as two-tenths of a grain (0.01296 gram). Thus the mint cannot legally issue a sovereign weighing less than 123.074 grains, or more than 123.474 grains. Since the fineness of the gold, again, can never be adjusted exactly to the standard of eleven parts in twelve, or 916.66 in a 1000, a remedy of two parts in 1000 is allowed in this respect. It is understood that the English mint succeeds in working well within the remedy both of weight and fineness.
Every sovereign issued from the mint in accordance with these regulations, and bearing the impress authorized by the Queen, is legal tender, and must be accepted by a creditor in discharge of a debt to that amount, provided that it has not been reduced by wear or ill-treatment below the weight of 122.50 grains (7.93787 grams). If a sovereign of less than this least current weight be tendered to any person, he is presumed by the law to detect the deficiency, and is bound to cut or deface the coin, and return it to the tenderer, who must bear the loss. If the coin so defaced should prove not to be below the limit, then the defacer has to receive it and bear the loss arising from his mistake. Any justice of the peace may decide disputes arising concerning light sovereigns in a summary manner.
The only other gold coin actually issued is the half-sovereign, of which the standard weight and remedy are exactly half those of the sovereign, the remedy in fineness the same as in the sovereign, and the least current weight 61.1250 grains (3.96083 grains). The Coinage Act also legalizes the issue of two- and five-pound gold pieces, the weights and remedies in weight being corresponding multiples of those of the sovereign. Coins of the value of five and two guineas were struck by most of the English monarchs from the time of Charles II. to that of George III. Patterns of five- and two-pound pieces have been prepared under Queen Victoria; but gold coins of this size have not been issued in the present reign, nor is it desirable, for reasons stated in Chapter XIII., that they should be issued.
English Silver Coin.
The further subdivision of the pound is effected by token coins of silver and bronze, which are made of such weights that there is no danger of their metallic values rising above the metallic value of the gold coins for which they are legally equivalent. Previous to the year 1816, the troy pound of standard silver, containing 925 parts of fine silver and 75 parts of alloy in 1000, was coined into 62 shillings, so that each shilling would contain 92.90 grains of standard metal. Under these regulations gold was rated as 15.21 times as valuable as silver. As silver, however, may sometimes become more valuable relatively to gold, Lord Liverpool very wisely recommended in his letter to the king, that the weight of the shilling should be reduced. By the Act 56 Geo. III. ch. 68, it was ordered that the troy pound of silver should be coined into 66 shillings, a reduction of weight of about 6 per cent. The new Coinage Act maintains the chief provisions of that of 1816, so that the English shilling now has the weight of 87.27272 grains of standard silver (5.65518 grams), and the weights of all the other silver coins are exactly corresponding multiples or submultiples of this. The mint remedy in weight for the shilling is a little more than the third part of a grain, and in simple proportion for the other coins. The remedy in fineness is in all cases four parts in one thousand. The denominations of coins authorized are nine in number, namely, the crown, half-crown, florin, shilling, sixpence, groat, or fourpenny piece, threepence, twopence, and penny. All, except the crown, are coined in greater or less quantity, but the fourpence, twopence, and penny, are now only struck in very small quantities as Maundy money, which, after being distributed by the Queen annually in alms, appears to find its way into numismatic cabinets or to be melted down.
All such coins are legally current, irrespective of their weights, so long as they are not called in by proclamation, or so worn and defaced that the impress of the mint cannot be recognized. The coin in circulation is actually reduced in weight by abrasion to a considerable amount, often one-fourth or one-third of its original weight. Moreover, the fall in the value of silver relatively to gold reduces the metallic worth of the coins, so that no one can export them to foreign countries, or melt them for sale as bullion without losing from 10 to 30 per cent. of their nominal value.
It would obviously be a cause of grievance if a person could be obliged to receive unlimited amounts of this token money in discharge of a debt. Merchants might often have thousands of pounds worth of such coins thrown upon their hands, the full value of which could only be realized by gradually putting it into circulation again. It was therefore provided by the Acts of 1816 and 1870, that silver coin shall be a legal tender only to the amount of forty shillings in any one payment. This limit was chosen apparently because the two-pound piece was in 1816 regarded as the largest coin then in circulation, or likely to be issued.
English Bronze Coinage.
The final subdivision of the pound is effected by bronze pence, halfpence, and farthings, of which the weights when issued should be respectively 145.833, 87.500, and 43.750 grains. They are composed of an alloy of 95 parts by weight of copper, four parts of tin, and one part of zinc, being exactly the same kind of bronze as was previously employed by the French mints. The remedy in weight is one-fifth of one per cent., and as the coins are token money there is no least current weight. As the reasons against allowing them to be a legal tender for large sums are stronger than in the case of silver coin, it is enacted that bronze coins shall be a legal tender only to an aggregate amount of one shilling.
If a copper penny were now made to contain metal equivalent in value to the 240th part of a sovereign, its weight would be 871 grains, at the present market price of copper (£75 per ton). Thus the fractional coinage has been reduced in weight nearly to one-sixth part of what it would be as standard copper coin. The bronze of which the pence are made is worth, according to Mr. Seyd, 10d. per troy pound, so that the metallic values of the coins are almost exactly one-fourth part of their nominal values. A considerable profit therefore accrues upon the coinage of bronze, amounting up to the end of 1871 to about £270,000; but the reduction of weight is altogether an advantage, and is probably not carried as far as it might properly be done.
Deficiency of Weight of the English Gold Coin.
It is the theory of the present English monetary law, as we have seen (p. 107) that every person weighs a sovereign tendered to him, and assures himself, before accepting it, that it does not weigh less than 122.5 grains. In former days it was not uncommon for people to carry pocket-scales for weighing guineas, and such scales may still be occasionally seen in old curiosity shops. But we know that the practice is entirely given up, and that even the largest receivers of coins, such as the banks and railway companies, and even tax-offices, post-offices, etc., do not pay the least regard to the law. Only the Bank of England, its branches, and a few government offices, weigh gold coin in England. The result is that a large part of the gold coinage is worn below the least current weight, and all persons of experience avoid paying old sovereigns to the Bank of England. Only ignorant and unlucky persons, or else large banks and companies which cannot otherwise get rid of light coin, suffer loss. The quantity of light gold coin withdrawn by the bank did not for many years exceed half a million a year; during the last few years it has varied from £700,000 to £950,000. As the average amount of gold coined annually is four or five millions, and the coins melted or exported are for the most part new and of full weight, it follows necessarily, that the currency is becoming more and more deficient in weight.
In 1869 I ascertained, by a careful and extensive inquiry, that 31½ per cent. of the sovereigns and nearly one-half of the ten-shilling pieces were then below the legal limit. The reader who has attended to the remarks on Gresham's Law (p. 80), will see that no amount of coinage of new gold will drive out of circulation these depreciated old coins, because those who export, or melt, or otherwise treat the coins as bullion, will take care to operate upon good new ones.
Great injustice arises in some cases from this defective state of the gold currency. I have heard of one case in which an inexperienced person, after receiving several hundred pounds in gold from a bullion dealer in the city of London, took them straight to the bank of England for deposit. Most of the sovereigns were there found to be light, and a prodigious charge was made upon the unfortunate depositor. The dealer in bullion had evidently paid him the residuum of a mass of coins, from which he had picked the heavy ones. In a still worse case, lately reported to me, a man presented a post-office order at St. Martin's-le-Grand, and carried the sovereigns received to the stamp-office at Somerset House, where the coins were weighed, and some of them found to be deficient. Here a man was, so to say, defrauded between two government offices.
It should be stated that the government made, in July, 1870, a slight effort to promote the withdrawal of light gold, by engaging to receive it through the Bank of England at the full price of £3 17s. 9d. per ounce by weight, the price previously paid by the bank having been only £3 17s. 6½d., owing to the old sovereigns being a little below the standard in fineness. A certain increase in the amounts withdrawn has no doubt followed this measure; but the loss by deficiency in weight is still thrown upon the public, and as long as this is the case the withdrawal of light gold will continue inadequate to maintain the coinage at its standard weight.
Withdrawal of Light Gold Coin.
Some steps must soon be taken to remedy the increasing deficiency of weight of the gold coinage described above. The withdrawal may no doubt be effected in several ways. One method would be for the Queen to issue a proclamation calling in and prohibiting the circulation of all gold coins more than twenty or twenty-five years old, as it is mostly the older coins which are deficient in weight. Another method would be to oblige all revenue officers, postmasters, and others, under the control of government, to weigh all sovereigns presented to them. If necessary, the bankers of the kingdom generally might be obliged to weigh coin. But it is obvious that great trouble and inconvenience would arise from such measures. The progress of the post-office savings banks would be imperilled if every depositor of a pound were liable to be charged 2 per cent. for lightness. Considerable excitement and trouble followed the issue of the last proclamation of June, 1842, calling in light gold. To make the last holder of a coin pay for the whole cost of its circulation during thirty or forty years past, leads in many cases to gross injustice. The present law tends to throw the loss upon the poor, who have usually only one or two sovereigns at a time to pay, whereas rich people, having many, can avoid paying light gold at offices where it will be weighed.
I hold that the only thorough remedy is for the government to bear the loss occasioned by the wear of the gold, as it already bears that of the silver currency. The Bank of England should be authorized to receive all sovereigns showing no marks of intentional damage or unfair treatment at their full nominal value, on behalf of the mint, which should recoin the light ones at the public expense. No one would then have any reason for keeping the light gold away from the bank; the currency would soon be purged of the illegally light coins, and would thenceforth be kept up strictly to the standard weight; all loss of time and trouble would be saved to individuals, a consideration which we should not lose sight of; and, lastly, no injustice would be done, as at present, to the last holder of a light sovereign.
In opposition to such a proposal it is usually urged, that encouragement would be given to the criminal practice of sweating or otherwise diminishing the weight of the currency. I answer that, on the contrary, it is the present state of things which gives the best opportunity for illegal practices, because it renders the population perfectly accustomed to handling old and worn coins. No one now actually refuses any gold money in retail business, so that the sweater, if he exists at all, has all the opportunities he can desire. I have met with sovereigns deficient to the extent of four to five grains, or 8d. to 10d., but they nevertheless circulate. If under a better system the gold currency consisted entirely of full-weight, fresh coins, with sharp, new, perfect impressions, attention would quickly be drawn to any coin which appeared to be worn or ill-treated in any degree. As the currency, too, would be constantly passing through the automaton weighing-machines of the Bank of England, without previously undergoing the operation of garbling by bullion brokers, sweated coins, if they existed at all, would soon be detected; whereas, according to the present system, the bank authorities have no opportunity of examining the whole coinage. It is the present state of things, then, which gives the best opportunity for tampering with the currency, though there is no evidence to show that fraudulent practices are carried on to any appreciable extent. Under the proposed new system such practices would be rendered almost impossible.
Supply of Gold Coin.
It is the theory of the English monetary law that every individual is entitled to take gold to the mint and have it coined gratuitously, all the expenses being borne by the public revenues. It is intended that the coin shall be rendered identical in value with an equal quantity of gold bullion, so that it shall, in short, be so much certified bullion, and shall be reconvertible into ingots without loss. Though this theory is simple and sound in some respects, it is not perfectly carried into practice. The mint never engages to deliver coin in immediate exchange for gold sent for coining, so that there is a loss of interest during the uncertain interval of coinage. If, instead of sending gold directly to the mint, the owner pursues the customary mode of selling it to the Bank of England, he receives, according to the Bank Charter Act of 1844, only £3 17s. 9d. per ounce, instead of the full mint price of £3 17s. 10½d. Moreover, it has been pointed out by Mr. E. Seyd, that, as the bank used to conduct their bullion business, there was a series of small charges or profits made for weighing, melting, assaying, the turn of the scale, the difference of the assay reports, etc., which amounted on the whole, including, the above charge of 1½d. per ounce for demurrage, to 0.2828 per cent. on the value of the gold. The bank has since made some small improvements in the mode of conducting the business, but it may still be considered that the cost of converting gold bullion into sovereigns is about ¼ per cent.
Though every person whatever has the right, under the Coinage Act, of taking gold to the mint and having it coined free of charge and in order of priority without undue preference, no one ever does use the privilege, except the Bank of England. During an inquiry into the Bank Act in 1857, Mr. Twells stated that he had once sent £10,000 to the mint, and was afterwards surprised to find his firm of Spooner and Co., mentioned in a parliamentary paper as the only private firm that had ever done such a thing. The directors of the Bank of England have naturally acquired the monopoly of transactions with the mint, because they have to keep large stocks both of coin and bullion to meet the demands of the Issue Department and of their customers, including, directly or indirectly, the whole of the bankers of the United Kingdom. They can convert portions of their bullion into coin without any loss of interest or cost, whenever they find the stock of coin running down. They feel the monetary pulse of the whole community, and they have all the requisite appliances for the custody, assay, or exact weighing of bullion. Even those persons who need to possess large sums of gold often employ the bank to weigh, pack, and warehouse it, and the bank is always willing to do the work for fixed low charges. Hence it is most natural and convenient that the bank should act as the agent of the mint. Though the bank makes a certain profit out of the business, it is hardly earned at the cost of the public, but rather comes out of the economy with which the work is managed. It could in no way improve the currency of the country if every one who owned a few ounces of gold were to run with it to the mint, throwing upon the country the cost of melting and assaying insignificant ingots, and complicating the accounts and transactions of the mint.
Supply of Silver Coin.
On account of the absurd misapprehensions recently existing as to the scarcity of silver money, and the supposed right of private individuals to demand the coinage of silver, it may be well to describe exactly how the supply of silver coin is legally regulated and practically carried out. There is no law, statute, or common, which gives any private person, company, or institution, the right to take silver to the mint, and demand coin in exchange. Thus it is left in the hands of the Treasury and the mint to issue so much and such denominations of silver coins as they may think needful for the public service. This state of the law is perfectly right; because, as the silver coins are tokens, they cannot be got rid of by melting or exportation at their nominal values. If individuals were free to demand as much silver coin as they liked, a surplus might be thrown into circulation in years of brisk trade, which in a subsequent year of depressed trade would lie upon people's hands.
Practically speaking, the mint is guided in the supply of silver coin by the Bank of England, not because this bank has by law any special powers, privileges, or duties in the matter, but because, in acting as the bank of banks, and the bank of government departments, it has the best opportunities of judging when more coin is wanted. Not only do all the London bankers draw silver coin from the Bank of England when they need it, but the same is done directly or indirectly by all the other bankers in the kingdom. A deficiency of silver coin in any county is shown by the stock of the local bankers running down. They replenish their stocks either from the nearest branch of the Bank of England or from their London agents, who again draw from the Bank of England. At other times or places, the bankers tend to accumulate a surplus of silver coin. Some banks in a large town may happen to have accounts with many shopkeepers, butchers, brewers, cattle-dealers, or dealers of one kind or another, who deposit silver coin in large quantities. Other banks may be largely drawn upon by manufacturers for the payment of wages, and may suffer from a deficiency of silver coin. It is a common practice, therefore, for bankers in any locality to assist each other by buying or selling superfluous silver coin as the case may require. If a superfluity of coin, however, cannot be got rid of in this way, it may be returned to the Bank of England or one of its branches. This bank indeed is in no way bound to provide or receive large sums in silver, and it therefore usually makes a small charge of about five shillings per hundred pounds to cover the trouble and risk. In consideration of this charge the bank bears the cost of transmission by railway, examines the coin for the detection of base pieces and the withdrawal of worn coin—which latter it sends to the mint for recoinage, and acts in general as the agent, of the mint.
Having the business so much in its hands, it is obvious that the department of the bank which manages the receipt and issue of silver coin can judge accurately when a fresh supply of coin is wanted. Before the stock runs too low notice is given to the mint, and money is usually advanced to the Master that he may purchase silver bullion for coinage. Under this system it is almost impossible for a deficiency of currency to arise without becoming known to the mint, and if, two or three years ago, the supply could not be made equal to the sudden demand, it was because the mint was not supplied by government with machinery adequate to the growing wants of the country. The existing system, in short, seems to be as nearly perfect as can be desired, provided that the mint be rebuilt and organized in such a manner as to enable it to meet any demand which the fluctuations of trade may occasion.
The Royal Mint.
While treating of the English system of metallic money, it is impossible to avoid expressing the wish that the House of Commons and the government will no longer delay a complete reconstruction of the Royal Mint. The mint factories, as they now stand, were very creditable to the generation which erected them; but it is needless to say that in the last fifty or seventy years we have immensely advanced, both in the art of constructing machinery and in our ideas of the arrangement and economy of manufactories. What should we think of a Cotton Spinning Company, which should propose to use a mill and machinery originally constructed by Arkwright, or to drive a mill by engines turned out of the Soho works in the time of Boulton and Watt? Yet the nation still depends for its coinage upon the presses actually erected by Boulton and Watt, although much more convenient coining presses have since been invented and employed in foreign and colonial mints.
The present mint workshops are quite inadequate for meeting the demands which may be thrown upon them by the increasing industry and wealth of the United Kingdom, not to speak of the British Empire. A few years ago it was impossible to turn out silver coin as quickly as it was required when trade was brisk, and, while one metal is being coined, there are no means of meeting the demand for other kinds of coin. As to the bronze coinage, it has generally to be obtained from Birmingham presses, and bronze blanks have also to be purchased at times. Even silver blanks have been obtained from Birmingham. The British mint ought to represent the skill and wealth of the British nation, and no petty considerations should be allowed to postpone so necessary a reform.
Nothing short of a complete reconstruction of the mint workshops will meet the requirements of the case. If this is to be done, much convenience and economy will arise from abandoning the large and valuable site upon Tower Hill, and erecting an entirely new mint in a more accessible position. The opinions of Mr. E. Seyd upon this subject are worthy of much attention.
Return to top | <urn:uuid:1940b768-1b11-4f61-aeba-8d203e3dd43d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Jevons/jvnMME10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967906 | 5,471 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Buddha and the Snow Leopard
High on the list of exotic places I haven't been yet, but would love to see are Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, the countries of the Tibetan Plateau. One of the best living symbols of "The Roof of the World" is the Snow Leopard. Due to poaching, loss of prey, and habitat degradation, the snow leopard is listed as endangered by the IUCN. While conservation strategies like nature reserves and incentive programs, have helped protect snow leopards, there is another approach that could further defend the snow leopard.
A recently published study investigated the role of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in snow leopard conservation in the Sanjiangyuan region in China's Qinghai Province on the Tibetan Plateau. From 2009 to 2011, researchers systematically surveyed snow leopards in the Sanjiangyuan region. They found that 46% of Buddhist monasteries were located in snow leopard habitat and 90% were within 5 km of snow leopard habitat. The 336 monasteries in the Sanjiangyuan region could protect more snow leopard habitat (8342 km^2) through social norms and active patrols than the nature reserve's core zones.
Most local herders claimed that they did not kill wildlife, and 42% said they did not kill wildlife because it was a sin in Buddhism. Study results indicate monasteries play an important role in snow leopard conservation. Monastery-based snow leopard conservation could be extended to other Tibetan Buddhist regions that in total would encompass about 80% of the global range of snow leopards.
National Geographic - Tibetan Plateau | <urn:uuid:3322eabe-d252-4871-bda5-a83a3de2526d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://snowcode.org/buddhist-monks-protect-snow-leopards | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00007-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9308 | 333 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Is Your School Ready?
by Elizabeth Sky-McIlvain
Handhelds, laptops, tablet PCs...Which is best for your school?
Guest columnist Elizabeth Sky-McIlvain offers a simple rubric for administrators,
teachers, and parents to use when evaluating their school's readiness
for one-to-one computing. Print this rubric and share it with your entire
Many studies have been done, and much information -- formal and informal --
has been shared, about how one-to-one computing can be funded, implemented,
and managed in schools. Much less information is available to help a school
initially decide among the options. Perhaps a self-definition rubric is
the answer for schools seeking to implement some type of 1-1 computing
Is your school ready for one-to-one computing? Click here
to share your thoughts.
Positive outcomes from technology investments require three things: visionary
leadership, ongoing support for teacher training, and valid tools for
assessing the impact of technology on student learning.
If we are to believe recent reports and the anecdotal evidence of our colleagues, less than 30 percent of school leaders (principals, superintendents) have a driving vision for the use of technology in the 21st century classroom. This is not about budget -- this is about providing dynamic leadership for learning on a day-to-day, face-to-face, authentic basis.
A growing disconnect is occurring between school leadership and the 40+ percent
of teachers who are eager and/or prepared to use technology in the classroom.
The gap is becoming a crisis in schools where leadership has supported
or initiated purchasing initiatives (especially such high-profile technologies
as tablets, laptops, Internet-connected handhelds and such high-volume
technologies as handhelds and AlphaSmart) that create expectations within
the school community, and then has failed to articulate or energize a
vision for using those technologies.
Unfortunately for students and teachers, by and large the only tool available
to leadership for measuring the value of the purchased technology is standardized
testing. The fact that standardized testing is not an appropriate
tool for measuring 21st century learning in general, or learning with
technology in particular, has yet to be addressed in a meaningful way.
Let's suppose, however, that the dialogue about one-to-one computing choices has been ongoing -- and it is decision time. Just as they do when choosing a math text, SIS (student information system), CMS (content management system), or classroom teacher, school leadership needs to find the best "fit." In my opinion, they can use some core indicators to help make that decision. Those indicators are:
Group 1 Identifiers
- The degree to which the mathematics and history classrooms are student-centered.
(English/language arts and fine arts are not in this equation because
those disciplines are, by their very nature, generally student-centered.)
- The degree to which the science curriculum is project and problem-based.
- The size and flexibility of the initial budget for change.
- The robustness and flexibility of the network.
- The size of the IT staff in relation to predicted technical needs.
Other, causally related, identifiers, which can be rated as High, Average, Low, are:
Group 2 Identifiers
- The degree to which the school community tolerates risk-taking in
- The degree to which the school community tolerates change in the curriculum
- The soundness of the budget in a 3-5 year projection.
- The flexibility of the IT staff (knowledge base, training, experience,
- The degree to which learning is differentiated.
I highly recommend that Intel's Visual
Ranking tool be used to sort out and personalize the interrelationships
between those identifiers. I have, however, also created a simple rubric
schools can use:
for a printable version of the rubric.
What do the values tell you?
- If the majority of the initial values are 3, it does not matter which
portable technology is adopted -- the probability of success is high.
However, the best solution would probably be a combination of tablet
PC's and mobile sets of Internet connected handheld devices.
- If the sum of the initial values is 20-25, the more conservative choice
of one-to-one laptops is indicated. If the low scores are identifiers
3, 4, 5, and 9, however, because of cost, handhelds would be a better
- A sum of between 14-19 would indicate that a limited number of mobile
laptop carts and handheld kits would be a choice to consider as an entry-level
solution, for the school might not be ready for a large-scale solution
in terms of either cost or commitment.
- A sum less than 14 should send up a red flag. If identifiers 2, 9,
and 10 are strong, a limited handheld program is indicated. By and large,
however, the school would do better to stick with a desktop lab solution.
- Identifiers1, 2, 6, 7, and 10 are focused on value-added to the student experience. When the majority of those are weighted +2, even with initial values of 2, a laptop or tablet PC solution is indicated. Consideration even can be given to cellular solutions. Conversely, weighting these +1 or 0 indicates a lack of vision for instructional change, and argues against anything more than a minimal solution beyond desktop labs.
- Identifiers 3, 4, 5, and 8, when given a +2 weight, indicate a pragmatic vision for a portable solution and, when coupled with Initial Values of 1 and 2, indicate that the school is ready for a limited solution whose accountability is measurable: laptops for writing tasks and handhelds in the science classroom (extensions to the TI 83 for example).
- Identifier 9, when given a low initial value and a weight of 0 or +1, is another red flag. At the very least, it suggests that a school-wide solution be adopted, and that it should be a conservative solution with good outside support (e.g. not handhelds or mixed laptop platforms).
We return, then, to what is becoming a technology adage: "learning goals first, technology second." I don't agree with that. The most powerful aspect of all the one-to-one technologies is their ability to realign, redirect, and recreate learning goals. Acceptance of any of them means acceptance of the risks and discomfort inherent in educational change. The adage needs to be reworded: "Learning goals and technology go forward hand-in-hand."
graduate of Middlebury College and Rutgers University, Elizabeth
Sky-McIlvain has been a teacher and school librarian for more
than 30 years. She has been a classroom teacher of English,
literacy, history, health, and human sexuality; a coach; and
a coordinator of PC and Mac labs. She began using computers
in 1971, programming bibliographic search strategies for the
Rutgers School of Library Service. Her first personal computer
was an Apple IIGS, which she used to develop a groundbreaking
digital grade report form and contest-winning HyperStudio multimedia
classroom projects for Portledge
School in Locust Valley, New York. She developed and coordinated
the school's laptop program, created the school Web site, and
won several awards for creative technology curriculum integration
projects. Most recently, she served as technology department
head and teacher at The
Chapin School in New York City. Currently, Sky-McIlvain
teaches an experimental course in 21st century literacy to 8th
graders in laptop classrooms at Maine's Freeport
Middle School, and provides teachers with training and support
for integrating technology into the curriculum through Least
Tern, a company she runs with her husband and fellow educator
Article by Lorrie Jackson
Copyright © 2009 Education World | <urn:uuid:f94e602a-dd8c-4e03-80d7-1a2874b3b063> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech202.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931345 | 1,667 | 2.625 | 3 |
Learn to monitor and control your home & environment with self contained, inter-communicating microprocessors. Applications include ham radio, robotics, weather stations, model railroading, toys and more. - KK4HFJ
Well that question is like asking what's better, a hammer, or a saw? It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to read analog and digital inputs, make a decision, and control a device, the Arduino is the clear winner. If you need to run a linux operating system, with web and database services, full screen displays, and keyboard and mouse input, then the Raspberry Pi is more appropriate. There are many projects that are best served with a combination of the two. For instance, we use a network of Arduino's as sensors, feeding a database running on a Pi, and other Arduino's are picking up jobs from the database to be executed. This could not be done by an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi alone. So don't limit yourself to making choices, take both home, thay are small! | <urn:uuid:5f09b46f-88b9-4b53-968f-9c67b3b55493> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://arduinotronics.blogspot.com/2014_06_29_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949848 | 219 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Raspberries grown in a home garden often spread into a healthy raspberry patch. When a gardener has success growing raspberries, propagation often becomes a growing goal. You can easily plant raspberry cuttings by trimming the stems from your raspberry canes. With minimal care, these new cuttings will soon grow into new raspberry plants that will produce delicious raspberries throughout the growing season.
Use the pruning shears to trim away the top 6 inches from healthy raspberry canes. Choose canes that are firm yet moist and green in early to midsummer.
Cut away any leaves from the bottom 2 inches of the stems. Leave approximately four leaves at the tops of the stems.
Prepare the planting area for the cuttings. Cultivate the area lightly with the hand rake and add 2 inches of compost to the soil.
Insert the bottom ends of the canes into the prepared planting area 2 inches. Space the canes approximately 1 foot apart.
Use the garden hose to saturate the soil lightly. Keep the soil evenly moist for one month after planting the raspberry cuttings.
Treat the raspberry cuttings as new raspberry plants after approximately one month. The stems should have roots growing beneath the soil and new foliage sprouting from the stems by this time.
Provide water for the new raspberry plants if less than 1 inch of rain falls during a one-week period. Moisten the soil completely without watering to the point of puddles. | <urn:uuid:cc5c828f-4673-4823-bc92-33ab55eea443> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gardenguides.com/96559-plant-raspberry-cuttings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91489 | 306 | 2.65625 | 3 |
How It Works:
There is little documentation about the origins of water polo. The English term “polo” comes from the Indian word “pulu”, meaning ball. British army officers learned the horseback game of polo while stationed in east India and brought it back to Europe. The polo name then became attached to a ball game that was played in water. In its early days, players would ride on floating barrels which resembled the way polo players would ride horses. They carried sticks with which to swing at the ball, hence the name water polo.
In 1870 the London Swimming Club developed rules for “football to be played in swimming pools”. The first official game is said to have taken place at London’s Crystal Palace in 1874. In these early games, dunking opponents was permitted as was diving with the ball and carrying it under the swimsuit as close to the goal as possible. Goals were scored when a player placed the ball with two hands on the deck. By 1880, the introduction of a variation on the front crawl brought in rule changes to make the game faster. Brute strength was replaced by technique and tactical moves. Goal nets were introduced.
By the turn of the 20th century, the game had spread to the United States, Hungary, Belgium, Austria, Germany and France. Water polo made its Olympic debut with a men’s tournament at Paris 1900, making it one of the first team sports to be included at the Olympic Games. Absent from St. Louis 1904, men’s water polo has been a fixture on the Olympic program at every Games since. Women competed at the world championships for the first time in 1986 and it was another 14 years before women’s water polo was included in the Olympic program at Sydney 2000.
Canada has competed in the men’s Olympic tournament four times previously (Munich 1972, Montreal 1976, Los Angeles 1984, Beijing 2008) and the women’s Olympic tournament twice previously (Sydney 2000, Athens 2004).
A men’s water polo tournament has been included at every edition of the Pan American Games, beginning in 1951. Canada finished a best-ever second at Guadalajara 2011 following five bronze medals. A women’s water polo tournament was first included at the Pan Am Games in 1999 when Canada won gold, followed by three straight silver medals. | <urn:uuid:d73d68a4-2437-44e8-8ce5-92f3770b8cd4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://olympic.ca/sports/water-polo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979532 | 501 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Social and economic factors influence a broad array of opportunities, exposures, decisions and behaviors that promote or threaten health. Although there are many factors contributing to predicted tobacco use, socioeconomic status is the single greatest predictor. Tobacco and poverty create a vicious cycle: low income people smoke more, suffer more, spend more, and die more from tobacco use.
Low social-economic status populations include low-income individuals with less than 12 years of education, the medically underserved, the unemployed, and the working poor. They can also be prisoners, gays and lesbians, blue collar workers, and the mentally ill.
A study conducted by the National Network of Smoking Prevention and Poverty found that cigarettes served as a tool for those of low socioeconomic status to cope with boredom, relieve stress and as a companion to alcohol and caffeine. Cigarettes served as a loyal “friend” – a theme recognizable from cigarette advertising. Other results of the studies conducted on this population included:
There are other factors unique to this community that prohibit prevention. Education materials may not be culturally or linguistically appropriate for this segment, and often members of this population live in communities where tobacco advertising is more prominent. Those who work in manufacturing, construction, or transportation are more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke at work. Also, quitting occurs less often in this segment, and when individuals do quit they are more likely to relapse, a fact not helped by the fact that smoking may be considered the norm among family and peers. And, for many members of this population, smoking simply meets a need that cannot be met with something else.
One of the greatest risks in tobacco prevention is smoking during pregnancy. This risk leaves pregnant mothers of low socioeconomic status seriously exposed. Smoking rates skyrocket for women with lower levels of education and of lower income brackets. Furthermore, studies now indicate exposure of babies to air and dust in a smoker’s home, residue on clothes, rugs, and walls in the home, even when parents don’t smoke around the child, pointing up the importance of smoke-free homes and cars.
Find out how pregnant mothers can benefit from brief interventions at out Provider page.
As many as 700,000 people are homeless on any given night. The homeless population is heavily represented by the mentally ill, over half have drug or alcohol dependency, and a disproportionate amount of homeless are ethnic minorities.
Homelessness makes people exceedingly susceptible to smoking. Studies suggest that between 70 – 99% of homeless adults smoke. The homeless experience high stress, and feel vulnerable, overwhelmed and helpless. Also, mental illness and chemical dependency can increase susceptibility to marketing efforts that suggest that tobacco can help them cope.
Hand-rolled cigarettes without filters, using recycled tobacco from butts, and group smoking can increase the dangers of each cigarette smoked, further endangering the health of this vulnerable population. The hazardous consequences of these behaviors can be seen in the dramatic increase in throat and mouth cancer of homeless people. | <urn:uuid:fb0c93e1-bb74-4d6c-8bc5-5ab382386763> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tobaccofreemaine.org/channels/special_populations/low_income_and_education.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942481 | 599 | 3.5625 | 4 |
British Concentration Camps (Boer War)
[Red Cross put Dachau deaths at 18,000, Auschwitz at 53,000 deaths. A report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boers (of whom 24,074, 50% of the Boer child population, were children under 16) had died of starvation, disease and exposure in the concentration camps. In all, about one in four (25%) of the Boer inmates, mostly children, died.]
See: Baden-Powell Kitchener Concentration Camp (USA) Concentration Camps (Eisenhower's) Concentration Camps (Holocaust) US based Concentration Camps for Germans
British Concentration Camps Boer War Just over a century ago during the Boer War, the British were responsible for about 27,000 deaths of innocent women and children who were rounded up and placed in British concentration camps after burning them out of their own farms and settlements in (now) South Africa.
In 1900, Britain invaded the Boer Republics, stole the gold mines, turned the Western Transvaal into a “smoking desert” (in their own words), imprisoned 110,000 women and children in concentration camps where 28,000 of them died, then, after the war, they tried and shot 2 Boer officers for “misusing a flag of truce”! You’re wasting your time looking for justice in any post-war trial. They are simply a continuation of the war. [Interview] CARLOS W. PORTER | <urn:uuid:3d1518f4-ed4e-4e7b-8fb6-8c02dd068528> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://whale.to/b/british_con.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959913 | 321 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a condition that damages or destroys the cartilage that pads the joints and eases the movement of the bones that make up the joint. This can be a very painful condition that commonly strikes the knee joints.
There are treatments that can alleviate the discomfort caused by OA. Knowing how to talk to your doctor about what you’re experiencing can go a long way towards helping you find the proper treatment.
Before the Visit
You should prepare to talk with your doctor about your pain well before reaching their office. Making a list of things you want to talk about during the visit can help keep you on track.
Your list should include whether something else could be causing your pain, what types of tests you may have to undergo, and what treatments might ease your pain. Other topics include whether there are alternatives to the mainstream tests and treatments and where you can find more information.
Consider keeping notes about your pain for at least a few days prior to your visit. Things you should record include:
- what time of day your knee hurts
- under what circumstances the pain starts
- what the pain feels like during each episode
- where on or around your knee it seems to hurt each time
- how long the discomfort lasts
- what, if anything, do you do to treat it yourself, and how effective are those treatments
- how severe the pain is
Something to keep in mind: Doctors often use a 10-point scale when they question a patient about the severity of their pain. Milder pain is lower on the scale, and as pain worsens the number on the scale increases.
Bringing a trusted friend or relative with you to the visit can help in a lot of ways. Beyond the emotional value of having a loved one with you, this person can also remind you of points to raise or ask questions you may have forgotten. They can also help you remember important information provided by the doctor like medication names, dosage, and follow-up information.
During the Visit
Your time with your doctor may be limited, so preparing these things ahead of time can help you get the most out of your visit.
When the time comes for the actual visit, it’s going to be all about questions: yours and your doctor’s.
Answer your doctor’s questions as accurately as possible, even if you feel uncomfortable with the subject. Anything you tell your doctor can help with your treatment.
Ask every question you need to, and don’t feel that you’re wasting your doctor’s time.
Once you ask a question, make sure you get a clear answer and that you understand fully what that answer means. Ask for clarification if you don’t understand. Take notes if you need to. This isn’t a time to be shy.
The causes of OA aren’t fully understood, and there is no cure. But treatments can help you deal with the condition. Some of them can be as simple as a change in lifestyle, while others include medications or even surgery.
Being prepared and talking frankly with your doctor can help determine the best regimen for you. | <urn:uuid:b450dd31-ff22-42db-aead-db0efad7a769> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.healthline.com/health/osteoarthritis-pain-treatment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00071-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953372 | 651 | 2.75 | 3 |
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Participation Leads to Modest Changes in Diet Quality
by Christian Gregory
, Michele Ver Ploeg
, Margaret Andrews, and Alisha Coleman-Jensen
Economic Research Report No. (ERR-147) 36 pp, April 2013
Research has shown that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (formerly the Food Stamp Program) effectively reduces food insecurity, but questions remain about the extent to which it affects the quality of adult participants’ diets. This report compares the Healthy Eating Index scores for adults in low-income households that do and do not participate in SNAP.
Keywords: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, food stamp, food insecurity, Healthy Eating Index, diet quality, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, fruit and vegetable consumption, ordinary least squares model, treatment effects model, average treatment effect
In this publication...
Need help with PDFs? | <urn:uuid:67460d0a-5412-41c1-9e46-2f08885099ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-report/err147.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.867286 | 185 | 2.953125 | 3 |
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