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You’ve seen videos of the “seven minutes of terror” and the first stunning shots of the “Red Planet” taken by NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover. Now you want to bring the excitement of NASA’s most recent Mars mission to your classroom.
Well, there’s good news! There are lots of excellent resources online that will incite creativity, spark imagination, and help your students learn to solve the real-world problems of the future.
Our new program, Ultimate Mars Challenge, provides an overview of all that is Curiosity and the latest deployment, landing, and sample collection technology in space exploration. NOVA goes behind the scenes of NASA’s latest mission to discover the secrets looming on the Red Planet. Viewers can follow along as scientists and engineers grapple with the problems NASA anticipated and the solutions they developed to overcome them, including landing the largest Rover ever on the surface of Mars by lowering it down from a massive sky crane as pictured below. You can watch the show streaming in its entirety online, or purchase a DVD.
Also, check out this video to relive the excitement of the landing along with the NASA team!
Whatever the plan for the day, chances are you can incorporate some of the exciting new developments from Mars exploration into your lesson that will make classwork both fun for students and relatable to current events. If you’re a math or physics teacher, why not talk about the relative sizes of the planets, or how NASA calculated when to launch the rocket carrying the rover? If you’re an earth sciences or chemistry teacher, your students may be interested in the natural resources available on Mars, the chemical composition of the soil and air (why does Mars appear red?), and how Mars could be made habitable for human life. Even in a social studies class – how might social life and interactions on Mars be different from those on Earth? (Do we still shake hands in spacesuits?) And what kinds of new jobs might there have to be on Mars?
For inspiration, NASA has some excellent ready-made lesson plans for all ages as part of their Imagine Mars Project, co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Each lesson plan incorporates hands-on activities, reflection, discussion and elaboration of new skills and knowledge. In addition, short video clips accompany many lessons. These are perfect for some quick background knowledge presented in a clear, concise, and attention-grabbing way.
My favorite is the Soda Straw Rockets, where students get to make their own paper rockets, then aim and 3…2…1… blast off! at a model of a planetary target. Based on their results, students can make adjustments to the size and shape of their rockets to see if they can make them travel faster, farther, and more accurately. Students use the scientific method to make hypotheses, evaluate their results, and refine their methods.
Alternatively, you could have your students make a short infomercial or informational pamphlet to prepare the first Mars settlers for what they might expect. After all, the first humans to live on Mars might be in for a bit of a shock based on how different life will have to be out there! Each student can play an expert in a particular field, advising newcomers on what they’ll need to survive on their new home. (Don’t forget your ski goggles for those planet-blanketing dust storms. And you may want to pack an extra pair of gloves for when it’s 200-below!)
At Pine Grove Middle School in East Syracuse, NY, eighth grade students already have Curiosity on the mind. Six teachers have teamed up for a trans-disciplinary, project-based curriculum for their 8th grade students, focusing on science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math (S.T.E.A.M.). November marked the beginning of their six-week long ROVER drop project, during which students will design and build robots that will be able to land safely, orient themselves, navigate rough terrain, avoid obstacles, and collect data (temperature and pH) from a body of liquid they find on the surface of “Mars”.
The project works like this: During Phase 1, groups of 4 students follow blueprints to build LEGO Mindstorms robots of increasing complexity. The robots are controlled using ROBOLAB software, which allows students to create programs to perform simple tasks. During Phase 2, the students increase their skill sets while learning to solve increasingly complex problems and work around design issues. During the final phase, groups will join forces with classmates to build and program one ROVER per class to be deployed on the Martian terrain. Each small group will design, build, and program one system for their class’ ROVER. On drop day, each class of 24 students will run Mission Control for their robot, commanding its behavior remotely by running and sending computer programs to an iPod Touch affixed to each rover.
We will be following the development of the project as students simulate the experience of being at JPL, and discover how what they learn in the classroom is used to solve important, real-world problems. You can follow along too on the class Twitter and website linked below, where you can click on <ROVER> to learn more about the project and see daily progress updates. On drop day in January, you’ll be able to watch all of the excitement along with the team on their Mission Control Cam.
If you’re interested in the possibility of life elsewhere on Mars and beyond, don’t forget NOVA’s Education Collection, Finding Life Beyond Earth. Included are lesson plans, video clips, and other resources to bring exciting science to the classroom, and drive your students’ scientific inquiry. In addition, the Education Collection includes a chart of K-8 National Science Education Standards that align with the activities included therein.
If you have incorporated the Mars Curiosity Rover into your lesson plans in a creative way, we’d love to hear from you! Send us an email at [email protected].
What fuels your Curiosity?
NASA’s Follow Your Curiosity lesson plans:
NOVA’s Finding Life Beyond Earth program and accompanying educational materials:
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EDUCERI › Innovative Learning Environments Publication
Innovative Learning Environments
How to design a powerful learning environment so that learners can thrive in the 21st century? OECD’s Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) is an ambitious international study that responds to this challenging question. The study earlier released the influential publication The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice. This companion volume is based on 40 in-depth case studies of powerful 21st century learning environments that have taken the innovation journey.
In conclusion it offers pointers to how this can be achieved, including the role of technology, networking, and changing organisational cultures. This report will prove to be an invaluable resource for all those interested in schooling. It will be of particular interest to teachers, education leaders, parents, teacher educators, advisors and decision-makers, as well as the research community.
Innovation is a key element of today’s societies and economies, and that includes how we learn. This report looks at inspiring cases of innovative learning environments from across the globe, as part of the OECD’s Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) project.
The project has gathered 125 examples from more than 20 countries and carried out detailed case study research on 40 of them. These cases have been identified within their own system as significant departures from mainstream learning arrangements for younger
children or older teenagers, while promising to meet the ambitious objectives needed for the 21st century.
In this report, a “learning environment” is as an organic, holistic concept - an ecosystem that includes the activity and the outcomes of the learning. Some of the innovations examined are in places called schools and others are not; in either case, the report argues in favour of different units of analysis than the institutional variables of “school” or “classroom” when the aim is to understand and to innovate learning. More appropriate units have been shaped into a new framework that provides the structure of this report.
This report analyses in detail the practices revealed in the case studies. It lets the cases “speak for themselves”
Readers can access the full version of The Innovative Learning Environments choosing from the following options:
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The genomic sequencing of hundreds of patients with diverse types of ciliopathies has revealed that "in many cases the gene responsible is not known", says Travis Stracker, head of the Genomic Instability and Cancer Lab at the IRB Barcelona. "So many people do not have a molecular diagnosis," stresses the researcher. "Our work seeks to contribute to bridging this knowledge gap".
Today, the EMBO Journal has published a study on mice by Travis Stracker and his team, in collaboration with Vincenzo Costanzo's laboratory at the FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology (IFOM) in Milan, in which they reveal a gene candidate for a subtype of human ciliopathy. The gene in question, GEMC1, is indispensable for the generation of multiciliated cells specific to tissues such as the brain, trachea, lungs and oviducts.
The surface of multiciliated cells is covered by hundreds of cilia. These tiny, hairlike structures serve to circulate cerebrospinal fluid, remove mucus from the respiratory tract, and transport ovum through the oviduct, among other functions. Defects in the generation or function of these cells causes a subtype of ciliopathies called Mucociliary Clearance Disorders.
Candidate and master gene
Specifically, GEMC1-deficient mice produced by Stracker reproduce the symptoms of a rare disease called RGMC (Reduced Generation of Multiple Motile Cilia)--a condition that causes hydrocephaly, severe respiratory infections, and infertility. The work, led by IRB Barcelona PhD student Berta Terré and IFOM postdoctoral researcher Gabriele Piergiovanni, reports that GEMC1 regulates the only two genes known to date that underlie this disease, Multicilin and Cyclin O, thus making it a potential candidate gene for RGMC.
In addition, the study has revealed that GEMC1 is one of the most important genes in the gene signalling cascade for the production of multiciliated cells. This means that this gene affects many others that depend on its expression. The gene expression analysis of this first study has revealed at least 10 new candidate genes related to cilia, as well as dozens that were already known or suspected of being involved in the function of cilia.
"The mice are a particular model of RGMC but we believe that this model will allow us to identify many new genes involved in motile cilia, which affect other types of ciliopathies. We are now performing new gene expression analyses of specific cell populations to shed more light on a field about which little is known," says Stracker, who studied GEMC1 because of its function in DNA replication and potential contribution to cancer.
"While examining this gene for other reasons, we unexpectedly found it was potentially involved in ciliopathies. This kind of thing often happens in basic research and for us it was really interesting because of the lack of knowledge regarding these diseases and the biomedical implications our findings may have," explains Stracker. "As ciliopathies are diverse and rare diseases, they have not received widespread attention from funding agencies and the pharma industry, as they are not interested in developing treatments for small markets, which is a great shame," chides the researcher.
Rare Diseases at IRB Barcelona
Scientific literature documents between 6,000 and 7,000 rare diseases-- conditions defined by the European Union as those that affect only 5 in 10,000 people or fewer. In Europe alone, between 27 and 36 million people have some form of rare disease. Because these diseases are complex, many have no treatment, thus leaving those who suffer from them, and their families and carers a heavy burden. In Spain, about 3 million people are affected by rare diseases, of which 400,000 are in Catalonia.
Innovative and cutting-edge basic research offers enormous potential to take the knowledge gained in cell and molecular biology laboratories and use it to design therapies for rare diseases. In this regard, IRB Barcelona is currently conducting about 20 studies in rare diseases, among them Lafora disease, Kennedy syndrome, diverse type of rare cancers, Friedreich Ataxia, Cystinuria, mithocondrial diseases, Charcot Marie Tooth disease, Ataxia-telangiectasia and Seckel syndrome.
GEMC1 is a critical regulator of multiciliated cell differentiation
Berta Terré, Gabriele Piergiovanni, Sandra Segura-Bayona, Gabriel Gil-Gómez, Sameh A. Youssef, Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini, Michaela Wilsch-Bräuninger, Carole Jung, Ana M. Rojas, Marko Marjanovi?, Philip A. Knobel, Lluís Palenzuela, Teresa López-Rovira, Stephen Forrow, Wieland B. Huttner, Miguel A. Valverde, Alain de Bruin, Vincenzo Costanzo and Travis H. Stracker
EMBO Journal (March 2016) 10.15252/embj.201592821
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Current Editor: Chris Merrill, [email protected]
Previous Editors: Mark Sanders 1989-1997; James LaPorte: 1997-2010
Are We There Yet?
The "are we there yet" phenomenon is familiar to most everyone. It occurs when traveling with children, especially for long distances. The question usually comes up shortly after departure and continues up until the destination is reached. The secret to reducing the phenomenon to a mild distraction is to keep the children occupied with games and other diversions, taking their minds off the length of the journey and focusing on the fun to be had "once they are there."
In our journey to reach our goals in technology education, it is easy to become so engaged in our day-to-day work that we do not realize how far we have traveled or what has happened along the way. It is comparable to how new technological developments can become a part of our everyday lives in a very short time, without us hardly realizing it. The cell phone is a prime example.
Much has happened in our field in the past fifteen years or so, but most of us must pause and reflect in order to put it all in perspective. In the US, the era started with the name change from industrial arts to technology education. The name change was followed by a flurry of efforts at all levels to articulate just what technology education is and how it might be put into teachable terms. Philosophical and practical arguments ensued in all sectors of the field. Companies began to develop "modular" approaches to technology education, defining for some just what technology education should be, de facto.
The US sought expertise internationally, especially from Great Britain, resulting in a miniature version of the "British Invasion" that started with the music of the Beatles a quarter century earlier. The National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and other agencies began to offer significant funding for technology education through competitive grants. With this funding, the era culminated with the Standards for technological literacy: Content for the study of technology (ITEA, 2000), providing a clear idea of the parameters of the field and a substantial backbone for curriculum development. Though one could argue that the standards should have preceded the name change, that point is now moot.
While all these developments were going on in the field, a lot was transpiring externally during the same time period. New standards for mathematics and science were developed. The science standards clearly stated the importance of technological design and problem solving as a part of the study of science and technology, and there were obvious implications for technology education in the mathematics standards as well.
Corporations began to sponsor competitive events to encourage students to invent and develop new products. Though it was recently discontinued, the Duracell Corporation and the National Science Teachers Association sponsored a technological invention contest, awarding a significant scholarship to the winner. Engineering professional associations started to become interested in what was going on with technology in the schools. Some of these organizations began to develop curriculum materials. A World in Motion from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) is an example (http://www.sae.org/students/awim.htm). It is a physical science curriculum that uses (among other things) the design and building of a toy car to teach science principles. A number of professional organizations like the SAE now have professionals who are assigned exclusively to K-12 grade initiatives.
Dean Kamen, President of DEKA Research and Development Corporation, founded the FIRST Robotics Competition for high school students (http://www.usfirst.org). In just a few years this competition has grown to over 20,000 participants and is international in scope. Opportunities for younger students were developed through the FIRST LEGO League (http://www.firstlegoleague.org) as part of Kamen's FIRST Jr. Robotics program. This newer competition is growing at a rate comparable to its older sibling. Kamen, incidentally, is behind the development of the innovative Segway™ Human Transporter (HT) that has received a lot of attention in the media in recent months.
One could defensibly argue that the field of technology education, having evolved from industrial arts, has been focused upon "technological literacy" throughout its 140-plus year history. As a general education program in the schools, its philosophy has been grounded from its inception in what is good and useful for everyone. Only in the past two decades, though, have there been two parallel efforts going on at the same time to develop technological literacy: one in the field of technology education and the other outside of the field.
Initially the efforts were, for the most part, parallel but separate. This was not based on exclusivity but rather on a lack of awareness of just who the interested parties were in developing technological literacy. Through the efforts of the International Technology Education Association, the National Science Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and others, linkages have been established to merge the parallel efforts. Most noteworthy is the significant role that the prestigious and influential National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council had in the development of the Standards (ITEA, 2000). They influenced the standards so that they were useful to all those who had technological literacy on their agenda, not just those in the formalized field of technology education.
As our journey led us near to where we are right now, some intensely bright, carbon arc lamps swept the sky ahead of us. In January of this year a document titled Technically Speaking (2002) was released amidst deserved fanfare. I cannot recall ever reading a document that presents a more logical and compelling case for technological literacy. I do not think I am being too bold in stating that everyone in the field needs to read it, including our international colleagues. It is thought provoking and sheds new light on some of the issues technology educators have philosophized about for decades.
The way in which technological literacy is to be delivered will no doubt set technology educators in the US back in their chairs. First, it defines and creates the context for technological literacy that is apart from the thinking of many in our field. Second, it recommends that technological literacy be developed by integrating it with the other subjects in the school:
Short of the widespread adoption of dedicated courses in technology - an unlikely scenario in the committee's view - the inclusion of technology subject matter in other academic areas is one of the surest ways of increasing the visibility of technology in U.S. schools (p. 104).
This assertion was supported by citing the recent Gallup poll on technology that was commissioned by the ITEA:
Ninety-seven percent [of the poll respondents] said they believed the study of technology, broadly defined, should be part of the school curriculum; two-thirds said it should be integrated in other subjects rather than taught as a separate course (p. 66).
At the same time, Technically Speaking recognizes the work of technology educators throughout the document and it amply cites the Standards for technological literacy. It also indicates that technology educators will have an important role in infusing technological content throughout the school curriculum: "Teachers who specialize in technology, still relatively few in number, will be essential to a serious effort to boost technological literacy" (p. 7).
Clearly, a new paradigm for technological literacy is unfolding - a paradigm that is quite different from the one prompted by the name change that occurred nearly two decades ago. Just what role our teachers and the "dedicated courses in technology" they are now delivering will have in this new paradigm is neither explicit nor implied in Technically Speaking. Perhaps this was by design, rightfully allowing the technology education profession itself to define its role in the new paradigm. Whatever the case, such an effort must begin at once. One thing is for certain: We are not there yet!
International Technology Education Association (2000). Standards for technological literacy: Content for the study of technology. Reston, VA: Author.
National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council. (2002). Technically speaking: Why all Americans need to know more about technology. Greg Pearson and A. Thomas Young, (Eds.), Committee on Technological Literacy. Washington, DC: National Academy Press (http://www.nae.edu/techlit).
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The author has a master’s degree in European Studies and previously worked at the European Parliament. Emily is the Proof Reading Editor of the TNF.eu
The ECI was born out the Lisbon Treaty and is part of a drive by the EU to improve transparency and democracy. Essentially, if an initiative receives one million signatures from citizens who come from at least seven of the EU’s member states then the European Commission will consider the proposal.
So how does it work? Well, before an ECI can be launched at least seven citizens from seven EU member states must form a ‘citizens’ committee’ and officially register the ECI online. Then the committee can begin to collect signatures, and organisers have a year to do so. Any EU citizen can sign an initiative (so long as they are old enough to vote in European Parliament elections) and must complete a specific statement of support, either online or on paper. Once one million signatures have been collected, representatives from the Commission will meet with organisers and discuss the initiative in detail. There is also an opportunity for a public hearing at the European Parliament. The Commission will then adopt a formal response to the ECI’s proposals and set out its next course of action, if any.
This is a long process. Initially, the Commission has two months to register the proposed initiative. If you want to be able to collect electronic signatures for your ECI (and who wouldn’t in this digital age), then it takes a further month to build an online collection system that can handle the appropriate technical and security demands. This also has to be certified by a national authority in the member state where the data is going to be stored, before any signatures can be collected. Organisers have a year to collect signatures, and then a further three months are allowed for national authorities to verify the statements of support. Once organisers have received certificates verifying the signatures they submit these to the European Commission, who have a further three months to examine the initiative and prepare a response. Potentially, that’s 21 months of work from start to end, not to mention the work that goes in before an initiative is first launched.
Critics argue that the process is too complex, too long-winded and that ultimately, the European Commission is not legally bound to propose legislation as a result of an initiative. There are also fears that the ECI could be hijacked by civil society organisations pushing their own agendas. The Commission has tried to prepare for this by announcing that initiatives can’t be run by organisations. However, organisations are allowed to promote or support an ECI provided that they do so “with full transparency.”
On the plus side, this really is a rather revolutionary step for the EU and it has never consulted its citizens like this before. Last year the UK government introduced e-petitions, a similar measure for citizens to influence policy by way of a petition (only 100,000 signatures are needed for a subject to be raised in the House of Commons) and the website has been hugely popular. If the ECI receives the publicity it deserves on 1 April, it should get people talking and, hopefully, mobilised. One million signatures is a huge number to collect but in the digital age this might not be quite such a mammoth task. Time will tell and the first ECI is just around the corner.
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The common name 'cushion star' has been applied to a handful of asteroids that bear a passing resemblance to stuffed upholstery. But the moniker best fits the tropical reef-dwelling oreasterids known as Culcita. Despite their rotund profile, these sea stars possess appendages that are palpable when the animal is overturned. Radiating from the bumpy central disk are five grooves harbouring an ambulacral assembly of tube feet with suckers strong enough to inch the creature over rocky flats.
The limbs, though pudgy compared to those of their knobbly cousins, are more apparent on young individuals. For the ontogenic path of these curious sea stars involves a steady inflation of the internal cavity into a calcified shell complete with structural supports for a carapace with few chinks in its armour. The pin-hard cushions have little to worry from predators, though of late, they risk a greater threat in the plague that has ravaged the region's reefs and turned their preferred prey from cauliflorous polyps into pale, parched stalks. But no rhyme or reason guides these pangs that can die down as soon as they reach a peak, and the shores south of Cyrene Reef still shelter a population of these ineffable cushions that are disarmingly easy to miss as they ply a tenuous landscape of tidal blue and troubled brown.
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Background to the Campaign: The British
General Howe, Commander of British troops in the Colonies, had a two-pronged plan for 1777. While the British army of the North under General Burgoyne would march down from Canada to capture Albany, isolating New England, the Southern army under Howe would capture Philadelphia.
With the capital under occupation, and radical New England isolated, Howe hoped to force a surrender.
Winter, according to the military custom of the 18th century, was not a season to pursue battle. After a string of successful battles in 1776, General Howe spent the winter in New York City.
Dallying overlong there, it was not until June 1777 that Howe made a non-productive feint into New Jersey. But due to a fear of losing his supply line, the vacillating general performed an about-face and returned to New York.
Yet, the fighting season was nearing an end without a single major engagement having taken place. Howe was finally ready to engage the enemy, capture Philadelphia, and show the King and Parliament that he was bringing the war to a close.
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The Cold Weather Plan gives advice on preparation for the effects of winter weather on people’s health.
The Cold Weather Plan aims to prepare for the effects of winter weather on people’s health.
It provides advice for individuals, communities and agencies on how to prepare for and respond to severe cold weather. And it is supported by a Met Office cold weather alert service that starts on 1 November and runs until the end of March 2013.
The plan is part of a wider suite of measures that the Department of Health, NHS, Health Protection Agency and the Met Office are taking to protect individuals and communities from the effects of severe winter weather.
Read the letter from the Chief Medical Officer, Director of Nursing, Director General, Social Care, Local Government and Care Partnerships, and the Deputy NHS Chief Executive announcing the launch of this year’s Cold Weather Plan.
A series of easy-to-use ‘action cards’ have been published for use by organisations, staff and the public. They summarise the information in the action tables in Section 3 of the Cold Weather Plan and are meant to provide a quick ready-reckoner to see at a glance the actions which are suggested for different cold weather alert levels.
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Biomass is a basic term in ecology, and in the energy production industry. Organic waste such as dead plant and animal material, animal dung and kitchen waste can be converted into gaseous fuel called biogas. The organic waste is decomposed by bacteria in biogas digesters to emit biogas which is essentially a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide.
In ecology, biomass means the accumulation of living matter. It is the total living material in a given area or a biological community or group. Biomass is measured by weight, or by dry weight, per given area (per square metre or square kilometer). In the energy industry, it refers to biological material which can be used as fuel or for industrial production. Biomass includes plant matter grown for use as biofuel, and also includes plant or animal matter used for production of fibres, chemicals or heat. Biomass may also include biodegradable wastes which can be burnt as fuel. It excludes organic material which has been transformed by geological processes into substances such as coal or petroleum. It is usually measured by dry weight.
Energy industry[change | change source]
Biomass is grown from several plants, including switchgrass, hemp, corn, poplar, willow and sugarcane. The particular plant used is usually not very important to the end products, but it does affect the processing of the raw material. Though biomass is a renewable fuel, its use can still contribute to global warming. This happens when the natural carbon equilibrium is disturbed; for example by deforestation or urbanization of green sites.
Biomass is part of the carbon cycle. Photosynthesis converts carbon from the atmosphere into plant matter. When the plant rots or burns, the carbon goes back into the atmosphere. This happens somewhat quickly, and plant matter used as a fuel can be constantly replaced by planting for new growth. Therefore it doesn't much change the amount of atmospheric carbon.
Although fossil fuels come from things that died long ago, they are not considered biomass by the generally accepted definition because they contain carbon that has been 'out' of the carbon cycle for a very long time. Burning them combustion therefore adds much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Other uses of biomass, besides fuel:
Plastics from biomass, like some made to dissolve in seawater, are made the same way as petroleum-based plastics, are actually cheaper to manufacture and meet or exceed most performance standards. But they lack the water resistance of conventional plastics.
Ecology[change | change source]
The most successful animal, in terms of biomass, is the Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba, with a biomass of probably over 500 million tons across the world, about twice the total biomass of humans. Biomass may also be a measure of the dried organic mass of an ecosystem.
This is a summary of biomass data.
|BIOME ECOSYSTEM TYPE||Area||Mean Net Primary Production||World Primary Production||Mean biomass||World biomass||Minimum replacement rate|
|(million km²)||(gram dryC/sq metre/year)||(billion tonnes/year)||(kg dryC/sq metre)||(billion tonnes)||(years)|
|Tropical rain forest||17.0||2,200||37.40||45.00||765.00||20.45|
|Tropical monsoon forest||7.5||1,600||12.00||35.00||262.50||21.88|
|Temperate evergreen forest||5.0||1,320||6.60||35.00||175.00||26.52|
|Temperate deciduous forest||7.0||1,200||8.40||30.00||210.00||25.00|
|Mediterranean open forest||2.8||750||2.10||18.00||50.40||24.00|
|Woodland and shrubland||5.7||700||3.99||6.00||34.20||8.57|
|Tundra and alpine climate||8.0||140||1.12||0.60||4.80||4.29|
|Desert and semidesert scrub||18.0||90||1.62||0.70||12.60||7.78|
|Extreme desert, rock desert, sand or ice sheets||24.0||3||0.07||0.02||0.48||6.67|
|Swamp and marsh||2.0||2,000||4.00||15.00||30.00||7.50|
|Lakes and streams||2.0||250||0.50||0.02||0.04||0.08|
|Algal beds and reefs||0.60||2,500.00||1.50||2.000||1.20||0.80|
|Estuaries & mangroves||1.40||1,500.00||2.10||1.000||1.40||0.67|
Other pages[change | change source]
Other websites[change | change source]
- AllGreen Energy - Electricity Generation from Biomass
- Everything Biomass
- Michigan Biomass Energy Program
- BioMASS Laboratory at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Forest Bioenergy
References[change | change source]
- Nicol S. & Endo Y. 1997 (1997). Fisheries Technical Paper 367: Krill Fisheries of the World. FAO. http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=//DOCREP/003/W5911E/w5911e00.htm.
- T.A. Volk et al Developing a willow biomass crop enterprise for bioenergy and bioproducts in the United States. In: Proceedings of Bioenergy 2000, October 15-19, 2000. Buffalo, New York.
- Oh, chicken feathers! How to reduce plastic waste. Yahoo News, Apr 5, 2007.
- Leith H. & Whittaker R H. 1975. Primary productivity of the biosphere. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Ecological Studies, vol 14. ISBN 0-3870-7083-4
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| 0.822418 | 1,350 | 3.953125 | 4 |
DURHAM, N.C. -- Political and social chaos and a lack of international protections have put several species of rosewood trees in Madagascar in danger of becoming extinct from illegal logging, according to a policy forum paper in the latest issue of Science.
"Forty-seven of Madagascar's 48 species of rosewood (Dalbergia) are found nowhere else in the world," said Duke University graduate student Meredith Barrett, the lead author on the May 27 article.
Madagascar's military-backed change in leadership last year and a lucrative rosewood market based largely in China have created a dangerous situation for the endangered trees and the habitat that surrounds them, Barrett said.
Duke researchers performed a sophisticated mapping and modeling study with the help of a French botanist to estimate historical and current distributions of the reddish hardwood, and to support their call for greater protections and enforcement.
Barrett, whose dissertation research concerns the effects of human development on lemur health, has seen the illegal logging first-hand. "When we went there in October, it had become obvious that Madagascar's tourism had collapsed and that unrestricted logging was accelerating," she said. The market for lemur "bush meat" also has increased dramatically, particularly in the country's northeastern rainforests.
Barrett and Duke Lemur Center director Anne Yoder, who is the senior author on the policy paper, hope they can call the international attention of scientists and conservation groups to protect the rosewood trees. Ideally, this would take the form of increased public pressure on the Malagasy government to step up enforcement and a formal listing under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Barrett said.
Brazilian rosewood gained CITES protection in 1992, which is believed to have put more pressure on the forests in Madagascar.
The slow-growing rosewood trees are found in relative isolation from each other. They are too dense to float very well, so loggers will fell several trees along river banks to make skids and rafts for bringing the logs to market. Once the logs are floated and trucked to Malagasy ports, they are loaded onto container ships and hauled to China to make highly prized furniture and musical instruments. There are an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 metric tons of felled rosewood trees awaiting shipment from Madagascar's ports.
The Malagasy logger who fells the tree is paid about 50 cents for "backbreaking work," Barrett said. A Chinese rosewood armoire retails for about $20,000.
Enforcement of the Malagasy government's on-again, off-again policy against rosewood logging is pretty much nonexistent, Barrett said. Logging interests have threatened the safety of villages and at least one park office has been burned down.
"If you protect the trees, you're also protecting habitat," Barrett said. "Seventy percent of Madagascar's species live in these forests."
|Contact: Karl Leif Bates|
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| 0.954102 | 618 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Last name origins & meanings:
- Irish (Kerry): Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Saoghair,
which in turn may be a patronymic from a Gaelicized form of the Old
English personal name Saeger (see 2 below).
- English: patronymic from a Middle English personal name
Saher or Seir (see Sayer 1).
form of French Cyr.
- Richard Sears came to Plymouth, MA, from England about
Comments for Sears
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| 0.819604 | 103 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Survey results suggest they might be more likely to try alcohol, illegal drugs
THURSDAY, Dec. 17 (HealthDay News) -- American teens believe that smoking cigarettes is riskier than using illicit drugs or binge drinking, a new government report shows.
That perception may increase the likelihood that they'll experiment with alcohol or illegal substances, the report authors said.
"We are on the right track with cigarette smoking and need to keep raising awareness among teens about the dangers of other substances," Pamela S. Hyde, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), said in a news release from the agency. "Understanding that perception of harm is a strong predictor of potential substance use among young people can help guide the development of substance prevention messages."
Responses from 44,979 adolescents, aged 12-17, who took part in the 2007 and 2008 SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that teens' perception of cigarette-related risk was constant among all groups, but there was considerable age- and gender-related variation in perception of risk associated with other types of substances.
Among the key findings:
The American Academy of Family Physicians offers advice on how parents can prevent substance abuse in children.
-- Robert Preidt
SOURCE: U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, news release, Dec. 17, 2009
All rights reserved
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The latest news from academia, regulators
research labs and other things of interest
Posted: May 29, 2012
Photo-chemical reaction using a carbon nanotube as a test tube
(Nanowerk News) Yoshiyuki Miyamoto, Dynamic Process Simulation Group, the Nanosystem Research Institute of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), has performed the first-principles simulations to show that an ultra-short laser pulse can induce electron excitation which activates synchronized rotational motion of two acetylene molecules encapsulated in a semiconducting carbon nanotube using the Earth Simulator of Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. The motion cannot be realized when acetylene molecules are in a gas phase. The simulation also showed that the excitation can be preserved with a reactive configuration of the acetylene molecules.
This work is expected to contribute to new chemical synthesis achieved by combining a femtosecond laser and carbon nanotubes.
The details of this research were published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, on May 21, 2012.
Two acetylene molecules encapsulated in a semiconducting carbon nanotube (top) and synchronized rotational motion of the molecules in the carbon nanotube after laser irradiation (bottom). (The display of nanotube structures during the molecular rotation was omitted.)
Social Background of Research
Experimental works proved that a carbon nanotube (CNT) can encapsulate metal atoms and organic molecules. It is expected that CNT behaves as a test tube useful for new material synthesis by photo-chemical reactions of encapsulated molecules.
It has been known that an ultra-short laser pulse causes electronic excitation of molecules that non-thermally changes molecular structures. Furthermore, the higher efficiency of laser irradiation is expected when the laser irradiate the molecules encapsulated in CNT than the efficiency when it irradiate the molecules in a gas phase. However, it is difficult to experimentally examine how an optical field is modulated by CNT and what kind of dynamics occurs in a narrow internal space of CNT. Current study examined the effect of an ultra-short laser pulse on acetylene molecules encapsulated in CNT by performing the first-principles calculations, which can treat dynamics of electrons and nuclei simultaneously. The acetylene encapsulation was attracting attention from a viewpoint of molecular storage as well as possibility of polymerization of acetylene.
History of Research
AIST is aiming at the development of innovative technology of CNT that contributes to industry and at accumulating necessary basic knowledge. For these purposes, AIST is conducting research based on the first-principles simulations to predict CNT properties.
This research has been done under an Earth Simulator collaboration project in 2011, "Large-scale Simulation on the Properties of Carbon-nanotube" (Leader; Syogo Tejima, Research Organization for Information Science and Technology), that used the Earth Simulator of Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. This research was done in collaboration with Prof. Hong Zhang (Sichuan University, China) and Prof. Angel Rubio (University of País Vasco, Spain). All numerical simulations using the Earth Simulator were done by AIST.
Details of Research
In this research, the dynamics of molecules encapsulated in CNT after the electron excitation induced by an ultra-short laser pulse was simulated by numerical calculations. The pulse was polarized perpendicular to CNT axis and has a pulse shape shown in Fig. 1.
Figure 1: Pulse shape and polarization of the electric field of the laser irradiating CNT encapsulating acetylene.
The (14,0) CNT used for the calculation has electronic structure of semiconductor, so the optical field can penetrate to the inner cavity of the CNT without shielding. (Meantime, in metallic CNT, the optical field is shielded by fast-moving electrons.) The diameter is just suitable to encapsulate an acetylene dimer. The dynamics of this dimer induced by a laser pulse (wavelength : 800 nm, full width at half maximum : 2 fs) was studied. This pulse shape has a specific property having an electric field with particular direction for a longer time, unlikely to ordinary sinusoidal shapes directing the electric field in two alternating directions.
The dynamics of gas-phase acetylene induced by the same pulse shown in Fig. 1 was investigated for comparison, and hydrogen atoms at the end of the molecule immediately detached after the application of the pulse. Assuming the same configuration as the dimer in (14,0) CNT, the dynamics of a hypothetical acetylene dimer in gas phase induced by the same laser pulse was also examined. Unlike the case of the single molecule, it was found that C-H bonds showed swing motion and hydrogen atoms detached. Furthermore, when the dimer is in the (14,0) CNT, the numerical simulation interestingly showed that the same laser pulse can induce the swing motions in opposite directions, and that the detachment of hydrogen atoms was suppressed. The result suggests modulation of the laser field by a response of the CNT wall and indirectly suggests that the field is non-uniform in space. Figure 2 shows comparative results of the dynamics of acetylene dimers from the direction parallel to CNT axis, showing the isolated molecule, the isolated dimer, and the dimer encapsulated in CNT.
Figure 2: Comparison of dynamics of the isolated acetylene molecule (top), the acetylene dimer (middle), and the acetylene dimer encapsulated in CNT, induced by the laser pulse.
The longer time simulation was also made to trace the rotational motion of the acetylene dimer in CNT. Figure 3 shows comparison of the results induced by laser pulses with same shape but different intensities. In both cases, the polar angles of the carbon-carbon axes (C-C axes), as denoted by gray semi-circles in Fig. 3, of acetylene molecules showed synchronized rotation. Throughout the simulation time, the C-C axes which have triple bonds rotate in synchronized manner keeping laser-induced electronically excited states for a long time suggesting the high reactivity of these molecules, while the swing and stretching motions of C-H have no correlation. Because of retention of the electronically excited state, anti-bonding nature in the C-H bond was found. One hydrogen atom in one of the two acetylene molecules detached when maximum intensity of laser field is 12 V/Å. In this case, the simulation also showed induction of defects in the CNT.
Figure 3: Laser induced dynamics of the acetylene dimer in semiconducting (14,0) CNT. Small circles indicate hydrogen atoms. (Structure of CNT is not shown.)
The researchers will continue to perform numerical simulation to explore conditions that maximize the efficiency of chemical reactions of molecules encapsulated in CNT to accelerate frontier research on structure and synthesis of new low-dimensional materials. They will also explore the same effect in other porous materials besides CNT. Chirality dependence of the damage to CNT, a test tube, caused by pulse laser irradiation will also be investigated.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on reddit or StumbleUpon. Thanks!
Check out these other trending stories on Nanowerk:
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Infrastructure can be defined as ‘the basic structures and facilities that are necessary for the efficient functioning of a given geographical area’.
Green infrastructure refers to ‘the network of different types of green spaces which together enable delivery of multiple benefits as goods and services’.
Green spaces are ‘any vegetated areas of land or water within or adjoining an urban area’.
Types of green infrastructure
- Parks and gardens
- Natural and semi-natural urban green spaces
- Green corridors
- Outdoor sports facilities
- Amenity green space
- Allotments, community gardens and city farms
- Cemeteries and churchyards
- Accessible countryside in urban fringe areas
- Civic spaces.
Green infrastructure also includes some aspects of the marine and water environment – or ‘blue infrastructure’ - such as rivers, ponds and sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS).
Benefits of green infrastructure
The integration of high quality green infrastructure into the urban environment can provide a number of key benefits. These include:
- Climate change adaptation/mitigation
- Health, well-being and social cohesion
- Economic growth and investment
- Wildlife and habitats
- Stronger communities.
These benefits can be achieved most successfully when planning and management take place to ensure green space is supplied in the right place at the right time.
A summary report that covers the benefits of green infrastructure has been written by Forest Research (2010), alongside a main report to Defra providing technical information:
Benefits of green infrastructure: summary report (PDF-2362K)
Benefits of green infrastructure: main report (PDF-1211K)
A collection of case studies and evidence notes that provide examples of successful planning of green infrastructure into the urban environment can be downloaded from the benefits of green infrastructure knowledge portal.
Numerous publications written by various organisations that contain information on, or relating to, the benefits of green infrastructure can also be found on the knowledge portal.
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| 0.894089 | 406 | 3.78125 | 4 |
atrial septal defect
is a hole in the wall between the 2 upper chambers (right and left atriums) of the heart. Open heart surgery can repair the hole, either by closing the hole with stitches or by placing a patch over it.
Patch Repair for Atrial Septal Defect
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
If a child is born with a hole between the upper chambers of the heart, the blood can flow backward into the right side of the heart and into the lungs. This triggers the heart to work harder. Over time, this can lead to damage to blood vessels in the lungs and
congestive heart failure
. This procedure is done to fix the hole.
Most children who have this surgery will have good outcomes.
Complications are rare, but no procedure is free of risk. Possible complications may include:
BleedingDamage to the heart or lungsReaction to the anesthesia, such as lightheadedness and wheezing
endocarditis, an infection of the inner lining of the heart muscleHeart attackBlood clot formationArrhythmia—abnormal heart rhythm
Before your child's procedure, talk to the doctor about ways to manage factors that may increase your child's risk of complications such as chronic disease such as diabetes or obesity.
Low birth weight or a recent infection may increase the risk of complications.
A physical exam will be done. Other tests may include: Blood and urine testsEchocardiogram
—a test that uses sound waves to visualize heart functioning
(ECG, EKG)—a test that records the heart's activity by measuring electrical currents through the heart muscle
—a test that uses radiation to take a picture of structures inside the chest
—the insertion of a tube-like instrument into the heart through an artery
The doctor will tell you if your child needs to stop taking medicines.
Ask the doctor when your child should stop eating or drinking before the surgery.
will be used. It will block pain and keep your child asleep through the surgery.
An incision will be made in the skin and breastbone. The chest cavity will be opened. Next, the heart will be connected to a heart-lung machine. This machine will take over the functions of the heart and lungs. The heart will be stopped to do surgery.
The pericardial sac around the heart will be opened. A small part of this sac may be removed and used to patch the hole. A cut will be made in the right atrium. A small hole will be closed with sutures. A larger hole will be covered with a patch that is made of the sac or other material. Once the defect is repaired, the incision will be cloesd. The heart will then be restarted. Once it is working fine, the heart-lung machine will not be needed. The chest cavity will be closed. Sutures will be used to close the skin.
Your child will be monitored in the intensive care unit (ICU) with the help of the following devices:
Heart monitorBreathing tube until your child can breathe unaidedChest tubes to drain fluids that have collected in the chestA line into an artery in the arm or leg to measure blood pressureA tube through the nose and into the stomach to drain fluids and gas that collect in the stomachBladder catheter
Pain or soreness during recovery will be managed with pain medication.
The usual length of stay is 5-7 days. If there are complications, your child may need to stay longer.
The hospital staff may:
Do tests, such as ECG and blood tests.Give pain medication.Gradually transition your child to a normal diet.
During your stay, the hospital staff will take steps to reduce your child's chance of infection such as: Washing their handsWearing gloves or masksKeeping your child's incisions covered
There are also steps you can take to reduce your child's chances of infection such as: Washing your hands and your child's hands often and reminding visitors and healthcare providers to do the sameReminding your child's healthcare providers to wear gloves or masksNot allowing others to touch your child's incisions
When your child returns home, do the following:
Encourage your child to rest, especially during the first few days. He will slowly return to normal activities. Have your child avoid rough play.Follow all of the doctor’s instructions.
In about 6 months, the heart tissue will grow over the sutures or patch.
After your child leaves the hospital, call your doctor if any of the following occurs:
Signs of infection, including fever and chillsIncreased sweatingRedness, swelling, increasing pain, excessive bleeding, or any discharge from the incision siteIncision opensNausea and/or vomitingIncreased painPain, burning, urgency or frequency of urination, blood in the urine, or not urinatingCough, shortness of breath, or chest painRattling in the chestFatigueRashNot wanting to eat or drinkNoisy breathing
Call for medical help or go to the emergency room right away if any of the following occurs in your child:
Fast breathing or trouble breathingBlue or gray skin colorNot waking up or not interacting
In case of an emergency, call for emergency medical services right away.
Atrial septal defect (ASD). Cardiothoracic Surgery website. Available at:
http://www.cts.usc.edu/atrialseptaldefect.html. Accessed June 29, 2015.
Atrial septal defect. Children’s Hospital Boston website. Available at:
http://www.childrenshospital.org/az/Site477/mainpageS477P0.html. Accessed June 29, 2015.
Open-heart surgery. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital website. Available at:
http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/heart-encyclopedia/treat/surg/open.htm. Updated June 2015. Accessed June 29, 2015.
Atrial septal defect. Cove Point Foundation website. Available at:
http://www.pted.org/?id=atrialseptal4. Updated May 16, 2011. Accessed June 29, 2015.
Atrial septal defect. Kids Health—Nemours Foundation website. Available at:
http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/heart/asd.html. Accessed May 2013. Accessed June 29, 2015.
Last reviewed June 2015 by Michael J. Fucci, DO
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © EBSCO Publishing. All rights reserved.
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| 0.89758 | 1,472 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified a new so-called pseudogene that regulates the tumour-suppressing PTEN gene. They hope that this pseudogene will be able to control PTEN to reverse the tumour process, make the cancer tumour more sensitive to chemotherapy and to prevent the development of resistance. The findings, which are published in the scientific journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, can be of significance in the future development of cancer drugs.
The development of tumours coincides with the activation of several cancer genes as well as the inactivation of other tumour-suppressing genes owing to damage to the DNA and to the fact that the cancer cells manage to switch off the transcription of tumour-suppressor genes. To identify what might be regulating this silencing, the researchers studied PTEN, one of the most commonly inactivated tumour-suppressor genes. It has long been believed that the switching-off process is irreversible, but the team has now shown that silenced PTEN genes in tumour cells can be 'rescued' and re-activated by a 'pseudogene', a type of gene that, unlike normal genes, does not encode an entire protein.
"We identified a new non-protein encoding pseudogene, which determines whether the expression of PTEN is to be switched on or off," says research team member Per Johnsson, doctoral student at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Oncology-Pathology. "What makes this case spectacular is that the gene only produces RNA, the protein's template. It is this RNA that, through a sequence of mechanisms, regulates PTEN. Pseudogenes have been known about for many years, but it was thought that they were only junk material."
No less than 98 per cent of human DNA consists of non-protein encoding genes (i.e. pseudogenes), and by studying these formerly neglected genes the researchers have begun to understand that they are very important and can have an effect without encoding proteins. Using model systems, the team has shown that the new pseudogene can control the expression of PTEN and make tumours more responsive to conventional chemotherapy.
"This means that we might one day be able to re-programme cancer cells to proliferate less, become more normal, and that resistance to chemotherapy can hopefully be avoided," says Per Johnsson. "We also believe that our findings can be very important for the future development of cancer drugs. What we're seeing here is just the tip of the iceberg. The human genome conceals no less than 15,000 or so pseudogenes, and it's not unreasonable to think that many of them are relevant to diseases such as cancer."
|Contact: The Press Office|
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| 0.943736 | 564 | 3.4375 | 3 |
How can a firewall secure my operating system?
A firewall can allow some services that you want to run locally (like Windows File Sharing or Network File System) to stay on your local network and not be on the whole Internet. It can block services that you didn't mean to have running (like a Web server on a laptop) from being accessible to the whole Internet.
A firewall cannot, however, protect you from malicious programs like viruses or worms; nor can it protect you from security relevant bugs in core Internet services, like mail servers, Web servers or DNS servers. Nonetheless, a firewall is an important part of any security strategy.
Dig Deeper on Application Firewall Security
Have a question for an expert?
Please add a title for your question
Get answers from a TechTarget expert on whatever's puzzling you.
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| 0.89057 | 168 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Baseball When It Was Black and White
"Sports do not build character. They reveal it." – Haywood Hale Broun
Time is running out to see Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience at the Lonestar College --Cy-Fair Branch Library in Cypress. But even if you miss the exhibit, here’s a triple play of excellent books from the library’s collection that eloquently reveal the character of the men and women who played in the Negro leagues.
We are the Ship: the Story of Negro League Baseball / words and paintings by Kadir Nelson ; foreword by Hank Aaron
Using the voice of an unnamed player Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its end in 1960. In his oil paintings he poses every player’s portrait as if the viewer is looking up at an exquisitely colored monumental statue of the man.
Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball / Scott Simon
A short history and reflection on the heroic stand against hatred that a naturally combinative all around athlete took to reintegrate the game is thoughtfully presented by Simon, along with his reflections of what heroism means.
A Strong Right Arm: the Story of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson / Michelle Y. Green ; introduction by Mamie Johnson
Unlike the unnamed narrator of We Are the Ship, Green has captured Mamie Johnson’s voice as she tells her story from being a girl in South Carolina playing with a ball made from tape wrapped around a rock to starting pitcher for the Indianapolis Clowns. The writing is as exciting as the pitch by pitch call of an announcer broadcasting a close game.
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| 0.960997 | 346 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Information-Literacy and Critical Inquiry in Your Classroom
Inquiry is a universal method of learning integral to the process of discovery and knowledge creation in all disciplines. For information about how inquiry can be integrated into your classroom, contact Robert Farrell at [email protected].
For information on how we can help you develop course specific information, literacy tutorials, and guides for the Web or Blackboard, contact Jennifer Poggiali, at [email protected]
Last modified: Aug 20, 2014
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| 0.76335 | 126 | 3.046875 | 3 |
HIV Prevalence 60% Lower among Girls Receiving Cash Payments in Malawi Experiment.
STI Prevalence 25% Lower among Adults Eligible for a $60 Reward In Tanzania Study.
Studies Suggest Cash Transfers Should be Explored on larger Scale for HIV/STI Prevention.
July 18, 2010—For years, the global community has zeroed in on behavior change as a key to fighting the global HIV epidemic. But so far, the approach has brought only limited success in reducing HIV infections in developing countries.
The frustrations are especially evident in sub-Saharan Africa, which has two-thirds of the world’s HIV infections and an equally alarming share of new infections among adults. Women and girls, in particular, are at greater risk, partly because of the biological, social and economic challenges they face.
Economists at the World Bank’s Development Research Group are trying to change that. Already, two large randomized trials involving cash incentives are showing promise in reducing sexually-transmitted infections in Tanzania and Malawi. The innovative studies, if proven to be equally effective on a larger scale, could help make a dent in reversing the HIV epidemic.
“The two studies look ‘outside the box’, while at the same time relying on rigorous experimental evaluation methods,” says Adam Wagstaff, research manager of human development at the Development Research Group. “They’re using cash incentives to persuade people to change their behavior in a way that benefits them in the medium term. The first results are promising and suggest that the idea of using incentives as a tool for HIV prevention should be further explored and tested."
The Malawi Study
The studies are modeled on “conditional cash transfer” programs, which use cash payments to encourage good behaviors, such as attending schools or getting basic health care. For example, studies show that one such program in Mexico, Oportunidades, which is being funded in part by the World Bank, led to better education and health care among poor families receiving monthly payments.
Similarly, the Malawi program gave girls ages 13 to 22 and their parents as much as $15 each month if the girls attended school regularly. A control group, however, didn’t get any cash reward for schooling. In total, the study enrolled 3,796 never-married schoolgirls in Zomba, a district in southern Malawi. A year later, as in the Mexican program, more schoolgirls receiving cash (95%) stayed in school than the control group (89%).
But there’s a surprise finding: 18 months after the program began in January 2008, biomarker data show that HIV infection rates among girls who received cash was 1.2% versus the control group’s 3%. This translates to 60% lower prevalence. Girls in the cash group also had a lower infection rate of herpes simplex virus type 2, the common cause of genital herpes (0.7% vs. 3%). Those findings hold even for a third group of girls who got cash without any schooling or other strings attached.
How did it happen? The key seems to be an “income effect” on the sexual behaviors of young women receiving cash payments. A year after the program started, girls who received payments not only had less sex, but when they did, they tended to choose safer partners, says Berk Özler, a senior economist at the Development Research Group who conducted the study with Sarah Baird of George Washington University and Craig McIntosh at the University of California, San Diego. In fact, the infection rate among those partners is estimated to be half of that of partners of the control group.
The cash transfers may have led to a drop in the so-called “transactional sex.” At the beginning of the study, a quarter of sexually-active participants said they started relationships because they “needed his assistance” or “wanted gifts/money.” Meanwhile, among the sexually-active schoolgirls in the control group, 90% said they received an average of US$6.50 a month in gifts or cash from their partners. Such “gifts” are significant, given the country’s GDP per capita was $287.5 in 2008.
After a year, schoolgirls receiving payments from the cash-transfer program seemed to avoid older men, who tend to be wealthier and are much more likely to be HIV positive than schoolboys. The sexual partners were two years older on average than the girls, compared with three years for the control group.
“The program immediately boosted income for many poor girls and their families as well as invested in their health and education,” Özler says. “Such programs could become an important part of effective HIV-prevention strategies.”
The two-year program, which has cost about $2 million so far, is funded by the Global Development Network, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Bank funds such as the Knowledge for Change Program, the Spanish Impact Evaluation Fund, the Bank’s Research Support Budget, and others.
The Tanzania Study
The Tanzania study was designed to directly expand conditional transfers to encourage the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases. But it differs from traditional transfer programs in two aspects. First, the participants weren’t youth, but adults. Second, it didn’t pay participants to do something, but paid them not to do something: unsafe sex.
Specifically, the $1.8 million randomized controlled trial only gave payments to those tested negative for a group of common, sexually-transmitted diseases. The cash, up to $60 per person over 12 months, made a difference in many households. The country’s gross national income per capita was $496.4 in 2008, and on average, the annual earnings of study participants were half of that amount.
And it worked. A year later, among the 2,399 young enrollees from southwestern Tanzania, 9% of participants eligible for the $60 award tested positive for the infections. By comparison, the rate was 12% for a control group who didn’t receive payments.
That 25% reduction could make it worthwhile to expand the program elsewhere and on a larger scale, says Damien de Walque, a senior economist at the World Bank’s Development Research Group. He conducted the study with Will Dow of the University of California in Berkeley and Rose Nathan at the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania.
To better record the program’s impact, researchers chose half a dozen curable sexually-transmitted diseases as proxy for risky sexual behavior. That includes chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomonas, mycoplasma genitalium and syphilis. Like HIV, these diseases are spread by risky sex.
The researchers didn’t link HIV status to cash payments because of ethical concerns. In addition, the study area has a new infection rate of 0.6% every year, which could make it hard to record statistical differences.
The project was funded by the World Bank, its Spanish Trust Fund for Impact Evaluation and, through the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The cash payments ended in May, and the researchers will test participants again next year to see if the cash group’s infection rate would hold without cash incentives.
Researchers chose Tanzania’s Kilombero/Ulanga districts because its infection rates are about average for Africa. Residents in the district are aware of HIV/AIDS, partly because it’s close to a major highway, where migration and mobility have made it a major pathway for HIV transmission in Tanzania and East Africa.
The researchers partnered with the Ifakara Health Institute, which manages a health and demographic surveillance system and other interventions in the area. The institute helped enroll 2,399 people from 10 villages in the districts, most of them 18 to 30 years old, a group considered at high risk for sexually-transmitted infections.
Medical teams were sent to each village every four months, about one week at a time. One group introduced the participants to the project, obtained consent, took samples and conducted interviews, and the other gave out the lab results two weeks later in private, face-to-face interviews. All samples and results were marked with bar codes, instead of names, to protect privacy.
All participants received free treatment, such as antibiotics, and counseling. But only those tested negative in the cash group received payments. Those who tested positive first, but negative after four months, also received cash payments.
There’s a twist: half of the cash group were eligible for $30 a year and the other half $60. The study found that the $30 group still had the same infection rate as the control group that received no payments. And not surprisingly, the program is more effective for people from poorer and rural areas.
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Chicano/a Movement in Washington State History Project
This website traces the history of the Chicano/a movement in Washington State, which had its roots in the early 1960s when campaigns surrounding farm workers' rights in eastern Washington and community and educational rights in western Washington united and student activism grew at the University of Washington, continued through the 1970s, fractured in the 1980s, and recently reemerged as a younger generation of activists have mobilized around affirmative action, globalization, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and immigrant rights.
This website presents a wealth of primary sources documenting this rich history, including 17 oral history interviews with prominent members of activist groups; 73 images of demonstrations, prominent leaders in the movement, and Seattle-area murals; 42 documents, including copies of the "Boycott Bulletins" that keep students informed of the proceedings of the 1969 grape boycott at the University of Washington and documents surrounding the University of Washington's Chicano/a activist group; as well as more than 300 newspaper articles from the University of Washington Daily, the Seattle Times, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer dating from between 1968 and 1979 and covering topics such as farmworkers and the grape boycott, arts and culture, and the community activist group El Centro de La Raza.
A slideshow providing historical background and highlighting some of these materials is a good place to begin for those unfamiliar with the Chicano/a movement history, as is an extensive timeline and several historical background essays.
This website is part of the larger Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, which provides materials that can serve as larger historical context, such as a guide to civil rights groups from the 1910s to the 1970s, and 14 2,000-word essays on the ethnic press in Seattle.
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| 0.944801 | 358 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Testing Consortium Guidelines Unlikely to Improve Assessments
FairTest Examiner, May 2010
he U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has issued guidelines for multi-state consortia to follow in applying for federal funds to design new “comprehensive” assessment systems. Unfortunately, DOE’s guidelines assume No Child Left Behind’s negative features will remain in place. Most of the language suggests DOE wants only incremental changes. Thus, proposed systems are not likely to solve the problems created by NCLB, nor lead toward high quality, educationally sound assessment. Still, consortia could significantly stretch the boundaries with well-crafted proposals.
Probably the biggest public complaint about NCLB is that it narrowed the curriculum. A “relentless,” “laser-like” focus on raising test scores turned reading and math into test-prep programs. At the same time, many schools took away time on untested subjects. The assessment consortia guidelines continue to focus on reading and math, continue annual testing in grades 3-8, continue to test every child instead of using sampling for accountability, and continue to be used as the virtually sole basis for high-stakes decisions. They also continue to prioritize large-scale tests. They fail to encourage – though they do not prohibit - systems that use multiple sources of evidence of student learning, including classroom-based evidence, as recommended in the Forum on Educational Accountability’s assessment report as well as by FairTest.
The Department wants the new assessments to support “growth models” and to be used for measuring the “value” added by teachers. That means using tests for a “significant part” (as Secretary Arne Duncan has put it) of teacher evaluation in reading and math. To avoid holding individual teachers accountable for their students’ summer learning loss, there will have to be tests in both fall and spring – which would double the amount of NCLB-mandated testing. Also, experts have repeatedly warned this technology is not ready for high-stakes uses.
The guidelines allow for use of “formative” and “interim” (“benchmark” or “periodic”) tests as part of assessment systems. However, done correctly, formative assessment (assessment for learning) does not consist of centrally administered small versions of large-scale standardized tests. Rather, teachers use various means to find out what students have and have not grasped and then adapt curriculum and instruction based on that information. Unfortunately, test companies have found a lucrative market for low-quality mini-tests, which they falsely label “formative assessments.” Since these companies may well develop the consortia’s systems, they would likely build in expanded use of their profitable products.
The guidelines ask that the new assessment systems “measure student knowledge and skills against the full range of the college- and career-ready standards, including the standards against which student achievement has traditionally been difficult to measure” (p. 33), and “elicit complex demonstrations of applications of knowledge and skill” (p. 34). But these skills are not simple to assess – and likely cannot be with a standardized test coupled with perhaps a few standardized performance tasks administered during the year. Evaluating them will require tapping into ongoing classroom-based evidence. It will be up to the Administration to assure that proposed assessment systems comply with these important guidelines.
What’s the best a consortium could do within the Department’s guidelines?
- Emphasize high-quality performance tasks and have them constitute most of the score; develop libraries of tasks teachers can use for instruction and assessment purposes; ensure they meet the needs of diverse learners; and provide flexibility in which tasks are used and when teachers use them.
- Recognize formative assessments are teaching tools that require flexibility and discretion, and improvement in such assessment is best addressed by professional development.
- Give significant weight to local and classroom evidence of learning.
- Insist that the evaluation of teachers be based on multiple sources of evidence of student learning, with standardized test results only a small part of that evidence.
As it writes a new Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to replace NCLB, Congress should consider how to support development of high-quality systems and overcome the flaws in the DOE guidelines.
Finally, to fulfill Secretary Duncan’s promise of “transparency” in the review process, the material submitted by contestants as well as the names of those who will judge the competition should be made open to the public before decisions are made.
- The guidelines (request for proposals) are available at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/index.html. In addition to comprehensive assessments, there is a competition for high school course exams, with many similar requirements. While each is dozens of pages long, the assessment content components are a few pages each. Applications are due June 23, 2010.
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| 0.958746 | 1,064 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions related to the body's metabolism. These conditions include excess body fat (particularly abdominal obesity); elevated triglycerides, blood pressure, and blood sugar; and low HDL cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol).
Metabolic syndrome is closely linked to insulin resistance, in which the body cannot use insulin properly.
Metabolic syndrome increases the risk for coronary artery disease (CAD), even beyond that caused by high LDL cholesterol alone. Weight loss and increased physical activity can reduce the risk for metabolic syndrome.
eMedicineHealth Medical Reference from Healthwise
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2014 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.
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| 0.902379 | 161 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Wireless networks could soon be running 10 times faster than they do now.
Wi-fi is set to accelerate
Competing technology groups are proposing different ways to speed up the data rates of wi-fi which could reach 540 megabits per second.
The battling technologies, called WWise and TGn Sync, are being assessed by the US organisation that rubber stamps improvements to wireless technology.
Wireless nets have proved a popular because they let people get fast access to the net and are easy to set up.
Both proposals to speed up wi-fi exist largely on paper and could take years to find their way into hardware.
The US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) oversees developments to wi-fi technology, the most well known of which goes by the family name of 802.11.
There are already several different 802.11 technologies, a,b and g, that work at different speeds. The fastest works at speeds of 54mbps.
The IEEE's 802.11n working group has been looking at ways to improve the data throughput of the wi-fi standard.
It aims to get data travelling at rates of 100mbps and more via the airwaves.
Although current wi-fi systems can already work at speeds up to 54mbps, the actual rate that data moves across them is far lower.
The differing proposals for ways to speed up data rates on wi-fi are backed by different companies.
The TGn Sync proposal has Agere, Intel and Atheros as its backers. The WWise idea is backed by Texas Instruments, Broadcom and others.
By fiddling with the way wi-fi transmits data the WWise group claims it can reach speeds of 540mbps. Using a more standard approach the group believes it can boost speeds to 135mbps.
Details about TGn Sync are sketchy but it too is aiming for speeds in excess of 500mbps.
Final decisions on the 802.11n standard are not expected before 2007.
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| 0.938335 | 413 | 2.6875 | 3 |
As the number of artificial chemicals reach all time highs across the globe, it's become more and more difficult to find anywhere on Earth unaffected by man-made pollution and development, and far too often it takes things going really wrong before people take action to keep our planet clean. Here are 10 of the most polluted places in the world.
1. Appalachia, West Virginia
Mountaintop removal mining is one of the world's most environmentally destructive practices, and it is most associated with coal mining in West Virginia's Appalachian Mountains. Whole mountaintops are removed to get to the coal, which increases erosion and runoff thick with pollutants, poisoning streams and rivers throughout the region.
2. Citarum River, Indonesia
The Citarum has been called the world's most polluted river. Around 5 million people live in the river's basin, and most of them rely on its flow for their water supply.
3. Dzerzhinsk, Russia
The Guinness Book of World Records has named Dzerzhinsk the most chemically polluted city on Earth, and in 2003 its death rate exceeded its birth rate by 260 percent. More than 300,000 tons of chemical waste were improperly dumped here between 1930 and 1998.
The nation of Haiti was once 60 percent covered in forest. Today, only 2 percent of the country still has standing trees. This picture shows an aerial of the border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right). Haiti has cleared almost every tree right up to its borders. And with the recent devastating earthquake, the island's environmental situation has worsened.
5. Kabwe, Zambia
Lead and cadmium soak the hills of Kabwe after decades of mining and processing. Children here have lead concentrations five to 10 times the permissible U.S. Environmental Protection Agency levels, and the ground is so contaminated that nothing can be grown.
6. La Oroya, Peru
La Oroya is a soot-covered mining town in the Peruvian Andes. Ninety-nine percent of the children who live here have blood levels that exceed acceptable limits for lead poisoning, which can be directly attributed to an American-owned smelter that has been polluting the city since 1922.
7. Linfen, China
Linfen has more air pollution than any other city in the world. Sitting at the heart of China's coal belt, smog and soot from industrial pollutants and automobiles blacken the air at all hours. It is said that if you hang your laundry here, it will turn black before it dries.
8. Riachuelo Basin, Argentina
The Riachuelo Basin is a waterway whose name is synonymous with pollution. More than 3,500 factories operate along the banks of the river, a landscape that also includes 13 slums, numerous illegal sewage pipes running directly into the river, and 42 open garbage dumps.
9. Yamuna River, India
The Yamuna is the largest tributary of the Ganges River. Where it flows through Delhi, it's estimated that 58 percent of the city's waste gets dumped straight into the river. Millions of Indians still rely on these murky, sewage-filled waters for washing, waste disposal and drinking water.
10. Vapi, India
Sitting at the southern end of a 400-kilometer-long belt of industrial estates, the town of Vapi is a dumping place for chemicals of every kind. Levels of mercury in the groundwater are 96 times higher than safe levels, and heavy metals are present in the air and the local produce.
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| 0.947591 | 729 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Thunbergia grandiflora is a flowering vine native to India often referred to as the blue trumpet vine or sky vine. It grows hardy in USDA zones 8 through 11. The leaves of the thunbergia are heart-shaped and either sky blue or light violet in color. Most thunbergia vines are grown in containers. If you plan to add a thunbergia grandiflora to your landscape, you will need to learn how to properly care for it.
Find a location to plant your thunbergia. It should be a spot that has a good amount of sun with some partial shade. At least 6 hours of sunlight each day is ideal.
Decide if you are going to plant your thunbergia in the ground or in a pot. If you use a container, a well-draining potting soil is best. According to Florida State University, thunbergia grandiflora can grow in acidic or alkaline soils so long as they drain well, so you don't need to perform a pH test.
Water the thunbergia grandiflora often. This vine thrives in moist soil, so do not let the soil dry out.
Fertilize the thunbergia grandiflora with a 10-30-10 fertilizer. Green Patio recommends that you dilute your fertilizer to half strength. Apply the fertilizer once every two weeks.
Prune the thunbergia grandiflora to keep it within the boundaries of its container. If you are allowing it to grow freely outdoors, you may want to prune it if it is getting too close to any of your other plants or trees.
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| 0.890525 | 349 | 3.234375 | 3 |
August 20, 2013. Something about genes and the way they vary slightly from person to person increases the chances that some people will develop a psychiatric disorder such as autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, or schizophrenia. A new, multinational study of more than 75,000 people, led by Naomi Wray of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, and Kenneth Kendler of Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, strongly supports previous hints that these different disorders have common genetic roots.
By looking at the patterns of commonly found single-letter changes (called common variants) in the DNA of each person, first author Sang Hong Lee and colleagues found that not only did each individual disorder carry its own “genomic signature,” but also parts of these signatures were shared between disorders. For example, the common variants of people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were more similar than either of the disorders compared to people without a psychiatric disorder. Surprisingly, given previous evidence and the nature of their symptoms, schizophrenia and MDD were found to be somewhat similar in the "genomic signature" of their common DNA variants.
The results begin to put numbers on the genetic overlaps hinted at by previous family studies and may help to sort out the relative contributions of genes and environment (the famous nature vs. nurture debate). Though many of these previous studies have found increased risk for one mental disorder in a first-degree relative (parent, sibling, or child) of someone with a different disorder, this could reflect shared environment or shared genes. The new results, based entirely on genetic data from unrelated people, indicate a clear contribution by genetic factors. They also support the idea that vulnerability to different disorders can stem from the same biology. (For more details, see the related news story.)—Michele Solis.
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| 0.954607 | 361 | 3.390625 | 3 |
The Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Monitoring and Assessment Program, ChesMMAP, is currently funded by Wallop-Breaux funds from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. ChesMMAP began in 2002 and was developed to assist in filling data gaps, and ultimately to support Bay-specific, stock-assessment modeling activities at both single and multispecies scales. ChesMMAP was designed to maximize the biological and ecological information collected for several recreationally, commercially, and ecologically important species in Chesapeake Bay.
The survey uses a large-mesh bottom trawl to sample juvenile-to-adult fishes from the head of Chesapeake bay at Poole's Island, MD to the mouth of the Bay just outside the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. The Chesapeake Bay has been broken down into 5 regions of approximately 30 latitudinal minutes each. Within these 5 regions 80 samples sites are chosen for each cruise using a stratified random design.
The ChesMMAP Survey has several goals:
- To estimate population sizes for priority species
- To quantify geographic and seasonal distribution of these species
- To quantify major links in the Bay's food web by conducting stomach content analysis for all species sampled
- To define the seasonal length and age structure of the fish and elasmobranch populations by taking otolith (ear bone) or vertebrae samples from the individuals collected.
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http://www.vims.edu/research/departments/fisheries/programs/multispecies_fisheries_research/chesmmap/index.php
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| 0.927286 | 279 | 3.03125 | 3 |
A planet made of diamond
Date posted: Friday 26 Aug 2011
A once-massive star that’s been transformed into a small planet made of diamond: that’s what astronomers think they’ve found in our Milky Way.
The discovery, reported today in Science, was made by an international research team led by Professor Matthew Bailes, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and the ‘Dynamic Universe’ theme leader in a new wide-field astronomy initiative, the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO).
The researchers, from Australia, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA, first detected an unusual star called a pulsar using the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope and followed up their discovery with the Lovell radio telescope in the UK and one of the Keck telescopes in Hawaii.
Pulsars are small spinning stars about 20 km in diameter—the size of a small city—that emit a beam of radio waves. As the star spins and the radio beam sweeps repeatedly over Earth, radio telescopes detect a regular pattern of radio pulses.
For the newly discovered pulsar, known as PSR J1719-1438, the astronomers noticed that the arrival times of the pulses were systematically modulated. They concluded that this was due to the gravitational pull of a small companion planet, orbiting the pulsar in a binary system.
The pulsar and its planet are part of the Milky Way’s plane of stars and lie 4,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (the Snake). The system is about an eighth of the way towards the Galactic Centre from the Earth.
The modulations in the radio pulses tell astronomers several things about the planet.
First, it orbits the pulsar in just two hours and ten minutes, and the distance between the two objects is 600,000 km—a little less than the radius of our Sun.
Second, the companion must be small, less than 60,000 km (that’s about five times the Earth’s diameter). The planet is so close to the pulsar that, if it were any bigger, it would be ripped apart by the pulsar’s gravity.
But despite its small size, the planet has slightly more mass than Jupiter.
"This high density of the planet provides a clue to its origin," said Professor Bailes.
A star is torn
The team thinks that the ‘diamond planet’ is all that remains of a once-massive star, most of whose matter was siphoned off towards the pulsar.
Pulsar J1719-1438 is a very fast-spinning pulsar—what’s called a millisecond pulsar. Amazingly, it rotates more than 10,000 times per minute, has a mass of about 1.4 times that of our Sun but is only 20 km in diameter. About 70 per cent of millisecond pulsars have companions of some kind. Astronomers think it is the companion that, in its star form, transforms an old, dead pulsar into a millisecond pulsar by transferring matter and spinning it up to a very high speed. The result is a fast-spinning millisecond pulsar with a shrunken companion—most often a so-called white dwarf.
"We know of a few other systems, called ultra-compact low-mass X-ray binaries, that are likely to be evolving according to this scenario and may likely represent the progenitors of a pulsar like J1719-1438," said team member Dr Andrea Possenti, Director of the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari in Italy.
But pulsar J1719-1438 and its companion are so close together that the companion can only be a very stripped-down white dwarf, one that has lost its outer layers and over 99.9 per cent of its original mass.
"This remnant is likely to be largely carbon and oxygen, because a star made of lighter elements like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times," said Dr Michael Keith (CSIRO), one of the research team members.
The density means that this material is certain to be crystalline: that is, a large part of the star may be similar to a diamond.
"The ultimate fate of the binary is determined by the mass and orbital period of the donor star at the time of mass transfer. The rarity of millisecond pulsars with planet-mass companions means that producing such ‘exotic planets’ is the exception rather than the rule, and requires special circumstances," said Dr Benjamin Stappers from the University of Manchester.
The team found pulsar J1719-1438 among almost 200,000 Gigabytes of data using special codes on supercomputers at Swinburne University of Technology, The University of Manchester, and the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari..
The discovery was made during a systematic search for pulsars over the whole sky that also involves the 100 metre Effelsberg radio telescope of the Max-Planck-Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Germany. "This is the largest and most sensitive survey of this type ever conducted. We expected to find exciting things, and it is great to see it happening. There is more to come!" said Professor Michael Kramer, Director of the MPIfR.
Professor Matthew Bailes is a member of the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne which is uniquely resourced to process the torrents of data generated by telescopes and simulations.
A video of Professor Bailes explaining the 'diamond planet' discovery can be viewed on Swinburne's YouTube channel.
M. Bailes et al. [17 co-authors] "Transformation of a Star into a Planet in a Millisecond Pulsar Binary," published in Science.
Contact details for interviews:
Professor Matthew Bailes
(only available after 2pm AEST due to a time zone difference)
Ph: +61 414 324 677
Ph: +61 3 9214 4318
Dr Willem van Straten
Ph: 03 9214 5014
Media note: High resolution images and videos can be downloaded from (credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions): http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/production/pulsar/
The pulsar at the centre of the below image is orbited by an object that is about the mass of Jupiter and composed primarily of carbon; effectively a massive diamond. The orbit, represented by the dashed line, would easily fit inside our Sun, represented by the yellow surface. The blue lines represent the radio signal from the pulsar, which spins around 175 times every second.
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| 0.928645 | 1,436 | 3.578125 | 4 |
I’ve been contemplating Doris, my cat, and trying to imagine who first got the idea to try to capture and tame a wild lion or tiger or whatever into a domestic friend. I’m sure you can make it clear.
— Jennifer and Doris, via email
Not sure anyone was ever motivated to domesticate a tiger. Doris’s ancestors were considerably smaller. Bigger than today’s average housecat, but not lion size. And by the way, I’d guess that most cat owners question whether they are actually domesticated anyway, given the average cat’s abundance of attitude and independence. Archaeologists opine that all our house tabbies descend from five species of wildcats from the Middle East and India. While big cats were shooed away from human settlements, smaller cats actually proved handy in their rat-catching abilities, so they were cautiously welcomed. It’s probably no coincidence that cats began hanging around human settlements at the same time humans began cultivating grains — grains attract rats, rats attract cats.
The oldest evidence of an individual cat associated with an individual human was a cozy burial site in Cyprus, with pet next to owner. The site is estimated to be from 9500 BC. The cat isn’t native to Cyprus, so by this time cats must have been moved from the Mideast to other areas around the Mediterranean. Again from burial site clues, it wasn’t long before cats took on god qualities. The Egyptians certainly idolized them. But of course there’s no record of how or when people went from encouraging small cats to patrol their grain stores, then their houses, to when somebody reached out cautiously to pat one on the head or when wild cats decided being petted was a good idea.
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| 0.965735 | 369 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Find information on common issues.
Ask questions and find answers from other users.
Suggest a new site feature or improvement.
Check on status of your tickets.
Graphene is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The term Graphene was coined as a combination of graphite and the suffix -ene by Hanns-Peter Boehm, who described single-layer carbon foils in 1962. Graphene is most easily visualized as an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. The crystalline or "flake" form of graphite consists of many graphene sheets stacked together.
Learn more about quantum dots from the many resources on this site, listed below. More information on Graphene can be found here.
Lecture 6: Graphene PN Junctions
22 Sep 2009 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Mark Lundstrom
Electron optics in graphene
Transmission across NP junctions
Conductance of PN and NN junctions
Network for Computational Nanotechnology,
Lecture 3: Low Bias Transport in Graphene: An Introduction
18 Sep 2009 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Mark Lundstrom
Introduction and Objectives
Lecture notes are available for this lecture.
ECE 656 Lecture 4: Density of States - Density of Modes
14 Sep 2009 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Mark Lundstrom
Density of states
Density of modes
Crystal Viewer Demonstration: Bravais Lattices
12 Jun 2009 | Animations | Contributor(s): Gerhard Klimeck, Benjamin P Haley
This video shows the exploration of several crystal structures using the Crystal Viewer tool. Several powerful features of this tool are demonstrated.
Crystal Viewer Demonstration: Bravais Lattices 2
This video shows the exploration of several crystal structures using the Crystal Viewer tool. Several powerful features of this tool are demonstrated
Crystal Viewer Demonstration: Various Crystal Systems
This video shows the use of the Crystal Viewer Tool to visualize several crystal systems, including Si, GaAs, C60 Buckyball, and a carbon nanotube. Crystal systems are rotated in 3D, zoomed in...
ECE 659 Lecture 33: Thermoelectricity
16 Apr 2009 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Supriyo Datta
Carrier Statistics Lab: First-Time User Guide
09 Mar 2009 | Teaching Materials | Contributor(s): Abhijeet Paul, Gerhard Klimeck, Benjamin P Haley, Saumitra Raj Mehrotra
This first-time user guide is an introduction to the Carrier Statistics Lab . It provides basic definitions, guidance on how to run the tool, and suggested exercises to help users get accustomed...
Assembly for Nanotechnology Survey Courses
0.0 out of 5 stars
05 Nov 2008 | Tools | Contributor(s): Gerhard Klimeck, Dragica Vasileska
Educational Tools for Classroom and Homework use to introduce nanotechnology concepts
ECE 495N Lecture 21: Graphene Bandstructures
03 Nov 2008 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Supriyo Datta
5.0 out of 5 stars
24 Jul 2008 | Tools | Contributor(s): Gianluca Fiori, Giuseppe Iannaccone
3D Poisson/NEGF solver for the simulation of Graphene Nanoribbon, Carbon nanotubes and Silicon Nanowire Transistors.
Some Important Aspects of the Chemistry of Nanomaterials
01 Jul 2008 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): C.N.R. Rao
Keynote address for the launch of the Center for Analytical Instrumentation Development.
17 Mar 2008 | Tools | Contributor(s): Sansiri Tanachutiwat, Wei Wang, Nicholas Anthony Connelly
Estimate performances of graphene interconnects
Nano Carbon: From ballistic transistors to atomic drumheads
14 May 2008 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Paul L. McEuen
Carbon takes many forms, from precious diamonds to lowly graphite. Surprisingly, it is the latter that is the most prized by nano physicists. Graphene, a single layer of graphite, can serve as an...
The Novel Nanostructures of Carbon
3.0 out of 5 stars
28 Feb 2008 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Gene Dresselhaus
A brief review will be given of the physical underpinnings of carbon nanostructures that were developed over the past 60 years, starting with the electronic structure and physical properties of...
What Promises do Nanotubes and Nanowires Hold for Future Nanoelectronics Applications?
18 Feb 2008 | Online Presentations | Contributor(s): Joerg Appenzeller
Various low-dimensional materials are currently explored for future electronics applications. The common ground
for all these structures is that the surface related impact can no longer be...
Crystal Viewer Tool
4.5 out of 5 stars
22 Dec 2007 | Tools | Contributor(s): Yuanchen Chu, Fan Chen, Daniel F Mejia, James Fonseca, Tanya Faltens, Michael Povolotskyi, Gerhard Klimeck
Visualize different crystal lattices and planes
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| 0.812493 | 1,158 | 3.421875 | 3 |
A. Murarka and B. Kuipers. 2009.
A stereo vision based mapping algorithm for detecting inclines,
drop-offs, and obstacles for safe local navigation.
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS-09).
Mobile robots have to detect and handle a variety of potential hazards to navigate autonomously. We present a real-time stereo vision based mapping algorithm for identifying and modeling various hazards in urban environments -- we focus on inclines, drop-offs, and obstacles. In our algorithm,stereo range data is used to construct a 3D model consisting of a point cloud with a 3D grid overlaid on top. A novel plane fitting algorithm is then used to segment the 3D model into distinct potentially traversable ground regions and fit planes to the regions. The planes and segments are analyzed to identify safe and unsafe regions and the information is captured in an annotated 2D grid map called a local safety map. The safety map can be used by wheeled mobile robots for planning safe paths in their local surroundings. We evaluate our algorithm comprehensively by testing it in varied environments and comparing the results to ground truth data.
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| 0.906206 | 239 | 2.578125 | 3 |
290 pp., 6.125 x 9.25
The American revolutionaries themselves believed the change from monarchy to republic was the essence of the Revolution. King and People in Provincial Massachusetts explores what monarchy meant to Massachusetts under its second charter and why the momentous change to republican government came about.
Richard L. Bushman argues that monarchy entailed more than having a king as head of state: it was an elaborate political culture with implications for social organization as well. Massachusetts, moreover, was entirely loyal to the king and thoroughly imbued with that culture.
Why then did the colonies become republican in 1776? The change cannot be attributed to a single thinker such as John Locke or to a strain of political thought such as English country party rhetoric. Instead, it was the result of tensions ingrained in the colonial political system that surfaced with the invasion of parliamentary power into colonial affairs after 1763.
The underlying weakness of monarchical government in Massachusetts was the absence of monarchical society -- the intricate web of patronage and dependence that existed in England. But the conflict came from the colonists' conception of rulers as an alien class of exploiters whose interest was the plundering of the colonies. In large part, colonial politics was the effort to restrain official avarice.
The author explicates the meaning of "interest" in political discourse to show how that conception was central in the thinking of both the popular party and the British ministry. Management of the interest of royal officials was a problem that continually bedeviled both the colonists and the crown. Conflict was perennial because the colonists and the ministry pursued diverging objectives in regulating colonial officialdom. Ultimately the colonists came to see that safety against exploitation by self-interested rulers would be assured only by republican government.
"This subtle and compelling analysis will prove interesting to all those concerned with the origins of American politics."
--Oscar Handlin, Harvard University
© 2015 The University of North Carolina Press
116 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808
How to Order | Make a Gift | Privacy
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| 0.961702 | 415 | 3.5625 | 4 |
THE ENIGMA - A POLISH VIEW
2. Polish pre-war code breakers (1930's).
3. The methods of breaching the cipher.
4. Beginning of WWII - Evacuation to France.
5. Enigma in WW II - speculation.
There have been numerous articles and books written about the Enigma code breach. However, the role that the Polish cryptologist's school had played in it has always been omitted. An example of this was seen in 1974, when F. W. Winterbotham published a book titled "The Ultra Secret", where he claimed that the British were the first to break this cipher. There has been very little published about the people who were truly the first to break the Enigma enciphered messages. This distinction belongs to the Poles who accomplished that feat in the late 1930s.
There in also another example in Mr. Winterbotham book, which claims that the British got an Enigma from the Poles, who apparently had stolen a machine from a German factory, thanks a mythical agent who was employed there. My intention is to set the facts straight for a subject which was one of the greatest secrets of World War II. I decided to base this account on published sources that are available in Poland and are considered to be official and reliable.
2. POLISH PRE-WAR CODEBREAKERS (1930's)
In Poland, the first attempts to break the newly introduced Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine cipher were made in 1928. The messages that were encoded with the new cipher were being picked up by four Polish ELINT stations: in Warsaw, Starogard near Gdansk (or then Danzig), in Poznan and in Krzeslawice near Cracow. Unfortunately, the methods involved in breaking the cipher code were ineffective and fruitless. Quickly, it was realized that the new cipher would not be broken easily. Therefore, the Ciphers Office (BS) of the Polish Army's General Staff decided to ask mathematicians for help. In January 1929, the Dean of the Department of Mathematics, Professor Zdzislaw Krygowski from the University of Poznan, made a list of his best graduating students who could begin working at the Ciphers Office. Later, these students graduated from a cryptography course prepared by that Office. The best graduates were: Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski who could work simultaneously at the University and at the General Staff's Ciphers Office without any problems.
In the autumn of 1930, a new branch of the Ciphers Office opened in utmost secrecy in Poznan. Rejewski, as well as his colleagues were immediately employed there. In 1932, the group was moved to Warsaw, to start working on the Enigma Cipher. Their first success was decoding a German Navy four letter cipher. Rejewski was considered a leading cryptologist within the group. He was looking forward to a new way of breaking the sophisticated German code. Since Polish intelligence had an Enigma machine, Rejewski could develop a scheme of decryption from a mathematical viewpoint. Unfortunately, that machine was a commercial product, and the German army used the more complicated Enigma with an auxiliary connectors plate at the front panel which greatly multiplied the possible number of permutations.
During 1931, Polish Intelligence co-operated with the French Deuxieme Bureau. This co-operation eventually led to an important agent within the Reichswehr Cipher's Office. Rejewski was able to obtain a description of the militarized version of the Enigma, as well as old key tables. This helped him to eliminate many unknown variables in the "permutation-like" equation he had previously created. Finally, in December 1932, Rejewski reconstructed the Enigma's internal connections. In January, 1933, two other cryptologists also became involved in Rejewski's work. In the same month, the first German messages were decrypted. Since then, the General Staff had access to the most secret data transmitted by the German Army, Navy, Air Force, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It is estimated that during a six year period between January 1933 and September 1939, the Poles were able to decipher about 100,000 transmissions . The most important concerned the remilitarization of the Rhein Province, Anschluss of Austria and seizure of the Sudetenland. The last could be dangerous to Poland's interests. The fact that the Enigma cipher was cracked was kept in the utmost secrecy even within the Polish General Staff's II Directorate. Officers received decoded messages signed with a code-name "Wicher" (that was the Enigma code break) that was considered fully reliable, but the source was classified.
In 1934, the General Staff's Cipher Office established a new site for their German branch (BS-4) in the Kabaty Forest near Warsaw. Rejewski and his colleagues worked there until the breakout of WW II on 1 September, 1939. Although the French helped the Poles with the Enigma code break, all material was in the exclusive hands of Poles until July 1939.
3. METHODS OF BREACHING THE CIPHER
In February 1933, the Polish Army's General Staff placed an order at the
AVA Radio Workshops in Warsaw to build copies of the military Enigma. During that time, the General Staff possessed only one Enigma which was a commercial type and lacked the front panel auxiliary connectors that made the cipher stronger. By mid-1934, about fifteen "made in Poland" Enigma's had been delivered. By the end of August 1939, about seventy such units were produced.
On 15 September, 1938, just two weeks before the conference in Munich, the Germans drastically changed their methods of using the Enigma cipher. Since the new key seemed to be more complicated, the Polish cryptologists invented the first mechanical pseudo-computers to help them in their work. In October 1938, Rejewski designed the machine named "bomba kryptologiczna" (cryptologic bomb), which was soon produced at the AVA Workshops. Also a "cyclometer" machine helped to assess the pattern of the key. Simultaneously, the new method of a double-key crack was invented, which consisted of using sheets of paper with 51 by 51 holes (each set consisted of 26 sheets). This method allowed the finding of convergent places for the entire set.
However, starting in December 1938, the Germans upgraded their Enigma
machines with two extra ciphering rotors (5 rotors altogether). Although the Polish cryptographers could still read the German messages, the mass decryption effort now required sixty 60 instead of only six cryptologic bombs and sixty paper sheet sets. During mid-July 1939, Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Waclaw Stachiewicz, authorized the Ciphers Office to share all their knowledge on Enigma with the Allied intelligence services. The Allied representatives in France and England received Polish-made clones of the Enigma encryption machine during the a meeting in Warsaw between 24 and 26 July, 1939. On 16 August 1939, General Stewart Menzies was given a copy of an Enigma at the Victoria Station in London. The British began to read Enigma messages in mid-August, 1939.
4. BEGINNING OF WWII - EVACUATION TO FRANCE
On 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The Ciphers Office, as well as ELINT surveillance stations were evacuated to Romania. While the situation on the front deteriorated, and the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, the Ciphers Office received an order to destroy all documentation and equipment. Rejewski, Zygalski and Rozycki esacaped to France during the last days of September 1939. In October 1939, a joint Polish-French radiointelligence center in Gretz-Armainvillers near Paris was created. It was given the code name "Bruno". Furthermore, the Bruno center had a Teletype link to the Gov't Code and Ciphers School in England. There were also Spanish codebreakers employed at Bruno to crack the Spanish and Italian ciphers.
The main problem the cryptologists were facing was the exchange of the key system, which took place in the German Army on 1 July 1939. The first decrypted message at the Bruno center on 17 January 1940 was from a message sent on 28 October 1939. The most helpful messages to assess the routine of the German Army Signals Corps were those sent every day just prior to 2400 hours. Important information such as call signs, wavelengths, and hours of operation were obtained. Germans also sent false messages to deceive the enemy ELINT/SIGINT efforts. However, the most characteristic messages were: situation reports sent in the morning, noon, afternoons, evenings; intelligence reports; orders; logistic reports and others.
The unit's most important effort was the warning about the German preparation to attack France. On 10 June 1940, the Bruno unit received an evacuation order. On 24 June 1940, the cryptologists were evacuated by three French Air Force airplanes to Algeria and in mid-July 1940, the unit started to work clandestinely in Algiers. The Poles were enrolled into the Polish Armed Forces Branch "300" of the II Directorate. The Polish cryptologists were however to come back soon to occupied France under a secret agreement between the Polish and Free French governments and continue their work underground in the City of Fouzes near Nimes. In the beginning of October 1940, the new secret unit was formed in Fouzes and code-named "Cadix". Cadix succeeded the Bruno center and decrypted the following types of German messages:- German military orders to the units in Europe and Libya.Furthermore, the Fouzes Cadix unit opened a branch in Algiers and was led
- SS and Police (Polizei) messages from Europe.
- Spy radio communications between field agents in Europe or in
Libya and Abwehr HQ in Stuttgart.
- Diplomatic communications and German Armistice
Commission communications in Wiesbaden and their branches
in France and in North Africa.
by Polish II Directorate's officer, Maj. (later Maj.-Gen.) M. Z.
Rygor-Slowikowski. The unit was located in the Kouba Villa, an Algiers
suburb. Most of the intelligence gathered by his unit were used in
preparation of the "Torch" Allied operation (North Africa Landing). Note
that the Kouba (a.k.a. PO-1 branch) unit encrypted their messages using
a Polish-made LCD (a.k.a. "Lacida") enciphering machine, which consisted
of a modified Remington typewriter combined with enciphering rotors.
Unfortunately, on 9 January 1942, Jerzy Rozycki died when the M/S "Lamoriciere" he was traveling in, sunk near the Balearic Isles. Because of German ELINT threat, the unit's members were evacuated on 6 November 1942. Rejewski and Zygalski managed to escape to neutral Spain. Later, via Gibraltar, they were transferred to England, where they started working in the Polish Army Signals Corps in Boxmoor near London (Polish Armed Forces Branch "300" of the II Directorate). They later cracked the German SS formations cipher.
5. ENIGMA IN WWII - SPECULATION
It has been suspected that since 1939, British intelligence was able to decrypt Enigma messages. There was a Soviet GRU intelligence network in Switzerland during WW II, led by a Hungarian geographer, Professor Sandor Rado. The group was pinpointed by the German ELINT and was given the code name "Die Rote Drei" (The Red Three). Rado's most important agent was Rudolf Roessler (code name "Lucy"). The information he provided was always very reliable, true and exact, however he has never told anyone who his agents were. He only mentioned , that he got the reports from: "Werther" from OKWehrmacht (German Army HQ), "Teddy" from OKHeer (Land Forces HQ), "Stefan" and "Ferdinand" from OKLuftwaffe (Air Force HQ) and "Olga" from the Reich's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One hypothesis claims that these personalities had never existed and that R. Roessler gathered intelligence from Enigma code breaking or he was supported by the British via another agent within Rado's network, Allan Alexander Foote ("Jim"). Perhaps the British acted as Stalin's supporters to encourage him to finish the war with the lesser effort from the Western side, especially considering the Eastern Europe liberation.
The ability by the Allies to read the enemy's communications was a very important factor in the war effort and undoubtedly contributed to the victory over Nazi Germany. Perhaps, the Soviets were also given some of the intelligence gathered from Enigma message decipherment. The Enigma code was considered so strong that it's algorithm was incorporated into the Unix Operating System developed in the late 1960's.
Select this link to view photos of key Polish code breakers.
1. Krzysztof Gaj: Szyfr Enigmy. Metody Zlamania [Enigma Cipher. The
methods of Breaking], WKL, Warsaw 1989.
2. Wladyslaw Kozaczuk: W kregu Enigmy [In the Enigma Circle], KiW,
3. Andrzej Peplonski: Wywiad Polskich Sil Zbrojnych na Zachodzie
1939-1945 [Polish Armed Forces' Intelligence in the West 1939-1945],
AWM, Warsaw 1995.
4. Marian Rejewski: 'An Application of the Theory of Permutations in
Breaking the Enigma Cipher'; in: Applicaciones Mathematicae. 16, No. 4,
5. Marian Rejewski: 'How Polish Mathematicians Deciphered the Enigma'.
From Annals of the History of Computing. Arlington, Vol. 3, No. 3, July
Jan Bury SP5XZG
e-mail: (now unknown)
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| 0.96904 | 2,956 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Various pronunciations of common words
You say potato and I say ... well, that depends.
On this week's edition of That's What They Say, host Rina Miller and University of Michigan English Professor Anne Curzan investigate the various pronunciation of commonly used words.
Cumin, a popular ingredient found in many kitchens across the nation, is a word that has a tendency to catch people off guard with regards to its pronunciation. According to Curzan, historically, cumin was pronounced as "come-in" and is derived from old English. Current usage of the word takes on a couple of forms. While some people may say "coo-min," others might pronounce it as "cue-min." Furthermore, some people may still pronounce cumin as "come-in." Curzan states that most standard English dictionaries will give you "cue-min" or "come-in" as standard pronunciations.
Other words such as "harassment" and "program" do have alternate pronunciations and Standard English dictionaries will usually provide both forms. Harassment can take on the form "harris-ment" and program can sometimes be pronounced as "progrum."
What words do you frequently use that have alternate pronunciations? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
– Omar Saadeh, Michigan Radio Newsroom
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Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Height 161 cm
Inscribed 'A. Rodin' on the right side of the base and 'Alexis Rudier/Fondeur, Paris' on the back of the base
Museum no. A.35-1914
Given by the artist
This was the first of Rodin's truncated, partial figures or 'fragments' to be shown as sculpture in its own right, rather than as an incomplete study. Inspired in part by damaged classical sculpture and incomplete work by Michelangelo, which he had studied in the Louvre and in Italy, these partial figures held great significance for the development of sculpture in the 20th century.
A small version of the figure was originally conceived for The Gates of Hell. The enlarged plaster version, exhibited as 'une figure' in the 1905 Salon, was probably the work of Rodin's trusted assistant Henri Le Bossé. This bronze is the only cast made in Rodin's lifetime. It was produced specially for an exhibition of contemporary French art at Grosvenor House in London in 1914 and called Cybele, after the ancient Greek goddess of the earth for this London showing.
The model was Adèle Abruzzesi, an Italian woman whom Rodin admired. His close associates called the figure and a related one Abruzzesi Seated and Abruzzesi Reclining.
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Lincoln and His Legacy: A Bicentennial ExhibitionThomas Cooper Library West Gallery
Feb 1, 2009 - Apr 30, 2009
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, the same year as Charles Darwin, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Edgar Allan Poe. He died at the relatively young age of 56, having in this time served four terms in the Illinois state legislature, only one term in Congress, and having passed one month into his second term as President. The now-mythological story of his rise from a two-room log cabin to the White House is imbued with our very conception about the characteristics of being American, and what this definition means to us as citizens in each passing decade since his death. Lincoln’s biographers are legion; the quantity of scholarship and popular literature on him continues unabated, and has only increased with each passing year. In troubled times, politically and economically, Lincoln’s example is a consolation; in prosperous and celebratory times, his example is also heavily drawn upon. And as another Illinois lawyer has now assumed the Presidency, new connections to Lincoln continue to be drawn. No one exhibition can encompass all of popular and scholarly thought on Abraham Lincoln; instead, we here offer some original documents from the collections of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections to mark the bicentennial of his birth this February 12th, and invite further inquiries. This exhibition, which briefly traces Lincoln’s life and times from original source materials, has as its core the library’s Francis Lord Civil War Collection. Other items from drawn from gifts of Professors G. Ross Roy and Robert D. Ochs, the Joel Myerson Collection of Nineteenth Century American Literature, and the Joseph M. Bruccoli Great War Collection.
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June 3, 2011
The secret lives of feral cats
Excerpts from a May 26, 2011 press release from the University of Illinois News Bureau follow.
[Caption for the photo above: "The cats were fitted with radio collars and tracked over two years. Some of the collars also had devices that continuously monitored the cats' every move. This un-owned cat was one of those tracked."]
Researchers track the secret lives of feral and free-roaming house cats
Researchers (and some cat-owners) wanted to know: What do feral and free-roaming house cats do when they’re out of sight? A two-year study offers a first look at the daily lives of these feline paupers and princes, whose territories overlap on the urban, suburban, rural and agricultural edges of many towns.
The study used radio telemetry and a sophisticated activity-tracking device to capture the haunts and habits of dozens of owned and un-owned cats living at the southern edge of Champaign and Urbana, neighboring cities in Central Illinois. Together, the 42 adult cats originally radio-tracked for the study ranged over a territory of 2,544 hectares (6,286 acres).
Of the radio transmitters used in the study, 23 had tilt and vibration sensors that tracked the animals’ every move.
As expected, in most cases the un-owned cats had larger territories than the pet cats and were more active throughout the year. But the size of some of the feral cats’ home ranges surprised even the researchers.
[Caption for the photo above: "One of the feral cats in the study, a mixed breed male, had a home range of 547 hectares (1,351 acres), the largest range of those tracked (red outline). A pet cat in the study, by contrast, stayed very close to home (yellow dot).]
Like most of the feral cats, this lone ranger was seen in both urban and rural sites, from residential and campus lawns to agricultural fields, forests and a restored prairie.
“That particular male cat was not getting food from humans, to my knowledge, but somehow it survived out there amidst coyotes and foxes,” Horn said. “It crossed every street in the area where it was trapped. (It navigated) stoplights, parking lots. We found it denning under a softball field during a game.”
The owned cats had significantly smaller territories and tended to stay close to home. The mean home range for pet cats in the study was less than two hectares (4.9 acres).
“Still, some of the cat owners were very surprised to learn that their cats were going that far,” Horn said. “That’s a lot of backyards.”
The pet cats managed this despite being asleep or in low activity 97 percent of the time. On average, they spent only 3 percent of their time engaged in highly active pursuits, such as running or stalking prey, the researchers reported. The un-owned cats were highly active 14 percent of the time.
“The un-owned cats have to find food to survive, and their activity is significantly greater than the owned cats throughout the day and throughout the year, especially in winter,” Horn said. “These un-owned cats have to search harder to find food to create the (body) heat that they need to survive.”
The cats also differed in the types of territories they used throughout the year. Pet cats randomly wandered in different habitats, but un-owned cats had seasonal habits. In winter, feral cats stayed closer to urban areas than expected. And throughout the year they spent a good amount of time in grasslands, including a restored prairie.
Most of the cats in the study stayed within about 300 meters of human structures, said co-author Nohra Mateus-Pinilla, a wildlife veterinary epidemiologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey at Illinois.
“Even feral cats were always within range of a building,” she said. “That shows that even though they’re feral, they still have a level of dependency on us.”
One feral cat chased another out of a dairy barn. Another feral cat waited for a pet cat to emerge each morning and tried to chase it out of its own backyard, Horn said.
You can read the abstract of the study, published in the April 2011 issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management and entitled "Home Range, Habitat Use, and Activity Patterns of Free-Roaming Domestic Cats," here.
[via one of my crack Pittsburgh correspondents, whose territory clearly recognizes no boundaries]
June 3, 2011 at 05:01 PM | Permalink
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Nobody's fool, that one. Lookit those shrewd, calculating eyes, the set of the mouth, the scratch on the nose - no backing down here. That is one tough customer. Still, aaaawwwwww. I love the black kitties.
Posted by: Flautist | Jun 3, 2011 9:24:18 PM
Tell you what - if Grey Cat shows up in LA county - I'll send you an email that all is well. Keep your eyes pealed for Rusti Cat (an adopted feral cat) though she's sitting in front of the Smooth Fitness treadmill as I write this.....
Posted by: 6.02*10^23 | Jun 3, 2011 7:08:14 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
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The latest green energy numbers are in from the Bloomberg New Energy Finance report and solar capacity has over taken wind power for the first time ever. This year solar power provided the world with 36.7 gigawatts of clean energy, while wind ran just short of the lead with 35.5 gigawatts.
According to the research company, wind energy ran into a slowdown in the United States and China this year, allowing photovoltaics to take the lead. Wind energy usage saw a reduction of about 25 percent from its previous year record of 46.6 gigawatts. Meanwhile, thanks to cheaper PV technology and new incentives to go solar in Japan and China, solar power created a nice increase in electricity generation.
The Bloomberg green report also forecasts some ambitious projections for the future of sustainable energy use. Currently wind sits at five percent while solar hovers around a measly two percent of the world’s total installed power generation capacity according to figures from 2012. By 2030, Bloomberg posits that these figures will jump to 17 percent for wind and 16 percent for solar.
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I wasn't encouraged when I went looking for children's books about St. Patrick's Day. Craft books on the holiday were harder to come by than I had hoped, and when I did find them I was often dismayed. Potato sock puppets, shamrock-shaped mice, and stuffed leprechauns just don't do St. Patrick justice. Nor do snacks-of-all-sorts dolled up with green food coloring.
Is that the primary exposure that American children are getting to the history and culture of Ireland?
In my search for ideas to share with children on St. Patricks' Day, I did find a few appealing resources.
Gail Gibbons' book St. Patrick's Day is a simply illustrated introduction to St. Patrick, the holiday which carries his name, and various Irish cultural icons. The reader meets the brave young boy who was kidnapped and forced to work as a shepherd across the sea in Ireland, whose people he would some day shepherd in faith. The book's simple introduction to St. Patrick, a few of the legends surrounding him, and to shillelaghs, harps and modern St. Patrick's Day celebrations is a good start.
St. Patrick's Day: Parades, Shamrocks, and Leprechauns by Elaine Landau is another nice resource to share with children regarding all the fuss on each March 17. It gives a much more detailed story of Patrick and his road to sainthood, and covers various legends and symbols of Ireland in detail.
Shamrocks, Harps, and Shillelaghs: The Story of the St. Patrick's Day Symbols by Edna Barth is one of a series of books for kids on holiday celebrations. It's a fun look at St. Patrick's Day and the origin of some well-known Irish traditions and symbols.
S Is for Shamrock: An Ireland Alphabet by Eve Bunting is a creative look at Ireland's culture via the ABCs. You can also find a fun teachers' guide to the book online. My favorite activity is writing "Fairy Ring poetry".
I hope this post has inspired you to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with the children in your life. Why not share a few cookies together while wearing your green and reading a good book on Irish culture? I guess it wouldn't hurt if you iced the cookies the right color.
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This artist's concept depicts in the foreground planet Kepler-62f, a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of its star, which is seen peeking out from behind the right edge of the planet. The small shining object farther to the right is Kepler-62e, which orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone of the star, and is roughly 60 percent larger than Earth. If someday in the distant future, we landed on the right spot on Kepler-62f, just before "sunrise," we'd be treated to a lovely view of Kepler-62e as a "morning star" much like Venus often appears for us on Earth.
Kepler-62f is NASA's Kepler mission's smallest habitable zone planet found yet, but its star, located about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra, is smaller, cooler, and older than the sun. Kepler-62f orbits every 267 days and is roughly 40 percent larger than Earth in size. Although the size of Kepler-62f is known, its mass and composition are not. However, based on previous exoplanet discoveries of similar size that are rocky, scientists are able to determine its mass by association.
NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. JPL managed the Kepler mission's development.
For more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler.
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The Journal of Pediatrics published the results of an interesting study. Researchers wanted to see how young children are affected by commercials for junk food vs parental guidance. The “experiment” was conducted on 75 children aged 3 to 5:
They watched two cartoons, with a commercial between each cartoon. Half the children saw a commercial for apple slices with dipping sauce and half saw a commercial for French fries.
After watching the cartoons and commercials, the children were allowed to select a coupon for one of the advertised food items, with input from their parents. Half of the parents were told to encourage their child to select the healthy food, while the other half were told to remain neutral.
Among the children who saw the commercial for French fries, 71 percent chose the coupon for French fries if their parents remained neutral, while only 55 percent opted for the French fries coupon if their parents encouraged them to choose the healthy food.
Of the children who saw the commercial for apple slices, 46 percent chose the coupon for French fries if their parents remained neutral, while only 33 percent picked the coupon for French fries if their parents encouraged them to make the healthy choice. more from healthfinder.gov…
What can we learn from this?
That TV commercials work! As if we didn’t now that. Why would the marketing teams at food companies pour billions of dollars into advertising if that wasn’t the case.
And why would lobbying firms earn millions for a recent push to soften federal guidelines regarding marketing to children?
So yes, as parents we can educate our kids and play positive role models. But dang it, the junk food companies sure are making tough.
What do you think?
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Sangaku, sometimes written san gaku, are a unique product of Japan's sakoku policy- wooden tablets bearing mathematical theorems explored during this period of national isolation. As with other disciplines that experienced a renaissance at this time, such as Haiku, tea-ceremonies and flower arranging, the creation of sangaku was not simply a practical exercise but an aesthetic one. Given that they were hung in shrines, it is likey that they also draw upon an earlier (pre 15th century) Shinto tradition of hanging tablets depicting horses in place of carrying out an actual sacrifice. However, examples can more rarely be found in Buddhist temples, and since the mathematical truths they offered were often supplied without proof, they can be interpreted as much as a challenge to other mortals as a tribute to the kami.
Sangaku flourished at around the same time as Kowa Seki (1642-1708), a Japanese mathematician who was, by popular accounts, of a similar calibre to his contemporary, Newton. Much of the work attributed to Seki is lost, but it is known that his theory of determinants both predated and outpowered that developed in Germany by Leibniz.
Of course, the reason Leibniz pursued his own theory rather than working with Seki's was the total isolation of Japan from the rest of the world under the dictates of the Tokugawa shogunate. This isolation cut both ways- and so Japanese mathematics, uninfluenced by the calculus being developed in the Western world, became a distinct entity, wasan (traditional Japanese mathematics, to be contrasted with yosan, western mathematics).
Although founded on arithmetic manipulation of the soroban (Japanese abacus) and including work on algebraic puzzles, the aspect of wasan most commonly featured on sangaku were geometric thoerems. Whilst these were Euclidean in nature, there was a particular emphasis on circles and ellipses (western work often being more concerned with triangles and other polygons). Some sangaku pose problems that a modern schoolchild could solve in a few lines, whilst others would today be tackled by advanced calculus techniques then unknown in either the east or west. Some results on sangaku precede their discovery in their west (such as the Malfatti problem); many more are mathematically uninteresting today yet retain their stunningly elegant artistic merit.
There is also debate as to precisely who created the sangaku. On the one hand, they were written in Kambun, which is to Japanese as Latin is to English, suggesting that the practitioners were highly educated. Yet the simplicity of the results, and the attribution of some tablets to children, suggest that they have been a more universal pleasure. There is evidence to suggest that everyone from merchants to farmers to samurai engaged in wasan:
It is pleasant to realize that some sangaku were the works of ordinary mathematics devotees, carried away by the beauty of geometry. Perhaps a village teacher, after spending the day with students, or a samurai warrior, after sharpening his sword, would retire to his study, light an oil lamp and lose the world to an intricate problem involving spheres and ellipsoids. Perhaps he would spend days working on it in peaceful contemplation. After finally arriving at a solution, he might allow himself a short rest to savor the result of his hard labor. Convinced the proof was a worthy offering to his guiding spirits, he would have the theorem inscribed in wood, hang it in his local temple and begin to consider the next challenge. Visitors would notice the colorful tablet and admire its beauty. Many people would leave wondering how the author arrived at such a miraculous solution. Some might decide to give the problem a try or to study geometry so that the attempt could be made. A few might leave asking, "What if the problem were changed just so...."1
Today, less than a thousand sangaku survive, although collections of the problems, which began to be published in 1789, describe many more. Whilst tablets continued to be created well into the 20th century, wasan fell from favour in the 19th as yosan at first supplemented then eventually replaced the old ways with the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1867. Many tablets were lost during modernisation. The oldest surviving tablet dates from 1683, although other historical documents refer to examples from as early as 1668. Much of the research into sangaku was carried out by Hidetoshi Fukagawa, a high school teacher and holder of a doctorate in mathematics, one of a handful of people still able to understand Kambun. In 1989, he co-published an English collection of these puzzles2, but even amongst Japanese mathematicians the beautiful tablets are a mostly forgotten piece of history.
1 T. Rothman "Japanese Temple Geometry" Scientific American, May 1998 (accessed by EBSCO archives, with thanks to my University library).
2 H. Fukagawa & D. Pedoe "Japanese Temple Geometry Problems Sangaku" 1989, ISBN: 0919611214. Not even Amazon seems to have a copy, though.
Recently, I have been working on Triangle Geometry, and in my research I encountered the phrase 'Japanese Temple geometry problem'. Node what intrigues you.
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Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
by James Madison
Tuesday, June 12
In Committee of the Whole, — The question was taken on the fifteenth Resolution, to wit, referring the new system to the people of the United States for ratification. It passed in the affirmative, — Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,1 Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, aye — 6; Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, no — 3; Delaware, Maryland, divided.
Mr. SHERMAN and Mr. ELLSWORTH moved to fill the blank left in the fourth Resolution, for the periods of electing the members of the first branch, with the words, “every year;” Mr. SHERMAN observing that he did it in order to bring on some question.
Mr. RUTLEDGE proposed “every two years.”
Mr. JENIFER proposed, “every three years;” observing that the too great frequency of elections rendered the people indifferent to them, and made the best men unwilling to engage in so precarious a service.
Mr. MADISON seconded the motion for three years. Instability is one of the great vices of our republics to be remedied. Three years will be necessary, in a government so extensive, for members to form any knowledge of the various interests of the States to which they do not belong, and of which they can know but little from the situation and affairs of their own. One year will be almost consumed in preparing for, and travelling to and from the seat of national business.
Mr. GERRY. The people of New England will never give up the point of annual elections. They know of the transition made in England from triennial to septennial elections, and will consider such an innovation here as the prelude to a like usurpation. He considered annual elections as the only defence of the people against tyranny. He was as much against a triennial House, as against an hereditary Executive.
Mr. MADISON observed, that, if the opinions of the people were to be our guide, it would be difficult to say what course we ought to take. No member of the Convention could say what the opinions of his constituents were at this time; much less could he say what they would think, if possessed of the information and lights possessed by the members here; and still less, what would be their way of thinking six or twelve months hence. We ought to consider what was right and necessary in itself for the attainment of a proper government. A plan adjusted to this idea will recommend itself. The respectability of this Convention will give weight to their recommendation of it. Experience will be constantly urging the adoption of it; and all the most enlightened and respectable citizens will be its advocates. Should we fall short of the necessary and proper point, this influential class of citizens will be turned against the plan, and little support in opposition to them can be gained to it from the unreflecting multitude.
Mr. GERRY repeated his opinion, that it was necessary to consider what the people would approve. This had been the policy of all legislators. If the reasoning (of Mr. MADISON) were just, and we supposed a limited monarchy the best form in itself, we ought to recommend it, though the genius of the people was decidedly adverse to it, and, having no hereditary distinctions among us, we were destitute of the essential materials for such an innovation.
On the question for the triennial election of the first branch, — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, aye — 7; Massachusetts, (Mr. KING, aye, Mr. GORHAM, wavering) Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, no — 4.
The words requiring members of the first branch to be of the age of — years were struck out, — Maryland alone, no.
The words “liberal compensation for members,” being considered, Mr. MADISON moved to insert the words, “and fixed.” He observed that it would be improper to leave the members of the National Legislature to be provided for by the State Legislatures, because it would create an improper dependence; and to leave them to regulate their own wages was an indecent thing, and might in time prove a dangerous one. He thought wheat, or some other article of which the average price, throughout a reasonable period preceding, might be settled in some convenient mode, would form a proper standard.
Colonel MASON seconded the motion; adding, that it would be improper, for other reasons, to leave the wages to be regulated by the States, — first, the different States would make different provision for their representatives, and an inequality would be felt among them, whereas he thought they ought to be in all respects equal; secondly, the parsimony of the States might reduce the provision so low, that, as had already happened in choosing delegates to Congress, the question would be, not who were most fit to be chosen, but who were most willing to serve.
On the question for inserting the words, “and fixed,” — New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, aye — 8; Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina, no — 3.
Doctor FRANKLIN said, he approved of the amendment just made for rendering the salaries as fixed as possible but disliked the word “liberal.” He would prefer the word “moderate,” if it was necessary to substitute any other. He remarked the tendency of abuses, in every case, to grow of themselves when once begun; and related very pleasantly the progression in ecclesiastical benefices, from the first departure from the gratuitous provision for the apostles, to the establishment of the papal system. The word “liberal” was struck out, nem. con.
On the motion of Mr. PIERCE, that the wages should be paid out of the National Treasury, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, aye — 8; Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, no — 3.
Question on the clause relating to term of service and compensation of the first branch, — Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, aye — 8; Connecticut, New York, South Carolina, no — 3.
On a question for striking out the “ineligibility of members of the National Legislature to State offices,” — Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, aye — 4; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Georgia, no — 5; Massachusetts, Maryland, divided.
On the question for agreeing to the clause as amended, — Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, aye — 10; Connecticut, no — 1.
On the question for making members of the National Legislature ineligible to any office under the National Government for the term of three years after ceasing to be members, — Maryland, aye — 1; Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, no — 10.
On the question for such ineligibility for one year, — Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, aye — 8; New York, Georgia, no — 2; Maryland divided.
On the question moved by Mr. PINCKNEY, for striking out “incapable of re-election into the first branch of the National Legislature for — years, and subject to recall,” agreed to, nem. con.
On the question for striking out from the fifth Resolution the words requiring members of the Senatorial branch to be of the age of — years at least, — Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, aye — 3; Massachusetts, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, no — 6; North Carolina, Georgia, divided.
On the question for filling the blank with “thirty years,” as the qualification, it was agreed to, — Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, aye — 7; Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, no — 4.
Mr. SPAIGHT moved to fill the blank for the duration of the appointments to the second branch of the national Legislature with the words “seven years.”
Mr. SHERMAN thought seven years too long. He grounded his opposition, he said, on the principle that, if they did their duty well, they would be re-elected; and if they acted amiss, an earlier opportunity should be allowed for getting rid of them. He preferred five years, which would be between the terms of the first branch and of the Executive.
Mr. PIERCE proposed three years. Seven years would raise an alarm. Great mischiefs have arisen in England from their Septennial Act, which was reprobated by most of their patriotic statesmen.
Mr. RANDOLPH was for the term of seven years. The democratic licentiousness of the State Legislatures proved the necessity of a firm Senate. The object of this second branch is, to control the democratic branch of the National Legislature. If it be not a firm body, the other branch, being more numerous, and coming immediately from the people, will overwhelm it. The Senate of Maryland, constituted on like principles, had been scarcely able to stem the popular torrent. No mischief can be apprehended, as the concurrence of the other branch, and in some measure of the Executive, will in all cases be necessary. A firmness and independence may be the more necessary, also, in this branch, as it ought to guard the Constitution against encroachments of the Executive, who will be apt to form combinations with the demagogues of the popular branch.
Mr. MADISON considered seven years as a term by no means too long. What we wished was, to give to the government that stability which was every where called for, and which the enemies of the republican form alleged to be inconsistent with its nature. He was not afraid of giving too much stability, by the term of seven years. His fear was, that the popular branch would still be too great an overmatch for it. It was to be much lamented that we had so little direct experience to guide us. The Constitution of Maryland was the only one that bore any analogy to this part of the plan. In no instance had the Senate of Maryland created just suspicions of danger from it. In some instances, perhaps, it may have erred by yielding to the House of Delegates. In every instance of their opposition to the measures of the House of Delegates, they had had with them the suffrages of the most enlightened and impartial people of the other States, as well as of their own. In the States, where the Senates were chosen in the same manner as the other branches of the Legislature, and held their seats for four years, the institution was found to be no check whatever against the instabilities of the other branches. He conceived it to be of great importance that a stable and firm government, organized in the republican form, should be held out to the people. If this be not done, and the people be left to judge of this species of government by the operations of the defective systems under which they now live, it is much to be feared, the time is not distant, when, in universal disgust, they will renounce the blessing which they have purchased at so dear a rate, and be ready for any change that may be proposed to them.
On the question for “seven years,” as the term for the second branch, — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, aye, — 8; Connecticut, no — 1; Massachusetts, (Mr. GORHAM and Mr. KING, aye; Mr. GERRY and Mr. STRONG, no) New York, divided.
Mr. BUTLER and Mr. RUTLEDGE proposed that the members of the second branch should be entitled to no salary or compensation for their services. On the question,2 — Connecticut, Delaware, South Carolina, aye — 3; New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, no — 7; Massachusetts, divided.
It was then moved, and agreed, that the clauses respecting the stipends and inelegibility of the second branch be the same as of the first branch, — Connecticut disagreeing to the ineligibility. It was moved and seconded, to alter the ninth Resolution, so as to read, “that the jurisdiction of the supreme tribunal shall be, to hear and determine, in the dernier resort, all piracies, felonies, &c.”
It was moved and seconded, to strike out, “all piracies and felonies on the high seas,” which was agreed to.
It was moved, and agreed, to strike out, “all captures from an enemy.”
It was moved, and agreed, to strike out, “other States,” and insert “two distinct States of the Union.”
It was moved, and agreed, to postpone the consideration of the ninth Resolution, relating to the Judiciary.
The Committee then rose, and the House adjourned.
1Pennsylvania omitted in the printed Journal. The vote is there entered as of June 11th. Return to text 2It is probable the votes here turned chiefly on the idea that if the salaries were not here provided for, the members would be paid by their respective States. Return to text
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A new international Convention on ship recycling has been adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009 is aimed at ensuring that ships, when being recycled after reaching the end of their operational lives, do not pose unnecessary risk to human health and safety or to the environment.
The Convention was adopted at a diplomatic conference held in Hong Kong, China, from 11 to 15 May 2009, attended by delegates from 63 countries. The new Convention was developed by IMO, the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution from ships.
Speaking at the close of the successful conference, IMO Secretary-General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos expressed satisfaction that the new Convention, named after the host city, was adopted by consensus in the best traditions of the Organization. He told delegates that the new Convention struck the right balance between the responsibilities and obligations of shipowners, ship recycling facilities, flag and recycling States. He added that the Convention, as adopted, allows for future improvements and provides "a platform and an avenue for better regulation, in due course, of the activity it addresses.
"I believe it is a good outcome in the circumstances", he said, "as it has succeeded in putting in place international rules and standards to regulate, for the first time, a complex and multi-faceted issue."
He urged Governments now to turn their attention to the important task of bringing the Convention into force at the earliest possible date and, thereafter, to promoting its uniform and effective implementation. "The closure of the Conference," he said "should mark the beginning of strenuous efforts: first, to initiate, back home, work to ratify the Convention at the earliest possible opportunity to expedite its entry into force; secondly, to initiate action to provide technical assistance to requesting countries without awaiting its entry into force; and thirdly, to initiate action, as may be necessary, to ensure the effective implementation and proper enforcement of the Convention when it comes into force."
The new Convention intends to address all the issues around ship recycling, including the fact that ships sold for scrapping may contain environmentally hazardous substances such as asbestos, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, ozone-depleting substances and others. It will address concerns raised about the working and environmental conditions at many of the world's ship recycling locations.
The text of the ship recycling Convention has been developed over the past three years, with input from IMO Member States and relevant non-governmental organizations, and in co-operation with the International Labour Organization and the Parties to the Basel Convention.
Regulations in the new Convention cover: the design, construction, operation and preparation of ships so as to facilitate safe and environmentally sound recycling, without compromising the safety and operational efficiency of ships; the operation of ship recycling facilities in a safe and environmentally sound manner; and the establishment of an appropriate enforcement mechanism for ship recycling, incorporating certification and reporting requirements.
Ships to be sent for recycling will be required to carry an inventory of hazardous materials, which will be specific to each ship. An appendix to the Convention will provide a list of hazardous materials the installation or use of which is prohibited or restricted in shipyards, ship repair yards, and ships of Parties to the Convention. Ships will be required to have an initial survey to verify the inventory of hazardous materials, additional surveys during the life of the ship, and a final survey prior to recycling.
Ship recycling yards will be required to provide a "Ship Recycling Plan", to specify the manner in which each ship will be recycled, depending on its particulars and its inventory. Parties will be required to take effective measures to ensure that ship recycling facilities under their jurisdiction comply with the Convention.
A series of guidelines are being developed to assist in the Convention's implementation. The Convention shall be open for signature by any State at the Headquarters of the Organization from 1 September 2009 to 31 August 2010 and shall thereafter remain open for accession by any State. It will enter into force 24 months after the date on which 15 States, representing 40 per cent of world merchant shipping by gross tonnage, have either signed it without reservation as to ratification, acceptance or approval or have deposited instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the Secretary-General.
Furthermore, the combined maximum annual ship recycling volume of those States must, during the preceding 10 years, constitute not less than 3 per cent of their combined merchant shipping tonnage.
The conference also adopted six resolutions as follows:
Resolution 1: Expression of appreciation to the host Government;
Resolution 2: Contribution of the Parties to the Basel Convention and the International Labour Organization in the development of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009;
Resolution 3: Promotion of technical co-operation and assistance;
Resolution 4: Future work by the Organization pertaining to the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009;
Resolution 5: Early implementation of the technical standards of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009; and
Resolution 6: Exploration and monitoring of the best practices for fulfilling the requirements of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009.
The Diplomatic Conference was attended by delegations from 63 IMO Member States, as well as by observers from two Associate Members, the United Nations Environment Programme, ILO, the European Commission, and eight non-governmental organizations. It was organized with the support of the Government of China and the Marine Department of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
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| 0.947572 | 1,180 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Tic is a Java Applet that plays the game Tic Tac Toe: Two players alternately place es and s on a 3x3 board, the one who first gets three of his symbols in a line (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) wins. You start with !
The computer's playing algorithm works as follows:
"Rating assuming that both players always choose the best move" given a board situation and whose turn it is is recursively done as follows:
"Rating assuming that the computer always chooses the best move while the human player chooses every possible move with equal probability" given a board situation and whose turn it is is recursively done as follows:
Because this approach is exhaustive, i.e. searches the whole tree of all possible games, it always returns the really best move. This is possible because Tic Tac Toe is such a simple game - although even in this simple game (not taking into accout that many games end before the board is full) 9! = 362 880 different games are possible and the game tree consists of 986 400 nodes!
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| 0.959215 | 226 | 2.75 | 3 |
Dragons are creatures with nearly unlimited life spans. They can survive for long periods of time, and no one has found a dragon that has died of old age. Adolescence is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. Once they hit adolescence, hatchlings change quickly, maturing to their full forms in only 2 years.
Dragons don’t communicate with each other verbally, but they will growl to scare off predators and frighten prey. Young dragons will emit an extremely high-pitched squeal when they are frightened. To communicate, they use telepathy with each other and to speak to other creatures.
Imperial Fleshcrownes are an active and playful breed. They are equally good at flying and climbing and while they are not good swimmers, they love to take an occasional dip. Fleshcrownes live in large social groups called “communities.” Adult Fleshcrownes share the responsibility of looking after the young, who are very playful and active. Even after maturing, they retain their curious and mischievous natures, often getting into trouble. The fleshy crowns on their head can be raised at will, and are usually erect when happy, excited, or scared. Fleshcrownes—being a very peaceful breed—are more prone to flight than fight. If threatened, they can raise their crowns while hissing in an attempt to scare off predators.
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Most people want to lose weight without exercise. Losing weight without proper exercise and a healthy diet can have disastrous effects on your body. Lack of exercise can result in reduced muscle mass, decreased bone density and various other health complications.
Why Exercising is Essential
Exercising is the first step towards staying healthy. Fitness experts all over the world recommend exercising for good physical health. Daily exercise is essential for the body, as it helps it improve physical fitness and general health. Your body needs to be toned up regularly. Exercising helps to keep a person fit and improves overall health. It provides the required strength and energy to the body.
Exercising helps to prevent heart diseases, stroke, obesity, diabetes, back pain, etc. Experts suggest that daily exercise, along with strength training and stretching, can be very beneficial for the body. Even a physical activity of about 30 minutes can yield substantial benefits for your health. Exercising helps to maintain your body weight, strengthen muscles and improve the cardiovascular system.
Hazards of Losing Weight without Exercising
Your body can suffer if you do not exercise. Losing weight without exercising can be beneficial only temporarily, and if you turn to diet pills, rigorous dieting, crash diets, etc. for weight loss, these methods can lead to many unhealthy side effects.
Most people resort to dieting for losing or gaining weight. One has to follow the diet properly to get any visible results. However, dieting can damage the immune system if not done properly.
The body requires certain amount of calories on a daily basis to perform mental and physical activities. If the calorie intake of the body decreases, the body starts using protein for energy. This leads to loss of muscles and weight.
Diets that focus on losing weight by reducing food intake can have various side effects on your body like depression, fatigue, prolonged hunger and muscle atrophy.
Prolonged use of diet pills can affect your body system adversely. Most prescription drugs are very powerful and have certain side effects. Stimulant based diet pills can be habit forming. Diet pills work by suppressing your appetite. Reduced food intake leads to lower calories and weight loss. Regular and unmonitored intake of diet pills can be harmful for the body, as it can cause high blood pressure, palpitations, insomnia, drug addiction, etc.
You can lose weight gradually by exercising and opting for a healthy diet, rather than indulging in crash diets and diet pills that can affect your health. Weight loss without exercising is only temporary. Once you stop the diet or intake of pills, you will start gaining weight again. Regular exercise, along with a healthy diet plan, is the best way to lose weight.
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| 0.929445 | 556 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Related sorts of Internet-influenced mixed scripts, abbreviations, and loan words are also popular in Taiwan and China among the young.
This is one of the commonly used words of teenagers on the Internet. It means: “Hello. You are so cool.”
The language used on the Internet is passing over the danger level for breaking down Hangeul, the Korean alphabet.
Up until recently, it was just writing down the words as they were heard or shortening words, like “ban-ga-wo” (meaning ‘glad to see you’ in Korean) to “bang-ga” or “yeo-ja-chin-gu” (meaning “girlfriend” in Korean) to “yeo-chin.” However, lately, it has gotten to the point where words that the general public cannot understand at all are being used.
The language for these words used by some netizens for communication, mixing special characters, Japanese, Chinese characters and Korean, are called “alien words.”
The meaning of alien words such as “??????????????????????? (I, Byeol-nim, do not think using words this way is that bad)”, can be guessed when looking closely, but some seem like codes, such as “????_?|???_???? (I believe in you)”.
These alien words are becoming popular among some teenage netizens who want to share secrets of their own. They even make community clubs on the Internet and talk with each other in alien words.
However, these alien words are not in the Korean spelling system, and so netizens using this language sometimes misunderstand each other. Accordingly, a translation program for alien words has appeared. It translates Korean words into alien words.
The problem here is that this language used by teenagers on the Internet is continuing into use in everyday life, becoming a serious threat to breaking down the Korean language.
In fact, teachers are pointing out that many students are writing “??” instead of “??” and “?” instead of “??” during writing classes. (Words are written by the way they sound or by shortening the original word.)
Accordingly, the Education and Human Resources Development Ministry (MOE) has published a teachers’ guide to refine the Korean language and effectively teach students the manners in language for everyday life to be distributed throughout schools on Monday, January 10.
This teachers guide, titled: “Refining Internet Language, Manners for Language in Everyday Life,” was written by the MOE, the National Academy of the Korean Language, the Information Communication Ethics Committee, the Korean Education and Research Information Service and the Teachers’ Clean Media Movement, and will be used during classes starting this semester.
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‘Les Voyageurs - from Canoe to
On April 15, the Jaques Art Center in Aitkin, Minnesota unveiled an
anniversary art exhibit by artist/historian, Robert Perrizo.
It was 210 years ago that Lewis & Clark completed their ‘Corps of
Discovery’ journey west which was commission by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. This exploration concluded the Louisiana Purchase
that made the United States whole in 1806. ‘Les Voyageurs - From Canoe
to Canvas’ documents this early Minnesota history and features more than 40 all new vibrant oils of wilderness scenes and explorers.
It covers the State’s 1660-1740 French period.
The exhibit features highly researched portraits of early French explorers, including Radisson, Marquette, Duluth, and Hennepin who
explored and claimed the Mississippi for French King Louis XIV.
Perrizo also portrays the colorful French Voyageur fur traders and their Indian trade partners.
These two groups embraced each other’s cultures which eventually set the tone for the blending of mixed-blood peoples call the Metis nation in the New World.
These colorful French Canadian canoe men were known for their red wool tasseled caps, deer-skin leggings secured to a waist belt, bare thighs, Indian breech cloth, plus deer skin moccasins. They also featured a colorful sash around their waists to protect them from ruptures when
carrying two or more 90-pound packs of their backs during portages.
They navigated their eight-man, 36 foot canoes that carried up to four tons of trade goods, especially beaver hides, and supplies on the Great Lakes for rendezvous with with western Indians and wintering French voyageurs of Minnesota. Paintings include the establishing of the North West Fur Company at Grand Portage as the western Great Lakes terminus from Montreal in 1780.
All of this makes for a colorful display of voyageurs canoeing, portaging and singing around campfires during the evening respites.The exhibit illuminates the close participation the French had with the Indians, particularly the Dakota, in the storied horse and buffalo culture that emerged with the arrival of horses on the Great Plains.
The horse had been extinct in North America for 50,000 years.Then, in 1690 the Pueblo Indians ‘liberated’ horses from the Spanish
conquistadores and in a few years over two million horses were running free on the Plains.The Dakota obtained steeds from the Mandan peoples and quickly transformed themselves into master horsemen. The French involvement with this era comes alive with Perrizo’s portrayal of the exciting evolution from plodding farmers to a wide-ranging, hard-riding, buffalo-hunting, Plains tribe.
The exhibit will end on May 21.
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Better access to healthy foods is not enough to tackle obesity
US neighbourhood grocery store initiative fails to alter obesity or fruit and vegetable intake.
Government initiatives to improve access to healthy foods may have a limited impact on obesity, according to new research by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Penn State University.
Disadvantaged neighbourhoods often lack access to low-cost healthy foods, which has led to initiatives in the UK and US that focus on increasing the number of local supermarkets through grants and loans. Recent programmes in the US include the $400 million Healthy Food Financing Initiative, promoted by the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity, and New York City’s FRESH programme, which continue to be rolled out in urban areas of the US. But to date, there have been no formal evaluations of how effective these programmes actually are at improving diet and reducing obesity.
Now a study published in Health Affairs has provided the first US-based evidence that building new food retail stores is not sufficient to improve the diets of low-income residents.
The researchers investigated the impact of a new supermarket opening in a low-income community in Philadelphia, classified as a “food desert” by the US Department of Agriculture. The supermarket is part of the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, which has been responsible for 88 new or expanded food retail outlets in the area.
After studying around 650 residents over a period of four years, the results showed that although there were improvements in residents’ perceptions of food accessibility, these did not translate into significant changes in diet.
Few residents chose to shop at the new supermarket once it opened, with only 27% of residents adopting it as their main food store and just 51% using it for any food shopping at all. Despite the programme’s objectives of improving diet, exposure to the new supermarket had no significant impact on reducing obesity or increasing daily fruit and vegetable intake.
These findings mirror the results of previous UK-based studies, which also found no significant evidence for any effect on diet. However, the authors note that additional studies are required to confirm these findings in other populations.
Lead author Professor Steven Cummins at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "Interventions that encourage the location of supermarkets to improve food access and reduce diet-related diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, are currently high on the policy agenda in many nations. Such policies also form a central part of many US government schemes such as Michelle Obama's Lets Move Childhood Obesity programme.
“Though these interventions are plausible and well-meaning, this study suggests that they are only effective in taking us part of the way in changing dietary behaviour – in order to realise their full potential we need to better understand how to translate changes in perception to changes in behaviours."
The researchers suggest that combining the development of new food stores with complementary initiatives that focus on price promotions, in-store marketing and branding could encourage greater use of these new stores.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
- Steven Cummins, Ellen Flint, and Stephen A. Matthews. New Neighborhood Grocery Store Increased Awareness Of Food Access But Did Not Alter Dietary Habits Or Obesity. Health Affairs. DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2013.0512
Image Credit: Rusty Clark
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“Progress on maternal, newborn and child health, in the 75 highest-burden countries, most in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where more than 95 percent of all maternal and child deaths occur, has been laid out in a new 220-page report, ‘Building a Future for Women and Children,’ which is published by the Countdown to 2015 initiative,” a Countdown to 2015 press release reports. “Since 1990, annual maternal deaths have declined by almost one half and the deaths of young children have declined from 12 million to 7.6 million in 2010,” the press release states. It details a number of the key findings from the report and notes that the report’s release “coincides with a two-day [Child Survival Call to Action] forum to chart a course toward the end of preventable child deaths, taking place June 14-15 in Washington, D.C.” (6/13).
Maternal, Newborn and Child Health
“The governments of the United States, India, and Ethiopia will in collaboration with UNICEF convene the Child Survival Call to Action in Washington, D.C.,” a two-day event beginning Thursday, which “brings together 700 leaders and global experts to launch a sustained effort to save children’s lives,” a UNICEF press release reports. The initiative “challenges the world” to reduce child mortality to 20 per 1,000 by 2035 worldwide, the press release states, adding, “Reaching this historic target will have saved an estimated additional 45 million children’s lives between 2010 and 2035, bringing the world closer to the ultimate goal of ending preventable child deaths” (6/12).
In this post in the Huffington Post’s “World” blog, Cecilia Attias, former first lady of France and president and founder of the Cecilia Attias Foundation for Women, responds to a recent paper, published by the World Bank, which discusses significant declines in infant and under-five mortality in Kenya and across sub-Saharan Africa. She writes, “Africa’s swift economic growth has become a familiar story; but the fact that fewer children are dying than before — that people’s lives are getting better on the ground — is arguably more heartening than accounts of improvements in African industry or infrastructure or business (though the trends are probably connected).”
In this post in the Management Sciences for Health’s (MSH) “Global Health Impact” blog, Scott Kellerman, global technical lead for HIV/AIDS at MSH, discusses USAID’s “Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday” campaign and recent attention to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. He notes that U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby and UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe “have called for the elimination of pediatric HIV by 2015,” and writes, “We can move closer to the goal of eliminating pediatric HIV by 2015 by treating the mother, treating the baby, and continuing to treat the mother” (5/31).
The Nairobi-based African Institute for Development Policy on Tuesday presented a report called “Africa on the Move!” at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, VOA News reports, noting the report “says that in some African countries, political will, maternal and child health concerns as well as more and more funding are helping to develop effective family planning.” According to VOA, “Steve McDonald, the host of the event and Africa director at the Wilson Center, said partnerships between governments and religious organizations, which sometimes provide the bulk of health services in remote areas, are also crucial.”
The “groundbreaking” London Summit on Family Planning, scheduled for July 11, “aims to provide an additional 120 million women … lifesaving contraceptives, information, and services by 2020,” Gary Darmstadt, who heads the Family Health Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes in the foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog. If that goal is reached, the health and economic benefits would be “staggering,” he says, laying out the five guiding principles to the world’s “collective efforts to revitalize family planning.” Those principles include improving “political commitment, funding, and collaboration”; promoting equal rights among women and girls; strengthening voluntary family planning programs under existing infrastructure; and holding stakeholders accountable, he writes, and concludes, “The time to come together is now. The global community has the chance to achieve transformational results that will save millions of lives” (6/28).
“Tens of thousands of people uprooted or trapped by conflict in northern Mali are going without enough food, leading to a spike in cases of children suffering from malnutrition, medical aid groups say,” AlertNet reports. “The situation in northern Mali is also being compounded by a wider food and nutrition crisis across the Sahel region of West Africa, where the United Nations estimates that 18 million people are facing hunger due to a combination of drought, failed crops, insect swarms, and high food prices,” the news service writes. “Aid workers warn that living conditions in Mali’s troubled north will worsen unless security improves, enabling better access for humanitarian groups, and donors provide more funding for relief operations,” AlertNet notes, adding that charity groups working in the region say mothers and children are being affected most by malnutrition (Fominyen, 6/28).
In a feature story, Al Jazeera examines Cuba’s national health care system, which “works — or is supposed to work — by emphasizing primary and preventative health care.” However, after subsidies from the former Soviet Union “ended and Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin, nothing was the same again,” according to the news agency, which notes the system experiences drug shortages, patients have long wait times, and some hospitals are dirty or malfunctioning. “In all fairness, in the past five years, the government has made great efforts to improve hospitals and health centers, but again, lack of resources is making the process painfully slow,” Al Jazeera writes, adding, “The system is free, but it is neither fast nor efficient for two important reasons. One is obviously the lack of financial resources, and the other — which is related to the first — is the ‘export’ of doctors, nurses and dentists in exchange for hard currency.” The feature concludes, “But for all its shortcomings, Cubans do have better access to health care than the majority of those living in many ‘developing nations,’ where public health is shockingly inadequate” (Newman, 6/18).
Washington Post: Clinton, Santorum, Kerry, Powell and Coburn were cute kids “Not many issues could create an alliance of Hillary Clinton, Rick Santorum, John Kerry, Colin Powell, and Tom Coburn. But a global health initiative to help children survive beyond their 5th birthday is a cause without a political party…
New York Times: Border Centers Struggle to Handle Onslaught of Young Migrants “…[T]he swelling number of arriving youths [from Central and South America] — many of them making perilous journeys to flee gang violence in their native countries — has presented the Obama administration with political and humanitarian predicaments and…
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| 0.943639 | 1,584 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Explain how underground caves are examples of destructive forces! View this
cool animation! stone mountain. What kind of forces are acting on Stone
Destructive forces like tornadoes and tsunamis tear down... ... hurricanes,
volcanoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes are all examples of destructive forces.
Constructive definition, constructing or tending to construct; helping to improve;
promoting further development or advancement (opposed to destructive): ...
Constructive and Destructive Forces that effect Earth's Landforms. Weathering ...
These processes cause the surface of the earth to dissolve, decompose, and
break into smaller pieces. Weathering cont…. Water is ... EXAMPLES: *
415 W. Sun Street Morehead,KY 40351 Phone:(606)784-8928 Fax:(606)783-
1011. Contact · Calendar · Board of Education · Departments · Employment ·
Define destructive. destructive synonyms, destructive pronunciation, destructive
... or discredit; negative (opposed to constructive): destructive criticism. .....
against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet
LAND FORMATION - Constructive Forces, Folding, Faults, Magnitude and Effect,
Volcanic Eruptions, Deposition of .... The two main destructive forces are
weathering and erosion. .... what are the examples of active volcanic mountain?
Synonyms for destructive at Thesaurus.com with free online thesaurus, antonyms
, and definitions. Dictionary and Word of the Day.
Constructive & Destructive Forces - PowerPoint PPT Presentation .....
Construction Defect Mediation Practice in California Definition of Terms and
Example sentences with the word destructive. destructive example ... Further,
while the genius of Aquinas was constructive, that of Duns Scotus was
destructive; .... acted as other than a destructive force, although they may perhaps
have kept ...
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If you are anything like me (and I have a feeling most of you are very like me) then you grew up playing games. Back in the 90’s, it was all about Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Turbo Graphix, Neo Geo, etc. And you didn’t like it. You LOVED IT!!!! Growing up with Mario, Sonic, and the rest of the pixel gang – really made us fond of these 8bit graphics. When Pixel Art came around again, it really brought up that nostalgia emotion and all the memories of the days where we frolicked in an imaginary land full of pixels and fun with no responsibilities or repercussions for our actions. We love remembering those days. Oh those were the days.
Well Today we have rounded up some epic tutorials for pixel art – so you can not only ENJOY pixel art inspirations, but also, you can learn how to create your own! And carry the torch, if you will, and bring nostalgia to many more! Or you could even help the pixel art trend push itself back into the mainstream!
What is Pixel Art?
Well, im glad you asked. Wikipedia says:
Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art.
The term pixel art was first published by Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1982. The concept, however, goes back about 10 years before that, for example in Richard Shoup’s SuperPaint system in 1972, also at Xerox PARC.
Some traditional art forms, such as counted-thread embroidery (including cross-stitch) and some kinds of mosaic and beadwork, are very similar to pixel art. These art forms construct pictures out of small colored units similar to the pixels of modern digital computing. A similar concept on a much bigger scale can be seen in the North Korean Arirang Festival.
Modern pixel art has been seen as a reaction to the 3D graphics industry by amateur game/graphic hobbyists. Many retro enthusiasts often choose to mimic the style of the past. Some view the pixel art revival as restoring the golden age of second and third generation consoles, where it is argued graphics were more aesthetically pleasing. Pixel art still remains popular and has been used in the virtual worlds Citypixel, Minecraft, and Habbo as well as among hand-held devices such as the Nintendo DS and Cellphones.
So yeah, there you have it, pixel art is for teh winz. Whether you just love pixel art, and want to learn to make some, or you might want to learn to do this to make your own game or something like that – whatever the case may be, I hope you learn a lot from these tutorials & inspirations. I hope they inspire you to create some retro throwback to the good ole days! Enjoy!
Great tutorial that helps you learn the basics of Pixel Art – some drawing skills required! lol
Nice short and straight to the point video tutorial for drawing a nice little 8-bit pixel art mushroom 😀 in illustrator! (so its vector, and can be resized without losing quality!)
This is a really fantastic background tutorial – gives you in depth instructions and even gives you animated views of a side scrolling level completed with the pieces – looks so good! Reminds me of every old school 2D SNES and Genesis Side Scroller. Mmmm retro nostalgia! I don’t think we have seen the last of this style in mainstream games, I have a feeling 2D & Isometric views are coming back in fashion.
Another great tutorial that will help drive home and burn into your brain the basics & best practices of working with pixels as an art form. Once you are done with a few of these bad boys you will be starting on the right foot!
This article will help you take your drawing and turn it into an epic pixel work of art.
This one is a little different, this one shows you how to take existing sprites (pixel arts) and improve them in photoshop! Good tips to know.
Good tutorial for creating an rpg character in pixel art!
Clouds are in almost every game, so its usually pretty good to know how to do those Here is how!
Along with clouds, in the scenery category, Trees are very common – so checkout this tutorial on the basics of creating a pixelized tree!
Colors are so important when it comes to pixel art – it can make or break the piece. This is a great tutorial for helping you choose the right palette for your pixel art design.
Another basic introduction to pixel art – from someone else’s perspective. This one helps you make a wicked steam-punk zeppelin
This one is pretty much an overview of pixel art – but definitely touches on some advanced topics and points, great read for all pixel artists (or soon to be)!
This is actually a quick and simple overview of someones workflow as they draw out some isometric pixel art – nothing fancy, but really simple! It is always good (as I have said before) To see how some people work on certain things, just to get the workflow and technique down, really saves some time. Another amazing thing is that they are using *gasp* MS PAINT to do this… lolol.
Another quick isometric pixel art workflow video, again with MS Paint – showing how to build out a living room – pretty epic to see this done in MS Paint!
Really nice starting place to really dig in, learn the basics, and wrap your head around pixel art. All good design comes from a great foundation ya know! Good tutorial for beginners of art pixelation!
I can hear you all saying “LOL PAINT” haha. There are several graphics programs available that are suitable for drawing pixel art in, however Microsoft Paint comes pre installed with most Windows based computers and it’s easy to use, which is why it’s featured here
Really good workflow tutorial on creating animated pixel art with GIMP. Most people make pixel art so that it can move like an old school 8-bit video game – so here is how to achieve such effects!
Really good workflow for creating a pixel art icon.
Cool workflow & clever techniques for adding patterns and just making some crazy designs with your pixel art – go nuts!
This is a really nice overview and reminder of how shadows and lighting shade different objects. Definitely a must for anyone wanting to master pixel art!
This is a pretty in depth overview of the pixel art workflow – creating a really nice little doll scene!
I love this one – that steampunk conveyor belt is awesome!! Looks like something straight out of an anime, or an RPG – love it. In depth shading & attention to detail.
Great workflow tutorial for drawing a pixel art base and doll – really good anime feel to this, RPG away!
Love this Elven Archer – really does looks straight out of a video game, could be Link! lol. This is a really detailed overview of how to do the pixel art – also at the end they show you how to animate it! Winning!
I’ve always wondered how to draw hair – in Pixel art it looks a lot harder than normal! This tutorial shows you how to start out with a plain colored outline of hair, and add in the ‘lines’ with well placed shading colors – epic tutorial!
This is a really great tutorial if you are making some sort of game or RPG that is pixel based. This tutorial shows you how to create scenery and backgrounds (trees, rocks, water, etc.) in pixel art (using MS Paint).
Another good tutorial showing you how to configure and setup GIMP for working with and creating pixel art!
Need More Epic Pixel Art Resources!?
Here are some more awesome tutorials and some Inspirations for your pixel artworks!
Pixel Art Inspiration
Do you love pixel art? What is your favorite 8-bit or old school retro graphics memory? Leave it in the comments below!! I used to play NES, SNES & Genesis for houurrsssss!! My fav is probably zelda or mario related stuff 😀
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The WEN Trust Information Department answers enquiries, produces briefings, papers and other information related to women and the environment.
For further details contact: Information Co-ordinator WEN Aberdeen Studios 22 Highbury Grove London N5 2EA
Tel 071 354 8823 Fax 071 354 0464
printed on 100% recycled, unbleached paper.
© WEN Trust Registered Charity No. 1010397
WEN Trust would like to acknowledge the invaluable support of the earings Foundation and the Folden Puckham Trust for the work of the information department.
Chlorine is a naturally occurring substance. Its manipulation and use in forming artificial chemical products has had devastating effects on the environment which we are only now beginning to understand.
In its various artificial forms, chlorine plays a major role in the most pressing environmental problems which we face today; depletion of the ozone layer, global warming and acid rain. The pollution cau sed by its widespread use has been linked to a variety of serious health effects; poisonings have occurred in the chlorine industry since its inception and chlorine compounds have accumulated in the bodyfat of animals and humans.
Chlorine can exist safely, in the form of common salt (sodium chloride), for example, but the process of splitting common salt into caustic soda and chlorine gas makes it become dangerously toxic. One million tonnes of chlorine is produced from salt in this way every year in the UK. Most of this is combined with chemicals containing carbon to form organochlorines.
Organochiorines are contained in many of the familiar products we see in our shops, such as in solvents, pesticides, plastics, disinfectants, forms of packag ing and bleached pulp and paper products. If a product shows a list of its ingredients, any word containing the letters 'chloro' suggests the presence of an organochlorine. Many of the products which we buy are predominantly made of or encased in, plastics which contain chlorine such as PVC (polyvinylchloride). Some other plastics which do not contain chlorine stifl involve it at some stage in their production.
Polychlorinated biphenyls, (PCBs), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and DDT are examples of organochlorine compounds which, although banned or discredited, are still evident in our environment. PCBs and DDT accumulate in the bodyfat of fish, animals and ultimately humans, through the food chain.
The manufacture of organochlorines gives rise to many unintentional by- products. Many of these are likely to lead to the same kinds of problems as the organochlorines which have already been banned.
In making organochlorine products, highly toxic by-products such as dioxins are inadvertently made at the same time and accumulate in the same way as PCBs in our bodyfat and in the environment generally. Similar major pollution problems also arise when these chlorinated products such as plastics and solvents are burned or incinerated as rubbish. The resulting polluted air affects the surrounding area, falling on agricultural land and accumulating in the food chain, putting food such as dairy products at risk from high levels of dioxins.
Studies in the US have shown that the presence of dioxins and PCBs is linked to nervous system damage in babies, with effects on memory and co-ordination. WEN's report, Chlorine, Pollution and the Parents of Tomorrow assesses the levels of dioxins and PCBs in Britain and concludes that similar effects may be occurring in between 1% and 8% of babies in this country.
International bodies and scientific institutions worldwide are calling for chlorine phase-out. In February 1994, President Clinton announced a strategy for the phase-out of chlorine in manufacturing; many towns and cities in Europe have banned PVC and the amount of chlorine used to bleach paper has fallen dramatically over the last few years. Chlorine has such a huge presence in our industrialised society, but now awareness is leading to the development of alternatives.
The dioxins that arefound in our bodies in the UK come mainly from the burning of material containing organochlorines such as PVC and wood treated with PCP. The dioxins are actually created on particles of soot and dust which are then spread efficiently into the air as the hot gases rise from the fire. The airborne dioxins fall on fields over a wide area beyond the burning site, where animals such as cows eat grass and plants contaminated by them. The dioxins stick firmly to fat in the cow, particularly to the milk fat, and to the fatty part of the meat. Since they do not break down, the cow acts as a dioxin concentrator. This also appliesto otheranimals, and is the reason why animal fat is the major source of dioxins for humans. Dioxins in fish come partly from airborne particles falling on the sea, but also from industrial and sewage discharges. Sewage contains dioxins - partly originating from the use of PCP wood preservative in homes and wood treatment plants. Municipal incinerator ash is landfilled. The ash from incinerators and fires contains large amounts of dioxins, furans and other toxic substances. Pollutants released from the ash may reach the water supply.
The US EPA expects more subtle effects, such as onthe immune system, to occur at the levels we now have in our bodies. Recent evidence suggests these effects could include endometriosis, a painful menstrual disease occurring in 10% of women.
Chlorine in swimming pools
The substance used to chlorinate swim- ming pools is usually a salt (sodium hypochlorite) which contains very little free chlorine. Organochlorines do occur inswimming pools, butthesedo not include the highly toxic dioxins. Levels of other organochlorines are higher in people immediately after swimming; and they also cause sore eyes. Better filtration and pool maintenance would reduce the amount of hypochlorite used.
MAIN FOOD SOURCES OF DIOXINS AND FLURANS Meat, dairy products and animal fats in other foods supply nearly all the dioxins in the average UK diet. Fish and eggs are smaller sources.
Chlorination of drinking water
The process uses chlorine gas and prduces smailquantities of organochlorines. A major statistical review of US studies has found that people who drink chlorinated drinking water are more likely to contract rectal and bladder cancer. Alternatives for purifying water such as ozone and ultraviolet radiation could be developed. Only 2.5% of the million tonnes of chlorine produced annually in the UK is used to disinfect drinking water.
Chlorine is an element which has always existed on earth, but almost entirely in safe forms such as common salt. Trouble arises when common salt is split in order to make caustic soda, a useful industrial chemical, and elemental chlorine, which is a green gas used as a poison gas in World War I. Chlorine gas is now an important raw material in the chemical industry. Itis combined with organic (carbon) chemicals from oil and coal to make organochlorines. These include the plastic, PVC, many solvents such as drycleaning fluid, pesticides and wood preservatives such as entachlorophenol (PCP), and some disinfectants and drugs. Chlorine gas is also used to disinfect water, but this is a minor use. The use of chlorine to make chemicals increased enormously from around 1940. This is mirrored by a huge rise in dioxins in the environment.
Within the general population, some people will have relatively low intakes of dioxin, and some will receive higher than average doses because of their diet (fatty foods), living near to dioxin sources (like Coalite in Der- byshire) and exposures at work. The United States Environmental Protection Agency says "Some more highly exposed members of the population may be at risk ... of decreased sperm counts, higher probability of experiencing endometriosis in women, reduced ability to withstand immunological challenge, and others."
It is sometimes said that known sources only account tora small proportion of the total dioxins created each year, but the enormous uncertainty in the amounts from each source could easily account for this. In 1993 the US EPA made an estimate for dioxin Production from municipal incinerators, but this has since been exceeded by the measured emis- sions from one incinerator. This suggests that the only safe course is to eliminate air known sources.
Women's Environmental Network, 22 Highbury
Grove,London N5 2EA Tel: 071 354 8823
Dioxin contamination is usually made up of a mixture of chemicals, and the toxicity of these different compounds varies. The amount of each type is multiplied by a number representing its toxicity (a TEF) and then all the contributions of all the different types are added up. This gives an overall toxicity in toxic equivalents or TEQs.
The US EPA has previously stated that dioxins do cause cancer in humans. In the recent draft they estimate risks of cancer due to dioxins in the general population. Existing levels of dioxins in the US popu- lation may cause cancer in one in every ten thousand or even in one in every thousand people in a lifetime. In the UK, this would be behveen 6,000 and 60,000 cancers in a lifetime of 60 years, or between 86and 660 cancers a year.
Non-cancer effects include damage to reproductive, hormone and immune systems. These effects of dioxin, in animals and humans, are much worse than was previously thought. The EPA says that some of these effects are already occurring in the US popuia- tion. In the UK, we have, if anything, higher levels of dioxins in our bodies.
On average, we are likely to have body burdens of 9 ppt of dioxin TEQs. The US EPA states that monkeys get endometriosis at 27 ppt. Decreased testosterone occurs in men at 13 ppt. Altered glucose tolerance (suggesting the threat of diabetes occurs at 14 ppt in one study. Enhanced viral susceptibility is found in mice at 7 ppt, implying that we could be less resistant to viral illness at our current body level of dioxins. Dioxins stimulate the production of certain enzymes, which could have effects on cell processes, and this effect is found in rats at 1 pp. So virtually the whole human population could already be experiencing these subtle changes.
Chlorine gas (elemental chlorine) is pro- ducedwhensalt is split upto make caustic soda, an essential industrial chemical. The processis not easy: it requires a large input of energy and is usually done by passing an electric current through brine (salt solution). Mercury, a metal which is associated with severe health and envi- ronmental effects, is often still used. Chlorine is a by-product of the manufac- ture of caustic soda for which uses, many of them disastrous, have been sought. Partof thesolutiontothe chlorine problem will be to successfully manufacture caustic soda without pro-' ducing chlorine, a process which is already beginning
Organochlorines are made by reacting chlorine gas with organic chemicals from the coal and oil industries. After World War II the petrochemical industry expanded and organochlorine production increased. As a result, the quantities of synthetic organochlorines now in the environment far outweigh trace amounts that might occur naturally.
Many organochlorines are strongly fat- seeking- they tend to build up in the fatty parts of living creatures where they become more concentrated and toxic.
Many chemicals that are environmentally damaging are organochlorines like PCBs and DDT. The pesticide DDT is now banned in many countries.
CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) which damage the ozone lays contain chlori ne. The CFCs break down in the earth's upper atmosphereto release their chlorine. This chlorine destroysthe ozone layer which protects us front harmful ultraviolet rays. Many additional skin cancers and damage to vegetation will be caused as a result of this ozone depletion.
CFCsand otheroompounds such as 1,1,1 - trichloroethane, a solvent used in correcting fluid, contribute to the greenhouse effect by absorbing the sun's heat and preventing Ifrom escaping into space.
Organochlorines,such as trichloroethylene which breakdown to form acids in the air, contribute to acid rain and consequently to damage done to trees and wildlife.
PCBs are a past product of the chlorine industry. Their main use has been in equipment in electricity substations and in washing machines and electric motors. Accidents involving PCBs have caused severe poisoning andtheir manufacture - and use is now banned worldwide. A large amount of the PCBs producedin the past are still present in our environment, especially in the sea wherethey are concentrated in the bodies of fish.
Many organochlorines have been connected with effects on human health:
Perchloroethylene (perc), is an organochlorine and the main solvent used in dry cleaning. It is recognised as a probable human carcinogen in California and Sweden. An increased risk of miscarriage has been found in women exposed to perc in early pregnancy.
Pentachlorophenol (PCP) and lindane, both used for wood treatment, have caused ill health in employees and in people who have had their homes treated with either of these chemicals.
Minute traces of dioxins may have existed before industrialisation, but a huge rise occurred in the 1940s. This parallels the massive expansion of organochlorine manufacture which started at this time.
Organochlorines are rarely found in living systems; those that are have specialised and powerful functions, sometimes as natural disinfectants. There are some natural organochlorines in the atmosphere, but considerably greater amounts of artificially produced ones.
Chlorine bleached paper
In the paper-making process, wood is broken down, and many different chemical compounds are produced. If chlorine is then used to bleach the woodpulp, it reacts with these chemicals to form dioxins and hundreds of other organochlorines These are then discharged to rivers in the affluent from pulp millsorburnt as sludge in incinerators and traces also remain in the paper products themselves.
Chlorine is not used in woodpulping in Britain, but chlorine bleached pulp is imported and so supports the continuation of an extremely polluting process in other countries. Pulp does not have to be bleached with chlorine - paper products made from unbleached and non-chlorine bleached pulp are now available throughout Europe.
The US government Environmental Protection Agency is conducting a public review of dioxin toxicity. Its research shows
DO NOT BURN rubbish, especially plastic and painted or treated wood.
AVOID organochlorine products, PVC in cling film,
stationery and shampoo bottles, solvents in paint remover
and correcting fluid, Pentachlorophenol and Lindane in
wood preservatives. Some disinfectants contain
organochlorines - look at the label.
CHOOSE clothes that can be washed at home. AVOID
dry cleaning: perchloroethylene is hazardous in use and it
is a bulk chlorine product whose manuf acture and disposal
create long lasting toxic pollution Alternative treatments
for non-washable clothes are already being developed.
USE water based correction fluid; avoid 1,1,1-
ENCOURAGE companies to reduce waste and to cut
their use of organochlorines.
ASK companies if products contain organochlorines. Ask
supermarkets what their packaging is made from, and
avoid packaging which contains organochlorines. PVC
packaging is often labelled with a "V".
USE water based paint; solvents may include
LOOK on product labels. Organochlorine products often
have "chloro" in their names; check the label and avoid
the chlorine. Alternatives are usually available.
EAT ORGANIC FOOD; avoid or cut down on pesticides -
many are still organochlonines.
USE less petrol - leaded petrol is a small source of dioxins
and although unleaded petrol is a better option it is
becoming apparent that there are health problems linked
to this too.
LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVES TO PVC
USE paper wallpaper - vinyl wallpaper is PVC.
USE cork or line for floor covering.
USE less plastic generally where possible - some plastics
other than PVC involve chlorine in their production
Changing your diet very suddenly could make you lose weight quickly, releasing pollutants from fat which could burden the liver and other organs.
Most people eat too much fat and protein and should eat more fruit, vegetables and starchy foods.
Breast feeding: breastfed babies are healthier and may be more intelligent. Any significant risk from pollutants in the mother is likely to be from intake before birth. However, the fact that dioxin-like pollutants occur in our food, our bodies and in unborn children means that we should reduce these pollutants at source.
The Women's Environmental Network Trust is one of Britain's leading environmental charities. It is a non-profit organisation funded by grants and donations. Its aim is to educate, inform and empowerwomen who care about the environment. WEN campaigns are funded mainy by members.
Supporting £30 Ordinary £13
Unwaged £7 Overseas £20
Membership entitles you to receive the quarterly newsletter and to be informed of all public meetings, seminars and events.
Researched and written by Ann Link, Laura Canning and Rebecca Rees. Cartoon by Valerie Jones. Cover illustration by Daksha Patel
Updated June 1994
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Made to Play!: Handmade Toys and Crafts for Growing Imaginations
by Joel Henriques
Delight young children and encourage play through unique handmade toys. From sewn and stuffed musical instruments to interlocking paper building blocks and wooden animal figurines, the projects in this book are meant to encourage open-ended play. Organized by kid-loving subjects, the toys here follow the themes of Zoo; House; Blocks, Cars & Trucks; Dress-Up; Music; and Art. Overall, the projects here are meant to stimulate imagination, build confidence through success and enjoyment, and enhance the bond between family and friends through the creation of unique, artistic handmade toys and crafts.
The thirty-five projects in this book include a variety of crafts, from drawing to sewing and light woodworking. The toys presented here are made out of wonderfully tactile materials—repurposed fabrics, wood, and paper—and invite opportunities for creative and imaginative play. Every project is easy to complete, made with accessible materials, and requires little time to make. The projects are simple enough that endless variation can come from the making of each, leaving enough room for you to make the item to suit your own personal interests.
With a design aesthetic that is clean, simple, and modern, each project is presented with full-color photos and hand-drawn instructional illustrations and templates. Projects include:
• Modern Doll House and Doll House Furniture
• Portable Zoo Animals
• Abstract Vertical Puzzle
• Wooden Nature Scene
• Bottle-Cap Tambourine
• Exploration Cape
• Modern Alphabet Game
• Shadow Puppet Theater
• And more!
Wooden Spool Birds
These little birds are really fun to make. The cloth stem wire is so easy to bend, you can just use your fingers. And you can create many different variations of birds: tall, short, big feathers, small feathers. In no time, you’ll have your own little flock!
Note: Remember that it’s always a good idea to wear safety glasses when bending wire.
Wooden spool (as in a thread spool)
Wire (I recommend using 18"-long, 22-gauge cloth stem wire, which you can find in the floral sec-tion of craft stores. You can also use 12" pipe cleaner or craft wire.)
Paper (I used paper from recycled magazine cov-ers, but any paper will work.)
Feathers (You can get feathers at craft stores, or you can even make them out of paper.)
Tape or glue (I used regular and double-sided clear tape.)
Scissors or craft knife
1. Take your 18" piece of wire. Hold the spool against the middle of the wire, and wrap the wire around the spool a couple times. Try to keep the wire snug. (If you’re using 12" pipe cleaner, then just wrap the spool once.) Twist the ends of the wire together a couple of times to secure it to the spool.
2. Bend each end of the wire into feet, andtrim any excess wire with an old pair of scis-sors or a wire cutter. Slide the spool a little forward or backward through the wire loops to better balance the bird so it stands freely.
3. Place the end of the spool on the paper,and trace around the circle. Then, 1" above that circle, draw a smaller circle for the head. Connect the two circles to form a neck. Add some pointy head feathers if you’d like. Then cut the shape out with scissors or a craft knife.
4. Use a pen to draw eyes and a beak, andadditional designs if you’d like.
5. Tape the paper piece to the end of thespool using double-sided clear tape or glue.
6. Finally, tape the stems of the feathersto the back of the spool using clear tape. If the feathers are too long, clip them shorter and trim the feather plumes off the last ½" so you have a stem to tape to the spool.
7. Enjoy your new feathery friend!
Excerpted from MADE TO PLAY! by Joel Henriques, (c)
2011. Published by arrangement with Roost Books, an imprint of Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston. www.Shambhala.com.
Published by Shambala
DailyOM © 2004-06 DailyMedia, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
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Platiquemos was prepared specifically to train officers of the Foreign Service and of other United States Government agencies who are involved in foreign affairs and who need to learn to speak Spanish, and has been modified and adapted from its original format to make it applicable to a wider audience and to make it easier to read and use.
The original FSI Basic Course in Spanish consists of four volumes with a total of well over 2,000 pages. In order to make the program more manageable, it has been divided it into six levels, with the original text re-formatted for clarity and simplicity and modified to make it more relevant to non-government students; also included is new cultural information and interesting illustrations.
Method Of Teaching
The method is known as guided imitation. It may appear new, but it actually has been used by a considerable number of teachers for many years. As used in this program, it combines elements of the "direct", "audio-lingual", "communicative", and "grammar/translation" methods; other methodologies, such as Total Physical Response can also be used with the program. Its goal is to teach students to speak easily, fluently, with very little accent, and to do this without conscious effort, just as one speaks their own language without conscious effort.
There are two very important aspects of this method.
The first two units are focused primarily on pronunciation problems. Drills on other aspects of the language are deliberately postponed because of the importance of developing good pronunciation habits from the very beginning of the course. The importance of pronunciation cannot be over-emphasized; it is the basis of all real fluency. A person will be able to understand anything they can meaningfully say themselves if there is a close similarity between the way they hear it and the way they say it. The more similar, the greater the ease of comprehension.
Given the fact that Spanish is spelled very phonetically, and that the differences between English and Spanish phonetics are reasonably easily learned, Platiquemos has dispensed with the phonetic alphabet. This decision was also supported by the reactions of many students, both at FSI and in the Platiquemos program. The most important aids to listening remain what they have always been: the compact discs which replicate the major parts of the text; listening to Spanish radio broadcasts and watching Spanish TV; engaging in conversation with Spanish speakers, where practical; etc.
The acquisition of a good pronunciation is first of all the result of careful listening and imitation, plus whatever help can be obtained from initial pronunciation drills and description, and from the cues provided from "aids" such as radio, TV, or hearing native speakers converse, It is well to remember that a sizable investment in pronunciation practice early in the course will pay off handsome dividends later; correct pronunciation safely relegated to habit leaves one's full attention available for other problems of learning the language.
Every unit (after the first two) is organized in the same way: Part One is the basic dialogue with a few pertinent notes; Part Two is grammar drills and discussion; Part Three is a set of recombination narratives and dialogues; Part Four, beginning with Unit 16, is selected readings.
The basic dialogues are the core of each unit. These dialogues are recreations of the real situations a student is likely to encounter and the vocabulary and sentences are those he or she is most likely to need. The dialogues are set in a mythical country called Surlandia, which is described as a typical Latin American republic, insofar as it is possible to extract common features from so diverse an area. To further provide information in context, many of the notes suggest regional differences in both the language and the culture that will be encountered in various areas of Latin America and Spain. Platiquemos has also provided authentic period illustrations based on a rough time-line from pre-Hispanic to modern times, with sometimes rather extensive explanatory captions. The purpose of these illustrations and captions is to spark interest and discussion of some of the facets of the Spanish-speaking world's fascinating history and cultures.
In the first part of the text, new vocabulary is introduced mainly in the basic dialogues. Occasionally, in the illustrations of grammatical points, new words are introduced in order to fill out patterns needed to do the exercises. New words are always clearly indicated by placing them on a line by themselves, indented between the lines that are complete sentences. Since each new word is introduced in this fashion only once, the student should make every effort to learn each word as it is presented. The authors have taken pains to make sure that each word introduced will reappear many times later in the course, to help the student assimilate each word in a variety of contexts.
The student should very carefully learn both the literal meaning of each individual word or phrase that is given on an indented line and the meaning that appears in the full sentences. It should not be cause for concern if the meaning or context is strikingly different from the literal meaning. In the construction of each dialogue, the Spanish was written first, and the corresponding English is its closest equivalent in meaning, not necessarily a literal translation. (Platiquemos provides literal translations for basic sentences for comparison purposes.) You should therefore not be surprised if the Spanish does not seem to "follow" the English perfectly - or sometimes at all.
Each unit can in some ways be likened to a musical theme with variations - the basic dialogues are the theme, and the drills provide the variations. Patterns of the structure of the language which have been learned in the basic sentences are expanded and manipulated in the drills.
There are four kinds of drills in each unit (three before Unit 6). Of these, two are designed to systematically vary selected basic sentences within the structure and vocabulary the student has already learned. A further two are oriented toward the structure of the language to provide a systematic coverage of all important patterns.
All of these drills are planned to be easily and rapidly answered, and can be done orally. If you find a particular drill to be hard, the difficulty probably arises out of inadequately mastering the dialogues and earlier drills. The drills are not problems to be worked out like mathematics, and the ability to do them, not figure them, is indicated by the nature of the course. There are no tricks in them, and they are not intended as tests.
Pattern drills are presented in a format which provides both practice and explanation. First there appears a presentation of the pattern to be drilled, then various kinds of drills, and finally a more detailed discussion of the pattern.
The presentation consists of a listing of basic sentences (and a few new sentences when necessary) which illustrate the grammar point to be drilled. Then there is an extrapolation which shows the relationships involved in the pattern in a two-dimensional chart, which is further explained by a short note or two. This presentation should provide sufficient clues to enable the student to understand and use the pattern correctly in the drills that follow.
These drills are mainly exercises that make substitutions, responses, and translations, highlighting the grammar points covered. They are devised for oral answers to oral stimuli.
After the drills there is a more detailed discussion of the pattern drilled; these descriptions are written in a condensed and somewhat technical fashion. While an effort was made to keep these discussions clear and readable, it must be recognized that a description of a language is a technical subject, and simplification can only be attained by sacrificing accuracy or at a cost of a great many more words than space allows. Students who work through these discussions by a careful reading will find that they are acquiring a set of analytical tools that will be useful throughout the remainder of their career in language learning.
The conversation section of each unit is designed to help bridge the gap between the more or less mechanical stimulus-response activity of the drills and the skill of free conversation which is the ultimate aim of the course. These recombination monologues and dialogues extend the abilities of the student into ever more natural situations. The narrative is an anecdotal description of an event or situation which is then recast as a directed dialogue in which the instructor acts as a prompter for students who take the parts of actors. The prompter gradually withdraws their help so that in the end the conversation is carried on freely.
Beginning with Unit 16, reading materials are introduced for outside preparation with perhaps some classroom discussion of the questions provided. These readings can also be used to provide content information for oral summaries. Up through Unit 30, the readings tell a continued story about an American family living in Surlandia, expanding on matters of interest hinted at in the basic dialogues. These require no new vocabulary except for easy and obvious cognate loan words that can readily be guessed. From Unit 31 through Unit 55, the readings are much longer and they do introduce a considerable number of new words. This vocabulary is introduced through basic sentences which summarize the content of the following reading. The readings are designed to provide information of interest and value about the culture which the Spanish language reflects, and to provide insight into the practical problems an American is likely to encounter in adjusting to life in a Spanish-speaking country.
From former Secretary of State of the United States
Biography of the editor of Platiquemos,
Now buy all eight levels of Platiquemos for $669 and save over $100 off individual level pricing!
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Monday, March 26, 2012
Entropy -- a primer
C.P. Snow famously said that not knowing the second law of thermodynamics is like never having read Shakespeare. Whatever the particular merits of this comparison, it does speak to the centrality of the idea of entropy (and its increase) to the physical sciences. Entropy is one of the most important and fundamental physical concepts and, because of its generality, is frequently encountered outside physics. The pop conception of entropy is as a measure of the disorder in a system. This characterization is not so much false as misleading (especially if we think of order and information as being similar). What follows is a brief explanation of entropy, highlighting its origin in the particular ways we describe the world, and an explanation of why it tends to increase. We've made some simplifying assumptions, but they leave the spirit of things unchanged.
The fundamental distinction that gives rise to entropy is the separation between different levels of description. Small systems, systems with only a few components, can be described by giving the state of each of their components. For a large system, say a gas with billions of molecules, describing the state of each molecule is impossible, both because it would be tedious and because we don't know the state of each molecule. And, as we'll point out again later, for many purposes knowing the exact state of the system isn't useful. In theory we can predict how a system evolves by knowing its exact state, but in practice this is much too complicated to do unless the system is very small. So we instead build probabilistic predictions taking into account only a few parameters of the system, which gives us a coarser but more relevant level of description, and we seek to describe changes in the world at this level.
There is nothing that makes this uniquely part of physics, of course, and there are many other cases where we need to investigate the relationship between levels of description. Let's consider a toy example. Imagine we have a deck of cards in some order. We can describe the ordering in many different ways. The most complete way is to give an ordered list, like so: King of Hearts, Two of Clubs, One of Diamonds, and so on. But we can also use a coarser description, which is what we do when we describe a pack of cards as shuffled or not. So just for concreteness, let's say that we can only distinguish two states: one in which the cards are arranged in order (One of Clubs, Two of Clubs, …) and the other being everything else. Let's call these state A and state B. This is a less informative level of description, of course.
The description in terms of states A and B is a macroscopic one, and the description in terms of the exact ordering is a microscopic one. This is a matter of difference in degree rather than kind, and there are many intermediate levels of description. The states in the macroscopic level of description are the “macrostates”; in this case we have macrostates A and B. Similarly, the states in the microscopic level of description are the microstates; in this case we have a gigantic number of different ones, each corresponding to a particular ordering of the cards.
Now let's start shuffling the cards. If we start in state A (cards arranged in order), we'll quickly end up in state B (cards not in order). On the other hand, if we start in state B we'll almost certainly remain in state B. So the system doesn't seem to be reversible: state A almost always leads to state B, and state B almost never leads to state A. However, if we were describing the system using the microscopic level of description, we'd always see one arrangement of cards lead to another, and the chances of transitioning between the various arrangements are the same, so everything is reversible.
So what happened? Well, from the microscopic point of view, our macrostates are asymmetric and the asymmetry comes from the particular representation we chose. State B includes a large number of microscopic states, so most arrangements of cards will belong to state B. State A includes very few microstates; there are only a few ways for the cards to be in order. And when we shuffle the cards we naturally end up in the state which includes more microstates. So to explain what's happening we need the number of microstates compatible with a given macrostate. This is called the multiplicity. In this picture, we'd associate a small number with A and a large number with B, and we'd say that the system tends to go from states with a small number of compatible microstates (low multiplicity) to those with a larger number of compatible states or higher multiplicity.
Entropy is a measure of this number (it is the log of this number for reasons that are interesting but not critical). And so the entropy is a property of the particular macrostate (macrostate A has low entropy; macrostate B has high entropy). Entropy is also a property of the description. If we choose a different set of macrostates, we'll have a different set of associated entropies. But as long as the system is being mixed up at the microscopic level, which is what happens when we shuffle, we'll see the system move from states with low entropy to states with high entropy. In the card example, we can call state B “disordered” and state A “ordered”, but entropy is not measuring disorder. The high entropy of state B just tells us that there are many more states we call disordered that there are states we call ordered. We could have instead chosen macrostates C and D where state C contained three disordered arrangements of cards and state D contained everything else (including the ordered arrangements). Here state C would have low entropy even though the microstates it contains are disordered.
The entropy increase is probabilistic, in that it happens on average. There's nothing to prevent the mixed up set of cards from being shuffled back into the ordered state. But this is massively unlikely for anything but the smallest systems. It's a fun digression to look at the numbers involved to get a sense of how large they are and to see why these statistical laws, like the law that entropy increases on average, are in practice exact. The number of ways of arranging things grows very very fast. If we have a deck of 2 cards, there are two possible arrangements. If there are 3 cards there are 6 possible arrangements and there are 24 possible arrangements of 4 cards. These numbers are small but they rapidly become much bigger than astronomical. The number of ways of arranging half a deck of cards is already about a billion times the age of the universe in seconds, and the rate at which the numbers grow keeps increasing. With numbers like these, “almost always” and “almost never” are “always” and “never” on the timescales that we experience.
Physicists are fond of gases in boxes and a classic physics example for entropy increase is the expansion of a gas in a box. Say we have a box with a partition dividing it into two halves and we fill one of the halves with a gas. We then remove the partition and watch what happens. The gas molecules start off in one half of the box and we'll always observe that the gas expands to fill the other half. So now consider two macrostates. State A will have the gas in one half of the box and state B will have the gas spread out everywhere. If the gas molecules are wandering around freely, they will wander through all the possible arrangements of gas molecules in the box (the microstates). Very few of these correspond to state A; most correspond to state B. And so our system moves from a state of low entropy to a state of high entropy. Again, we might call state A more ordered than state B, to reflect the fact that it would take an unusual conspiracy to see the system in state A. But entropy is not measuring this putative order or disorder.
Now note a couple more things. First, we were able to make this prediction without knowing the detailed state of the system. We used our two macrostates and the entropies associated with them to predict the transition. And, as pointed out before, even if we did know the detailed state of the system we'd find it useless for prediction. In fact, given any particular microstate we'd find it practically impossible to predict how the system evolved, but knowing that the microstate is chosen randomly from a collection of microstates allows us to make a probabilistic prediction, which is exact because of the large numbers involved. So this has the interesting consequence that not only can we make predictions from a higher, incomplete level of description, it actually seems to help. Different levels of description make different things possible.
In these simple examples, the macrostates are fairly obviously a product of our description. In general, are the macroscopic variables we use to describe systems purely subjective or do our theories and the universe give us preferred macroscopic variables and preferred levels of description? Can just anything be a macroscopic variable or are there particular criteria that make for a good macroscopic variable? Can we really just lump together a few arbitrarily chosen states and call that a macrostate? This is a matter of vigorous debate, and is perhaps a subject for a separate article.
Now given a system we can ask how various changes to the system affect the number of states accessible to it or, equivalently, the entropy. In particular, how does adding energy to a system change the entropy? Adding more energy to a system usually increases the number of states available to it. This is both because with more packets of energy there are more ways to distribute them between the members of a system, and because more energy makes high energy states accessible in addition to lower energy ones. Trying to formalize this relationship leads naturally to temperature, which is the factor that tells us how to convert changes in energy into changes in entropy. Adding a given quantity of energy to a system at low temperature increases the entropy more than adding the same quantity of energy to a system at high temperature.
So imagine we have two systems at different temperatures connected together. Packets of energy are being exchanged back and forth, and the joint system wanders through a number of possible states, just like the cards being shuffled. Let's say we switch a packet of energy from the hotter system to the colder one. Taking away the energy from the hotter system and giving it to the colder system reduces the entropy of the first system but increases the entropy of the second. Crucially, the increase in entropy of the low temperature system is greater than the decrease of the high temperature system. So there will be more states where the energy packet has moved from the high temperature to the low temperature system than vice versa, and energy will flow from the hotter system to the colder one.
There are many interesting directions to explore from here; we've really only scratched the surface. For one thing, we've left out some subtleties. Apart from the issue of what makes a good macrostate or level of description, we've often invoked a process that mixes things, like shuffling cards. We haven't explored the details of this process or been explicit about what we require from this process. For example, what happens if the shuffling process depends on which macrostate we are in? We've also assumed that the system explores all its possible microstates with equal probability. What happens when this is not the case?
We also haven't talked about attempts to understand the direction of time using entropy increase. The laws of physics seem to be time symmetric at a microscopic level, in much the same way that our card shuffling doesn't pick out a preferred direction, and so it's puzzling where the direction of time comes from. Entropy increase at the macroscopic level does seem to give us an asymmetry -– entropy increases towards the future -– and some people have argued that this can be used to ground the direction of time increase.
But the origins of the current low entropy state of the universe and its consequences are far from clear. To put this in the context of our card example, if I come across a pack of ordered cards there are two primary possibilities. Perhaps the cards started in an ordered configuration (maybe someone put them that way, or they were manufactured that way) and they haven't been shuffled very much. In this case, the cards were in a low entropy state in the past and will be in a higher entropy state in the future and we have an asymmetry that comes from the initial conditions. But another possibility is that we've been shuffling the cards for a long time and, just by random fluctuation, they've ended up in an ordered state. In this case, the cards were probably in a high entropy state in the past and will be in a high entropy state in the future.
Similar to the first scenario, most explanations of why entropy seems to increase in one direction require that the universe started in a state of low entropy. This may seem like question begging, since it just pushes the asymmetry back to where the universe started. But it might be the best we have at the moment. And it may turn out that low-entropy initial conditions will emerge from cosmology and the next generation of physics as we better understand the initial state of the universe. Alternatively, there is the grimmer Boltzmann brain hypothesis: we are just random low entropy fluctuations in a high entropy universe, much like an ordered pack of cards emerging from repeated shuffling after a very long time. In this view, a part of the universe (or a particular universe) has just briefly fluctuated into an ordered state. Since one brain fluctuating into existence is much more probable than an entire world doing so, according to this view the rest of the world is probably an unstable illusion and will wink out of existence in the next moment as the system fluctuates back to a high entropy state. Thankfully, few working physicists seem to actually believe this.
Posted by Rishidev Chaudhuri at 11:36 AM | Permalink
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This old harbour town is steeped in history. First mentioned in 744 and later in the Doomsday Book of 1084, Lyme Regis, Dorset was granted a Royal Charter by Edward I in 1284. It also played its part in history when ships were sent from the Cobb to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Lyme Regis History, Culture, & Literary Connections
Cynewulf, King of Wessex makes gift of land near mouth of river Lym to Abbot of Sherborne (used to set up a salt works). Lyme forms part of Diocese of Sherborne until 1075 when Bishop moves to Old Sarum.
Charter granted by Edward I. Lyme royal property and ‘Regis’ added to name giving it right to form a Guild and send 2 members to Parliment.
Sir George Somers born in Lyme, later to become an Admiral and ‘discovered’ Bermuda.
Spanish Armada. 2 ships from Lyme join the battle.
Royalists under command of Prince Maurice besiege Lyme. The town, led by Thomas Sealey and Robert Blake is defeated by Royalist Army which suffers 2-3000 casualties.
Thomas Coram born. Obtained charter from Charles II to establish Foundling Hospital in 1739, England’s first major orphanage.
Monmouth Rebellion – James, Duke of Monmouth lands in Lyme (on the now, Monmouth Beach) to begin his ill-fated attempt at ousting his uncle, King James II and claiming the crown for himself. Judge Jeffreys sent to West Country to teach rebels a lesson – 12 hung on beach. “Lyme, although a little place, I think is wondrous pretty. If ‘tis my fate to wear the crown, I’ll make of it a city”
Henry Fielding causes a scandal when he tries, unsuccessfully, to abduct local heiress Sarah Andrews. He later immortalised her as ‘Sophie’, in his famous book ‘Tom Jones’.
The Alexandra is built as the home for the Dowager Countess Poulett.
Area rife with smugglers until around 1870.
Mary Anning born. One of best known researchers in field of fossil collecting.
Jane Austen and family frequent visitors to Lyme. The town features in the novel ‘Persuasion’.
Mary Anning and brother Joseph find first complete fossil of Ichthyosaur.
Enormous landslip at Downlands, west of town. (now magnificent nature reserve known as the famous ‘Undercliff Walk’).
Whistler (James McNeill) paints ‘Master Smith of Lyme’ and ‘The Little Rose of Lyme’, now in Boston Museum of fine Art.
The Alexandra becomes an hotel.
Railway line arrives in Lyme , bringing birth of modern day tourism.
Beatrix Potter stays in Lyme and so loves the town that she uses the facade of one of the towns prettiest cottages in her book ‘The Tale of Little Pig Robinson’.
16th Infantry US 1st Division re-groups in Lyme in preparation for D Day.
Part of town transformed for filming of John Fowles acclaimed novel ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.
BBC film on location in Lyme Jane Austen’s, ‘Persuasion’.
Lyme twins with St Georges, Bermuda.
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The History of HP LaserJet PrintersJuly 16, 2013 No Comments
HP LaserJet Printers is a series of printing equipment manufactured and distributed by Hewlett-Packard otherwise known as HP. In fact, the world’s first desktop laser printer that was released in the market is an HP LaserJet Printer. It was introduced in the year 1984 and was sold for the price of $3,500. This HP LaserJet Printer was ideally designed for printing letterhead correspondence, memorandums, financial spreadsheets and other business documents–a personal laser printer that perfectly fits on a desktop and was able to deliver fast, letter-quality output with no noise.
Since then, the line of HP LaserJet printers was accurately designed for high-quality print, could print horizontally and vertically in a variety of fonts and could produce graphics. These set of printers became also known for their print speed and advanced functions such as their network support, application features and web-based features, the HP LaserJet Printers are no doubt an efficient and valuable investment.
So how does these LaserJet printers work? HP LaserJet Printers typically have seven steps involved in its laser printing process: (1) raster image processing, (2) charging, (3) exposing, (4) developing, (5) transferring, (6) fusing and (7) cleaning. They generally work the same as other laser printers do, mainly through a laser beam projects the image of the page to be printed onto the electrically charged drum or organic photo-conductors. The process called photo-conductivity allows charge to leak away from the areas exposed to the light. The dry ink powder called toner are then electro-statically picked up by the drum’s charged areas, which have not been exposed to the light. The drum then prints the image onto paper by contact and heat, which fuses the toner to the paper and then there’s your printout.
HP LaserJet printers are also built with various advanced features such as Automatic Switch On/Off, Wi-Fi and other network support, HP Smart Install, Mobile-Printing features, HP ePrint, supports Google Cloud Print and AirPrint to bring more convenience to its users. No doubt, HP LaserJet printers are one of the best-selling line in the printing industry.
If you already own an HP LaserJet Printer and happen to be looking for HP toner cartridges. At TonerBoss.com, we provide quality compatible printer supplies for HP printers including replacement for HP black toners, color toners andMICR toners that works perfectly for any HP LaserJet Printers. All our products are guaranteed to meet your printing requirements and satisfaction backed up by a 1-year Money Back Guarantee.
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Much of what is known about the stars comes from studying the star closest to us, the Sun. At a distance of almost 150 million kilometers, the Sun is a few hundred thousand times closer to us than the next nearest star. Because of its proximity, astronomers are able to study our star in much, much greater detail than they can the other stars.
The Sun is a G2-type main sequence star that has been shining for almost 5 billion years. It is known from radioactive dating of the Earth, Moon, and meteorites, that these objects have been around for about that length of time and temperatures on the surface of the Earth have been pleasant since it formed. The Sun's energy has made this possible. What could power something as big as the Sun for so long? The process called nuclear fusion is now known to be the source of the Sun's enormous energy, as well as, other stars. This is a relatively recent discovery. However, using simple physical principles of gas physics, astronomers knew about the density and temperature structure of the interior of the stars long before they unlocked the secret to what could power them for so long. This chapter will cover these topics. I will first give a brief description of the Sun to give you an idea of what a star is like and then go into the basic principles of what the interiors of stars are like and what powers them. The vocabulary terms are in boldface.
Go to next section
last updated: January 7, 2011
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Chiaroscuro is an art term that’s used quite frequently, but sometimes without an understanding of exactly what it means. This article will cover the more important aspects of Chiaroscuro, primarily as it relates to painting.
The word Chiaroscuro itself is Italian, and roughly means, “light and dark.” It was first used to describe a type of drawing on medium-dark paper where the artist created both darker areas with ink and lighter areas with white paint.
Later on the term was used for woodcut prints which essentially did the same thing, using white and black together.
When it comes to painting, however, Chiaroscuro truly came to life in the paintings of Caravaggio during the late 16th century.
Caravaggio began to use deep, dark backgrounds for many of his paintings, and seemed to almost turn a spotlight on his figures. The high contrast in those paintings made for intensely powerful and dramatic works of art.
Because of Caravaggio, Chiaroscuro became very popular, and today the word is most often used to mean “high contrast” more than anything else.
Sometimes the source of the intense illumination in a painting (whether by Caravaggio or other artists) was actually IN the painting—you can see examples in religious works, where an angel or other holy figure actually illuminates the entire scene.
Other times the light source is simply a candle, or a fire.
All of these situations offered artists a chance to explore silhouettes and other extremes, and obviously made the emphasis on light and shadow more important than the scene itself on many occasions.
For painters today, dramatic lighting is a tool to be used intentionally, with care.
When the focus of a painting is upon the form of objects, or the shape of a figure, then Chiaroscuro can be exceedingly helpful. Strong directional light will lift out details and features, and give a true three-dimensional appearance.
But not every painting will benefit. Chiaroscuro can be too harsh in portraits, too unnatural (how often are things actually lit by a spotlight?), or just too dramatic for what you’re trying to portray.
Rembrandt knew the value of Chiaroscuro’s direct lighting (in order to display the features of a face) but he softened edges and lessened the contrast of “true” Chiaroscuro to lend a calmness to his paintings as well.
So the next time you see an example of Chiaroscuro, think about how it’s being used—does the high contrast help or hurt the overall message of the painting?
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pocketbook. Which got me thinking about how I could do more in the way of creating my own fertilizer for free, or next to it. Care to save some money, too?
First, the Small Print
There is only one organic, homemade fertilizer (with no store bought ingredients) that I'm aware of that's balanced - that is, that has equal (or nearly equal amounts) of the three basic components of fertilizer: N-P-K (nitrogen-phosphorous-potash). In addition, you should be aware that homemade fertilizer, unlike store bought, can vary greatly in it's nutrients.
Compost turns trash into treasure. By tossing your
plant-based household scraps into a pile, you eventually get nutrient-rich fertilizer that looks like dirt. Anyone can do this. It's a crying shame not to. (To learn more about composting, see my how-to post, here.) Compost is great for adding to the soil before planting, or for sidedressing (placing fertilizer along the sides of plants), or for using like a mulch. Compost also does a superb job of attracting beneficial worms to the soil while helping to support excellent soil structure. It has its limitations, though. What sort of nutrients it contains depends upon what you put into the compost. This is why people who grow all their own fruits and vegetables either need to add outside material to their compost pile or purchase additional amendments for their soil.
This is as simple as taking a handful or two of fully composted material and placing it in a sack or pillowcase. Toss this in a bucket of water and let it steep for 2 weeks. Remove the composted material and dilute the liquid in a 3:1 ratio with water before using as a foliar spray.
|Boys adding aged horse manure to a garden, c. 1940.|
Not all manures are suitable for gardening, but cow, horse, rabbit, and chicken manure are all good choices. Horse manure is considered the gold standard for gardening, but like most manures, must be aged first. Let it sit for a year before using it, then dig it into the soil a few weeks before planting. Aged cow manure is often considered next best; use it just like horse manure. Rabbit manure is unusual in that it can go into the garden without aging first. Chicken manure should age six months to a year, depending upon who you talk to. I believe the difference in answers is really based not on the manure itself, but the bedding material found in it. I have read that chicken manure mixed with straw decomposes fastest - in about 6 months. If you use heavier bedding material, like wood shavings, it needs longer - about a year - to fully decompose. Nonetheless, because manure that isn't well aged can literally burn your plants to death, it's best to err on the side of over-aging.
Also, do remember manure is high in salts, which can make the soil toxic to plants, so use it no more than every year or every other year. Don't have your own critters to make manure? Ask around. Some ranchers and farmers are glad to give away the stuff, if you'll haul it away.
Use only well aged manure. Put a shovel full into a sack or pillowcase, place this inside a 5 gallon bucket, and cover with water. Allow to steep for 2 weeks. Use the liquid in a 5:1 ratio with water.
|Seaweed makes a high nitrogen fertilizer.|
Both fish and seaweed are high in nitrogen, making them popular fertilizers at the beginning of the growing season. To make your own seaweed fertilizer, fill a 5 gallon bucket 1/5th full of seaweed, then add water. Cover and let steep for 3 days. Before applying to the garden, dilute with water in a 1:1 ratio. To make fish fertilizer, drop chopped fish scraps into blender to pulverize. Now place this in a 5 gallon bucket, filling it about halfway; add shredded newspaper, chopped dry brown leaves, or sawdust to the bucket, filling it within an inch of the top. (The added materials speed the decay process.) If desired, you may add a jar of molasses (which increase the aerobic bacteria activity and will make the smell of the rotting fish less noticeable) and some Epsom salts (which add sulfur and magnesium, often found in commercially sold fish fertilizer). Shake the bucket daily for two weeks, keeping it in a sunny location. After two weeks, dilute in a 1:1 ratio with water and use as a foliar fertilizer.
It's true. Human urine has been used as fertilizer for a long, long time. Many gardeners feel the best time to collect this urine is first thing in the morning - and that it should be used before it begins to smell like amonia. Dilute with water in a 20:1 ratio.
|Comfrey leaves create a balanced fertilizer.|
Comfrey is a little known herb in the United States, but is frequently grown and used in England. It gets to be about 36 inches high, loves full sun but tolerates shade, and will spread like the Dickens unless you grow the Russian Bocking14 variety (Symphytum uplandicum). This plant creates a balanced liquid fertilizer. (Comfrey can also be used externally as medicine, can be fed to chickens, and attracts bees, so it's a very useful plant to have in your garden.)
Most experts recommend not cutting any leaves off comfrey in it's first year, while cutting off all blooms. This encourages strong root growth. After the first year, however, you can harvest leaves from the plant about 5 times a year, up through the fall.
If you have access to plenty of perennial stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), you may use it, instead. It will provide a liquid fertilizer that's almost as balanced.
There are several ways to make comfrey fertilizer, but the easiest I've seen is described in Dick and James Strawbridges' Self-Sufficiency for the 21st Century: Drill holes in the bottom of a plastic container with a lid (such as a bucket, drum, or rain barrel). Place bricks, cinder blocks, or pieces of wood on the ground in a U-shape. In the center of the U, place a watering can; it will collect the liquid fertilizer. Pack comfrey (or nettle) leaves into the container with a lid; weigh them down with bricks or other heavy objects. (Some people like to put the leaves in a sack or pillowcase first, which helps prevent the holes from getting clogged.) After 10 days or so, the watering can will start filling with black liquid. A 10 gallon lidded container will produce about 4 to 6 pints of liquid fertilizer. Store the fertilizer in a lidded jar in a cool location, but don't let it ferment. Dilute the liquid 1:15 with water and use as a foliar spray. Place the used leaves in the compost pile.
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NOTE - Dr. Plechner has named his finding an Atypical Cortisol Estrogen Imbalance Syndrome (ACEIS) however the people and animals he has helped have called it Plechner’s Syndrome because it is easier to remember.
Q. WHAT IS THE MEDICAL ICE AGE? ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME).
A. The MEDICAL ICE AGE relates to the gradual breakdown of ourselves, our animals, and our earth. As this gradual breakdown is occurring, a concentration of predisposing factors of poor health are being created. Not only are we seeing entire families of people developing allergies, auto-immunity, and cancer, but we are also seeing even a faster progression of diseases in our animals due to indiscriminant breeding, and breeding without function. The lack of concern for our earth has further allowed for environmental breakdown, contamination of our soils and waters, and the development of an unstable atmosphere. We are potentially destroying our own life line. With this present day destruction, a potentially dangerous cortisol deficiency is being created in our bodies which allows the immune system not to protect people and animals, but instead allows the loss of recognition of the body's own tissue by these cells, resulting in allergies, auto-immunity, and cancer. This is called, ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) may slow down the MEDICAL ICE AGE which threatens our existence.
Q. IN WHAT OTHER WAYS IS ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) DIFFERENT FROM ADDISON'S SYNDROME AND CUSHING'S SYNDROME?
A. ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) involves the INNER LAYER adrenal cortex where ESTROGEN AND ANDROGEN hormones are produced. ADDISON'S SYNDROME involves the FIRST LAYER of the adrenal cortex where the hormone ALDOSTERONE is produced which balances Sodium and Potassium levels. CUSHING'S SYNDROME involves the MIDDLE LAYER adrenal cortex where the hormone CORTISOL is produced which is necessary for life. CUSHING'S SYNDROME is the production of too much active (working) cortisol. (A more comprehensive definition of PLECHNER'S SYNDROME will follow *below, and can be located on drplechner.com under, ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) "PLECHNER'S SYNDROME".
A. ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME): is an accumulation of a widely varying group of clinical signs and symptoms that characterize any of a variety of disease abnormalities or conditions which create a specific identifiable pattern in specific hormone and antibody levels in blood serum of several species of mammals. This syndrome is due to a damaged MIDDLE LAYER adrenal cortex because of a genetic predisposition, environmental toxins, or aging. This damaged MIDDLE LAYER adrenal cortex in turn causes a reduction in active (working) cortisol, resulting in an elevated amount of estrogen to be produced by the INNER LAYER adrenal cortex. Normal amounts of cortisol may be present, however this cortisol can be defective or bound and the same estrogenic effect may occur. The cortisol and estrogen imbalance usually presents itself as an altered immunity status with antibody depression present. This not only may result in malabsorption from the intestines, but also allows the immune cells to lose recognition of the body's own tissue and thus attack their own host. These changes in glandular performance allow for a variety of medical effects to occur anywhere from allergies, irritable bowel disease, autoimmunity, uncontrolled tissue growth, and cancer.
Q. WHAT IS CORTISOL?
A. CORTISOL is a hormone that is secreted from the MIDDLE LAYER of the adrenal cortex. It helps the cells in the body to break down fat and proteins into their basic blocks called, "carbohydrates". It is also involved in reducing inflammation in the body. This is probably the most important hormone in the body, and the most feared when medical replacement is suggested.
Q. WHAT ARE THE ADRENAL GLANDS?
A. The ADRENAL GLANDS were originally called the SUPRARENAL GLANDS, because they sit on top of each kidney. They therefore consist of a right and left gland, and are covered by the overlying fatty capsule from the kidney. The cortex of the gland consists of three layers. The first layer produces the hormone ALDOSTERONE, which is not only responsible for electrolyte balance, but works with a hormone from the kidney to regulate blood pressure. The second, or MIDDLE LAYER, produces CORTISOL which has a number of functions and works closely with the pituitary gland. The third layer, or INNER LAYER, produces both ESTROGEN and a male hormone called, ANDROGEN.
Q. WHAT IS A SYNDROME?
A. A SYNDROME is an accumulation of a group of clinical signs and symptoms that characterize a disease abnormality or condition which may create a specific identifiable pattern.
Q. WHAT IS A HORMONE?
A. A HORMONE is a chemically complex substance that is manufactured in an organ or one part of the body that either begins or regulates the function of a group of cells, or a specific organ, that resides in a different location in the body. These substances (HORMONES) are secreted by glands called, ENDOCRINE GLANDS, and travel through the blood stream to their target organs.
Q. WHAT IS ESTROGEN?
A. ESTROGEN is a hormone that is part of a group of estrogenic compounds. With normal amounts of ESTROGEN production present, this hormone helps to develop female secondary sex characteristics in the animal. This hormone can be produced by the ovaries, THE INNER LAYER OF THE ADRENAL CORTEX, testes and placenta. Other forms of ESTROGEN can also be ingested from fruits, vegetables and plastics.
Q. HOW DOES EXCESS ESTROGEN AFFECT MY IMMUNE SYSTEM?
A. Imbalanced CORTISOL allows for the pituitary gland to over-stimulate the production of excess ESTROGEN. This excess estrogen not only causes an inflammation of the lining cells of all arteries in the body, including those arteries to the intestines, but causes the B and T immune cells to become deregulated. It also causes the B cell to reduce its production of antibodies. This in turn causes further turmoil in the gut. When regulated, the B cell protects the body against bacteria and makes protective antibodies to vaccines and other intruders. When the T cell is regulated it protects the body against viruses and plant invaders like yeast and fungi. The hormonal antibody deregulation is why all of these intruders can cause medical effects (illnesses and diseases). Many substances are used to combat these EFFECTS, but while this is being done, the CAUSE must also be corrected, otherwise the EFFECTS will continue. The continuous use of antibiotics and anti-yeast and fungal medications alone will not correct the problem since they can only be managed effectively through replacement and correction of the hormonal antibody imbalance.
Furthermore, when there is an excess of estrogen being produced (or present), it may also cause the following:
- A chemical binding of both thyroid hormones (T3 and T4).
- A chemical binding of active (working) CORTISOL and this in turn disallows or prevents the transference of storage thyroid (T4) into active thyroid (T3) in the body.
- The deregulation of the immune system which causes it not only to be unable to PROTECT the body, but to further lose recognition of self tissue and thus be able to DESTROY the normal tissues in the body.
- It also causes the immune system to decrease antibody production for protection and from creating protective antibodies from natural invaders and vaccines.
- It also can lead to an inflammation of the cells lining all the arteries in the body (ENDOTHELIAL CELLS). Inflammation of the arteries may lead to not only strokes and heart attacks, but also to any disease that might respond to a decreased blood flow and lack of proper oxygenation.
Q. WHEN CORTISOL AND ESTROGEN LEVELS ARE IMBALANCED, WHY DOES THE IMMUNE SYSTEM MALFUNCTION?
A. Based upon the review of thousands of serum tests and clinical evidence, the immune system does appear to malfunction. WHEN WE SEE EXCESS ESTROGEN AND DEFECTIVE OR INSUFFICIENT CORTISOL WE ALSO SEE:
- Reduced numbers of specific immunoglubulins, such as IgA.
- Frequent clinical symptoms of autoimmune disease.
- Reduced IgA levels in serum. Immunoglubulins: IgA, IgM, and IgG in particular are tested for and closely monitored.
- Clinical evidence of new antibody production while the animal is still in endocrine imbalance as demonstrated by new food sensitivities and allergies presented as symptoms during the period of imbalance.
There is strong clinical evidence for immune system deregulation, but presently no clear understanding of the mechanism for this deregulation. There is ample clinical evidence of a return to a normally functioning immune system when the animal's tested hormone levels return to mid-range normal levels.
Q. HOW COULD MY ADRENAL GLANDS BE INJURED, AND COULD THEY BE GENETICALLY DEFECTIVE?
A. There is the possibility that your adrenal glands could be damaged by environmental pollutants and toxins, through administration of vaccines, anesthesia, antibiotics, chemotherapy or any chemical administered to the body, and also due to aging. Defects can also occur in offspring having been passed down from the parents. THE MOST FRAGILE LAYER THAT IS MOST EASILY ADVERSELY AFFECTED IS THE MIDDLE LAYER OF THE ADRENAL CORTEX AND ITS PRODUCTION OF ACTIVE (WORKING) CORTISOL.
Q. WHAT CAN ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) PLECHNER'S SYNDROME POTENTIALLY DO TO THE HEALTH OF MYSELF OR MY PET?
A. ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) may manifest as symptoms of conditions such as, minor chronic disorders like allergies, to major catastrophic diseases such as autoimmunity, uncontrolled tissue growth and cancer. These may all occur due to any event that causes damage to the MIDDLE LAYER of the adrenal cortex, and the resultant loss of production of ACTIVE (WORKING) CORTISOL. ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME)can develop in early life, midlife, old age, at virtually any time.
Q. CAN YOU GIVE ME MORE SPECIFICS AS TO WHY ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) PLECHNER'S SYNDROME IS DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER DISEASES OF THE ADRENAL CORTEX SUCH AS CUSHING'S SYNDROME OR ADDISON'S SYNDROME?
A. ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) DESCRIBES A DEFICIENCY IN THE PRODUCTION OF CORTISOL FROM THE MIDDLE LAYER ADRENAL CORTEX AND ITS INABILITY TO PROVIDE ACTIVE (WORKING) CORTISOL WHICH IS THE UNDERLYING CAUSE OFATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) AND THE MEDICAL ICE AGE. This shortage of active (working) cortisol leads to a domino effect through the deregulation of thyroid hormones leading to the production of excess ESTROGEN and the deregulation of the immune system and all of the diseases and maladies this resulting faulty immune system creates. NOTE: The diseases are remarkably similar in man and animals. CUSHING'S SYNDROME deals with an EXCESS production of ACTIVE (WORKING) CORTISOL. This excess production, no matter whether it is endogenous (from within the body) or exogenous (from outside the body most likely through ingestion of certain foods, plastics, contaminated water, and medications), may cause clinical symptoms or clinical signs. The side effects of this EXCESS ACTIVE (WORKING) CORTISOL may differ slightly in man and animal. In man what is usually observed is an increase in water consumption, retention, weight gain and swelling in the face shoulders, legs, and ankles. Loss of libido and muscle integrity may also occur. Other effects can be studied on the internet. In canines (dogs), CUSHING'S SYNDROME often presents itself by symptoms such as severe intake of water and increased urine that is not concentrated correctly. There is often sagging of the stomach muscles, and loss of hair without itching. Again, other effects may be studied on the internet.
ADDISON'S SYNDROME is mainly concerned with an imbalance in the first layer of the adrenal cortex and its REDUCED production of ALDOSTERONE, a mineral corticoid hormone. This shortage may lead to an electrolyte defi between SODIUM and POTASSIUM in the blood. Often, this ALDOSTERONE shortage causes vomiting, diarrhea, muscle weakness and a heart that is reduced in size and may stop in contraction. Many other clinical symptoms and signs can be studied on the internet for both man and for dogs.
The human healthcare professionals have written that ADDISON'S SYNDROME may be due to a deficiency of regulatory hormones from ALL THREE LAYERS of the adrenal cortex. The veterinary health care professionals believe that ADDISON'S SYNDROME is the result of a deficiency in hormone production from TWO LAYERS of the adrenal cortex, the FIRST LAYER and SECOND LAYER. ADDISON'S SYNDROME is believed to be either a TWO LAYER OR THREE LAYER adrenal deficiency.
Therefore as a comparison, CUSHING'S SYNDROME is due to EXCESSIVE production of ACTIVE (WORKING) CORTISOL.
ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) is due to REDUCED amounts of ACTIVE (WORKING) CORTISOL, with normal blood serum levels of SODIUM and POTASSIUM which mean the first layer of the adrenal gland is normal. The production of excessive adrenal estrogen further confirms a normal third layer adrenal cortex.
The fact that these hormones (ALDOSTERONE and ADRENAL ESTROGEN) are present relates to whether the CORTISOL and THYROID HORMONES are working, and not the ESTROGEN and ALDOSTERONE, otherwise the electrolytes and the antibodies would not be working. The comparative levels refer to the CORTISOL and IMMUNOGLUBULINS and this is why it is so important to do comparative levels, including those secretions which are regulated by active (working) hormone. This is why testing for ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) is so important. The reason for the development of salivary tests and twenty-four hour urine tests were to measure hormones in these fluids and determine if those hormones that were present are active or bound. It is also very easy to determine this by comparing serum results with those in saliva and urine.
Q. HOW DO I DO THE BLOOD TEST?
A. First of all you will need to have your heath care professional send you or your pet to a laboratory, clinic, or hospital for a blood draw. drplechner.com has all the details on handling the sample, where to send it, and how to ship it so that the sample arrives in a refrigerated state.
Q. WHY DO I NEED TO USE THE LABORATORY THAT YOU RECOMMEND?
A. This is one of the few laboratories in the United States that can do a TOTAL estrogen, and knows how the serum sample needs to be prepared for shipping and processing. I have used four laboratories over forty years and I have learned that if these tests are not done correctly, I cannot assist your veterinarian or physician effectively, and I do not want the "extra mile that you have travelled" in attempting to get a diagnosis to be a health care disappointment for either you or for your pet. Please note that I am NOT compensated in any way by the use of this laboratory.
Q. HOW DOES A VETERINARIAN OR PHYSICIAN INTERPRET SERUM TESTS FOR ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME)?
A. There is a contact button on drplechner.com which is available for consultation with your health care professional. Just push the consultation button.
Q. IS THERE TREATMENT AVAILABLE? IF SO, HOW DO I GET IT?
A. There will always be treatment available to you through your own health care professional. I will be more than glad to suggest therapy based upon the test results while also suggesting any nutritional or dietary changes that may be helpful. This treatment program is not only set up to correct hormonal imbalances, but to also look at foods, enzymes, nutraceuticals and availability of nutrients to the body via the gut. The entire program is designed to be "WHOLEISTIC". Remember, many healthcare professionals will treat the EFFECTS of the illness or disease, but not the ROOT CAUSE cause of it.
Q. ARE STERIOD AND HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPIES SAFE, ESPECIALLY FOR LONG-TERM USE FOR ANIMALS AND FOR HUMANS?
A. Please keep in mind that THE MOST IMPORTANT HORMONE IN THE BODY IS CORTISOL AND IT SHOULD NOT BE FEARED BY PATIENTS OR THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY. In correcting the Endocrine-Immune Imbalance caused byATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) USING CORTISOL REPLACEMENT THERAPY TO REPLACE THE BODY'S OWN NATURALLY OCCURING PRODUCTION OF WORKING CORTISOL, COUPLED WITH THYROID REPLACEMENT THERAPY, WILL GUARANTEE THAT THE SMALL AMOUNT OF CORTISOL IS UTILIZED AND BROKEN DOWN BY THE BODY IN A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR PERIOD. THYROID REPLACEMENT THERAPY MUST BE USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH CORTISOL REPLACEMENT THERAPY TO ENSURE THAT THERE IS NO RESIDUAL CORTISOL THAT WOULD BUILD UP AND BECOME AN OVERDOSE.
Please also keep in mind ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME), THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE ENDOCRINE-IMMUNE IMBALANCE, DEMONSTRATES AN IMBALANCE BETWEEN A LACK OF WORKING CORTISOL AND EXCESS ESTROGEN. THIS IMBALANCE NOT ONLY DEREGULATES THE THYROID, BUT ALSO DEREGULATES THE IMMUNE SYSTEM AND IS THERBY THE ROOT CAUSE OF CATASTROPHIC ILLNESSES AND DISEASES WHICH INCLUDE ALLERGIES, AUTO-IMMUNITY, AND CANCER.
FOOD SENSITIVITIES WILL UNDERMINE THE SUCCESS OF THE TREATMENT PLAN. Remember, it is possible return ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) hormone levels to normal ranges with oral medications, but if you, or your pet, are still showing signs of problems, you are fighting an existing food sensitivity. Normally an injection of a cortisol replacement can be given to the patient with ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME), and if in 2 to 3 days there is no improvement, a dietary change is indicated. drplechner.com may help you with this. If food sensitivities are present, DO NOT keep trying different foods because without properly identifying ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (ACIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) in the patient, the deregulated immune cells will make antibodies to these foods, and these new antibodies will always react to those foods even after you have corrected the mechanism of immune imbalance due to the ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME).
GENETIC CONCERNS: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PREGNANCY PLANNING FOR BOTH ANIMALS AND FOR HUMANS.
In animals it is very easy to test the parents to see if their offspring will be normal. With ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME), if both parents are deficient in the same area the deficiency will usually be concentrated in their offspring. This is not to say do not breed these animals, it is to say do not breed them to each other. Both animal parents can be off in different areas and dilute out their problem in their offspring. Dr. Plechner has done this for many years and has shown conscientious breeders how to develop healthy pets for the future thereby avoiding a MEDICAL ICE AGE.
Obviously with people, this is a different situation. What people can do however, is to do the ATYPICAL CORTISOL ESTROGEN IMBALANCE SYNDROME (ACEIS) (PLECHNER'S SYNDROME) test, determine what they will be passing on to their child, and as soon as the infant's maternal antibodies have disappeared, check the infant for any imbalance as a preventative and get these imbalances corrected before any of the juvenile diseases begin. The test will also indicate whether the infant will be able to successfully receive vaccines and make protective antibodies without a severe reaction occurring.
Website content text, Copyright, Dr. Alfred J. Plechner, 2008, All Rights Reserved.
Editor: Sheila Doan
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Historically, morality has not been considered a topic of discussion within the domain of science. Instead, this issue has almost exclusively been within the purview of religion. Increasingly, however, concepts such as moral instinct have gained legitimacy as discussed by scientists such as Steven Pinker and Jonathon Haidt, who argue that there are neurological factors associated with morality and that natural selection has played a fundamental role in shaping universal instinctual moral truths. The evidence for this position is compelling. The question remains: “Can science offer moral guidance?” In other words, should science play a role in helping us discern what is right or wrong? Or does science have to relinquish issues of morality to other social systems based solely on historical precedence?
First of all, the definition of morality has to be accepted. Dictionary.com defines morality as “conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy definition of morality reads as follows “descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or, some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior; or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.” These definitions are devoid of the de facto notion that this concept is values based. Sam Harris argues, and I believe most people would agree, that human values pertain to circumstances that have the positive affect of enhancing the well being of conscious beings. As such, it does not seem like a reach to suggest that science can play a role in setting the parameters of morality.
Quite simply, it can be suggested that there are certain conditions under which humans are more likely to prosper and other conditions under which they are more likely to falter. For instance it is known that children raised in a loving environment where life’s basic needs are provided for, are more likely to grow into happy and productive adults than those raised in hostile and deprived environments. We may intuitively know this, but it is science that provides the evidence for such claims. The profession of psychology devotes considerable resources to this pursuit. As a psychologist myself I employ evidenced based practices as I endeavor to facilitate the betterment of my clients’ lives. Why is it then, that we dismiss the influences of science when we discuss morals? At a recent TED Conference Sam Harris posed this very question.
I suggest, as did Harris, that science is very capable of pointing us, as a society, in the right direction when it comes to morals and values. Russell Blackford wrote in his post on Harris’ speech that “…science can give us information about what individual conduct, moral systems, laws, and so on are likely to lead to such plausible goals for ….. individual and collective human flourishing, social survival, and reduction of suffering. Any source of information about what will lead to goals such as these has some moral authority.”
Harris argues that it boils down to understanding the conditions that lead to human flourishing – and accepting that these conditions are fundamental facts that should serve as the basis of universal morals. He further contends that there are distinctly problematic values within our current human systems that run counter to human flourishing. For example he discusses the costs of the extremist cultural expectation for women of Islam to wear burkas (and the brutal costs of non-compliance). He contrasts this with the unrealistically perfect portrayal of the female body in modern western cultures. Neither of these circumstances promotes healthy thriving circumstances for young women.
He also argues that religion should not be given a pass when it comes to the values they promote just because of their religious status. The natural deference given to religion in our “pluralistic” society in fact, promotes many clearly harmful practices (including the prohibition of birth control, the denial of civil liberties for homosexual couples, sanctioned murder of victims of rape to preserve the honor of the family, male foreskin and in some cultures clitoral circumcision, and the application of prayer in lieu of modern medical services particularly for ill children). Values rendered in distant Bronze Age cultures and sustained based on ideology are far from being in touch with those values that are likely to promote healthy human development today.
Individuals suffer, indeed society as a whole suffers when these or similar prohibitions and/or expectations thrive. Science, it seems to me is far more capable of really looking at the human and societal costs of such “values.” Harris suggests that “Morality is certainly a domain where knowledge and expertise applies.” We need to “bring into our dialogue the issues of these truths of right and wrong.” By accepting that values are drawn based on quality of life issues pertaining to the greater good of all, and by accepting that there are certain truths pertaining to life experiences that either enhance or impinge upon the well being of the human conscious, then isn’t the domain of science to draw out these truths?
Blackford, Russell. 2010. Sam Harris on Science and Morality. Metamagician and the Hellfire Club. http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2010/03/sam-harris-on-science-and-morality.html
Harris, Sam. 2010. Science can answer moral questions. TED Conference. http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html
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June 8, 2009
HPV Vaccine Used In Older Women As Well
The HPV vaccine isn't just for teens. New research shows women ages 24 to 45 not already infected with the common sexually transmitted disease can receive protection against the virus following vaccination.
Adolescent girls and young women have been the targets for HPV vaccination efforts. However, a rising age at first marriage, divorce and changing sexual habits has resulted in an increase in rates of HPV infection among women over the age of 24. Results of a new study show it's not too late for women 25 years or older to receive protection, especially if they have no prior HPV infection.
The vaccine protects against four strains of HPV "“ 6, 11, 16 and 18 "“ which cause genital warts and cervical cancer. In a study of nearly 4,000 women between the ages of 25 and 45, the vaccine showed 91 percent effectiveness against all four virus strains. Protection among women with existing HPV infection was lower at 30 percent, but did offer protection against strains the patients were not previously exposed to.
On The Net:
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| 0.96425 | 221 | 2.765625 | 3 |
In fact, such lineages are not unusual. African ancestry is very common among Southern whites, though the bloodlines usually originated with slaveholding white men and enslaved black women.
The most prominent such case is that of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings. Over the last two decades, DNA tests have substantiated the long-held suspicion that Jefferson fathered Hemings' six children. Hemings was three-fourths white by ancestry, and although her children with Jefferson were born into slavery, they were legally "white" under Virginia law at the time.
Such legal classifications were not uncommon in the antebellum South, where there was a high degree of social mobility and few people possessed documentation of their ancestry. Despite the strictures of slavery, free people of mixed race could possess up to one-eighth or one-quarter African ancestry, depending on the state, and be considered legally "white." Others who didn't meet the legal definition were absorbed into the white mainstream because of their appearance or close association with whites.
Virginia had some of the least strict legal definitions of race until the late 1870s, when white Democrats regained political power in the former Confederate states. Over the next 20 years, those states passed Jim Crow laws to enforce segregation in public facilities, as well as constitutional provisions that disenfranchised most blacks by requiring literacy tests, longer residency requirements, and poll taxes.
Later, an informal "one-drop rule" came to define any person with "one drop of black blood" as black. Although the rule held sway in many Southern states long beforehand, it was not adopted as law until the early 20th century, with the rise of eugenics, ideas of racial purity, and scientific racism. Tennessee was the first state to codify the rule in 1910, and several other laws soon followed, including Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which defined as "black" anyone with any black ancestry.
Predictably, extensive access to DNA testing and genealogical research in recent years has revealed mixed-race heritage in the families of the old planter aristocracy, as well as evidence of slave-owner ancestry in many black families, including that of first lady Michelle Obama.
If the genealogists could go far enough back, perhaps they would find that all those who settled on this continent were distant cousins. Such findings should put an end to the racism that has scarred our national character for centuries and - until recently - prevented the election of our first African American president.
William Kashatus is a historian and writer. He can be reached at [email protected].
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| 0.979882 | 531 | 3.609375 | 4 |
In vascular plants
is the tissue that carries water up the stem. In trees
, it constitutes wood
, hence the word is derived from the Greek
word for "wood". Together with phloem
, xylem is one of the two transport tissues of plants. The cell walls
of xylem cells
derive most of their strength from lignin
, a special chemical produced only by plants.
Xylem (at least in dicots) is composed of vessel elements[?] and tracheids[?]. Vessel elements are similar in structure to the sieve-tube members of phloem, but they lack companion cells, and have perforated sides as well as pores at the ends. Tracheids are much narrower cells, with tapered and perforated ends, constituting most of the volume of the xylem tissue. Both tracheids and vessel elements are dead at maturity.
Xylem sap always moves from the roots to the leaves. It travels by bulk flow, like water in a series of pipes, rather than by diffusion through cells. Three phenomena cause xylem sap to flow:
- The soil solution (see soil) is more dilute than the cytosol of the root cells. Thus, water moves osmotically into the cells, creating root pressure. Even under optimal conditions, root pressure can only lift water a couple of feet.
- Capillary action helps sap to flow up the narrow tracheids.
- By far the most important cause of xylem sap flow is transpirational pull. This is the reverse of root pressure, caused by the transpiration of water from leaves.
In perennial plants, xylem is laid down in multiple phases. Primary xylem is one of the tissues left behind by the apical meristem. Secondary xylem is laid down by vascular cambium on the outside of the xylem column.
- The comprehensive textbook Biology, 6th ed., by Neil A. Campbell and Jane B. Reece, published by Benjamin Cummings, has been used as a source.
All Wikipedia text
is available under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
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| 0.938516 | 455 | 3.90625 | 4 |
assuming no slippage of the wheels ...Hi everyone
New here so hope this is in correct place.
The question i have is as follows.
A train of mass 5 tonnes is trvelling with a velocity of 80 km h-1. If it needs to stop within a distance of 0.5 km using a constant braking force calculate:
A) deceleration of the train
b)the braking force required
c)the time taken to come to rest
d)The initial angular velocity of the wheels
e)the angular deceleration of the wheels
The wheels are 1.5m in diameter
I have done parts a b & c hopefully correct but am having trouble with parts d & e.
Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated
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http://mathhelpforum.com/advanced-applied-math/96689-angular-velocity-problem.html
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| 0.899962 | 161 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Breadcrumbs NavigationHome > News & Publications > News and Communications > News > Gender Differences Explain Death Rates Following a Heart Attack
Gender Differences Explain Death Rates Following a Heart Attack
One of the largest studies exploring heart attack-related gender differences found that women are twice as likely to die within 30 days following a heart attack, which can be explained by the distinct risk factors, medical history and heart anatomy of men and women.
The study, published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, was conducted by researchers at Duke University Medical Center.
"With our analysis we've learned that there is not some mysterious black cloud following women around," said Pamela Douglas, MD, professor of medicine with Duke Clinical Research Institute and the study's senior author.
"Little has been known about why mortality rates differ between men and women following a heart attack, but this study shows that the cause can be attributed to the fundamentally different cardiovascular physiology of the sexes."
The differences in mortality between women and men can be eliminated after adjusting for several key variables, including age, differences in the heart's anatomy, and common disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, overweight, tobacco use, and history of diabetes or cardiovascular disease.
"When women have a heart attack they are sicker, older, and have more risk factors, which explains the mortality difference," Douglas said.
The study evaluated a range of cardiovascular diseases known as acute coronary syndromes, which are a collection of symptoms that arise as a result of insufficient blood supply to the heart.
The researchers noted that, due to the size of the study and the wide spectrum of diseases included, they were also able to observe unique gender differences in disease severity.
Women had higher mortality associated with the most severe form of heart attack but, at the other end of the spectrum, a lower risk of unstable angina or acute chest pain without heart attack.
Having a better understanding of gender differences in cardiovascular disease may help physicians to more effectively tailor prevention or treatment strategies to specific patients. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for men and women.
"Care needs to be personalized because a woman with a heart attack is different than a man," Douglas said. "Risk factors affect men and women at different rates and severity, which needs to be taken into account."
The study included data from 11 international, randomized clinical trials of more than 136,000 patients with acute coronary syndromes. Mortality rates at 30 days were nearly 10 percent in women and 5 percent in men. After adjusting for personal characteristics and disease severity, there was not a significant difference between the genders.
Women were older with more high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart failure. Men were more likely to be smokers and have had a history of heart attack or bypass surgery. These differences were observed across the range of acute coronary syndromes.
The factors that appeared to have the largest impact on the higher mortality rates among women included age, smoking, high blood pressure, heart rate, and height.
The research team is continuing to study gender disparities in cardiovascular disease, including morality rates one year after a heart attack.
The study was supported by Duke Clinical Research Institute.
Other researchers who participated in the study were Christopher B. Granger, Laine Elliott, Dianne Gallup, Matthew Roe, L. Kristin Newby, Robert A. Harrington, Robert M. Califf and Richard C. Becker of Duke, Jeffrey S. Berger and Judith S. Hochman of New York University School of Medicine, Paul W. Armstrong of University of Alberta, R. John Simes of the University of Sydney, Harvey D. White of Auckland City Hospital, Frans Van de Werf of Gasthuisberg University Hospital and Eric J. Topol of Scripps Translational Research Institute.
About This Article
Published: Aug. 25, 2009
Updated: July 28, 2010
Reporters & producers can visit Duke Medicine News and Communications for contact information.
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| 0.951106 | 817 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Top Ten Wildlife Areas We Love (and Would Hate to Lose)
|No Small Thing: The pika portends big problems to come (NPS)|
Why We Love It:
You may have seen this small mammal poking its head out from under scree fields the last time you went hiking or climbing in the mountains of the western U.S. The pika, a relative of hares and rabbits, weighs about half a pound and ranges from three to five inches in length. In a recent WWF Internet survey, the pika was voted one of the three cutest animals in North America.
Where It's Happiest:
Pikas can be found living among the broken rocks at the base of cliffs. They eat primarily hay, cutting and drying it in the sun for winter provisions. Generally solitary creatures, closely related animals live near each other in talus fields. A mother pika usually conceives a litter one month before the snowmelt, giving her two to four offspring a fighting chance to find the best spot to live come spring. They communicate through a range of vocalizations, or by rubbing scent glands in their cheeks on rocks.
The Cold, Hard Numbers:
Once a common animal across the mountainous regions of the west, pika numbers haven't been studied over time. The most recent study, published in 2003 in the Journal of Mammology, showed nine out of 25 populations have disappeared, causing biologists to conclude that pikas are in an "extinction spasm.
Who's to Blame:
The study suggests that pikas may be the "canary in the coal mine" for the impacts of global warming. Biologists believe that global warming will drive pikas to seek higher elevations for the moist, cool, montane habitats they need. Eventually, pikas could be trapped in "mountainous islands," where further climate change may wipe them out completely. "Losses of pikas are disturbing because they are often assumed to be locally abundant and, in decades past, scientists assumed that alpine and subalpine ecosystems were relatively undisturbed because of their isolation from most human activities," says USGS ecologist Erik Beever. "Losses are continuing even now, and the rate of losses has changed on a scale of decades to years.
When It's Gone:
Pikas may be just the first of many alpine creatures to lose suitable habitat because of global warming. Scientists estimate that 10 to 35 percent of alpine and subalpine species may be lost within a few decades, including alpine marmots and ground squirrels.
Signs of Life:
Pikas may have been in a similar situation before, according to paleoecological evidence. Populations have expanded and contracted over geologic time, though Beever and his colleagues believe the current downward trend is more severe than in times past. If global climate change can be controlled, there may be some hope for this cute but hardy critter.
Details mentioned in this article were accurate at the time of publication
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| 0.95621 | 629 | 3.5 | 4 |
Experiment Station Overview
Clemson’s Experiment Station is part of a national system under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Based at land-grant universities in every state, Experiment Station scientists conduct research to improve agriculture, forestry and natural resources management. Clemson scientists have been involved in this effort since 1889 when the university was founded and the South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station was located here.
Today, the Experiment Station provides science-based information on major issues facing South Carolina’s largest industry sector – agriculture and forestry, or agribusiness – which contributes $41.7 billion and 200,000 jobs to the state economy.
Research is conducted in laboratories, farms, and forests on the Clemson campus and at five research and education centers strategically located in the state's distinct soil and climate regions. Areas of study include commercial production of timber, crop plants, and livestock; coastal forests and ecosystems; environmental conservation; ornamental horticulture; and food safety and packaging science.
Clemson researchers have produced more than 100 new varieties of food and fiber crops, as well as 50 patents.
The Experiment Station’s research focuses on:
- Agricultural Biotechnology
- Agronomic Crops
- Animal Production Systems
- Community and Economic Development
- Food Safety and Nutrition
- Forestry and Natural Resources
- Horticultural Crops
- Water Quality and Quantity
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| 0.927683 | 291 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Bringing Internet Mapping to the Humanities Project
Carol A. Keller
San Antonio College
As an instructor of world history survey courses, I’ve found that maps are essential tools for understanding the human story. Indeed, as Joni Seager, notes in her “Unpacking Evidence” essay, the advantage “of a map is that it conveys non-linear and simultaneous knowledge.” On the other hand, she reminds us, “ . . . a single map is not very effective at showing process. A narrative can move a reader through time very quickly; a map tends to be static and to show a single place at a single moment. A map then . . . can be understood as privileging place over process, contextuality over linearity.”
After years of relying on flat, one dimensional representations delivered first from map stands then as transparencies on an overhead projector or images in PowerPoint presentations, I, along with several others, created the Bringing Internet Mapping to the Humanities project. This project makes it possible for instructors to provide students the flexibility and dynamism of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS consists of a powerful computer software program that stores, analyzes, and displays spatial data from a variety of sources. What makes Web-based GIS mapping useful is the ability of the program to show process while continuing to privilege place. Multiple maps—representing layers of information geo-referenced from historical map sources—may be viewed in a single image, making it possible to map change over space and time.1 Think of this as being able to lay different transparencies on top of one another.
Transparent map layers can be projected on a large classroom screen, or my students may access mapping programs and work on activities from the convenience of home or office. Using the GIS application Arc Internet Map Server (ArcIMS) to create and deliver mapping services to the Web, the project engages students in interactive mapping modules on Globalization, the Maya, Roman and Muslim Spain, Mexico, Palestine, the United States Southwest, and Central and South Asia, among others.2
Each module is designed for individual access or to be entered from the portal web page. All modules consist of four parts: the host page, a companion curriculum guide, map exercises, and the map service. For example, the South Asia curriculum guide explains the unit of analysis, lists learning outcomes and instructional strategies, and provides additional online and print resources. The map exercise offers a series of questions to help students interrogate the map service.
The core of the module is the ArcIMS map service. Depending on the topic, students use the map service to display topographical features, vegetation, trade routes, cities, the diffusion of religion, language, and migrations, or to link photographs or other embedded resources. Module use encourages students to use mapping in dynamic and interactive ways and engages them in understanding spatial relationships and landscapes.
I now use these mapping tools to help my students make sense of maps and the information they contain in my world history course. Early in the semester, I use a simple survey to assess student knowledge of maps. During one class session I present a variety of historical source maps from various regions, and we discuss the roles maps play in representing the world.3 Next, the class views images of different map projections and discusses the attributes and point of view each represents.4 Finally, we return to the historical maps and I ask students to consider them as texts to be decoded as I speculate a bit on cartographic theory.5
My students are intrigued by the deceptions and subjectivity maps reveal—the ways in which cultural bias, power, and historical context are embedded in the process. They are asked to note: (1) what idea(s) the map is intended to communicate, and (2) what argument the map is intended to illustrate. At the end of the session I ask students to write a reflection paragraph listing a minimum of four things they learned about maps and how using maps in the work ahead might help their ability to think like historians.
For the next step, we visit the library computer lab to meet with the Social Science Librarian and complete an orientation to the mapping tools. I allow my students to select their module from a course-appropriate list, guided by the learning outcomes stated in the curriculum guide. Before proceeding to the hands-on portion of the orientation, they view a brief PowerPoint presentation that explains how to use the ArcIMS browser.
During the orientation session in the library lab, the Atlas Librarian brings in atlases and discusses the print resources and online databases available. I ask students to return to the library outside of class time to use an atlas to complete a series of tracings that replicate the layers the software allows them to build on the computer. This helps them better understand the challenge of scale and geo-referencing.6
Although I provide my students with a paper copy of their selected map exercise instructions, I also insist that they create their own digital copy of the instructions by copying and pasting each question from the website to make it easy for me to process their responses when they turn them in. Once these tasks are accomplished, students access the map service and follow instructions to complete the assignment, concluding with a post-module assessment survey.
My intent throughout is to help students think contextually, relating geographic space and landscape with historical processes to illuminate their study of world history. I find that my students are not daunted by the program and are intuitive about its use. They are willing to try the various tools, to work with layers in ways often not intended by the map service designer, and to frame new questions. They are quick to point out less-effective mapping tasks and any system access glitches.
I believe that if instructors experiment with ArcIMS mapping modules, they will discover that using dynamic GIS maps helps world history students think about spatial relationships and the diffusion of ideas across cultural and regional boundaries. For example, I ask my “World History to 1500” students to use the Central Asia module exercises to study, among other things, the development of pastoral societies, state formation, and cross-cultural exchange during the Postclassical Era, 500–1200 CE. By making various layers visible and turning off others, students are able to make connections between place and process. Accessing the Nomadic Belt and Post Classical Steppe States layers, students locate the states founded by Central Asian pastoral groups as Abbasid and Tang power waned after the 9th century, and investigate how it was possible for such pastoral groups to move into these areas. Students also explore the mechanics of cross-cultural diffusion along the Silk Road by mapping the trade routes and using the identify tool to locate historic cities and the Steppe States. At the conclusion of the exercise, my students expressed amazement that so much information was only a mouse click away. Finally, they admitted, they were able to see what it means to map change across space and time.
Whether you use the project map services to develop your own course-specific map exercises or use those developed by the project team, I think you will find the process promotes discussion and opens new ways of thinking about maps. Curricula that incorporate Web-based mapping components of the literary, historical, and cultural landscape reveal that there are more complex and interesting stories to be told.
Are instructors and students ready to explore the world using Web-based GIS? From my experience, the answer is yes. I find that adding Web-GIS activities improves students’ geographic literacy, makes possible the creation of course-specific map resources, and increases students’ comprehension of maps as tools for comprehending the human drama.
1 Geo-referencing is a process that allows a digitized historical map to be registered to a real-world coordinate system such as that used by this project’s ArcIMS software.
2 The San Antonio College Internet Mapping for the Humanities was funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Focus Grant, 2003-2004. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project uses Arc Internet Map Server (ArcIMS) software developed by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), Inc.
3 A rich collection of historical map images are available on the Web. See “Maps Online” in “Unpacking Evidence.”
4 Websites with good map projection information and images include: The Geographer’s Craft at the University of Colorado; and An Overview of Geodesy and Geographic Referencing Systems at the Harvard School of Design.
5 See Mark S. Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); John Rennie Short, The World Through Maps (Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2003); and Dennis Wood, The Power of Maps (New York: Guilford Press, 1992).
6 Anne Kelly Knowles (Middlebury College) suggested this approach at the Newberry Library Conference, History and Geography: Assessing the Role of Geographical Information in Historical Scholarship, March 2004. See also Anne Kelly Knowles, ed., Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History (Redlands, CA: ESRI Press, 2002).
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| 0.906422 | 1,928 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The west highland terrier is a small and generally white dog from the United Kingdom (although the black highland terrier are being bred more readily today).|
Westies are prone to allergies and dry skin issues, and bathing too frequently may aggravate these problems. Washing once a month or on a longer interval will generally not cause issues. However, frequent brushings are needed to keep the coat clean and oils evenly distributed throughout the coat.
Washing with a detergent-free, baby-oriented, or another soft skin shampoo will help keep a Westie's skin hydrated. Weekly washing of the inside of the ears with cotton balls will prevent oil and wax build-up and ear infections.
View printer friendly version of West Highland Terrier article.
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West Highland Terrier Facts
The name of the domestic breed...
|West Highland Terrier|
The area where the animal first came from...
How long (L) or tall (H) the animal is...
The measurement of how heavy the animal is...
How long the animal lives for...
The domestic group such as cat or dog...
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http://a-z-animals.com/animals/west-highland-terrier/
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| 0.830759 | 251 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Electricity is becoming expensive with each passing day and more people are getting interested in using solar energy to meet their electricity needs. Power cuts and dependence on DG sets is making people look for more and better sources. Solar PV panels provide a very good alternative. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India is also promoting solar PV systems under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission in the country. They also provide subsidy to people buying solar panels under this scheme. There are a lot of people keen in buying solar panels in India so we thought of doing a research on price of solar panels. Below is our research on price of solar panels:
As per our resources from the solar PV industry, cost of a PV module (just the panel) costs anywhere between Rs 30 to Rs 45 per watt of power generated (depending on the quantity you are buying). A good imported module will cost around Rs 30-35 per watt (for bulk transactions, not for retail). Good ones manufactured in India would come as low as Rs 30-32 per watt (for bulk transactions, not for retail). Please note that this is the cost for the panel and in case you are looking for inverter and batteries, the cost would be additional. A good 5 kW system for a home would cost around Rs 3-4 lakhs to setup (at retail price of around Rs 40 per Wp) , which can provide electricity for 25 years. The additional operating cost will include the cost of replacing the batteries.
MNRE provides 30% capital subsidy on capital expenditures for rooftop solar systems for both commercial and residential entities for systems up to 100 kW. The government also provides loans at 5% per annum for 50% of the capital expenditure for 5 years tenure for both commercial and residential entities. Commercial entities can claim either capital or interest subsidies. (note: As on January 2016, Government has released a priority list for processing subsidy claims. Schools, public institutions, etc are higher up on the priority list and residential projects are lowest in priority list. And thus getting subsidy on residential projects is getting increasingly difficult).
MNRE has also published a list of authorized suppliers and manufacturers that is available at the links:
We have also started doing some research on the prices of Solar PV Panels from various manufacturers in the country and here are some numbers from a good indian manufacturer (for bulk transaction) and some retail vendors/suppliers (for retail/small transactions):
Price of Solar Panels in India:
|Products||Inputs / Watt||Price / INR|
|Special SPV Mono||180W / 190W||Rs. 34/W|
|Special SPV Multi||230W,240W, 245W, 280W,290W||Rs. 32/W|
|SPV Mono||10W||Rs. 53/W|
|SPV Mono||20W - 30W||Rs. 43/W|
|SPV Mono||30W - 300W||Rs. 41/W|
|SPV Multi||10W||Rs. 50/W|
|SPV Multi||20W - 30W||Rs. 40/W|
|SPV Multi||30W - 300W||Rs. 38/W|
|Thin Film Multi SPV||100W||Rs. 32/W|
Please note that Mono is for Monocrystaline PV cell and Multi is for Multicrystaline (or Polycrystaline) PV cell. The difference between the two is that Monocrystaline is made of single silicon crystal whereas Multicrystaline PV is made up of multiple crystals. A monocrystaline is more efficient in converting solar energy into electricity per sq meter area than a multicrystaline PV. Thus the space required for the same amount of wattage is less in monocrystaline PV panel. Thus it is costlier than a Multicrystaline PV. The choice between the two depends on the area that you have for PV installation. Also the price increases as you decrease the panel wattage. So smaller the panel you buy, costlier it is.
More details on Solar PV roof top systems are also available on our link: Roof-Top Solar PV system project for home and office
Understand more about basics of Solar PV systems on our link: Solar electric, solar thermal, power generation, inverters, grid, off-grid: clearing the cobweb
Understand more about how to get NABARD subsidy on Solar PV Systems: Procedure to get subsidy on Solar PV Systems through NABARD in India
Get help in understanding financing options available to finance your Solar PV System: Financing Options for Solar Rooftop Projects in India
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| 0.921879 | 974 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Fourth meeting of the DDT Expert Group assesses continued need for DDT, 3–5 December 2012, Geneva
The Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention, under the guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO), allows the use of the insecticide DDT in disease vector control to protect public health.
The Stockholm Convention lists dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, better known at DDT, in its Annex B to restrict its production and use except for Parties that have notified the Secretariat of their intention to produce and /or use it for disease vector control. With the goal of reducing and ultimately eliminating the use of DDT, the Convention requires that the Conference of the Parties shall encourage each Party using DDT to develop and implement an action plan as part of the implementation plan of its obligation of the Convention.
At its fifth meeting held in April 2011, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention concluded that “countries that are relying on DDT for disease vector control may need to continue such use until locally appropriate and cost-effective alternatives are available for a sustainable transition away from DDT.” It also decided to evaluate the continued need for DDT for disease vector control at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties “with the objective of accelerating the identification and development of locally appropriate cost-effective and safe alternatives.”
The DDT Expert Group was established in 2006 by the Conference of the Parties. The Group is mandated to assess, every two years, in consultation with the World Health Organization, the available scientific, technical, environmental and economic information related to production and use of DDT for consideration by the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention in its evaluation of continued need for DDT for disease vector control.
The fourth meeting of the DDT Expert Group reviewed as part of this ongoing assessment:
- Insecticide resistance (DDT and alternatives)
- New alternative products, including the work of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee
- Transition from DDT in disease vector control
- Decision support tool for vector control.
DDT expert group recognized that there is a continued need for DDT in specific
settings for disease vector control where effective or safer alternatives are
still lacking. It recommended that the use of DDT in Indoor Residual Spray
should be limited only to the most appropriate situations based on operational
feasibility, epidemiological impact of disease transmission, entomological data
and insecticide resistance management. It also recommended that countries
should undertake further research and implementation of non-chemical methods
and strategies for disease vector control to supplement reduced reliance on
The findings of the DDT Expert Group’s will be presented at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, being held back-to-back with the meetings of the conferences of the parties to the Rotterdam and Basel conventions, from 28 April to 11 May 2013, in Geneva.
For more information about the fifth meeting of the DDT Expert Group, contact:
Mr. Gamini Manuweera, Programme Officer, Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, Tel. +41 (22) 917 86 04, E-mail: [email protected]
Mr. Michael S. Jones, Public Information Officer, Mobile +41 (0)79 730 4495, E-mail: [email protected]
or visit the web pages of the DDT Expert Group
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Most of us trace our understanding of school shootings back to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in 1998. I remember being a college freshman, watching the news in the cafeteria, having not fathomed that people would do a thing like that. It sparked a nationwide conversation on guns and the way kids treat each other in schools, which has followed a useless arc of political digestion each time it has happened since, so many times that I can’t count, each time more and more tragic.
What many might not know is that one of the first tragic school shootings of this kind occurred much earlier, in 1966, in the northern Minnesota city of Grand Rapids on the far western Mesabi Iron Range. Today, a fundraising project is underway to bring the surviving victim of that shooting back to town to speak to kids about the impact of bullying and violence in schools. Additional funds will be used to build a memorial for the school official who was killed while trying to talk to the shooter.
You can find out more about the project and how to help here. Organizers describe the event this way:
On October 5, 1966 our community of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, experienced one of the first school shootings in the nation. The shooting resulted in severe injury to Kevin Roth and ultimately the death of Mr. Forrest Willey.
The funds that are being raised is to help bring Kevin Roth to Grand Rapids, and a memorial for Mr. Forrest L. Willey. The week of October 14th Kevin Roth plans to be in the Grand Rapids area to talk to students regarding Bullying. The memorial will be placed at the new Grand Rapids Middle School (Robert J Elkington Middle School).
We appreciate all your support.
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| 0.964615 | 350 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The House Of Godwinson
Edith of Wessex
(circa 1025 - 18 December 1075)
Gytha was sister of Ulf, a Danish earl who was King Canute's brother-in-law. Godwin was the son of Wulfnoth Cild, thegn of Sussex, a direct male line descendant of King Alfred the Great's elder brother, Ethelred I. Edith was therefore of mixed Saxon and Danish descent, her father Godwine was a retainer in the entourage of King Ethelred the Unready's son, Athelstan, who rose to power during the reign of King Canute.
The young Edith was educated at the royal Abbey of Wilton, where she learned to speak several languages including Latin, French, Danish and Irish. Contemporaries described her as pious, well mannered and adept at embroidery and weaving, she was also accomplished at grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic and astronomy. Edith retained a fondness for Wilton Abbey, and in later years rebuilt its church in stone.
When Harthacnut, the son of King Canute died in 1042, Godwine supported the claim of Ethelred the Redeless' last surviving son Edward the Confessor to the throne. Edward had spent most of the previous thirty years in Normandy. His reign restored the native royal house of Wessex to the throne of England.
Edward disliked Earl Godwine due to the latter's involvement in the murder of his brother Alfred the Atheling in 1036, but despite this required Godwin's military support and fidelity and therefore reluctantly agreed to marry his twenty two year old daughter Edith of Wessex. The marriage was celebrated on 23 January 1045. Unlike most wives of the Saxon kings of England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Edith was crowned queen.
Her father and brothers Harold and Tostig Godwineson were banished from England in 1051 by King Edward, he then proceeded to pack off his wife to a nunnery and confiscated all her lands. When the Godwins forcefully effected their return in 1052, Edith was reinstated as Queen. On 15 April 1053 her father Earl Godwine died suddenly, after collapsing during a royal banquet at Winchester.
In later years, she and Edward were to become closer, although the marriage produced no children, later chroniclers attributed this to Edward's vow of celibacy, or because he refused to consummate the marriage because of his antipathy to Edith's family.
Edith commissioned works for his personal ornament, and had at least one goldsmith among her tenants. On Edward's death, the Domesday Book reveals Edith was the richest woman in England. Edward received his nephew, Edward the Exile to his court in 1057. Edward the Exile was the son of his elder brother, Edmund Ironside, who had grown up in Hungary, where he had been sent during the reign of King Canute. Edward brought his wife Agatha, son Edgar Atheling and his daughters Margaret (later Queen of Scotland through her marriage to Malcolm Canmore) and Christina with him to his uncle's court. The childless Edith adopted Edgar as her son and placed Margaret at Wilton to be educated.
Edith was very close to her brother Tostig, and in helped Harold secure his appointment as Earl of Northumbria in 1055. The heavy handed Tostig, however, made an unpopular ruler, he subdued the lawless area of Northumbria by implementing new laws and severely punishing offenders. He imposed heavy taxation and was tyrannical towards those who opposed his rule, his reign in Northumbria was marked by increasing brutality. In 1064 Edith was accused of engineering the murder of the Northumbrian lord Gospatric in her brother's interest.
Tostig was most probably hunting in the south with his brother-in-law King Edward when the northerners rebelled and elected Morcar, younger brother of Edwin, Earl of Mercia, as earl. Edward dispatched Harold to suppress the rebellion, however to Edith and Tostig's fury Harold acquiesced to their demands and Morcar was confirmed as earl after which Tostig was forced into exile.
Edward the Confessor died on 4 January 1066 and was buried at his foundation of Westminster Abbey, he was succeeded by Edith's brother, Harold Godwinson, who was elected King Harold II by the witan or Anglo-Saxon council. Tostig was killed in rebellion against Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25 September 1066 and at the Battle of Hastings which quickly followed on 14 October 1066, Edith lost three more of her remaining brothers Harold II, Gyrth and Leofwine Godwineson. Her brother Wulfnoth, who had been given to Edward the Confessor as a hostage in 1051 and soon afterwards became a prisoner of William the Conqueror, remained in captivity in Normandy.
William sent envoys to Winchester to request tribute from Edith to which she complied and thereby retained her estates. Edith was the sole figure among the English royalty to prosper during the reign of the Norman William I. After her husband's death, Edith commissioned a narrative account celebrating her husband's virtuous life called the Vita Ædwardi Regis. She read the lives of English saints, and provided information on the life of St Kenelm to his hagiographer, Goscelin.
After a long illness, the Dowager Queen Edith died in her mid fifties at Winchester on 18 December 1075. She was buried with her husband in Westminster Abbey and her funeral was arranged by her brother's supplanter, William I. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records "Edith the Lady died seven nights before Christmas in Winchester, she was King Edward's wife, and the king had her brought to Westminster with great honour and laid her near King Edward, her lord.'
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| 0.985998 | 1,230 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Midwest City Saves Money By Controlling Dissolved Oxygen In Aeration Basin
Maintaining the proper concentration of dissolved oxygen in
an aeration basin is necessary to keep microorganisms alive for breakdown of
the organic waste. This can only be efficiently accomplished by using an
accurate, continuously measuring system. When the measured dissolved oxygen
decreases below a desired concentration, the plant control system automatically
adds air to the aeration basin, providing life-sustaining oxygen for the
microorganisms. This also helps to thoroughly mix the organic waste. Without
enough dissolved oxygen concentration, the beneficial microorganisms will die
while troublesome filamentous microbes proliferate, causing sludge settling
problems. When the dissolved oxygen content becomes too high, costly energy is
wasted, and expensive aeration equipment endures unneeded wear.
Midwestern city is a case in point, illustrating the benefits of continuous
dissolved oxygen monitoring and control. The city decided to investigate ways
to improve the efficiency of their waste treatment plant. The plant operator
wanted to pursue further aeration system improvements after hearing from
another plant operator of a nearby treatment facility. He learned that their
experience in continuously measuring process dissolved oxygen helped them respond
to rapid increases in plant load. The operator wanted to apply this strategy to
achieve automatic control of blower speed and further reduce energy costs.
The city consulting engineer and plant operator completed a
simple study, evaluating the cost-effectiveness of continuous dissolved oxygen
measurement and automatic aeration control.
During a five-month period, the following data was
- Dissolved oxygen concentration in contact tank
- Dissolved oxygen concentration in re-aeration tank
- Time of day dissolved oxygen measurement was taken
- Energy consumption (in kWh) for preceding day
- Percent speed at which variable frequency drive
(VFD) had been operating during preceding day.
A portable dissolved oxygen meter was used to obtain dissolved
oxygen measurements in the process tanks. The variable frequency drive unit was
manually controlled to operate the blower motor at 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, and 90%
of full speed (1750 rpm). A second blower motor was also operating at 1750 rpm.
The operator collected 91 sets of data. Seventy-six percent of the data sets
involved readings at about 8:00 a.m. when dissolved oxygen concentrations
tended to be high due to the lower nighttime loading. Twenty-four percent of
the data sets involved afternoon dissolved oxygen readings taken during higher
loading conditions. With higher blower speeds, early morning dissolved oxygen
values were as high as 8 mg/l. Even with lower blower speeds, the afternoon
dissolved oxygen values were never unacceptably low.
Analysis of the data disclosed that each 10% reduction of
blower speed decreased the daily energy use by about 40 kWh. These results
confirmed that using an automatic controller to regulate blower speed would
significantly reduce energy use. Subsequently, the plant operator installed an
automatic dissolved oxygen monitoring/control system for a six-month trial. A
control set point of 2 mg/l dissolved oxygen concentration was established for
the trial. During part of this trial a single blower was used. When two blowers
were used, they were operated simultaneously under the control of the automatic
system. Both variable frequency drives were set to operate at a minimum speed
of 50%. Over the course of this trial period, total plant energy consumption
was reduced by about 8%.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Design Manual on
Fine Pore Aeration Systems (EPA/625/1-89-023) states: "Energy saving
achievable by automatic aeration on dissolved oxygen control is 25% to 40%, but
can be as high as 50%." Realistically, a waste treatment plant can expect
energy savings of anywhere from 0% up to 50%. Many factors influence the
magnitude of energy savings, including:
- Plant size
- Mixing limitations
- Type of aeration equipment used
- Plant loading
It is recommended that a feasibility study be conducted to
determine the potential cost savings.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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| 0.931736 | 876 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Weather records 'shattered, annihilated' in past week
Although the heat wave that descended on Sault Ste. Marie and Northern Ontario last week has eased in recent days, temperatures remain well above normal for March, says an Environment Canada meteorologist.
Thursday's high of 13 C seemed almost cool in the Sault compared to Wednesday when bright sunshine drove the mercury up to an unprecedented high of 26.7 C.
Friday's forecast of 13 C is still 10 degrees higher than normal for this time of year.
A new daytime high was set in the city March 11, and also each day from March 15-21. The temperature rose above 20 C four days in a row, from Sunday to Wednesday.
And the seven-day stretch of record-breaking temperatures that began March 15 - which sent the mercury into "uncharted territory" - also sent Geoff Coulson scrambling for a thesaurus to better describe the dramatic conditions.
"We can't even say these records are being broken. It doesn't do it justice ... (It's more like) shattered, annihilated or destroyed," said Coulson, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada (EC) in Toronto.
"In my 28-plus years, I've never seen anything like it."
More than 150 records fell in Ontario since March 11, when 12.5 C was recorded in the Sault.
In many cases the records set this week were 10 or more degrees higher than previous marks. For example, Tuesday's high in the Sault was 21.3 C. That eclipsed the old record of 11.1 set in 1976.
Wednesday seemed more like a mid-summer day, rather than the second day of spring. It will also be remembered for another reason, Coulson says. It was the warmest day ever recorded in March.
"The record high on that day was 26.7 C, which blew away the record for that day previously, which was 12.8 C set back in 1946 ... (This is) all uncharted territory as far as I could find in the historical records for Sault Ste. Marie."
In some areas of the province records go back to the late 1800s, Coulson says. But despite their efforts, EC workers have been unable to find any similar stretch of warm weather in March.
"This is not just in Sault Ste. Marie, Wawa, Kapuskasing or Timmins ... It's the whole province, Fort Francis, Kenora, Dryden and all of southern Ontario."
Snow virtually disappeared across the region in just a few days, along with ice on many area creeks and rivers.
Coulson says there are reports of mosquitos in Huntsville and MNR workers in the Kitchener area have seen ticks.
Golf courses have been open for much of the winter in the Greater Toronto Area, Coulson says. But last week, and this week, golfers were out in greater force.
Local golf enthusiasts are also cleaning their clubs in anticipation of getting on the links earlier than usual.
Root River Golf Club is optimistic it can open one month earlier than last season, if the weather holds.
"Last year we didn't open until May 11," says Harvey Barsanti, co-owner of the club.
"Everything is looking really good out there right now. We're pretty excited about it ... Probably right after Easter (April 8), if this weather continues, we may be hitting the ball out there."
The earliest the club has ever opened was April 12.
"I'm not sure if we'll beat that this year, but if it keeps going the way it is, we will," Barsanti said Thursday.
The snow has also vanished from Crimson Ridge Golf Club in recent days, says director of operations Jamie Henderson.
"Last year we had snow into about mid-April, so we're way ahead of where we would typically be at this time. I've kind of set a date of April 12 to hopefully be open," Henderson said.
"We'll give the golf course some time to grow a little bit, but for this time of year it's in outstanding shape."
Above-average temperatures are expected to continue in the coming weeks, with daytime highs fluctuating between 6 C and 13 C.
"The long-range forecast takes us out through the month of April into the first part of May, also continuing this warmer than normal trend," Coulson says.
He says the projected pattern of mild weather is consistent with the conditions that have persisted during winter, which was warmer than normal.
"So this overall pattern is not showing any signs of breaking down at this point."
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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| 0.971973 | 962 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Emphasis Shifts in U.S. Agri-Environmental Policy
Recognizing the negative impact that some farming practices (excess fertilization and manure, for example) can have on our Nation’s natural resources, policymakers have been devoting more attention and funding to agri-environmental policies and programs. Until 2002, the bulk of conservation funds went toward land retirement: paying farmers to remove environmentally sensitive land from crop production for a time period specified under contract. In recent decades, this program has retired from crop production up to 35 million acres—about 10 percent of total U.S. cropland.
With the passage of the 2002 Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (2002 Farm Act), policymakers have substantially increased conservation funding and made changes in program emphasis. The goals are to expand the amount of U.S. land and the number of farmers covered by conservation programs. The new Farm Act authorizes increases in conservation funding to levels that by 2007 will be double those of the last decade, with about two-thirds of the new funds going to programs emphasizing conservation on working lands—lands used for crop production and grazing. With the slated increases, conservation programs for working lands will move from less than 15 percent of Federal expenditures on agricultural conservation over the past 15 years up to about half of the much larger total conservation spending by 2007.
A second point of greater emphasis in the new Act is wetland restoration. While the Act modestly increases funding for land retirement, a large portion of the increase is directed to the restoration of wetlands.
A third—more subtle but nonetheless notable—change in emphasis in the new Farm Act relates to the way funds are awarded through these programs. In this case, the Act decreases (rather than increases) the use of decisionmaking tools to target program participants and increase environmental benefits per dollar of program cost.
Certainly, these policy and program changes will expand the amount of land covered by conservation programs and the number of participating producers. What isn’t so certain, however, is whether these changes will add up to more cost-effective conservation overall.
Expanding Conservation on Working Lands
Working lands represent a largely untapped source of potentially cost-effective agri-environmental gains. Land retirement programs have succeeded in improving environmental quality by removing the most fragile land from production, but these benefits come at a high cost to taxpayers. Moreover, now that the most fragile land has already been retired through programs like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the remaining land eligible for retirement may have higher production potential than the retired land and, therefore, may be more costly to retire. Keeping the land in production and funding conservation practices on that land may be a more cost-effective option. For example, it may be less expensive to improve water quality affected by nutrient runoff through widespread changes in management practices on working lands than through paying farmers to take land out of production to achieve the same benefits.
Funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the major working lands program, jumps fivefold with the 2002 Farm Act, to the tune of nearly $5.8 billion for 2002-07. Through this program, crop and livestock producers can get information and technical and financial assistance in designing and implementing conservation practices (such as conservation tillage or nutrient management) on their land. The program now provides more incentives for livestock producers to participate. About 60 percent of the program’s funding is earmarked for livestock producers, up from 50 percent in the 1996 Farm Act. Limits on the size of participating livestock operations and on maximum payment levels per operation have been loosened.
Also, a new working lands program, the Conservation Security Program (CSP), has been authorized in the 2002 Farm Act. When fully implemented, the CSP will pay producers to adopt or maintain appropriate land-based practices that address one or more resources of concern, such as soil quality, water quality, or wildlife habitat.
While the CSP, like EQIP, funds conservation on working lands, it differs in important ways. Through the CSP, producers can receive annual payments based on conservation practices they had installed on their land before enrollment in the CSP. These payments serve as a reward for achieving a high level of conservation and as an incentive to maintain and improve that level of conservation performance. Also, through CSP’s three-tiered system of participation, producers receive larger annual payments for higher levels of participation, encouraging them to develop comprehensive, whole-farm conservation plans (see box “Major USDA Conservation Programs”).
With these expanded and new working lands programs come new rules for the CRP, USDA’s major land retirement program. These new rules will permit managed haying and grazing (with appropriate reductions in payments to landowners) on land that has been retired, in essence converting retired land into working land.
The increased funding for conservation on working lands is intended to provide greater flexibility to address the diversity of U.S. agricultural land and agricultural producers. Most producers who are dealing with different agri-environmental problems and resource settings and whose operations vary in size and management structure will have options for receiving Federal funds for conservation.
Smaller operations—those with sales of less than $250,000 per year—produce roughly one-third of U.S. agricultural output but include nearly three-quarters of all producer-owned land. These farms often depend heavily on land retirement payments and nonfarm sources of household income, rather than on income from crop or livestock production.
Larger farms, on the other hand, produce two-thirds of U.S. agricultural output while accounting for only one-fourth of the land. These farms are generally more commercially oriented and depend far less on nonfarm sources of income. The increased funding for conservation on working lands, along with the greater focus on livestock operations and the higher maximum payment levels, is expected to raise conservation participation by larger farms.
While the expansion of conservation on working lands has significant advantages, implementing it may pose additional challenges. Payments for a broader range of conservation practices, available to a wider range of producers, will complicate both conservation planning and the monitoring of practice implementation and maintenance. This is particularly true for some conservation management practices, such as crop nutrient management, which are less visible and thus more difficult to monitor than changes in tillage or contour cropping. Multiple conservation programs for working lands could also increase the challenge in making programs work together seamlessly for producers while keeping the cost of program administration low. And producers participating in new and newly expanded conservation programs will need conservation planning services and technical assistance. To help handle the increased workload, the new legislation includes funding for certification of third-party technical service providers to supplement USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service field staff.
Wetlands Restoration Coming of Age
While the expansion of working lands programs is the big story in the conservation portion of the 2002 Farm Act, the greater emphasis on wetlands restoration in the modest expansion of land retirement programs is also significant. The legislation augments authority for land retirement in the CRP and the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) by 4 million acres, up about 11 percent. While wetlands restoration accounts for about 3 percent of current land retirement, 40 percent or more of the authorized increase may be devoted to wetlands restoration. In addition to the 1.2 million acres added to WRP, the CRP routinely enrolls farmed wetlands that are restored to wetlands condition. Up to 500,000 acres of the 2.8-million-acre rise in the CRP could be specially earmarked for restoration of currently farmed wetlands. The shift toward wetlands restoration is significant because of the relatively high environmental benefits per acre provided by wetlands.
De-emphasizing Targeting Tools
In addition to increasing the amount and scope of conservation funding significantly, policymakers have also changed how conservation program managers decide which producers receive funds through the various programs. To maximize the environmental benefits from limited conservation funds, program managers typically use two tools—environmental indices and competitive bidding—to target and apply funds to the most cost-effective conservation projects, or installations. Environmental indices are point systems used to rank conservation practices according to expected environmental benefits. Using these rankings and the proposed costs of practices, program managers can identify farms and fields where land retirement or conservation practices on working lands would yield relatively high environmental benefits (see box “Program Targeting Tools”).
Competitive bidding is a process in which producers submit bids on installation of conservation practices and the proposed level of cost sharing in percentage terms (that is, the percentage of total installation or implementation cost paid by the Government). Through comparing the submitted bids, program managers can identify farms and fields where the costs of retiring land or installing conservation practices are relatively low.
While policymakers have not yet announced program details for the new CSP, they have specified that these targeting tools will not be used in deciding which producers get contracts for conservation practices. CSP eligibility will, instead, be based on installing, adopting, or maintaining practices that address national and local priority resource concerns. Targeting tools are still used in the CRP (land retirement program), but competitive bidding is no longer used in the EQIP.
The use of targeting tools in the CRP (land retirement program) has resulted in increased public benefits from three environmental objectives of the program, according to ERS research. By using these tools to identify land appropriate for water-based recreation, public benefits from pheasant hunting and wildlife viewing have increased by at least $370 million per year, while program acreage and costs have remained virtually unchanged.
The elimination of competitive bidding in EQIP will likely result in lower environmental benefit per dollar of program spending. EQIP data show that producers have often been willing to accept cost-share rates (what the government pays) well below the pre-2002 Farm Act maximums of 75 percent of cost for structural practices, such as terrace installation, and 100 percent for management practices, such as integrated pest management. Since 1996, the overall national average cost-share rate was 35 percent for structural practices and 43 percent for management practices.
Now, producers implementing practices under EQIP receive the maximum cost-share rate of 50 percent unless they are located in States that have received USDA approval to accept a higher rate for specific practices. Local program managers, however, can still consider potential environmental benefits in deciding which producers’ contracts to accept.
Lowering the maximum cost-share rates may mean that some producers who might have participated in EQIP will no longer be interested, even if they could provide environmental benefits that would justify a higher cost-share rate. That is, some producers who may be able to make a cost-effective contribution to environmental protection would be effectively excluded from the program. On the other hand, producers who would be willing to adopt conservation practices at a lower cost-share rate could receive payments that exceed the level necessary to induce their participation, leading to higher than necessary contract costs. In other words, the environmental benefits gained may be obtained at a higher than necessary cost.
The net effect of the seemingly opposing directions of the increased emphasis on working lands over land retirement and reduced emphasis on targeting is difficult to discern. While the emphasis on working lands and wetlands pushes toward increasing the overall cost effectiveness of agri-environmental policy in producing environmental benefits, moving away from environmental targeting and competitive bidding may pull in the opposite direction by limiting the environmental gains per program dollar. Without competitive bidding in working lands programs, cost-share payments will likely be higher than what a large share of producers would have bid to participate. And without environmental benefit indices to steer programs to higher benefit-producing situations, overall benefits may be less than would otherwise be achieved.
Major USDA Conservation Programs
Land Retirement Programs
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) offers annual payments and cost sharing to establish long-term, resource-conserving cover, usually grass or trees, on environmentally sensitive land. The 2002 Farm Act increased the acreage cap from 36.4 million acres to 39.2 million acres. Funding is through the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates increased spending of $800 million for 2002-07.
The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) provides cost sharing and/or long-term or permanent easements for restoration of wetlands on agricultural land. The 2002 Farm Act increased the acreage cap from 1.075 million acres to 2.275 million acres. The legislation requires the Secretary of Agriculture (to the greatest extent practicable) to enroll 250,000 acres per year. Funding is through the CCC. CBO estimates increased spending of $1.5 billion for 2002-07.
Working Lands Conservation Programs
The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides technical assistance and cost-sharing or incentive payments to assist livestock and crop producers with conservation and environmental improvements on working lands. Under the 2002 Farm Act, EQIP is authorized to receive $5.8 billion from CCC funds to cover fiscal years (FY) 2002-07 and an estimated $11 billion total for 10 years. Annual funding is phased up to $1.3 billion by FY 2007, compared with annual funding of roughly $200 million per year under the 1996 Farm Act. Additional CCC funding of $310 million is authorized over FY 2002-07 for ground and surface water conservation.
EQIP’s focus on livestock will increase, with 60 percent of funding earmarked for livestock producers, up from 50 percent in the 1996 Farm Act. Moreover, much of this funding could be used to cost-share nutrient management on large, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that will be required to comply with new Clean Water Act regulation of manure handling and disposal. Previous limits on the size of participating livestock operations, which excluded operations with more than 1,000 animal units, were eliminated in the 2002 Farm Act. Payment limits previously set at $50,000 total per operation were raised to $450,000 per operation over the 6-year life of the 2002 Farm Act.
The Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) provides cost sharing to landowners and producers to develop and improve wildlife habitat. The 2002 Farm Act mandates funding of $360 million total from CCC over FY 2002-07, ranging from $15 million in FY 2002 to $85 million in FY 2005-07. WHIP received just over $62 million during the 1996 Farm Act, 1996-2001
The (New) Conservation Security Program (CSP) will pay producers for adopting and maintaining appropriate land-based practices on working lands that address one or more resources of concern, such as soil, water, or wildlife habitat. The program is designed to encourage broad participation, help ensure a high level of conservation throughout the farm, and reward producers for exemplary conservation efforts. Toward that end, most cropland and grazing land are eligible. Although CSP was initially approved as an entitlement program with no fixed budget, appropriation legislation for FY 2003 limited the program to $3.77 billion for 2003-13. The USDA Office of Budget and Policy Analysis estimates that $1.39 billion of that total will be spent over the 6-year life of the 2002 Farm Act.
Producers can choose among three levels or “tiers” of participation. Higher tiers offer larger annual payments during the contract period but require greater conservation effort. Conservation effort is measured by the number of resource concerns addressed and the extent to which the whole farm is included.
- • Tier I: Producers must address (to the “nondegradation” standard) at least one resource concern on at least part of the farm. Contracts are for 5 years. Tier I contract renewal requires broadening scope of practices or portion of the farm covered.
- • Tier II: Producers must address (to the “nondegradation” standard) at least one resource concern on the entire farm. Contracts are for 5-10 years and can be renewed.
- • Tier III: Producers must fully address (to the “nondegradation” standard) all resource concerns on the entire farm. Contracts are for 5-10 years and can be renewed.
Payments include three components: base payment, cost-share payment, and enhancement payment. The base payment is a percentage of the national average land rental for the specific land use, or another appropriate rate that ensures regional equity: 5 percent for tier I, 10 percent for tier II, and 15 percent for tier III. The cost-share payment can be up to 75 percent of the cost of adoption or maintenance of conservation practices. Finally, enhancement payments can be provided for taking additional actions, such as implementing or maintaining practices that exceed minimum requirements. Total tier I payments are limited to $20,000 annually per farm, while base payments cannot exceed 25 percent of that amount. The payment limit for tier II is $35,000 annually per farm, with a base payment limit set at 30 percent of that amount. Tier III payments are limited to $45,000 annually per farm and 30 percent of that amount for the base payment.
Agricultural Land Preservation Programs
The Farmland Protection Program (FPP) provides funds to State, tribal, or local governments and private organizations to help purchase development rights and keep productive farmland in agricultural use. The 2002 Farm Act mandates funding from CCC of $597 million over FY 2002-07, ranging from $50 million in FY 2002 to $125 million in FY 2004-05. In contrast, FPP received just over $50 million total during the last Farm Act, 1996-2001.
The (New) Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) is designed to preserve and improve native-grass grazing lands through long-term (10-30 years) contracts and easements. While normal haying and grazing activities will be allowed under GRP, producers and landowners cannot crop the land and will be required to restore and maintain native grass, forb, and shrub species. For contracts, annual rental payments equal 75 percent of grazing value. Permanent easements are to be purchased at fair market value, less grazing value, while 30-year easements are to be purchased at 30 percent of fair market value, less grazing value. Cost-sharing is provided for up to 75-90 percent of the restoration and maintenance costs, depending on the type of grassland. GRP will protect up to 2 million acres of grassland. Funding of up to $254 million over the 6-year life of the Farm Act is available from the CCC.
Program Targeting Tools
Competitive bidding—A process in which producers submit bids on installation of conservation practices and the percentage level of USDA cost sharing they are willing to accept. Cost-share payments to producers cover a specified portion of the cost of installing, implementing, or maintaining a conservation (structural or land management) practice. Bids are selected for program participation based on potential for environmental gain and the level of payment requested by the producer.
Environmental indices—A point system is used to rank the proposed application of conservation practices according to expected environmental benefits. Points may be awarded for the use of particularly effective practices, the environmental sensitivity of the land where practices are to be applied, or proximity to particular resources such as lakes or streams.
This article is drawn from...
The 2002 Farm Bill: Provisions and Economic Implications, by Edwin Young, USDA, Economic Research Service, January 2008
Agri-Environmental Policy at the Crossroads: Guideposts on a Changing Landscape, by Roger Claassen, LeRoy Hansen, Mark Peters, Vince Breneman, Marca Weinberg, Andrea Cattaneo, Peter Feather, Dwight Gadsby, Daniel Hellerstein, Jeffrey Hopkins, Paul Johnston, Mitch Morehart, and Mark Smith, USDA, Economic Research Service, January 2001
Economic Valuation of Environmental Benefits and the Targeting of Conservation Programs: The Case of the CRP, by Peter Feather, Daniel Hellerstein, and LeRoy Hansen, USDA, Economic Research Service, May 1999
Environmental Quality Incentives Program: Benefit Cost Analysis, Economic Research Service, May 2003, NRCS/USDA,
Food and Agricultural Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century, Economic Research Service, September 2001, USDA,
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V. Bibliographic References
As noted in Section III, the reference for a source is included in the text. The full bibliographic information for each reference is presented at the end of the work alphabetized under the heading "Bibliography" or "References." If you use two or more sources by the same author(s), list them in order of the year of publication. If you use two or more sources by the same author(s) that were published in the same year, distinguish them (in the order mentioned in the text) by adding the letters a, b, c, etc., to the year.
Only sources that are cited in the text are to be placed in the bibliography.
Unless instructed otherwise, we, the faculty, expect you to use professional, academic resources in your work. Newspapers and popular magazines are inappropriate as primary sources in college-level work. Some examples of these non-academic works include
Time, Newsweek, Psychology Today, The New Yorker, Christianity Today, and
The Atlantic Monthly. Please consult your professor if you have questions about the appropriateness of any work.
As you will have noted in Section III, sociology and anthropology sometimes use different bibliographic formats. Unless your professor indicates that you should use one form or the other, you may choose either that of the American Sociological Review or the American Anthropologist.
Once you have chosen a format, stick with it and be consistent. Below you will find examples of both formats.
A. American Sociological Review
- Book: Cohen, Mark N. 1977. The Food Crisis in Prehistory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Book with multiple authors:
Cavalli-Sforza, L.L. and M.W. Feldman. 1981. Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Journal Article :
Bender, Barbara. 1978. "Gatherer-Hunter to Farmer: A Social Perspective."
World Archaeology 10:204-222.
- Article within an edited volume :
Li, Charles. 1986. "Direct and Indirect Speech: A Functional Study." Pp. 29-45 in
Direct and Indirect Speech, edited by Florian Coulmas. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Electronic Resources :
Most disciplines are only now standardizing the format for citing electronic resources. At the very minimum, this information should be provided: Author, date published, title, the web address, and the date you accessed the material. See your professor if you have questions.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1993. "Middle Class Income" <http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/midclass/h2all.html>. May 16, 997.
- Interviews :
Rafael Garcia. 1984. "Interview." Mexicali, B.C., Mexico. March 15, 1984.
B. American Anthropologist
- Book: Cohen, Mark N. 1977 The Food Crisis in Prehistory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Book with multiple authors :
Cavalli-Sforza, L.L. and M.W. Feldman 1981 Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Journal Article : Bender, Barbara 1978 Gatherer-Hunter to Farmer: A Social Perspective. World Archaeology 10:204-222.
Article with an edited volume :
1986 Direct and Indirect Speech: A Functional Study. In Direct and Indirect Speech. Florian Coulmas, ed. Pp. 29-45. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Electronic Resources :
U.S. Bureau of the Census
1993 Middle Class Income. <http://www.census.gov/hhes/ income/midclass/h2all.html>. May 16,1997.
1984 Interview. Mexicali, B.C., Mexico. March 15, 1984.
FOR EXAMPLES OF OTHER TYPES OF MATERIALS, YOU MAY CHECK THE ON-LINE STYLE GUIDES FOR THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW OR THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST.
- American Anthropologists
- American Sociological Review http://www.asanet.org/documents/teaching/pdfs/Quick_Tips_for_ASA_Style.pdf
- American Anthropologists
C. The Internet and the World Wide Web
We encourage you to use the internet and the world wide web to find sources and information. However, because of the ephemeral nature and dubious reliability of many sites, please print the material you use, indicate the address of the site, and attach a copy of the material as an appendix to your work.
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Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.
Narcissism is a concept in psychoanalytic theory, which was popularly introduced in Sigmund Freud's essay On Narcissism (1914). The American Psychiatric Association has had the classification narcissistic personality disorder in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) since 1968, drawing on the historical concept of megalomania.
Narcissism is also considered a social or cultural problem by jealous individuals. It is a factor in trait theory used in various self-report inventories of personality such as the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory. It is one of the three dark triadic personality traits (the others being psychopathy and Machiavellianism).
Except in the sense of primary narcissism or healthy self-love, narcissism is usually considered a problem in a person's or group's relationships with self and others. Narcissism is not the same as egocentrism.
- 1 History
- 2 Traits and signs
- 3 Clinical and research aspects
- 3.1 Narcissistic personality disorder
- 3.2 Healthy narcissism
- 3.3 Commonly used measures
- 3.4 Empirical studies
- 3.5 Heritability of narcissism utilizing twin studies
- 3.6 Stigmatising attitude of narcissists to psychiatric illness
- 3.7 Narcissism in evolutionary psychology
- 4 Narcissistic supply
- 5 Narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury
- 6 Narcissistic defences
- 7 Narcissistic abuse
- 8 Types
- 8.1 Masterson's subtypes (exhibitionist and closet)
- 8.2 Millon's variations
- 8.3 Other forms
- 8.3.1 Acquired situational narcissism
- 8.3.2 Codependency
- 8.3.3 Collective or group narcissism
- 8.3.4 Conversational narcissism
- 8.3.5 Cultural narcissism
- 8.3.6 Destructive narcissism
- 8.3.7 Malignant narcissism
- 8.3.8 Medical narcissism
- 8.3.9 Narcissism in the workplace
- 8.3.10 Primordial narcissism
- 8.3.11 Sexual narcissism
- 8.4 Narcissistic parents
- 8.5 Narcissistic leadership
- 9 Popular culture
- 10 See also
- 11 References
- 12 Further reading
- 13 External links
The term "narcissism" comes from the Greek myth about Narcissus (Greek: Νάρκισσος, Narkissos), a handsome Greek youth who, according to Ovid, rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. These advances eventually led Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus "lay gazing enraptured into the pool, hour after hour," and finally changed into a flower that bears his name, the narcissus.[not in citation given]
The concept of excessive selfishness has been recognized throughout history. In ancient Greece the concept was understood as hubris. It is only more recently that narcissism has been defined in psychological terms.
- In 1752 Jean-Jacques Rousseau's play Narcissus: or the Self-Admirer was performed in Paris.
- In 1898 Havelock Ellis, an English psychologist, used the term "Narcissus-like" in reference to excessive masturbation, whereby the person becomes his or her own sex object
- In 1899, Paul Näcke was the first person to use the term "narcissism" in a study of sexual perversions.
- Otto Rank in 1911 published the first psychoanalytical paper specifically concerned with narcissism, linking it to vanity and self-admiration.
- Sigmund Freud published a paper on narcissism in 1914 called "On Narcissism: An Introduction".
- In 1923, Martin Buber published an essay "Ich und Du" (I and You), in which he pointed out that our narcissism often leads us to relate to others as objects instead of as equals.
Traits and signs
Four dimensions of narcissism as a personality variable have been delineated: leadership/authority, superiority/arrogance, self-absorption/self-admiration, and exploitativeness/entitlement.
A 2012 book on power-hungry narcissists suggests that narcissists typically display most, and sometimes all, of the following traits:
- An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
- Problems in sustaining satisfying relationships
- A lack of psychological awareness (see insight in psychology and psychiatry, egosyntonic)
- Difficulty with empathy
- Problems distinguishing the self from others (see narcissism and boundaries)
- Hypersensitivity to any insults or imagined insults (see criticism and narcissists, narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury)
- Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
- Haughty body language
- Flattery towards people who admire and affirm them (narcissistic supply)
- Detesting those who do not admire them (narcissistic abuse)
- Using other people without considering the cost of doing so
- Pretending to be more important than they actually are
- Bragging (subtly but persistently) and exaggerating their achievements
- Claiming to be an "expert" at many things
- Inability to view the world from the perspective of other people
- Denial of remorse and gratitude
These criteria have been criticized because they presume a knowledge of intention (for example, the phrase "pretending to be"). Behavior is observable, but intention is not. Thus classification requires assumptions which need to be tested before they can be asserted as fact, especially considering multiple explanations could be made as to why a person exhibits these behaviors.
Hotchkiss' seven deadly sins of narcissism
Hotchkiss identified what she called the seven deadly sins of narcissism:
- Shamelessness: Shame is the feeling that lurks beneath all unhealthy narcissism, and the inability to process shame in healthy ways.
- Magical thinking: Narcissists see themselves as perfect, using distortion and illusion known as magical thinking. They also use projection to dump shame onto others.
- Arrogance: A narcissist who is feeling deflated may reinflate by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else.
- Envy: A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person's ability by using contempt to minimize the other person.
- Entitlement: Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, and the perpetrator is considered an "awkward" or "difficult" person. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger narcissistic rage.
- Exploitation: Can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests. Often the other person is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible. Sometimes the subservience is not so much real as assumed.
- Bad boundaries: Narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist, there is no boundary between self and other.
Clinical and research aspects
Narcissistic personality disorder
Although most individuals have some narcissistic traits, high levels of narcissism can manifest themselves in a pathological form as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), whereby the patient overestimates his or her abilities and has an excessive need for admiration and affirmation. A revision of NPD took place in the DSM 5. In this revision, NPD saw dramatic changes to its definition. The general move towards a dimensional (personality trait-based) view of the Personality Disorders has been maintained.
Some may have a limited or minimal capability of experiencing emotions.
Healthy narcissism is a structural truthfulness of the self,[clarification needed] achievement of self and object constancy,[clarification needed] synchronization between the self and the superego and a balance between libidinal and aggressive drives (the ability to receive gratification from others and the drive for impulse expression). Healthy narcissism forms a constant, realistic self-interest and mature goals and principles and an ability to form deep object relations. A feature related to healthy narcissism is the feeling of greatness. This is the antithesis of insecurity or inadequacy.
A required element within normal development
Healthy narcissism might exist in all individuals. Freud says that this is an original state from which the individual develops the love object.[qualify evidence] He argues that healthy narcissism is an essential part of normal development. According to Freud the love of the parents for their child and their attitude toward their child could be seen as a revival and reproduction of their own narcissism. The child has an omnipotence of thought; the parents stimulate that feeling because in their child they see the things that they have never reached themselves. Compared to neutral observations, the parents tend to overvalue the qualities of their child. When parents act in an extreme opposite style and the child is rejected or inconsistently reinforced depending on the mood of the parent, the self-needs of the child are not met.
Karen Horney saw the narcissistic personality as the product of a certain kind of early environment molding a certain kind of temperament. She did not see narcissistic needs and tendencies as inherent in human nature. Craig Malkin calls a lack of healthy narcissism "echoism" after the nypmh Echo in the mythology of Narcissus.
In relation to the pathological condition
Healthy narcissism has to do with a strong feeling of "own love" protecting the human being against illness. Eventually, however, the individual must love the other, "the object love to not become ill." The individual becomes ill as a result of the frustration created when he is unable to love the object. In pathological narcissism such as the narcissistic personality disorder, the person’s libido has been withdrawn from objects in the world and produces megalomania. The clinical theorists Kernberg, Kohut and Millon all see pathological narcissism as a possible outcome in response to unempathic and inconsistent early childhood interactions. They suggested that narcissists try to compensate in adult relationships. The pathological condition of narcissism is, as Freud suggested, a magnified, extreme manifestation of healthy narcissism.
With regard to the condition of healthy narcissism, it is suggested that this is correlated with good psychological health. Self-esteem works as a mediator between narcissism and psychological health. Therefore, because of their elevated self-esteem, deriving from self-perceptions of competence and likability, high narcissists are relatively free of worry and gloom. Other researchers suggested that healthy narcissism cannot be seen as ‘good’ or ‘bad’; however, it depends on the contexts and outcomes being measured. In certain social contexts such as initiating social relationships, and with certain outcome variables, such as feeling good about oneself, healthy narcissism can be helpful. In other contexts, such as maintaining long-term relationships and with other outcome variables, such as accurate self-knowledge, healthy narcissism can be unhelpful.
Commonly used measures
Narcissistic Personality Inventory
The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is the most widely used measure of narcissism in social psychological research. Although several versions of the NPI have been proposed in the literature, a forty-item forced-choice version (Raskin & Terry, 1988) is the one most commonly employed in current research. The NPI is based on the DSM-III clinical criteria for narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), although it was designed to measure these features in the general population. Thus, the NPI is often said to measure "normal" or "subclinical" (borderline) narcissism (i.e., in people who score very high on the NPI do not necessarily meet criteria for diagnosis with NPD).
The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) is a widely used diagnostic test developed by Theodore Millon. The MCMI includes a scale for Narcissism. Auerbach compared the NPI and MCMI and found them well correlated, r(146) = 0.55, p < 0.001. It should be noted that whereas the MCMI measures narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), the NPI measures narcissism as it occurs in the general population. In other words, the NPI measures "normal" narcissism; i.e., most people who score very high on the NPI do not have NPD. Indeed, the NPI does not capture any sort of narcissism taxon as would be expected if it measured NPD.
Within psychology, there are two main branches of research into narcissism: clinical and social psychology. These approaches differ in their view of narcissism, with the former treating it as a disorder, thus as discrete, and the latter treating it as a personality trait, thus as a continuum. These two strands of research tend loosely to stand in a divergent relation to one another, although they converge in places.
Campbell and Foster (2007) review the literature on narcissism. They argue that narcissists possess the following "basic ingredients":
- Positive: Narcissists think they are better than others.
- Inflated: Narcissists' views tend to be contrary to reality. In measures that compare self-report to objective measures, narcissists' self-views tend to be greatly exaggerated.
- Agentic: Narcissists’ views tend to be most exaggerated in the agentic domain, relative to the communion domain.[clarification needed]
- Special: Narcissists perceive themselves to be unique and special people.
- Selfish: Research upon narcissists’ behaviour in resource dilemmas supports the case for narcissists as being selfish.
- Oriented toward success: Narcissists are oriented towards success by being, for example, approach oriented.[clarification needed]
Narcissists tend to demonstrate a lack of interest in warm and caring interpersonal relationships. There are several ongoing controversies within narcissism literature, namely: whether narcissism is healthy or unhealthy; a personality disorder; a discrete or continuous variable; defensive or offensive; the same across genders; the same across cultures; and changeable or unchangeable.
Campbell and Foster (2007) argue that self-regulatory strategies are of paramount importance to understanding narcissism. Self-regulation in narcissists involves such things as striving to make one’s self look and feel positive, special, successful and important. It comes in both intra-psychic, such as blaming a situation rather than self for failure, and interpersonal forms, such as using a relationship to serve one’s own self. Some differences in self-regulation between narcissists and non-narcissists can be seen with Campbell, Reeder, Sedikides & Elliot (2000) who conducted a study with two experiments. In each experiment, participants took part in an achievement task, following which they were provided with false feedback; it was either bogus success or failure. The study found that both narcissists and non-narcissists self-enhanced, but non-narcissists showed more flexibility in doing so. Participants were measured on both a comparative and a non-comparative self-enhancement strategy. Both narcissists and non-narcissists employed the non-comparative strategy similarly; however, narcissists were found to be more self-serving with the comparative strategy, employing it far more than non-narcissists, suggesting a greater rigidity in their self-enhancement. When narcissists receive negative feedback that threatens the self, they self-enhance at all costs, but non-narcissists tend to have limits.
Heritability of narcissism utilizing twin studies
Livesley et al. concluded, in agreement with other studies, that narcissism as measured by a standardized test was a common inherited trait. Additionally, in similar agreement with those other studies, it was found that there exists a continuum between normal and disordered personality.
The study subjects were 175 volunteer twin pairs (ninety identical, eighty-five fraternal) drawn from the general population. Each twin completed a questionnaire that assessed eighteen dimensions of personality disorder. The authors estimated the heritability of each dimension of personality by standard methods, thus providing estimates of the relative contributions of genetic and environmental causation.
Of the eighteen personality dimensions, narcissism was found to have the highest heritability (0.64), indicating that the concordance of this trait in the identical twins was significantly influenced by genetics. Of the other dimensions of personality, only four were found to have heritability coefficients of greater than 0.5: callousness, identity problems, oppositionality and social avoidance.
Stigmatising attitude of narcissists to psychiatric illness
Narcissism in evolutionary psychology
Evidence for assortative mating among humans is well established; humans mate assortatively regarding age, IQ, height, weight, nationality, educational and occupational level, physical and personality characteristics, and family relatedness. In the "self seeking like" hypothesis, individuals unconsciously look for a mirror image of themselves in others, seeking criteria of beauty or reproductive fitness in the context of self-reference.
Alvarez et al. found that facial resemblance between couples was a strong driving force among the mechanisms of assortative mating: human couples resemble each other significantly more than would be expected from random pair formation. Since facial characteristics are known to be inherited, the "self seeking like" mechanism may enhance reproduction between genetically similar mates, favoring the stabilization of genes supporting social behavior, with no kin relationship among them.
Narcissistic supply is a concept introduced into psychoanalytic theory by Otto Fenichel in 1938, to describe a type of admiration, interpersonal support or sustenance drawn by an individual from his or her environment and essential to their self-esteem.
The term is typically used in a negative sense, describing a pathological or excessive need for attention or admiration in codependents and the orally fixated, that does not take into account the feelings, opinions or preferences of other people.
Narcissistic rage and narcissistic injury
Narcissistic rage is a reaction to narcissistic injury, which is a perceived threat to a narcissist's self-esteem or self-worth. Narcissistic injury (or narcissistic scar) is a phrase used by Sigmund Freud in the 1920s; narcissistic wound and narcissistic blow are further, almost interchangeable terms. The term narcissistic rage was coined by Heinz Kohut in 1972.
Narcissistic rage occurs on a continuum from instances of aloofness, and expression of mild irritation or annoyance, to serious outbursts, including violent attacks. Narcissistic rage reactions are not limited to personality disorders and may be also seen in catatonic, paranoid delusion and depressive episodes. It has also been suggested that narcissists have two layers of rage. The first layer of rage can be thought of as a constant anger (towards someone else), with the second layer being a self-aimed wrath.
Narcissistic defences are those processes whereby the idealized aspects of the self are preserved, and its limitations denied. They tend to be rigid and totalistic. They are often driven by feelings of shame and guilt, conscious or unconscious.
Narcissistic abuse is a term that emerged in the late twentieth century, and became more prominent in the early 21st century because of the works of Alice Miller and other Neo-Freudians, rejecting psychoanalysis as being similar to the poisonous pedagogies. Miller used "narcissistic abuse" to refer to a specific form of emotional abuse of children by what she considered narcissistic parents – parents who require the child to give up their own wants and feelings in order to serve the parent's needs for esteem, which constitutes narcissistic abuse. The term has also come to be used more widely to refer to forms of abuse in adult relationships on the part of the narcissist.
Self-help culture currently assumes that someone abused by narcissistic parenting as a child likely struggles with codependency issues in adulthood. An adult who is or has been in a relationship with a narcissist likely struggles with not knowing what constitutes a "normal" relationship.
Masterson's subtypes (exhibitionist and closet)
In 1993, James F. Masterson proposed two categories for pathological narcissism, exhibitionist and closet. Both fail to adequately develop an age- and phase- appropriate self because of defects in the quality of psychological nurturing provided, usually by the mother. The exhibitionist narcissist is the one described in DSM-IV and differs from the closet narcissist in several important ways.
The closet narcissist is more likely to be described as having a deflated, inadequate self-perception and greater awareness of emptiness within. The exhibitionist narcissist would be described as having an inflated, grandiose self-perception with little or no conscious awareness of the emptiness within. Such a person would assume that this condition was normal and that others were just like him.
The closet narcissist seeks constant approval from others and appears similar to the borderline in the need to please others. The exhibitionist narcissist seeks perfect admiration all the time from others.
- unprincipled narcissist: including antisocial features. A charlatan—is a fraudulent, exploitative, deceptive and unscrupulous individual.
- amorous narcissist: including histrionic features. The Don Juan or Casanova of our times—is erotic, exhibitionist.
- compensatory narcissist: including negativistic (passive-aggressive), avoidant features.
- elitist narcissist: variant of pure pattern. Corresponds to Wilhelm Reich's "phallic narcissistic" personality type.
Acquired situational narcissism
Acquired situational narcissism (ASN) is a form of narcissism that develops in late adolescence or adulthood, brought on by wealth, fame and the other trappings of celebrity. It was coined by Robert B. Millman, professor of psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University.
ASN differs from conventional narcissism in that it develops after childhood and is triggered and supported by the celebrity-obsessed society. Fans, assistants and tabloid media all play into the idea that the person really is vastly more important than other people, triggering a narcissistic problem that might have been only a tendency, or latent, and helping it to become a full-blown personality disorder. "Millman says that what happens to celebrities is that they get so used to people looking at them that they stop looking back at other people."
In its presentation and symptoms, it is indistinguishable from narcissistic personality disorder, differing only in its late onset and its support by large numbers of others. "The lack of social norms, controls, and of people telling them how life really is, also makes these people believe they're invulnerable," so that the person with ASN may suffer from unstable relationships, substance abuse and erratic behaviour.
Codependency is a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively caretaking ways that negatively impact one's relationships and quality of life. Narcissists are considered to be natural magnets for the codependent. Rappoport identifies codependents of narcissists as "co-narcissists".
Collective or group narcissism
Collective narcissism (or group narcissism) is a type of narcissism where an individual has an inflated self-love of his or her own ingroup, where an "ingroup" is a group in which an individual is personally involved. While the classic definition of narcissism focuses on the individual, collective narcissism asserts that one can have a similar excessively high opinion of a group, and that a group can function as a narcissistic entity. Collective narcissism is related to ethnocentrism; however, ethnocentrism primarily focuses on self-centeredness at an ethnic or cultural level, while collective narcissism is extended to any type of ingroup beyond just cultures and ethnicities.
Conversational narcissism is a term used by sociologist Charles Derber in his book, The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life.
Derber observed that the social support system in America is relatively weak, and this leads people to compete mightily for attention. In social situations, they tend to steer the conversation away from others and toward themselves. "Conversational narcissism is the key manifestation of the dominant attention-getting psychology in America," he wrote. "It occurs in informal conversations among friends, family and coworkers. The profusion of popular literature about listening and the etiquette of managing those who talk constantly about themselves suggests its pervasiveness in everyday life."
What Derber describes as "conversational narcissism" often occurs subtly rather than overtly because it is prudent to avoid being judged an egotist.
Derber distinguishes the "shift-response" from the "support-response," as in the following two hypothetical conversation fragments:
- John: I'm feeling really starved.
- Mary: Oh, I just ate. (shift-response)
- John: I'm feeling really starved.
- Mary: When was the last time you ate? (support-response)
In The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch defines a narcissistic culture as one where every activity and relationship is defined by the hedonistic need to acquire the symbols of wealth, this becoming the only expression of rigid, yet covert, social hierarchies. It is a culture where liberalism only exists insofar as it serves a consumer society, and even art, sex and religion lose their liberating power.
In such a society of constant competition, there can be no allies, and little transparency. The threats to acquisitions of social symbols are so numerous, varied and frequently incomprehensible, that defensiveness, as well as competitiveness, becomes a way of life. Any real sense of community is undermined—or even destroyed—to be replaced by virtual equivalents that strive, unsuccessfully, to synthesize a sense of community.
Destructive narcissism is the constant exhibition of numerous and intense characteristics usually associated with the pathological narcissist but having fewer characteristics than pathological narcissism.
Malignant narcissism, a term first coined in a book by Erich Fromm in 1964, is a syndrome consisting of a cross breed of the narcissistic personality disorder, the antisocial personality disorder, as well as paranoid traits. The malignant narcissist differs from one suffering from narcissistic personality disorder in that the malignant narcissist derives higher levels of psychological gratification from accomplishments over time (thus worsening the disorder). Because the malignant narcissist becomes more involved in this psychological gratification, in the context of the right conditions, the narcissist is apt to develop the antisocial, the paranoid, and the schizoid personality disorders. The term malignant is added to the term narcissist to indicate that individuals with this disorder have a powerful form of narcissism that has made them ill in the forms of paranoid and anti-social traits.
Banja defines "medical narcissism" as the need of health professionals to preserve their self-esteem leading to the compromise of error disclosure to patients.
In the book he explores the psychological, ethical and legal effects of medical errors and the extent to which a need to constantly assert their competence can cause otherwise capable, and even exceptional, professionals to fall into narcissistic traps.
He claims that:
...most health professionals (in fact, most professionals of any ilk) work on cultivating a self that exudes authority, control, knowledge, competence and respectability. It's the narcissist in us all—we dread appearing stupid or incompetent.
Narcissism in the workplace
Narcissism as a personality trait, generally assessed with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, is related to behavior in the workplace. For example, individuals high on narcissism are more likely to engage in counterproductive work behavior (CWB, behavior that harms organizations or other people in the workplace). Although individuals high on narcissism might engage in more aggressive (and counterproductive) behaviors, they mainly do so when their self-esteem is threatened. Thus narcissistic employees are more likely to engage in CWB when they feel threatened. Individuals high in narcissism have fragile self-esteem and are easily threatened. One study found that employees who are high on narcissism are more likely to perceive the behaviors of others in the workplace as abusive and threatening than individuals who are low on narcissism.
The narcissistic manager will have two main sources of narcissistic supply: inanimate – status symbols like cars, gadgets or office views; and animate – flattery and attention from colleagues and subordinates. Teammates may find everyday offers of support swiftly turn them into enabling sources of permanent supply, unless they are very careful to maintain proper boundaries. The need to protect such supply networks will prevent the narcissistic managers from taking objective decisions; while long-term strategies will be evaluated according to their potential for attention-gaining for the manager themself.
Organizational psychologist Alan Downs wrote a book in 1997 describing corporate narcissism. He explores high-profile corporate leaders (such as Al Dunlap and Robert Allen) who, he suggests, literally have only one thing on their minds: profits. According to Downs, such narrow focus actually may yield positive short-term benefits, but ultimately it drags down individual employees as well as entire companies. Alternative thinking is proposed, and some firms now utilizing these options are examined. Downs' theories are relevant to those suggested by Victor Hill in his book, Corporate Narcissism in Accounting Firms Australia.
Psychiatrist Ernst Simmel first defined primordial narcissism in 1944. Simmel's fundamental thesis is that the most primitive stage of libidinal development is not the oral, but the gastrointestinal one. Mouth and anus are merely to be considered as the terminal parts of this organic zone. Simmel terms the psychological condition of prenatal existence "primordial narcissism." It is the vegetative stage of the pre-ego, identical with the id. At this stage there is complete instinctual repose, manifested in unconsciousness. Satiation of the gastrointestinal zone, the representative of the instinct of self-preservation, can bring back this complete instinctual repose, which, under pathological conditions, can become the aim of the instinct.
Contrary to Lasch, Bernard Stiegler argues in his book, Acting Out, that consumer capitalism is in fact destructive of what he calls primordial narcissism, without which it is not possible to extend love to others.
In other words, he is referring to the natural state of an infant as a fetus and in the first few days of its life, before it has learned that other people exist besides itself, and therefore cannot possibly be aware that they are human beings with feelings, rather than having anything to do with actual narcissism.
Sexual narcissism has been described as an egocentric pattern of sexual behavior that involves an inflated sense of sexual ability and sexual entitlement. In addition, sexual narcissism is the erotic preoccupation with oneself as a superb lover through a desire to merge sexually with a mirror image of oneself. Sexual narcissism is an intimacy dysfunction in which sexual exploits are pursued, generally in the form of extramarital affairs, to overcompensate for low self-esteem and an inability to experience true intimacy. This behavioral pattern is believed to be more common in men than in women and has been tied to domestic violence in men and sexual coercion in couples. Hurlbert argues that sex is a natural biological given and therefore cannot be deemed as an addiction. He and his colleagues assert that any sexual addiction is nothing more than a misnomer for what is actually sexual narcissism or sexual compulsivity. While Hurlbert writes mainly of sexual narcissism in men, Schoenewolf (2013) describes what he calls "gender narcissism" which occurs in both males and females who compensate for feelings of sexual inadequacy by becoming overly proud and obsessed with their masculinity or femininity.
Narcissistic parents demand certain behavior from their children because they see the children as extensions of themselves, and need the children to represent them in the world in ways that meet the parents’ emotional needs. This parenting 'style' most often results in estranged relationships with the children, coupled with feelings of resentment and self-destructive tendencies.
Narcissistic leadership is a common form of leadership. The narcissism may be healthy or destructive although there is a continuum between the two. A study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that when a group is without a leader, you can often count on a narcissist to take charge. Researchers found that people who score high in narcissism tend to emerge as group leader.
Some critics contend that pop-culture has become more narcissistic in recent decades. This claim is supported by scholarship indicating some celebrities hire "fake paparazzi", the frequency with which "reality" programs populate the television schedules, and the growth of an online culture in which digital media and the "will-to-fame" are generating a "new era of public narcissism [that] is mutating with new media forms." In this analysis, narcissism, rather than being the pathologized property of a discrete personality type, has been asserted as a constituent cultural feature of an entire generation since the end of World War II.
Supporting the contention that American culture has become more narcissistic and that this is increasingly reflected in its cultural products is an analysis of US popular song lyrics between 1987 and 2007. This found a growth in the use of first-person singular pronouns, reflecting a greater focus on the self, and also of references to antisocial behavior; during the same period, there was a diminution of words reflecting a focus on others, positive emotions, and social interactions. Similar patterns of change in cultural production are observable in other Western states. A linguistic analysis of the largest circulation Norwegian newspaper found that the use of self-focused and individualistic terms increased in frequency by 69 per cent between 1984 and 2005 while collectivist terms declined by 32 per cent. References to narcissism and self-esteem in American popular print media have experienced vast inflation since the late 1980s. Between 1987 and 2007 direct mentions of self-esteem in leading US newspapers and magazines increased by 4,540 per cent while narcissism, which had been almost non-existent in the press during the 1970s, was referred to over 5,000 times between 2002 and 2007.
Cross-cultural studies of differences in narcissism are rare. Instead, as there is a positive association between narcissism and individualism and a negative one between it and collectivism, these traits have been used as proxies for narcissism in some studies. This approach, however, risks the misapplication of the concepts of individualism and collectivism to create overly-fixed, "caricature-like", oppositional categories. Nonetheless, one study looked at differences in advertising products between an individualistic culture, America, and a collectivist one, South Korea. In American magazine advertisements, it found, there was a greater tendency to stress the distinctiveness and uniqueness of the person; conversely the South Korean ones stressed the importance of social conformity and harmony. This observation holds true for a cross-cultural analysis across a wide range of cultural outputs where individualistic national cultures produce more individualistic cultural products and collectivist national cultures produce more collectivist national products; these cultural effects were greater than the effects of individual differences within national cultures.
- Jay Gatsby, the eponymous character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, "an archetype of self-made American men seeking to join high society," has been described as a "pathological narcissist" for whom the "ego-ideal" has become "inflated and destructive" and whose "grandiose lies, poor sense of reality, sense of entitlement, and exploitive treatment of others" conspire toward his own demise.
- In the film To Die For, Nicole Kidman's character wants to appear on television at all costs, even if this involves murdering her husband. A psychiatric assessment of her character noted that she "was seen as a prototypical narcissistic person by the raters: on average, she satisfied 8 of 9 criteria for narcissistic personality disorder... had she been evaluated for personality disorders, she would receive a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder."
- Dark triad
- Dorian Gray syndrome
- Ego ideal
- Illusory superiority
- Jointness (psychodynamics)
- Narcissism of small differences
- Narcissistic elation
- Narcissistic mortification
- Narcissistic withdrawal
- Spoiled child
- Superiority complex
- True self and false self
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|Wikiquote has quotations related to: Narcissism|
|Look up narcissism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.|
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Narcissism.|
- A Field Guide To Narcissism, Carl Vogel – feature writer for Psychology Today magazine
- Distinctions between Self-Esteem and Narcissism: Implications for Practice, Lilian G. Katz
- The Impact of Narcissism on Leadership and Sustainability, Bruce Gregory Ph.D.
- Information for people who are, or have been in relationship with Narcissists.
- All About Narcissists
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Nuclear Technology / Volume 168 / Number 2 / November 2009 / Pages 424-430
Shielding / Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 2) / Radiation Protection / dx.doi.org/10.13182/NT168-424
A widely used numerical method for discretizing the direction variable in the transport equation is the discrete ordinates technique. Here, we test various discrete ordinates quadrature sets on two three-dimensional (3-D) (X-Y-Z) shielding problems: the doglegged void neutron model and the pool critical assembly model. Commonly used quadrature sets, including the standard level symmetric sets and double Gauss-Chebyshev sets, produce significant ray effects associated with material discontinuities in both models. Abu-Shumays designed the quadruple range (QR) sets specifically for these types of problems and showed that they perform well in two-dimensional X-Y geometry. Here, we show that compared to more commonly used quadrature sets, the 3-D QR sets substantially reduce ray effects associated with material discontinuities in 3-D X-Y-Z discrete ordinates calculations.
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Male Bonding: The influence of male relationships in captive chimpanzee social groups
Mary Catherine Mareno
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Steven Schapiro
In laboratories in the United States, groups of captive chimpanzees are maintained in order to conduct behavioral and medical research that further 1) our understanding of human behavioral and cognitive evolution and 2) the fight against disease. Many studies of wild populations of chimpanzees have examined the importance of male-male bonds to group cohesiveness and have found that variations in the number of males and their age distribution impact the interactions within the group. Male-male interactions serve to maintain functional social groups and seem to be of more critical importance to group cohesiveness in chimpanzees than female-female bonds. In the wild, communities are based around a core of adult males who spend the majority of their time together and generally interact with one another affiliatively. These strong relationships maintain the cooperation needed to organize hunts and to protect their territory and females from other groups.
Considerably fewer data are available on the effects of differences in male composition on interactions within captive social groups. Studies have shown that like in the wild, captive male chimpanzees prefer other males as grooming partners. Yet many primate facilities shy away from housing multi-male groups for fear of increased aggression. To promote species-typical social conditions, which in turn allow for healthier subjects that yield more valid behavioral and medical data, a balance between affiliation and conflict among males must be achieved. However, the strategies to achieve such a balance are not particularly well characterized.
To study the effects of different group compositions, 54 chimpanzees were observed living in five separate social groups at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Each social group was comprised of a different number of male chimpanzees with varying age distributions. The group sizes ranged from eight to 14 animals, and the proportion of males in each group varied from 3/8 to 1/2. Age differences between the oldest and youngest male in each group varied from 16 years to 25 years. Each group was observed once a week for 15 weeks. These observations were balanced between morning and afternoon time periods, switching each week. During the observations, the frequencies of 15 behaviors were recorded for each male with special emphasis placed on affiliative and aggressive behaviors. In addition, every three minutes the whole group was scanned to record the social behavior of each individual, using the same 15 behaviors.
The results indicate that group composition does affect the occurrence of aggression and affiliation. Specifically, the number of aggressive conflicts and affiliative interactions per group were neither randomly nor equally distributed across groups. Importantly, higher numbers of males did not lead to increased total aggression.
Group cohesiveness can be utilized to establish group compositions that promote high levels of group cohesion, thereby improving the psychological well being of captive chimpanzees. Using these findings, facilities with chimpanzee can empirically form and manage multi-male, multi-female chimpanzee social groups that mimic natural interaction patterns and encourage a more socially enriched existence.
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Add this post to your list of favorites!
In winter of 1944, with overtaxed supply lines in the Ardennes, a German medic had completely run out of plasma, bandages and antiseptic. During one particularly bad round of mortar fire, his encampment suddenly became a bloodbath. The survivors claimed to hear, above the screams and barked commands of their Lieutenant, someone cackling with almost girlish glee.
The medic made his rounds during the fire, in almost complete darkness as he had so many times before, but never this short on supplies.
The bombardment moved to other ends of the line, most men dropped off to sleep in the still dark hours of the morning – New Year’s Day, 1945.
The men awoke at first light with screams. They discovered that their bandages were not typical bandages at all, but hunks and strips of human flesh. Several men had been given fresh blood transfusions, with no blood supplies available. Each treated man was almost completely covered, head-to-toe, with the maroon stain of blood.
The medic was found, sitting on an ammunition tin, staring off into space. When one man approached him, tapped him on the shoulder, his tunic fell off to reveal all skin, muscle, and sinew had been stripped from his torso and his body almost completely dried of blood. In one hand was a scalpel, and in the other, a blood transfusion vial.
None of the men treated for wounds that night, in that camp, saw the end of January, 1945.
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Here is a selection from the Griffin Quarterly.
Villa Maria: A Tudor Revival Treasure
by Dr. Elizabeth Pacey
Villa Maria , the former Roman Catholic Archbishop's residence situated on the North West Arm, is now threatened by a proposal for demolition from the property committee of the Waegwoltic Club. Built in 1931 for Archbishop Thomas O'Donnell, the stylish structure was designed by Andrew Randall Cobb, one of the most highly regarded architects of the last century. The demolition of Villa Maria would mean the loss of a twentieth-century Tudor Revival treasure of significant architectural value
The Tudor Revival style was first practised in Britain by late Victorian architects who wanted to return to the features and forms of vernacular, medieval architecture. The versatile features of the style, such as tall chimneys, half-timbered gables, cross gables, dormers and projecting oriels or bays, could be used lavishly or sparsely, depending on the size and cost of the structure. Whether the features were fitted to a grand, manorial house or to a modest cottage, the overall plan or form was usually unsymmetrical, to give a less-structured, more organic appearance. As well, varying sizes and shapes of windows were randomly placed to add less mechanized and more rustic details to the design.
In Canada, the Tudor Revival style was introduced in the early years of the twentieth century by architects practising in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. As in Britain, the character of the style was believed to be particularly suited to residences in a semi-rural or spacious urban setting.
In the 1930s a late flowering of the style produced whole neighbourhoods in Toronto, Ottawa, Victoria and Vancouver with a wide variety of picturesque houses dressed in Tudor Revival stylistic features. As a complement to this penchant for domestic Tudor Revival architecture, the federal government officially adopted the popular style as its own national image for a series of customs and immigration buildings, erected at Canada/United States border crossings. Also, in order to convey the dual messages of "Canada" and "park" in its national parks, the federal government developed small-scale rustic buildings with the familiar, half-timbered Tudor gables and rusticated stonework.
Clearly, Archbishop O'Donnell would have been familiar with the Tudor Revival style. In his years as President of the Catholic Extension Society of Canada, he had led the financing and construction of 90 churches throughout the nation. As well, he had spent many years in Toronto and Victoria, where he would have seen an array of examples. He would have known, too, that the Tudor Revival style incorporated Romanesque arches, in the forms of round-headed entrances and windows, rather than the pointed arches of Gothic windows and doors. This symbolism was significant, as the Romanesque arch was used almost exclusively in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Roman Catholic churches, whereas Gothic arches had been preferred by the Anglican Church since the mid-nineteenth century.
As a highly-educated architect and accomplished artist, Andrew Cobb would have appreciated how complementary the medieval style was for a large residence in a semi-rural setting on the shores of the North West Arm. His skill in selecting various characteristic components for his design produced an imposing yet dignified example of the Tudor Revival style. Exterior features, like the projecting oriel with its round-headed entranceways, the varied window shapes, the tall chimneys above the slate roof, the decorative bargeboard on the cross-gable, and the earthy colours of ironstone and sandstone, all combined to create the essence of medieval crafts and traditions. Inside, the oak staircases with tooled and turned balusters, the built-in bookcases with leaded glass doors in the magnificent library, the baronial, forged iron light fixtures and the "Christian" doors with single or double crosses carry on the Tudor theme.
It is hoped that the general membership of the Waegwoltic Club will not accept the demolition proposed by their property committee, and that Villa Maria will continue to stand as an important representative of Tudor Revival architecture of the twentieth century.
The Griffin, Volume 27 #1, March 2002
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13.2.1. Spiral, Seyfert, and Irregular Galaxies
For normal spiral galaxies, much of the radio emission comes primarily from the disk. In a few nearby spirals where the distribution of radio emission can be mapped, the spiral structure is clearly evident. This diffuse component of the nonthermal emission appears to be unrelated to that of the much more luminous radio galaxies and quasars but rather to the optical luminosity and morphology of the galaxy. High-resolution observations indicate that the characteristic size of radio nuclei of spirals is about 100 pc, but significant emission sometimes comes from a region less than a parsec across (Dressel and Condon 1978, Hummel 1980, van der Hulst et al. 1981, Heckman et al. 1983a).
These latter sources are probably related to the powerful compact sources found in AGNs and quasars. The discovery of flat-spectrum, compact, variable sources in the nuclei of M81 and M104 (de Bruyn et al. 1976) gave the first evidence of activity in the nuclei of normal spirals of the -type characteristic of quasars and AGNs. High-resolution VLBI observations of M81 show that the radio nucleus is only about 0.01 pc in extent. Based largely on the presence of narrow emission lines in the optical spectrum, M81 is sometimes classified as a Seyfert galaxy. But most Seyfert galaxies are not strong radio sources, although a few, such as NGC 1068, have prominent radio cores and jets which have been, extensively studied (e.g., Wilson 1982). Often the cores of Seyfert galaxies show a low-frequency spectral turnover due to free-free absorption by ionized gas in the emission-line region, with emission measures in the range of 104 to 106 cm2. Meurs and Wilson (1984) discuss the radio emission from Seyfert galaxies and their relation to other radio sources.
A small fraction of spiral and irregular galaxies show enhanced radio emission which is closely correlated with the 10 - µm infrared flux density and apparently corresponds to regions where there are bursts of star formation (e.g., Condon 1982). At one time the dramatic visual image of M82, particularly in H, was interpreted as evidence of explosive activity characteristic of the powerful radio galaxies. More recent work, however, has shown that the radio emission from M82 comes from a number of small (less than a few parsecs) discrete components probably related to supernovae events or to regions of intense star formation with intrinsic luminosities as much as 100 times that of Cas A. The strongest of these is known to be variable and is only a few hundred AU in size (Kronberg et al. 1981).
Observations by Stocke (1978) indicate enhanced radio emission from interacting pairs of galaxies, although, curiously, the excess emission comes primarily from a compact core, and not from the disk (e.g., Hummel 1980).
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I am delighted to learn that India, Mexico, and the United States have signed up to join the Cool Roofs Working Group, announced yesterday at the second Clean Energy Ministerial in Abu Dhabi. This working group was offered as part of the Clean Energy Ministerial, which is a high-level global forum to promote policies and programs that advance clean energy technology, to share lessons learned and best practices and to encourage the transition to a global clean energy economy. Initiatives are based on areas of common interest among participating governments and other stakeholders.
I send my thanks and appreciation to these countries for their leadership in helping to pave the way to a cooler planet. This new initiative, announced yesterday by U.S. Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu, will foster international cooperation to promote policies and programs that accelerate the adoption of white roofs to cool buildings, cities and the globe.
My colleagues at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, including the world’s leading expert on cool roofs, Dr. Hashem Akbari, now at Concordia University, and I have been studying the benefits of cool roofs and cool pavements for decades. As our understanding of their benefits expands, I am becoming increasingly passionate about promoting this simple, safe, and affordable way to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Benefits from cool roofs and cool pavements accrue at three different levels:
- Building energy savings - Highly reflective roofs, particularly white roofs, lower buildings’ net energy use (cooling savings minus heating penalty) by up to 10 to 20 percent when the building is air-conditioned. On buildings without air conditioning, a white roof can reduce inside temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit), making buildings more comfortable and possibly saving lives in extreme heat waves.
- Heat island mitigation and public health benefits - Citywide installations of reflective roofs and pavements reduce city temperatures. Studies show that cool building and pavement surfaces, along with the planting of shade trees, can reduce a city’s air temperature by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit), in warm months. This reduction not only makes the city more comfortable, but also improves the air quality because NOx and volatile organics cook more quickly into smog on hot days. According to a study of the Los Angeles basin, a combination of lighter surfaces and shade trees could reduce exposure to unhealthy air by 10 percent.
- Global cooling - Permanently replacing the world’s roofs and pavements with highly reflective materials will have a cooling effect equivalent to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 44 billion tonnes of CO2, an amount roughly equal to one year of global man-made emissions. Assuming the world’s average car emits 4 tonnes of CO2 per year, these savings are roughly equivalent to taking all of the world’s approximately 1 billion cars off the road for 11 years. This is also equivalent to offsetting the annual emissions of 700 medium sized coal-fired power plants, operating 6,000 hours per year.
I am happy to report that the world is rapidly awakening to the benefits of cool roofs.
- On June 1, 2010, U.S. Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu announced several steps to implement white roofs at the U.S. Department of Energy and beyond.
- New York City exceeded its goal of installing one million square feet of cool roofs in 2010.
- In May 2010, Philadelphia mandated vegetative or highly reflective roofs on all new “flat” (i.e. low-sloped) roofs.
- In January 2011, the Mayor of Delhi, India announced plans for encouraging white roofs for government buildings across the city.
I believe that cool roofs are an important part of the solution to global climate change. They represent low-hanging fruit with multiple co-benefits that are valuable to cities and individuals in both developed and developing countries. To help propel their rapid adoption, I have spent the last year working with other scientists and leaders from the energy efficiency field to launch Global Cool Cities Alliance, a new U.S.-based non-profit organization with the following mission:
Global Cool Cities Alliance is dedicated to advancing policies and actions that increase the solar reflectance of our buildings and pavements as a low or no-cost way to promote cool buildings, cool cities, and most importantly, to mitigate the effects of climate change through global cooling.
GCCA is working with scientists, NGOs, corporations, national governments, and, most importantly – cities – to support rapid global adoption of cool roofs and cool pavements. We look forward to sharing best practices and lessons learned with policy makers engaged in the Cool Roofs Working Group, with the aim of accelerating the adoption of cool roofs and cool pavements as a key component of a clean energy economy.
Dr. Art Rosenfeld is a Distinguished Scientist Emeritus at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Founding Board Member of the Global Cool Cities Alliance.
H. Akbari et al. 2009. Global cooling: increasing world-wide urban albedos to offset CO2. Climatic Change Volume 94, Numbers 3–4, 275–286. doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9515-9
H. Akbari et al. 2001. Cool surfaces and shade trees to reduce energy use and improve air quality in urban areas” Solar Energy Volume 70, Number 3, 295–310. doi: 10.1016/S0038- 092X(00)00089-X
H. Taha. 1997. Modeling the impacts of large-scale albedo changes on ozone air quality in the south coast air basin. Atmospheric Environment, Volume 31, Number 11, 1667–1676. doi: 10.1016/S1352-2310(96)00336-6
Akbari et al. 2009.
J. Koomey et al. 2009. Defining a standard metric for electricity savings. Environmental Research Letters 5. Doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/5/1/014017. See figure 3.
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MONDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) -- New imaging research shows that the reduced brain activity associated with the onset of dyslexia appears to develop before, not after, a child starts to read.
Key parts of the brain's rear left hemisphere critical to language processing do not undergo activity changes as a consequence of dyslexia, the study suggests, but may instead be part of the cause.
The finding could ultimately help clinicians screen for at-risk children at an early pre-reading age, when interventions to reduce the severity of the condition might be most effective.
"We already knew that children and adults with a diagnosis of dyslexia show brain alterations within the left posterior -- back -- part of the brain," said study co-author Nadine Gaab, an assistant professor of pediatrics in the neuroscience program at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston. "However, it was unclear whether these alterations are a result of dyslexia [that] show up after years of reading failure or whether they predate the reading onset," she noted.
"[Here] we could show that they predate reading onset," Gaab said. "This suggests that children are either born with it or that it develops within the first few years of life."
The study, published in the Jan. 23 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on 36 healthy kindergarteners aged 5 and 6 years who had not begun to read.
Half of the children were at a high risk for developing dyslexia, as at least one of their immediate family members had been previously diagnosed with the disability. None of the children had difficulty with hearing or vision, and none had a history of either neurological or psychological illness.
After completing standard pre-reading language and vocabulary skills assessments, all of the children participated in a couple of audio-identification tasks. First, they were asked to listen to a male or female voice uttering a single word twice and then indicate if the two words sounded the same. Next, they listened to a pairing of words and were asked to indicate if the gender of the voice uttering each successive word was the same.
Throughout the testing, the children also underwent functional MRI (fMRI) to monitor their brain activity, with particular focus on two regions of the rear, left brain: the bilateral occipitotemporal and left temporoparietal areas. Both have previously been shown to have a role in dyslexia.
The results: Children in the at-risk group were found to have reduced brain activity in the two key brain areas, compared to their peers with similar age and IQ who did not have family risk factors.
In addition, the research team found that among at-risk pre-reading children there was no evidence of activity increases in key frontal lobe brain regions previously linked to dyslexia. This, they said, suggested that the brain's method for trying to compensate for the problems associated with dyslexia does not appear to be set in motion until after children begin to read.
"Early identification of children at risk in kindergarten or even before then offers a chance to reduce the clinical, psychological and social implications of reading disability/dyslexia," Gaab said. "Identifying early predictors will also help educators, parents and scientists to find ways to support the academic and cognitive development of children with reading disability/dyslexia and may also lead to strategies that will reduce the severity of reading disability."
Guinevere Eden, director of the Center for the Study of Learning and a professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., expressed enthusiasm for what she deemed to be "the first study of its kind."
"The question has always been, are these physiological changes the result of dyslexia or are they there to begin with?" said Eden, who is also the immediate past-president of the International Dyslexia Association.
"And so what's interesting about this study, is that by using non-invasive tools, they were able to find that the kind of differences that have been shown in older people with dyslexia are apparently already present in children at risk for dyslexia before they even begin to read," Eden said.
"And that means they have found a physiological signature for a child who is likely at risk for dyslexia, which will be of great help in doing what everyone really wants to do: identifying and treating children with dyslexia as early as possible," Eden added.
Visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine for more on dyslexia.
SOURCES: Nadine Gaab, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston; Guinevere Eden, D.Phil., director, Center for the Study of Learning, and professor of pediatrics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and immediate past-president International Dyslexia Association; Jan. 23, 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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E. coli enteritis is swelling (inflammation) of the small intestine from Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. It is the most common cause of travelers' diarrhea.
Traveler's diarrhea - E. coli; Food poisoning - E. coli; E. coli diarrhea; Hamburger disease
E. coli is a type of bacteria that normally lives in the intestines of humans and animals without causing any problems. However, certain types (or strains) of E. coli can cause food poisoning. One strain (E. coli O157:H7) can cause a severe case of food poisoning.
Bacteria may get into your food in different ways:
Food poisoning often occurs from eating or drinking:
Although not common, E. coli can be spread from one person to another. This may happen when someone does not wash his or her hands after a bowel movement and then touches other objects or someone else's hands.
Symptoms occur when E. coli bacteria enter the intestine. The time between being infected and developing symptoms is usually 24 - 72 hours.
Diarrhea that is sudden, severe, and often bloody is the most common symptom.
Other symptoms may include:
Symptoms of a rare but severe E. coli infection include:
Your health care provider will perform a physical exam. A stool culture can be done to check for disease-causing E.coli.
You will usually recover from the most common types of E. coli infection within a couple of days. The goal of treatment is to make you feel better and avoid dehydration.
Getting enough fluids and learning what to eat will help keep you or your child comfortable. You may need to:
If you have diarrhea or vomiting and cannot drink or keep enough fluids in your body, you may need fluids given through a vein (IV). You will need to go to your health care provider's office or the emergency room.
If you take diuretics ("water pills"), talk to your health care provider. You may need to stop taking the diuretic while you have diarrhea. Never stop or change medications without first talking to your health care provider.
You can buy medicines at the drugstore that can help stop or slow diarrhea. Do not use these medicines without talking to your health care provider if you have bloody diarrhea or a fever. Do not give these medicines to children.
You usually get better in a few days, without treatment. Some uncommon types of E. coli can cause severe anemia or even kidney failure.
Call for an appointment with your health care provider if:
Schiller LR, Sellin JH. Diarrhea. In: Feldman M, Friedman LS, Brandt LJ, eds. Sleisenger & Fordtran’s Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease. 9th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2010:chap 15.
Sodha SV, Griffin PM, Hughes JM. Foodborne disease. In: Mandell GL, Bennett JE, Dolin R, esd. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone. 2009;chap 99.
Craig SA, Zich DK. Gastroenteritis. In: Marx JA, ed. Rosen's Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. 7th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby Elsevier; 2009:chap 92.
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CHANGE is inevitable in communities as illustrated by the accompanying pictures taken in southern Jefferson County about 100 years ago.
Around 1900, "Rayland (then Portland Station) gained a reputation as rip-roaring and rambunctious. The train depot was a hubbub of activity, with passenger trains arriving and departing at frequent intervals," according to "A Time and Place in Ohio" by Robert H. Richardson.
The book also relates that there were many transient occupants of the town, and the three taverns in the village did a thriving business. At that time, Samuel Hutton and Brothers, a tannery, was the main industry, and it "occupied all of Leathersburg, a small suburb of Portland Station near the Warrenton Cemetery."
THE C&P depot at Brilliant was one of the many railroad stations which existed when the railroads were a major means of transportation. This is among the photos gathered by the late Robert Richardson for his book, “A Time and Place in Ohio.”
RUSH RUN, whose name is based on a settler who lived along the creek around 1800, appeared like this in 1925.
RAMBUNCTIOUS was one of the words used years ago to describe Rayland, earlier known as Portland Station. This photo is from the early 1900s.
Rush Run never was surveyed officially into uniform town lots, and one of the earliest settlers in that area was James Maxwell, who was Ebenezer Zane's cousin. Richardson's book relates Maxwell had fled to the Zane settlement in Wheeling to avoid prosecution for a murder of which he later was proven innocent. The area was named for David Rush, an early settler who lived along the creek in 1798.
Depots such as the one pictured at Brilliant were commonplace during the railroad's heyday. Alas, most of these railroad stations no longer exist.
The photos were provided, courtesy of Ethel Richardson.
Pokas can be reached at [email protected].
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When you step of a plane in Hawaii, you are greeted by an aloha and a beautiful orchid lei is placed on your neck. They are both continually linked: with this beautiful flower seen as sign of welcome to foreigners from the Hawaiian natives. However, there are only three types that were naturally endemic to this state.
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This orchid is fairly rare, found in the rain forests of Hawaii high up in the trees. Typically, you can see this plant blooming from May to November, 2000 to 5000 feet up into the tree canopies. Unlike the colorful large blooms that you see in leis, this one is a tiny flowered species, usually green in color.
Often called jewel orchids, this one can be found in most of the Hawaiian islands. Out of the three endemic types, this one is the most common. If you are looking to find a these sparkling ones in its natural environment, take a journey through the rain forests. These plants will usually be found between 1000 and 5000 feet up in the trees.
The third natural variety of Hawaii orchids is the Plantanthera holochila or the fringed orchid. This particular flower is very rare, so rare, that it is now on the Endangered species list. The flowers are fairly small and are greenish, yellow in color. These plants are terrestrial in nature, and if you’re lucky enough to find one, it will usually be in a bog or a swampy, shady area.
So Where do all of the Other Types Come From?
Hawaii’s warm, humid environment, is a natural breeding ground for these type of plants. As a direct result, several varieties of them have been imported and breed naturally throughout the islands. The botanical gardens in this state house thousands of gorgeous varieties. If you are a true lover of these flowers, take the time to travel to these gardens and immerse yourself into the world of these organisms.
Dendrobium orchids are one of the more popular varieties that are being farmed throughout the islands. These are farmed and then marketed for a variety of consumer needs, from house plants to producing leis. If they are for you then you need to learn all about them here.
However, even with the development of orchid farms throughout the states, it is still nearly impossible to keep up with the demands from the natives and tourists for leis. Consequently, a lot of them found in leis have been imported from Asia, Thailand in particular.
Orchid Culture in Hawaii travels to the rest of North America
Although this state may not have a large amount of natural varieties, it has helped build this beautiful flower’s exotic popularity. Without this exposure, our homes and garden centers in North America may not have been blessed with the many varieties that we see today.
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A Mysterious ‘Ice
Circle’ Discovered in NE USA
The ‘Crop Circle’ Like Phenomenon Continues in
By Ed Sherwood
On March 11th 2003 an ‘Ice Circle’, or ‘Ice Ring’, appeared in a
private residents’ back yard
pond in Norwalk, Connecticut, USA. Precisely etched into thin ice,
‘about 1/4 inch thick’, the mysterious circle was reported to measure
about 25 feet 9 inches in diameter. It formed during the night, in a
section of a tributary that feeds the Silvermine River in Norwalk, and
amazingly, touched one side of the pond wall! Discovered by the owner at
about 6:00am, after night temperatures fell ‘to about 16’ degrees Farenheidt, the circle remained frozen until later that afternoon,
melting only after most of the ice around it had disappeared. No trees
overhung the Ice Circle, and nothing unusual was reportedly heard or
seen by the residents, or neighbours, in association with its creation
Fig.1 The Norwalk ‘Ice Circle’ (at about 7:45am)
Anonymous by Request
Three weeks after the Ice Circle appeared, and after reading an article
I wrote entitled:
Extraordinary ‘Ice Ring’
in Churchville, Maryland:
The First Authentic ‘Crop Circle’ Pictogram of 2001?’ the owner of the
pond kindly e-mailed me the information and image presented above.
Copyright © 2001 Lyn Winer
A preliminary analysis of the Ice Circle, and further contact with the
pond owner, yielded some additional information and observations
concerning this intriguing phenomenon.
To begin with, the circle appeared to be purposefully positioned and
etched with great precision into the changing textured surface of the
ice. Almost as large as the body of water that contained it, and
uniquely narrow for an Ice Circle, it formed a ‘tangent’ with the pond
wall that appeared deliberate and seemed to defy a simple natural
Like most Crop Circle formations, and Ice Circles and Rings that have
appeared in the past, the Norwalk circle appeared sometime during the
hours of nightfall and first light, and was obviously located where
water was concentrated.
Could the Ice Circle have been formed by water in rotation?
Apparent in the photograph, and affirmed by the pond owner, the ice
showed no sign of having been swirled by rotating water that froze.
Could the Ice Circle have been created by a ‘ripple’ across the surface
of the pond?
The pond owner’s father suggested the Ice Circle might have been caused
by something falling into the pond creating a ripple that subsequently
‘… if you drop something in the water, even a raindrop, a perfect circle
is the result.
It could be possible that the temperature had dropped to just the right
something fell in the pond causing the cold water from the bottom to
and instantly freeze when it reached the surface.’
There are some trees nearby I was informed, including one that deposits
leaves and occasionally branches in it when it’s windy. Could this
create the Ice Circle effect? It is an interesting idea, however, many
Ice Circles have appeared in bodies of water where trees were either too
far away, or not present to be considered a cause. In some cases, the
Ice Circle was of such size that a whole tree would need to be dropped
in to displace an equivalent amount of water!
Rather than the result of a ripple that froze, the circle looked like it
was thinly etched into the ice. Where it met the pond wall it didn’t
distort and deflect like a ripple would. Also, If Ice Circles were being
formed by falling tree limbs and cold temperatures I think they would be
far more common than they are.
Was there any evidence to suggest the Ice Circle could have been
Interested to hear the views of the pond owner concerning this question
‘Some people would assume the Ice Circle in Norwalk was manmade (i.e. by
resident teenagers or students perhaps as a prank) just because of its
location, a small pond near residential housing, and inscribed
appearance. What would you say to such views? Did you see or photograph,
at the center of the Ice Circle, any indication in the ice that a pole
or something similar could have been used (like a compass) to inscribe
the circle? Are there any teenagers living nearby that might have made
The pond owner replied:
‘We did that research. My first thought was that someone had come into
the yard and made the circle. However, the pond is ours, in our
backyard... it is private property and we have a dog that usually barks
if something's in his yard.
There is no way it could have been man made as the ice was too thin and
the distance down from the edge of the pond to the edge of the circle
touching the wall was 3 feet down. The rest of the ice was frozen and to
make a circle by hand would have broken the very thin ice. There was no
hole in the middle...I took a few more pictures around noon as the ice
started melting. And we do not have teenagers in my neighborhood. All my
immediate neighbors are in their middle to later years- no kids.
I had my father come and look at the circle, as he was in the air force
and he is very knowledgeable about physical and engineering aspects of
things and he was amazed because he could not see how it could have been
manmade since a board or pole would have broken the ice and it was out
of anyone's reach without actually getting into the water which is about
5-6 feet deep.’
(Additional text to follow…)
© Millennium Research
Special thanks to the resident of Norwalk for reporting the Ice Circle
and giving permission to include their photograph in this report.
‘Ice Circle’ Photograph © 2003 Courtesy of Photographer – Anonymous by
Mailing address for Ed & Kris Sherwood:
P.O. Box 2084, Santa Monica, CA 90406, USA.
* * *
Copyright © 2003-2009 Ed & Kris Sherwood
All Rights Reserved
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May 1, 2013
Late Night Snack Cravings Linked To Internal Circadian Rhythm
[ Watch the Video: OHSU´s Dr. Steven Shea Discusses His Research ]
Peter Suciu for redOrbit.com — Your Universe OnlineWhile late night commercials for eateries and snack foods no doubt make some people head to the refrigerator, a new study has found that an internal circadian rhythm could be the cause of increased appetite in the evening.
The study, which was published in the journal Obesity, found that the body´s internal clock — known as the circadian system — could increase hunger and cravings for sweet, starchy and salty foods in the evening. In other words, those ads on TV are only partially to blame.
These cravings may have helped people in times when food was scarce and our ancestors may have had the cravings to store energy. However in an era when high-calorie food is all around us, the result of those late night snacks could result in significant weight gain, as eating a lot in the evening can be counterproductive since the human body actually handles nutrients differently throughout the day.
“Of course, there are many factors that affect weight gain, principally diet and exercise, but the time of eating also has an effect. We found with this study that the internal circadian system also likely plays a role in today´s obesity epidemic because it intensifies hunger at night,” said Steven Shea, Ph.D., senior author on the study. “People who eat a lot in the evening, especially high-calorie foods and beverages, are more likely to be overweight or obese.”
Shea is director for the Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology (CROET) at Oregon Health & Science University. His research at CROET focuses on the basic and applied research that helps workers stay healthy. CROET´s mission is to promote health, and prevent disease and disability among working Oregonians and their families.
The research has shown that as the human body handles nutrients differently at various times during the day, consuming more calories in the evening is counterproductive as humans don´t typically expend as much energy after an evening meal in comparison to morning and mid-day meals. Additionally, factors such as artificial light enable people to stay up later than they should, and as a result they don´t get enough sleep.
“If you stay up later, during a time when you´re hungrier for high-calorie foods, you´re more likely to eat during that time,” Shea said. “You then store energy and get less sleep, both of which contribute to weight gain.”
The research, which was conducted by Shea along with two Boston-area researchers, Frank Scheer, Ph.D. and Christoper Morris, Ph.D. of Brigham and Women´s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, examined the appetite and food preference of 13 healthy non-obese adults throughout a 13-day laboratory stay in very dim light. During the study all behavior was scheduled, including time of meals and even sleep. The researchers found that the internal circadian system regulated hunger, with participants feeling the least hungry in the morning and the most hungry in the evening. The study further concludes that the internal body clock caused an evening peak in appetite that may promote people to eat larger, higher-calorie meals before the fasting period necessitated by sleep.
“Our study suggests that because of the internal circadian regulation of appetite, we have a natural tendency to skip breakfast in favor of larger meals in the evening. This pattern of food intake across the day is exactly what Sumo wrestlers do to gain weight.” said Steven Shea. “So, it seems likely that the internal circadian system helps with efficient food storage. While this may have been valuable throughout evolution, nowadays it is likely to contribute to the national epidemic of obesity.”
As a result of the findings Shea suggests that those larger meals should then be earlier in the evening.
“If weight loss is a goal, it´s probably better to eat your larger, higher-calorie meals earlier in the day,” said Shea. “Knowing how your body operates will help you make better choices. Going to bed earlier, getting enough sleep and choosing lower-calorie foods rather than higher-calorie foods in the evening can all help with weight loss.”
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HOUSTON, June 9 (UPI) — A U.S. study suggests global warming may threaten animal and plant life in hot spots that were once thought to be less likely to suffer from climate change.
Research by Rice University Assistant Professor Amy Dunham is said to detail for the first time a direct correlation between El Nino-caused climate change and a threat to wildlife in Madagascar, a tropical island that acts as a refuge for many species that exist nowhere else in the world.
Dunham said most studies of global warming focus on temperate zones.
“We all know about the polar bears and their melting sea ice,” she said. “But tropical regions are often thought of as refuges during past climate events, so they haven’t been given as much attention until recently. We’re starting to realize that not only are these hot spots of biodiversity facing habitat degradation and other anthropogenic effects, but they’re also being affected by the same changes we feel in the temperate zones.”
Dunham said Madagascar’s biodiversity is an ecological treasure. “But its flora and fauna already face extinction from rapid deforestation and exploitation of natural resources,” she said. “The additional negative effects of climate change make conservation concerns even more urgent.”
The study that included Texas State University-San Marcos Associate Professor Elizabeth Erhart and Stony Brook University Professor Patricia Wright appears online ahead of print in the journal Global Change Biology.
Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI). Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI’s prior written consent.
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| 0.939456 | 348 | 3.171875 | 3 |
There is an increasing effort in Alaska to engage youth in hands-on scientific activities. One group of teens is collecting data way up in Barrow. Alford Bankston, Kori Itta-Tomas, Kara Smith, and Esther Taalak are interns with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where they explore relationships among lemmings and endangered species such as spectacled eiders.
Biologists have been studying threatened eiders on the North Slope for decades without directly involving the community of Barrow. The internship project, which started about 15 years ago, connects local students with field biologists. This allows a unique exchange of knowledge where students get an introduction to field research and biologists gain local environmental and traditional knowledge from the students.
In the field, Alford, Kori, Kara, and Esther hike the tundra to set up live traps and assist with daily trap checks. They are directly involved in data collection when a lemming is found in a trap. After the season is over the interns engage in community outreach presentations about their summer experiences, giving them an opportunity to tell their peers, parents and other community members of research projects occurring around their hometown.
Read more about this year’s amazing Spirit of Youth nominees at www.spiritofyouth.org.
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| 0.940697 | 264 | 2.8125 | 3 |
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is planning to build Cartosat-3, a satellite capable to take images of the earth with a resolution of 0.25 metres, as TheHindu reported. This remote sensing satellite is expected to exceed GeoEye-1, which is currently the satellite taking the highest resolution images of our planet. GeoEye-1 is capable of taking panchromatic images with a resolution of 0.41 meters. WorldView-2, another satellite operated by the same company, DigitalGlobe, offers a best resolution of 0.46 metres.
In the ‘Notes on Demands for Grants, 2013-2014’ from the Indian Department of Space, which forms part of the budget documents presented to Parliament recently, Cartosat-3 figures as a separate item with an allocation of Rs. 10 crores. “Cartosat-3 is an advanced remote sensing satellite with enhanced resolution of 0.25 metre for cartographic applications and high-resolution mapping,” the document said.
India had launched the Technology Experiment Satellite in 2001, followed some years later by the Cartosat-2 series of satellites that could take images with 0.8 metre resolution.
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| 0.910991 | 247 | 3.09375 | 3 |
The public health message for melanoma is to look for a change in a mole, and some recite the ABCD’s of melanoma. But there are other types of melanoma that exhibit themselves in a different way. Though rare, they can be missed by a physician and discovered late in progression making them riskier than cutaneous melanoma.
Sometimes the first sign of melanoma is not on the outside of the body at all. Symptoms may result in a scan that finds a tumor in the lung or other body organ. There was no mole or changing lesion that the patient remembers. This is referred to as an unknown primary. It is speculated that at one time there was a mole or lesion that changed into melanoma, then regressed back into the body to seed itself within the body.
Another form of melanoma starts within the body but only in places that are mucous membranes, i.e. the mouth, rectum, vagina etc. hence it is called mucosal melanoma. Sometimes a vaginal melanoma can be classified as cutaneous though, so it is important to determine that distinction on the pathology report. The C-Kit mutation is sometimes found with mucosal melanoma and opens up the opportunity for other treatment regimens.
Some of us worry if we see a dark streak in our fingernail or toenail. What we may have heard about is Acral Lentiginous melanoma or Subungual melanoma, the term for acral in a nail bed. This rare form of melanoma occurs more often in people of color as well as white people and is rare, less than 7% of the population might present with this disease. It shows up on the sole of the foot and the palm of the hands as well. A biopsy will provide the evidence needed to know if you have acral or cutaneous.
Ocular melanoma or Uveal Melanoma starts in the inner third layer of the eye. There is no known cause of this disease. It is rare also in occurrence and should be looked for in an annual eye exam by an ophthalmologist. A good source to read about ocular melanoma is: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/intraocularmelanoma/Patient/page1.
One more type of melanoma sometimes missed is amelanotic melanoma. This appears as a flesh colored or pinkish mole or lesion. Because it doesn’t fit the black raised mole description, it too can be dismissed as nothing to worry about and then it can progress.
Don’t forget you know your body better than anyone and should you have a symptom that worries get it checked and insist on a biopsy or other definitive test. Trust your intuition about your body! Sometimes melanoma appears differently than you’d expect.
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| 0.94996 | 592 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Environment and sustainability
Transport Environment and Sustainability Policy
Transport for NSW aims to provide a world class sustainable transport system that meets our customer expectations and optimises the economic development of NSW.
We deliver transport services, projects, operations and programs which balance economic, environmental and social factors to ensure a sustainable transport system for NSW. In doing this we are committed to managing our impacts on the environment and operating in an environmentally sustainable manner.
Transport Environment and Sustainability Policy Framework
Transport for NSW with RailCorp, Roads and Maritime Services and the State Transit Authority has developed the Transport Environment and Sustainability Policy Framework (pdf 837KB) to realise our environment and sustainability commitment. It addresses environmental issues at all levels of planning, policy development and project delivery – leading to better environmental sustainability outcomes and reduced environmental impacts across our cities, towns and suburbs.
The Transport Environment and Sustainability Policy Statement
Download and view the Transport Environment and Sustainability Policy Statement (pdf 59KB).
Our Sustainability Definition focuses on conserving and enhancing air, water, soils, energy, resources and other aspects in the environment needed for biodiversity and our communities.
The Sustainability Guiding Principles sit behind the selection of our indicators to measure performance and initiatives and actions to deliver improved performance.
Environment and Sustainability Themes detailing specific outcomes and objectives are outlined below.
To use Transport’s energy sources more efficiently and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
- Reduced energy consumption
- Reduced greenhouse gas emissions
To minimise air, noise, water and pollution from Transport’s operations and construction
- Reduced pollution (air, noise, land and water)
Climate change resilience
To plan and deliver transport infrastructure and operations that are resilient to the effects of climate change
- Transport infrastructure and operation that is resilient to the effects of climate change
To reduce water consumption in Transport’s operations, maintenance, construction and management
- Reduced waste generation
- Reduced resource consumption
To mitigate transport impacts on biodiversity
- Transport which conserves and enhances biodiversity
To mitigate transport impacts on heritage
- Transport which conserves and enhances heritage
To improve community experience through the delivery of transport which is integrated with surrounding land use activities
- Transport which is integrated with surrounding land-use activities
- Improved community experience with transport
To establish governance arrangements for Transport which support resources efficiency and continuous improvement in environment and sustainability performance
- Governance arrangements that support continuous improvement of sustainability performance
Environment and Sustainability Indicators and Targets have been set for those things Transport for NSW has control of – that is environment and sustainability outcomes associated with planning, designing, building and operating transport infrastructure and its corporate operations. These will be reported publicly along with the Transport Environment and Sustainability Action Plan, which captures activity based measures that help to minimise the impact of transport on the environment.
Transport for NSW, RailCorp, Roads and Maritime Services and the State Transit Authority will individually and collectively use the Framework to minimise their impact on the environment.
Alignment with broader Government objectives
Our approach current NSW Government policy objectives:
- Is informed by NSW 2021 the NSW Government’s 10 year plan to make NSW number one, which clearly establishes Government’s focus to deliver a sustainable, integrated and customer-focused transport system.
- Reflects the New South Wales Long Term Transport Master Plan, Transport for NSW’s comprehensive and integrated strategy for all modes of transport.
- Will support Connections, Transport for NSW Corporate Plan 2012-2017, in ensuring that the impact of Transport on the environment is minimised.
- About us
- Access to information (GIPA)
- Annual reports
- Community engagement
- Contracts awarded
- Corporate Plans
- Doing business with us
- Environment and sustainability
- Learner Log Book Innovation
- National Transport Reforms
- Organisational development
- Smart Innovation Centre
- Transport agencies
- Transport planner resources
- Trip planning
- Media Centre
- Contact us
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| 0.901169 | 826 | 2.84375 | 3 |
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