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Australia Day celebrates the anniversary of Captain Arthur Phillip unfurling the British flag at Sydney Cove and proclaiming British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia on 26 January 1788. That’s 219 years!
The quest for the celebration of a united Australian national day commenced within a few years of the First Fleet landing and the subsequent white settlement of this island continent.
January 26, through more than 200 years of debate and controversy, has remained the Australian celebratory national day since that date in January 1788 when ‘formal possession was taken of the Colony of New South Wales. On that day, Captain Arthur Phillip became Governor of the Colony.
The fledgling colony soon began to mark the anniversary of 26 January 1788 with formal dinners and informal celebrations. Manning Clark noted that on January 26, 1808, the ‘anniversary of the foundation of the colony’ was observed in the traditional manner with ‘drinking and merriment’. John Macarthur Senior had ensured his soldiers were amply supplied with liquor, bonfires were blazing and private houses illuminated.
By 1820, Australia was beginning to look undeniably prosperous and sentiments of Australian patriotism were being expressed at gatherings of ex-convicts. The sense of belonging to a new nation was encouraged in 1817 when Governor Macquarie recommended the adoption of the name Australia, instead of New Holland, for the entire continent.
An article in the Sydney Gazette on February 1, 1817 records a typical anniversary dinner held in the house of Isaac Nichols, a respected emancipist and Australia’s first Postmaster. Similar dinners are described involving William Charles Wentworth and friends on 26 January 1825 and 1828, when the catchcry and traditional toast had already become ‘to the land, boys, we live in’. Many ex-convicts owned and ran the wealthiest and most successful businesses in the colony.
The first official celebrations were held in 1818, marking the 30th anniversary of white settlement. Governor Macquarie ordered a salute of 30 guns to be fired from the battery at Dawes Point and in the evening gave a dinner at Government House for civil and military officers. A ball followed, hosted by Mrs Macquarie.
During this time the day was called Foundation Day. Throughout the early 19th century, the day became one for sporting events, with horse races popular from the 1820s and regattas from the 1830s.
The growing sense of patriotism was being expressed in other ways. Young Charles Tompson, reputed to be our first Australian-born poet and the son of a transportee, was moved to compose eight stanzas of tribute to his native country for 26 January 1824 titled ‘Wild Notes from the Lyre of a Native Minstrel’.
Edward Smith Hall, proprietor and publisher of The Monitor, had people such as Charles Tompson in mind when he wrote, in 1821, ‘the circumstances of the parents of the most of them having come to the country in bondage, so far from making them humble, causes them to be the proudest people in the world…the circumstance of being free is felt by them with a strength bordering on fierce enthusiasm.’
Fifty years after Phillip landed, in 1838, a number of celebratory events were organised and the first public holiday ever marked in Australia was announced for the 26 January in that year.
In distinct contrast to the mainly private and somewhat elitist anniversary dinners in previous years, January 26, 1838 became a day for everyone.
By 1888, Australia’s population numbered almost three million and many changes had taken place over the previous 50 years. Gold had been discovered in the 1850s, in places such as Bendigo and Ballarat, bringing great wealth, immigration from all over the world and increased agitation for democratic reforms (taxation and representation).
The first centenary of white settlement was celebrated with great enthusiasm. With the exception of Adelaide, all colonial capitals declared Anniversary Day 1888 a public holiday and celebrations took place throughout the colonies. Ceremonies, parades, exhibitions, fireworks, banquets, and church services were popular. In Melbourne there was a Centennial International Exhibition that remained open from August 1888 to February 1889, attracting nearly two million visitors.
The centenary was also marked by numerous historical publications and commemorative volumes as well as souvenirs and other centenary ephemera. Australians were beginning to talk widely about other political questions of the day, including the move towards Federation.
In 1871 the Australian Natives Association (ANA) was formed in Victoria. This was the first Australian Friendly Society and its motto was Advance Australia. The group, which had particular influence in the period between the 1890s to around 1914, had strong nationalistic aspirations and its members included Edmund Barton (who became our first Prime Minister), Alfred Deakin (Australia’s second Prime Minister) and Sir Isaac Isaacs (our first Australian-born Governor-General).
The ANA grew rapidly and branches were formed across Victoria and in all states as well as a branch in London. By the 1880s, the group was making a nation-wide impact.
The ANA supported many issues including afforestation, an Australian-made goods policy, water conservation, Aboriginal welfare, the celebration of proper and meaningful citizenship ceremonies, following the increased levels of migration after World War II, and the adoption of the wattle as the national floral emblem (accepted in 1912).
However, some of their strongest support was for Federation and a united Commonwealth (along with the Federation League), the celebration of a unified national day and the naming of that day Australia Day.
The general public appears to have embraced the 150th anniversary in 1938 with great enthusiasm. There were many celebrations and events for the Sesquicentenary – picnics, balls, musical performances and fireworks.
A significant amount of memorabilia remains from the celebrations – invitations, pamphlets, program brochures, tourist leaflets from large regional towns and musical, art and literary competitions, indicating the number of events that took place. However, little in the way of permanent structures and reminders were created during 1938, unlike the 1988 Bicentenary.
The euphoria of the 150th anniversary celebrations was maintained as February 1938 saw the staging of the British Empire Games in Australia for the first time. Of the 70 events held in Sydney, Australia won 24, far ahead of her nearest rival Canada with 13.
Since its formation in 1871, the ANA Association had been working towards the unified naming and dating of our national day. Following their concerted efforts and with the support of similar movements, the Commonwealth Government and all States and Territories finally agreed, in 1946, to observe the same National Day – 26 January – and to call that day Australia Day.
Separate Australian citizenship became law for the first time in 1949. The waves of non-British immigration after 1945 led to a new role for Australia Day, one that celebrated new citizenship with naturalisation ceremonies (now citizenship ceremonies).
An article in the Australia and New Zealand Weekly in January 1963 commented on the timing of naturalisation ceremonies for January 26, claiming that ‘this year, 4,500 ‘New Australians’ will become fully-fledged Australian citizens’. Citizenship ceremonies are still an integral part of Australia Day celebrations around the nation.
Celebrations began to recognise Australian excellence with Sir MacFarlane Burnet named the first Australian of the Year in 1960. Eight years later Lionel Rose became the first Aboriginal Australian of the Year. This annual award is now a popular tradition.
In 1979 the National Australia Day Council was formed and the Australia Day Committee (Victoria) was formed in 1982. From its inception, the Committee encouraged local celebrations, working with Councils and communities across Victoria to celebrate Australia Day. The Australia Day Committee (Victoria) also organises the Australia Day activities in Melbourne, and co-ordinates a number of year round programs associated with Australia Day.
However, the Australia Day public holiday was still held on the Monday closest to January 26 and to the broader community it was just another holiday.
By 26 January 1988, the community was ready to join in the excitement of the Bicentennial Celebrations. The world saw a ‘spirited and emotional country’ as Australians enjoyed the many spectacular events. In our bi-centenary year, 1988, the Australia Day public holiday was held around the nation on January 26. The highlight of the many celebrations was a re-enactment of the First Fleet’s voyage that departed from Portsmouth on May 13, 1987 and arrived in Australia in early January. Britain presented the tall ship, Young Endeavour, to Australia as its bi-centennial present.
1988 was also named a Year of Mourning for Australia’s Aboriginal people, who regarded the year as a celebration of survival. It was the most vocal Indigenous presence ever felt on January 26.
It was not until 1994 however, that all the states and territories endorsed the celebration of Australia Day on the actual day instead of the closest Monday. United Australia Day celebrations have been held on 26 January ever since.
Since 1988 Australia Day celebrations across the country have continued to grow in number and stature. Ceremonies now appeal to a broad community audience and attendances have increased considerably over the last 5-10 years.
While January 26 has remained our National Day from the time of Phillip’s landing, discussion has taken place since the 1800s on the pros and cons of this particular date. Over the years, the reason cited for a possible change of date has been varied – historical, practical and most recently, the desire for reconciliation with our Indigenous population.
The Centenary of Federation celebrations, held throughout Australia in 2001, opened and closed on Australia Day.
For Indigenous Australians, Invasion or Survival Day is an annual reminder of the occupation of the country they had inhabited for tens of thousands of years and recalls the damage to their relationship with the land, culture, traditions and beliefs that followed. However, many Indigenous people are active within Australia Day committees today. Australia Day is an important annual opportunity to recognise the honoured place of Indigenous Australians in our nation’s history, and to promote understanding, respect and reconciliation.
The date remains January 26 and the discussion continues.
Australia Day today is a community day. With formal ceremonies around the country – flag raisings, citizenship ceremonies and the presentation of community awards – combined with local events and fun activities, the day belongs to the people.
Celebrations now include a strong festive aspect with special events encouraging the participation of the entire family and all members of the community. Australia Day committees involve their ethnic and Indigenous communities, service clubs, sporting and cultural organisations while local government is increasingly supportive. Nationally, Australia Day celebrations are growing each year. Recent polls show that an overwhelming proportion of Australians now view the celebration of our National Day as a significant and important event and actively participate in some way – at organised celebrations or with friends and family.
While the historical significance of January 26 remains, there is a greater awareness of the wish to celebrate modern Australia. It is a land of many people, but one nation. It is a young, fresh and vibrant country in one of the oldest lands on earth, with one of the oldest cultures. It is a land of extremes but also a land of harmony and of the spirit of the fair go. Australia is one of the few countries in the world to celebrate 150 years of continuous democratic government.
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Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Konrad Adenauer, and the President of the French Republic, Charles de Gaulle, signed this treaty on January 22, 1963 to mark the reconciliation of the two countries after World War II. The official website marking the fiftieth anniversary of the agreement includes digital copies of the original text in French and in German.
An English translation of the Joint Declaration that preceded the text of the Élysée Treaty:
"Convinced that the reconciliation of the German people and the French people, ending a centuries-old rivalry, constitutes an historic event which profoundly transforms the relations between the two peoples,
Aware of the solidarity uniting the two peoples, as much from the point of view of their security as from the point of view of their economic and cultural development,
Noting in particular that youth has recognised this solidarity and is called upon to play a decisive role in the consolidation of Franco-German friendship,
Recognising that a reinforcing of cooperation between the two countries constitutes an indispensable stage on the way to a united Europe, which is the aim of the two peoples:
Have given their agreement to the organisation and principles of cooperation between the
two States such as they are set out in the Treaty signed this day."
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Adults Aged 25-49 Should Get Vaccinated
This year’s flu season is causing severe illness and death in adults between the ages of 25 and 50. Seven out of the 15 deaths this season in Arkansas have occurred in adults between the ages of 25 and 50, and multiple hospitalizations in this group have been reported. It is highly recommended that all individuals in this age group receive a seasonal flu vaccine and promptly visit a doctor should they experience severe flu-like symptoms.
The most frequently seen flu strain this year is H1N1, which disproportionately affects young to middle-aged adults and pregnant women. There are multiple factors that may explain why younger, healthier people are affected this year. One observation is that only 30% of individuals in this age group have been vaccinated against seasonal flu this year. That leaves over 650,000 unvaccinated Arkansans in this age group unprotected from the flu. Individuals who are pregnant or in this age category may experience a rapid onset of symptoms that quickly progress to severe illness. Flu symptoms include: fever over 100 degrees, headache, extreme fatigue, sore throat, muscle aches, dry cough, and runny or stuffy nose. If you have flu symptoms and experience shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, sudden dizziness, or pain or pressure in the chest, seek medical care as quickly as possible.
“An unusually high number of young to middle-aged adults are being hospitalized or dying of flu this season,” Nate Smith, M.D., MPH, State Health Officer and Director of the Arkansas Department of Health said. “This is not something we typically see during an average flu season.”
“We can’t stress enough how critical it is for all individuals to get vaccinated—especially if you’re in this age group,” Smith added. “We know the flu vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective, but it truly can mean the difference between a mild to moderate illness and death.”
The flu virus is spread through coughing or sneezing and by touching a hard surface with the virus on it, then touching the nose or mouth. The best way to prevent the flu is to get vaccinated every year. You can also help reduce your risk of flu by washing hands frequently and avoiding those who are sick.
Flu vaccine is available at pharmacies, doctors’ offices, and local health units statewide. If you visit a local health unit to get a flu vaccine, please bring your insurance cards with you. If you do not have insurance, the vaccine will be free.
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By Matthew Inman
Recently, the world of stem cell research has been celebrating the achievement of two huge milestones that may very well help in the ongoing debate on the usefulness and morality of this type of scientific study.
First, in Japan, scientists were able to grow a retina in a laboratory, a breakthrough that may lead to the better understanding and treatment of many diseases of the human eye, perhaps even blindness.
Next, only five days after this was reported, it was revealed that scientists at Edinburgh University in Scotland had achieved their own breakthrough—a kidney grown in their laboratory—that could help to forever revolutionize the system of organ donating.
Though both accomplishments stir up similar excitement and hope for the future in the scientific and medical communities, a key difference is that while the kidney was made from a mixture of human and animal stem cells and is considered a human kidney (though only partly grown), the retina was, according to the website Nature News on Nature.com, “created by coaxing mouse embryonic stem cells into a precise three-dimensional assembly” and is still a mouse, not a human, retina.
The full impact of these triumphs will most likely take several years of testing to discover, but there is speculation to both the long- and short-term benefits.
In the case of the retina, the process which created it could be used to create synthetic human retinas that could theoretically serve as replacements for non-functioning ones. But even before that, the retinas will be able to aid in the research of eye disease and treatment.
Adding to the promise of the lab-grown retina in helping with eye disease, Nature News cites Robin Ali, a geneticist at the Institute of Ophthalmology in London, who refers to his 2006 study that “found that retinal cells from newborn mice work when transplanted into older mice.” Obviously, the practical application of this to humans is dubious, and the possibility of cells grown outside the body is significantly more appealing.
The lab-grown kidney also promises a bright future. If the kidney can be used as a synthetic transplant that would grow and function in a human body, the implications are vast in the world of organ replacement.
According to the Scottish website Daily Record, “Around 7000 people in the UK are on the waiting list for a new kidney and demand for organs is increasing.” But with the development of the technology to grow a kidney from human stem cells, the idea is that “instead of waiting for donor organs to become available, scientists could collect amniotic fluid at birth, store it and use it if the person goes on to develop kidney disease.” Because these cells would actually come from the person, the risk of rejection of the kidney may disappear completely.
Though the possibility of this is not yet known, the hope is that this sort of technology will be able to be used to grow other organs, thus eliminating the need and shortage of organ donation and saving millions of lives.
Even thought these two events are huge breakthroughs in medical science,, there is still a long way to go until they can have an effect on actual human transplants. James Davies, a physiologist and Edinburgh University professor, comments on the fact that the kidney grown in their laboratory is still just the size of a normal fetal kidney as opposed to a full-grown man’s or woman’s: “If you have got a bunch of stem cells sitting in a test tube, that is a long way from being a beautifully, anatomically organized organ like a kidney, which is quite a complicated structure. So we are working on how you turn cells floating about in liquid into something as precisely arranged as a kidney.”
Not to take away anything from either of these accomplishments. Davies adds, truthfully, “We have made pretty good progress with that.”
More To Read:
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18 terrific food creations that are sure to spice up
your Bible lessons!
From the moment Jesus first broke bread with his disciples to last
Sunday when a Sunday school teacher shared a snack with a room full
of kids, the Christian experience has been passed from one hand to
another in the form of food and fellowship. Food is one of God’s
many gifts — a true blessing that serves many purposes. It
nourishes, satisfies, and prompts us to share with others. Food is
a delicious, tangible reminder of the blessings God has given
And food is a lot of fun! Food looks, smells, and tastes great —
and it’s the perfect way to make your Bible lessons even more
memorable and exciting for kids. These 18 amazing — and simple —
food creations are sure to intrigue, engage, and entice the
children in your ministry as they explore the Bible. And each food
craft comes with suggested Bible connections to help you get the
most out of your munchables!
Alert: Some of the following snacks contain peanuts or
peanut products. Check for allergies before allowing children to
create or consume any items.
Ingredients: Pretzel sticks, peanut butter or cream
cheese, paper plates, Goldfish crackers, and a knife.
This is a fun, active snack that illustrates how difficult it can
be to “catch fish”! Use the knife to spread peanut butter or cream
cheese on a paper plate. Fill another paper plate with Goldfish
crackers, and place it next to the first plate.
Have kids dip one end of a pretzel stick into the peanut butter or
cream cheese. Then, using their pretzel stick “fishing rods,” have
kids “catch” Goldfish crackers by touching the dipped pretzel ends
to Goldfish crackers and picking them up to eat. Monitor kids to
prevent “double dipping.”
Ingredients: Apples, thin cheese slices, toothpicks, paper
plates, and a knife.
Core and quarter the apples. Push a toothpick through opposite ends
of a cheese slice to create a “sail.” Place the apple wedges on
paper plates, skin side down. Insert a “sail” into the center of
each apple wedge.
Baby Moses Baskets
Ingredients: Large biscuit shredded wheat cereal,
marshmallow creme, peanut butter or Nutella hazelnut spread, melted
butter, mixing bowls, mixing spoon, wax paper, jelly beans, and red
For every four servings, place one cup of crumbled shredded wheat
cereal in a bowl. In another bowl, stir one cup of marshmallow
creme and one tablespoon of peanut butter or Nutella into 1½
tablespoons melted butter until the mixture becomes syrupy. Pour
the marshmallow mixture over the shredded wheat cereal, and mix all
the ingredients together. Form four equally sized balls from the
mixture and then place them on wax paper. Use your thumb to indent
each ball, creating a “basket.” Use a 3-inch piece of a red
licorice whip to create a handle and attach it by sticking it into
the top sides of the “basket.” Put a jelly bean in each basket to
represent baby Moses.
Bible Connections: Baby Moses, Exodus 2:1-10.
Alternative: Fill the baskets with Goldfish crackers and
white jelly beans to represent the leftover baskets of fish and
bread when Jesus fed the 5,000. Or place the indented balls on
their sides to represent Jesus’ tomb.
Pools of Fish
Ingredients: Blue Jell-O gelatin, boiling water, cool
water, gummy sharks, clear plastic cups, a mixing bowl, and a
Combine the gelatin and boiling water in the mixing bowl, following
the directions on the package. You’ll need enough gelatin for each
child to have ½ cup. Add cool water, and then pour equal amounts
into the clear cups.
Refrigerate the cups until the gelatin begins to thicken. Suspend
gummy sharks in the middle of the gelatin cups, and then place the
cups back in the refrigerator until the gelatin is set.
Ingredients: Yellow frosting, cupcakes, candy corn, orange
Tic Tac mints, plastic knives, and red licorice whips.
Spread yellow frosting on the cupcakes, and then arrange candy corn
pieces around the cupcakes’ edges to create the sun’s rays. Add two
orange Tic Tac mints for eyes and a red licorice whip for a
Ingredients: Bread dough, cookie sheets, a clean work
surface, access to an oven, oven mitts, and nonstick spray.
Give each child a fist-sized piece of bread dough, and have kids
each roll the ball into a “rope.” On the cookie sheets, have kids
shape their ropes into ovals, crossing the ends to create fish
shapes. Once kids have perfected their shapes, bake the bread
according to the recipe directions.
Bible Connections: Boy Shares Lunch, Mark 6:30-44.
Ingredients: Chocolate pudding, small paper cups,
chocolate cookies, resealable plastic bags, plastic spoons, and
gummy animals or animal crackers.
Have kids each fill a small paper cup ¾ full with chocolate
pudding. Give each child one chocolate cookie. Have kids crush the
chocolate cookies inside the resealable plastic bags. Use the
chocolate cookie crumbs to create a “dirt” layer on top of the
pudding layer. Insert gummy animals or animal crackers in the
Alternative: Fill celery sticks with peanut butter or
cream cheese. Top the celery sticks with animal crackers.
Ingredients: Round crackers, Cheez Whiz processed cheese
spread, pretzel sticks, and paper plates.
Have kids cover one side of a round cracker using the Cheez Whiz
processed cheese spread. Place another cracker on top of the first.
Then kids can stick pretzels between the crackers for arms and
legs. Finish the treats by drawing a face on the top cracker using
Cheez Whiz processed cheese spread.
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St Maximillian Kolbe
Written and researched by Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewska
Raymond Kolbe was born on January 7, 1894 in the city of Zdunsks Wola. From his poor, but industrious parents, Raymond learned of the noble exploits of Poland's national heroes. He also learned to love the Blessed Virgin. His brother Francis Kolbe was thought to be the priest in the family, while Raymond was to stay home and learn his father's trade. A local pharmacist named Kotowski began tutoring Raymond, and in the summer of 1907, he attended secondary school at Lwow with his older brother. Raymomd excelled in mathematics and physics there.
The Franciscans began a seminary at Lwow, and Raymond and his brother, Francis, were admitted. One September 4, 1910, Raymond Kolbe invested in the Franciscan order and took the name Maximillian. Maximillian, the Friar, still was fascinated with the world of science, and thought he had made a mistake by entering the seminary. His mother visited him and helped him to stay on his course. On September 5, 1911 Maximillian made his first vows.
In 1912, he began studies in Krakow, in the autumn. He was then to visit Rome and attend the Gregorian Pontifical Institute. Maximillian received his docturate in philosophy in 1915 (at age 21). On April 28, 1918, Father Maximillian was an ordained priest. He celebrated his first mass at the Church of St. Andrew delle Fratte. His brother, Joseph also became a Franciscan and took the name of Friar Alphonse.
Maximillian Kolbe founded the Knights of the Immaculata in 1917, just three days after the final apparition of our Lady at Fatima was seen in Portugal. Our Lady of Fatima had asked for consecration to her Immaculate Heart, promising the conversion of Russia. Maximillian predicted that one day a statue of the Immaculata would be placed upon the Kremlin in Moscow.
In 1920, in Poland, Maximillian's chronic tuberculosis came upon him. He had contracted it in Rome during his student days, and eventually, after months of recuperation in a sanitarium at Zakopane, he was cured. From this he went to Krakow and recruited more members to the Knights of the Immaculata and wrote a about his group (Rycerz Niepokalanej).
In 1922, Father Maximillian was in northern Poland at Grodno. In 1927 he was given a plot of land near Warsaw for the Immaculata. It was here he began his City of the Immaculata, which was built by himself and his brotherhood. In 1930 Maximillian headed to spread the word with an Eastern Mission in Turin. He also visited Lourdes for council. His word would spread to Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, India, Annam, and China.
Leaving Japan in 1936 he again went to Poland. In 1939 the German army came and arrested him and his companions, then released them on December 8, 1939. They were deported to Amtitz (near Berlin), then to Ostrzewzow. Many Germans tried to win his favor, but he refused and was arrested again on February 17, 1941. Maximilian and four other priests were jailed in Warsaw in the Pawiak jail. No one knows what the charges were for his arrest. In Pawiak, Father Maximillian fell ill with lung troubles and was place in the infirmary. On May 28, 1941, Father Maximillian was transferred with 320 prisoners to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. He was number 16670. He was made to work transporting tree trunks in the area of Babice. Father Maximillian was made to toil more and more, even though his health was failing. He got so bad that he could not longer speak and was burning up with fever. He was placed in a Typhus ward. He continued to hear confessions, say prayers and helped fellow prisoners. He was again moved to Block 14 which was assigned to farm laborers. Here he sacrificed his life for that of the family of Francis Gajowniczek. He was then put in the starvation bunker. In this bunker, no one received food or drink. On August 14, 1941, Father Maximillian received an injection of lethal acid. On August 15, 1941 his body was burned in the crematorium.
[English Saints|Polish Saints|CelticSaints|Scottish Saints|German Saints
© 1997 Mail to: [email protected]
This page is updated and designed by Maggie Sypniewski, BFA
Last updated on July 3, 2006
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Most of the research for the 90 nanometer generation is now complete, and all of the major semiconductor makers are sampling 90 nm parts. It is now a matter of getting the process ready for volume-production. Chip designers are now spending the bulk of their efforts at the 65 nm generation. Speakers at the VLSI symposium in Kyoto, Japan will discuss the numerous headaches that the 65 nm generation provides. The 65 nm generation will allow designers to create SRAM and DRAM cells that are only half the size of 90 nm cells, and should also allow single-chip GPS systems. The problems with electrical leakage, however, will become quite severe. Companies like Intel have technologies and techniques which should allow CMOS scaling all the way down to the 35 nm generation, but the downside is that these chips will dissipate prodigious quantities of heat. Intel should be the first microprocessor maker to unveil 90 nm parts, and it may also be the first to produce 65 nm parts in 2005, followed by IBM and AMD.
USER COMMENTS 46 comment(s)
|consumption efficiency (6:08pm EST Tue May 27 2003)
Exclusive upgrade showing growth of processor's consumption efficiency of 50 000 times in time frame 1989 – 2013 will be posted in a week or two at this year upgrade of:
– by adi porobic
|Any idea what will distinguish 65 nm? (7:35pm EST Tue May 27 2003)
What will be different about 65 nm? Besides higher aspect ratios and smaller transitors. Metal transistor gates? Low K dielectrics (finally!?).
– by BEN
|I wonder… (8:47pm EST Tue May 27 2003)
One Meg L2
Prommy Time ?
I wonder if you can get a stable OC 4Ghz out of the prescott. – by BobaFett
|BEN (12:48am EST Wed May 28 2003)
65nm should have a lot of differences:
AMD/IBM will have been using SOI for a while – Intel may start using SOI for 65nm.
Back end metalization aspect ratios shouldn't be too much higher (everything is Cu – when all was Al aspect ratios got really high)
All gates are still Poly Si now w/ a metal cap (Silicide type) – not sure if this will change (the metal cap material will change probably).
The gate dielectric will change though. Sio2 will not scale very well past 90nm – infact there are leakage issues w/ sio2 @90nm.
BTW Low K dielectrics will be used in the 90nm generation – check out intel's press release section under research. – by someguy
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<urn:uuid:91e0580f-c890-4479-a371-cba62419837a>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.geek.com/chips/vlsi-designers-grapple-with-65-nanometer-chips-553367/
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en
| 0.897958 | 562 | 2.515625 | 3 |
When young children refuse to poop on the potty, they have often fallen in to what I call the D-D-D cycle, for Discomfort > Dread > Delay. They might enter the cycle from any point, perhaps from waiting to poop because they don’t want to interrupt playing, or perhaps from fear of the potty itself. But what these kids have in common is the uncomfortable passing of a large or hard stool. This can make them afraid the next time they need to go, which leads to stool withholding.
Then, when they finally do poop, it can be even more painful, reinforcing the dread and the delay. Researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia followed 380 children from before toileting was an issue all the way through successful potty learning, to see how children fall into this cycle. The results were published online in the June 2004 Pediatrics. The average age to complete daytime toilet learning was 36 months, and varied from 22 to 54 months. Along the way about one quarter of the kids experienced Stool Toileting Refusal (STR). For as many as 93 percent of the kids, the first step on the D-D-D cycle was the uncomfortable passing of a hard stool. This suggests that constipation may be inadequately addressed in children before they start to learn about going on the potty, and that solving the constipation problem may prevent many toilet difficulties that are commonly encountered.
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<urn:uuid:0080a0c7-ccee-451f-b2d5-f41c01109af6>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.drgreene.com/poop-problems-chicken-egg/
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en
| 0.975493 | 291 | 3.109375 | 3 |
ACTIVE (Simple i Cont): Present, past, present perfect, past perfect, future
PASSIVE (Simple i Cont):Present, past, present perfect, past perfect, future
Hi. I have test on Tuesday and I have huge problem. I have to use these tenses. I know how to make these tenses, I DONT know when to use each of tenses.
E.G. Teacher will give us with sentences: (this is an example) The Jones _________ (go) to Italy last summer.
Now I have to use some tense. There is 21 tenses. How do I know which one I have to use.
SHe will give us more complicated test and sentences.
not. This teacher obviously have other stuff to do. I know for example when to use Present perfect cont
1. An action that has just stopped or recently stopped
2. An action continuing up to now
But this doesnt help.
you see. It is all Present perfect cont
Can you give two sentences that illustrate your defintions 1/ and 2/?
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<urn:uuid:2db1010f-2a74-4dbf-b19c-3f9d4b48c068>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/79621-Verb-Tenses
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00102-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.940718 | 225 | 3.140625 | 3 |
When the infamous felon Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he allegedly told the reporter, “Because that is where the money is.” Sutton died in 1980, but if he were still alive he might make a similar quip about modern ATM machines.
The FBI reports that more money is stolen today through data breaches (including compromised ATM systems) than through physical bank robberies. The American Bankers Association estimates that an ATM heist can yield 10 times as much cash as criminals holding up a bank.
This is an interesting development in the light of the 400,000 ATMs presently in service in the United States and more than 2 million ATMs around the world. These machines dispensed $695 billion of cash in 2011 alone. Over the last four decades these ubiquitous machines have been adding convenience (and consternation) for banking customers and lowering employee costs for banks. Apparently, they have also been making it safer for human beings to work in banks by drawing the attention of greedy knaves.
Obviously banks are exploring ways to increase the security of ATM machines. Nevertheless, this provides an excellent illustration of the importance of incentives in economics. All people (even reprobates) respond to incentives. This could be a shopper going out to take advantage of a sale, a taxpayer pursuing actions that will be tax-deductible, or a politician proposing controversial legislation that will generate campaign contributions.
A significant incentive in free markets is the marginal (not average) rate of taxation. The marginal tax rate is how much money the government will take from the next dollar that a person earns. Low marginal tax rates increase the number of people working and actually increase revenues collected by the government. High marginal tax rates discourage honest work and diligent job searches as much as unguarded ATM machines attract thieves.
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<urn:uuid:2cd85292-4126-4467-ad79-1ff566ce18b3>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.davidkotter.com/2012/02/where-the-money-is/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00128-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.957777 | 365 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The past week was a remarkable one for planetary science. Not only we had a probe arriving to an asteroid but also the solar family welcomed a new member.
In one side we have that the probe Dawn arrived to asteroid Vesta and is now in orbit around it. The story behind the whole mission is quite interesting. Actually the mission was cancelled many times and was only successful after the contractor (Orbital Sciences Corporation) offered to build the probe at cost. I certainly don't know of any other cases where the contractor ends up offering a whole probe at cost.
Vesta as seen from Dawn after it entered orbit.
The scientific program of this probe is quite ambitious. It plans to visit two of the biggest members of the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres, which were chosen as representative of "young" and "evolved" asteroids. Additionally, Vesta is (allegedly) the source of many of the micrometeorites that produce shooting stars in the sky which made it a particularly attractive target of study. This is also the first time a probe enters around the orbit of two objects. In previous "tours" like the Voyager missions the observations were made during flyby's. A similar option was considered a few years ago for Cassini with a potential transfer to Uranus which would had required a 20+ year cruise time. Eventually, that option was discarded and it was decided to send Cassini in a collision route with Saturn.
In a different development, it turns out that Pluto (the good old planet, now dwarf planet) system has at least three moons. This was spotted with the Hubble Space Telescope and the new satellite will be most likely studied by the probe New Horizons during its expected flyby of the system.
The Pluto system as shown by latest Hubble observations.
If you add all this with the results that are being announced from EPS-HEP there is no doubt that the past week has been one of the most exciting in a long time.
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<urn:uuid:adf7f68e-92e6-4138-9c77-266bda33e7f4>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://sanchezluis.blogspot.com/2011/07/news-from-solar-neighborhood.html
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.98693 | 404 | 2.640625 | 3 |
The idea of a foldable, multi-screen smartphone or tablet has been around for ages. One shining example of this is the Microsoft Courier, the dual-screen tablet that first made headlines nearly half a decade ago. It never made it past the concept stage but that doesn’t mean interest in the idea ever waned.
Case in point: researchers from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Canada have created a foldable smartphone unlike anything we’ve seen before. Dubbed PaperFold, it’s described as a multi-display shape-changing smartphone with reconfigurable display tiles that doesn’t stray too far from Project Ara’s modular theme.
A video for the device shows a couple of different usage scenarios. In the first, a user is viewing a photo album and by attaching a second display via magnetic hinge, individual images are then shown in full screen on the second display and can be cycled through using gesture control. Attach a third display and you have access to editing tools and detailed information about each picture.
Another scenario shows the device being used as an ultra portable notebook with the second screen utilized as a keyboard. The third panel can be added when you’re looking at a map, for example. Shaping the map into a convex sphere switches to Google Earth view.
The prototype nature of PaperFold is obvious but the idea certainly seems plausible for mainstream use once refined. There’s no word yet on when or if the device will ever make it to consumer markets but if nothing else, it gives us a look at what is possible as smartphone technology evolves.
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<urn:uuid:27d76036-27e6-4a9a-b8f1-8abe5ff8f649>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.techspot.com/news/56627-paperfold-smartphone-prototype-gives-a-glimpse-of-where-the-industry-is-heading.html
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.920813 | 337 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Agricultural Research Service scientists are testing alternative ways of tilling the soil and rotating crops to see if they can help wheat farmers in Oregon sequester more carbon in the soil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Soil organic carbon plays a major role in how well a cultivated field holds moisture, provides nutrients and remains productive. That can be a problem in eastern Oregon because the soils are relatively low in organic carbon.
Wheat farmers there traditionally plant winter wheat one year and leave the field fallow for a season, using traditional methods to plow before planting. Hero Gollany, a soil scientist at the ARS Columbia Plateau Conservation Research Center in Pendleton, Ore., is looking at three scenarios that may help.
In one field, she is comparing levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions released from the traditional two-year rotation with an alternative three-year cycle of no-till winter wheat, followed by a second crop of no-till winter wheat, followed by sorghum. She is measuring residue yields, soil conditions, and greenhouse gas emissions, taking measurements throughout the year.
To read the entire article, link here.
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<urn:uuid:63ab4b22-5cb5-4e4a-81e2-71055521388e>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://beefmagazine.com/print/pasture-range/1210-keeping-carbon-in-soil
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00148-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.935059 | 237 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Acid Value (AV) and the quality of fats and oils
back to Titration Curves
The acid value (AV) is a common parameter in the specification of fats and oils. It is defined as the weight of KOH in mg needed to neutralize the organic acids present in 1g of fat and it is a measure of the free fatty acids (FFA) present in the fat or oil. An increment in the amount of FFA in a sample of oil or fat indicates hydrolysis of triglycerides (Structure on the left). Such reaction occurs by the action of lipase enzyme and it is and indicator of inadequate processing and storage conditions (i.e., high temperature and relative humidity, tissue damage). The source of the enzyme can be the tissue from which the oil or fat was extracted or it can be a contaminant from other cells including microorganisms. Besides FFA, hydrolysis of triglycerides produces glycerol. The table below shows the acid value of some common oils and bee's wax.
|Oil||Acid Value (AV)|
|Virgin olive oil||6.6|
|Used frying oil||31|
FFA are a source of flavors and aromas. On one side, we have short chain FFA which tend to be water soluble and volatile with characteristic smell. On the other side, we have long chain saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. The later are more prone to oxidation in their free form and their breakdown products (aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, and organic acids) provide characteristic flavors and aromas. In most cases these flavors and aromas are considered a defect in oils, fats, and foods that contain them. However, there are instances where hydrolysis of triglycerides and oxidation of FFA are key in the development of desirable flavor and aroma in foods. This is the case of aged cheeses and some processed meats.
The AOAC method to determine AV in fats and oils is based on a titration in ethanol using phenolphthalein as indicator. Disadvantages of this and similar methods are the use of organic solvents (volume and toxicity), the need for heating the reaction media, incomplete solubility of the oil/fat, the need to pre-neutralize the solvents, use of large amounts of sample, and the possibility of error to detect the color change of the indicator when analyzing colored samples. There are some non-titration methods designed to overcome these disadvantages. However, in spite its drawbacks, the titration method is still the most used due to the fact that it does not require expensive equipment.
A titration is a volumetric technique in which a solution of one reactant (the titrant) is added to a solution of a second reactant (the analyte) until the equivalence point is reached. The equivalence point is the point at which the titrant has been added in exactly the right quantity to react stoichiometrically with the analyte.
When an acid is titrated with a base, there is typically a sudden change in the pH of the solution at the equivalence point. If a few drops of indicator solution have been added, this sharp increase in pH causes an abrupt change in color, which is called the endpoint of the indicator (See the animation on the left). The actual magnitude of the jump in pH, and the pH range which it covers depend on the strength of both the acid and the base involved, and so the choice of indicator can vary from one titration to another. To learn how to choose an appropriate indicator, we need to study in some detail the variation of pH during a titration.
To simplify calculations we want to work with acid-base reactions that go to completion. For such reason, the most common cases we will encounter are
Titration of a strong acid with a strong base
Suppose we place 25.00 cm3 of 0.10 M HCl solution in a flask and add 0.10 M NaOH from a buret. The pH of the solution in the flask varies with added NaOH, as shown in Fig. 1a. The pH changes quite slowly at the start of the titration, and almost all the increase in pH takes place in the immediate vicinity of the endpoint.
The pH change during this titration is caused by the proton-transfer reaction
which occurs as hydroxide ions are added from the buret. Though hydronium ions are being consumed by hydroxide ions in the early stages of the titration, the hydronium-ion concentration remains in the vicinity of 10–1 or 10–2 mol dm–3. As a result, the pH remains in the range 1 to 2. As an example of this behavior let us consider the situation halfway to the endpoint, i.e., when exactly 12.50 cm3 of 0.10 M NaOH have been added to 25.00 cm3 of 0.10 M HCl in the flask. The amount of hydronium ion has been reduced at this point from an original 2.5 mmol to half this value, 1.25 mmol. At the same time the volume of solution has increased from 25 cm3 to (25 + 12.50) cm3 = 37.50 cm3. Therefore, the hydronium-ion concentration is 1.25 mmol/37.50 cm3 = 0.0333 mol dm–3, and the resultant pH is 1.48. Though the titration is half completed, this is not very different from the initial pH of 1.00.
The pH of the solution in the flask will only change drastically when we reach that point in the titration when only a minute fraction of the hydronium ions remain unconsumed, i.e., as we approach the endpoint. Only then we will have reduced the hydronium-ion concentration by several powers of 10, and consequently increased the pH by several units. When 24.95 cm3 of base have been added, we are only 0.05 cm3 (approximately one drop) short of the endpoint. At this point 24.95 cm3 × 0.10 mmol cm–3 = 2.495 mmol hydroxide ions have been added. These will have consumed 2.495 mmol hydronium ions, leaving (2.5 – 2.495) mmol = 0.005 mmol hydronium ions in a volume of 49.95 cm3. The hydronium-ion concentration will now be
giving a pH of 4.00. Because almost all the hydronium ions have been consumed, only a small fraction (one five-hundredth) remains and the volume of solution has nearly doubled. This reduces the hydronium-ion concentration by a factor of 10–3, and the pH increases by three units from its original value of 1.00.
When exactly 25.00 cm3 of base have been added, we have reached the theoretical equivalence point, and the flask will contain 2.5 mmol of both sodium and chloride ions in 50 cm3 of solution; i.e., the solution is 0.05 M NaCl. Furthermore its pH will be exactly 7.00, since neither the sodium ion nor the chloride ion exhibits any appreciable acid-base properties.
Immediately after this equivalence point the addition of further NaOH to the flask results in a sudden increase in the concentration of hydroxide ions, since there are now virtually no hydronium ions left to consume them. Thus even one drop (0.05 cm3) of base added to the equivalence point solution adds 0.005 mmol hydroxide ions and produces a hydroxide-ion concentration of 0.005 mmol/50.05 cm3 = 1.00 × 10–4 mol dm–3. The resultant pOH = 4.00, and the pH = 10.00. The addition of just two drops of base results in a pH jump from 4.00 to 7.00 to 10.00. This rapid rise causes the indicator to change color, so the endpoint matches the equivalence point if the indicator is chosen properly.
A Titration of a strong base with a strong acid can be handled in essentially the same way as the strong acid-strong base situation we have just described. Strong acids and bases are not naturally found in food, however, they are often used as food processing aids and analysis methods.
EXAMPLE 1 Suppose that 40.00 cm3 of 0.020 M KOH is titrated with 0.030 M HNO3. Find the pH of the solution in the flask (a) before any HNO3 is added; (b) halfway to the endpoint; (c) one drop (0.05 cm3) before the endpoint; (d) one drop after the endpoint.
a) Since KOH is a strong base, [OH–] = 0.020 = 2 x 10–2. Thus
b) Halfway to the endpoint means that half the OH– has been consumed. The original amount of OH– was
so the amount remaining is 0.4 mmol OH–. It must have required 0.4 mmol HNO3 to consume the other 0.4 mmol OH–, and so the volume of HNO3 added is
The total volume of solution at this point is thus (13.33 + 40.00) cm3 = 53.33 cm3, and
c) If the total volume of of HNO3 required to react with all the OH- in solution is 26.66 cm3, when 26.61 cm3 of HNO3 solution have been added, the amount of H3O+ added is
This would consume an equal amount of OH–, and so the amount of OH– remaining is (0.8 – 0.798) mmol = 0.002 mmol. Thus
d) An excess of 0.05 cm3 of acid will add
of H3O+ to a neutral solution whose volume is (40.00 + 26.71)cm3 = 66.71 cm3.
Titration of a weak acid with a strong base
When 25.00 cm3 of 0.10M CH3COOH is titrated with 0.10M NaOH, for instance, there is a very much smaller change in pH at the equivalence point, as shown in Fig. 1b, and the choice of indicators is correspondingly narrowed. The behavior of the pH in this case is very different from that of the titration of HCl with NaOH, because the acid-base reaction is different. When CH3COOH is titrated with NaOH, the OH– ions consume CH3COOH molecules according to the equation
As a result, the solution in the titration flask soon becomes a buffer mixture with appreciable concentrations of the CH3COO– ion as well as its conjugate acid. The [H3O+] and the pH are then controlled by the ratio of acid to conjugate base (equations 2 and 3 in the section on buffer solutions). When we are halfway to the endpoint, for example, [CH3COOH] will be essentially the same as [CH3COO–], and
while the pH will be given by the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation as
Comparing this to the pH of 1.78 calculated above for the halfway stage in the titration of HCl, we find a difference of roughly three pH units. The effect of the buffering action of the CH3COOH/ CH3COO– conjugate pair is thus to keep the pH some three units higher than before and hence to cut the jump in pH at the endpoint by approximately this amount.
Exactly at the equivalence point we no longer have a buffer mixture but a 0.05-M solution of sodium acetate. This solution is slightly basic, and its pH of 8.72 can be calculated from equation 4 on the section covering the pH of weak base solutions. Beyond this equivalence point, the story is much the same as in the strong-acid case. Addition of even a drop (0.05cm3) of excess base raises the OH– concentration to 10–4 mol dm–3 and the pH to 10. Of the three indicators which could be used in the titration of HCl, only one is useful for acetic acid. This is phenolphthalein, which changes color in the pH range 8.3 to 10.0. This endpoint lies within the pH jump from 7 to 10 which occurs ± 0.05 cm3 (one drop) from the endpoint. Both the other two indicators would give a color change before the true equivalence point. As shown in Fig. 1b, the color of methyl red would start changing after only about 4 cm3 of base had been added!
The titration of a weak base with a strong acid also involves a buffer solution and consequently requires a more careful choice of indicator.
The pH variation during titrations of strong and weak bases with a strong acid are shown in Fig. 2. In the case of the titration of 0.010 M NH3 with 0.010 M HCl, methyl red, but not phenolphthalein, would be a suitable indicator. In general the best indicator for a given titration is the one whose pKa most nearly matches the pH calculated at the theoretical endpoint.
EXAMPLE 2 Ten grams of olive oil are dispersed in 50 cm3 ethanol for a final volume of 60.86 cm3. The mixture is titrated with 50 cm3 KOH 0.1 M. a) What is the AV of this sample of olive oil? Assuming that the only free fatty acid present in the sample is oleic acid and that we are working with an aqueous solution at all times, what is the pH of the mixture b) before any KOH is added?, when c) 10 cm3, d) 25 cm3, e) 35 cm3 e) an excess of 1.5cm3 KOH 0.1 M have been added?
Note: Oleic acid (c-9-octadecenoic) pKa=9.85
a) If 50 cm3 of 0.1 M KOH were used to neutralize the sample, the number of moles of KOH is
The molar mass of KOH is 56.10 g/mol and the mass of KOH employed in mg is
this amount of KOH was used to neutralize 10 g of olive oil. The acid value is the then
This AV is considerable higher than the one shown in the table above. What does this tell you about the oil?
This oil has probably been heated (cooking/frying), it is old, or it has been stored under conditions favoring lipase activity. In the case of refined oils, a high AV indicates inappropriate or incomplete refining procedures.
b) From the number of moles of KOH employed to neutralize the oil we can conclude that there were 5.0 mmol of oleic acid in the sample and the ethanolic dispersion. Given that the volume of the dispersion was 60.83 cm3 the concentration of oleic acid is then
Using equation (5) from Weak acids in foods - pH and beyond
c) When 10 cm3 of KOH solution had been added, the volume of the dispersion is 60.83 + 10 = 70.83 cm3 and the corresponding number of moles of OH- is
This means that 1.0 mmol of oleic acid have reacted and produced 1.0 mmol of oleate, its conjugate base. At this point, the number of moles of oleic acid and oleate are
and their concentrations
Since we have both the acid and its conjugate base in the dispersion we can use the Henderson-Hasselbach equation to calculate the pH
Note that all the OH- has reacted with oleic acid and it is not present in the dispersion.
d) When 25 cm3 have been added, we are halfway to the equivalence point. Half of the oleic acid has been converted into oleate and their concentrations are equal.
Again, we have both the acid and its conjugate base in dispersion and we use the Henderson-Hasselbach equation
So halfway the equivalence point
e) If 35 cm3 0.1 KOH have been added
So 3.5 mmol of oleic acid have been converted into oleate and 1.5 remain in the dispersion. With a new volume of 95.83 cm3, their corresponding concentrations are
f) If an excess of 1.5 cm3 are added to the dispersion, its final volume is 112.33 cm3. Since all the oleic acid has been converted into oleate, there are no more protons to react with the OH- ions and it will remain in solution.
The number of moles of OH- ions is
for a concentration of
Since the OH- is the strongest base in solution, it will govern the pH of the reaction mixture. The concentration of OH- generated by oleate is negligible, so we calculate the pH of the dispersion as
Notice the assumptions we made to calculate pH at different stages of this titration. Initially, the oil is dispersed in ethanol, the dissociation constants of acids change depending on the medium and strictly speaking it is probably incorrect to talk about pH in this conditions. The method is also based on the assumption that protons are in the interface ethanol-water and readily react with aqueous NaOH. These are some of the limitations of the method and the reason for the need of a titration instead of direct measurement of pH on the sample.
- ↑ Kardash, E. and Tur’yan, Y. I. 2005. Acid Value Determination in Vegetable Oils by Indirect Titration in Aqueous-alcohol Media. Croat. Chem. Acta 78:1:99-103.
- ↑ http://www.unctad.org/infocomm/anglais/olive/doc/Cxs_033e.pdf
- ↑ Cao, F., Chen, Y., Zhai, F., Li, J., Wang, J., Wang, X., Wang, S., and Zhu, W. 2008. Biodiesel Production From High Acid Value Waste Frying Oil Catalyzed by Superacid Heteropolyacid. Biotech. Bioeng. 101:1:93-100.
- ↑ Food Lipids. Akoh, C. C., and Min, D.B. 3rd ed.
- ↑ Kanicky, J.R. and Shah, D. O. 2002.Effect of degree, type, and position of unsaturation on the pKa of long-chain fatty acids. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 256:1:201-207
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://wiki.chemprime.chemeddl.org/index.php/Acid_Value_(AV)_and_the_quality_of_fats_and_oils
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| 0.914311 | 3,943 | 3 | 3 |
Finding it was likely to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the fore-sail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizzen. The boat lay very broad off, so we thought it better spooning before the sea, than trying or hulling. We reefed the fore-sail and set him, we hauled aft the fore-sheet; the helm was hard a weather. The boat wore bravely. We belayed the fore-down haul; but the sail was split, and we hauled down the yard, and got the sail into the boat, and unbound all the things clear of it. It was a very fierce storm; the sea broke strange and dangerous.
--Gulliver's Travels--Jonathan Swift, 1726.
If you're reading Gulliver's Travels or Moby Dick, you could be at a loss as to what the narrators are describing if you don't know basic sailing terminology. Our language is peppered (or rather, salted) with expressions derived from life at sea. Thinking of the sea, you may picture whaling boats off Nantucket or Hawaii, warships during the Civil War, or merchant vessels carrying fertilized soil from the tropics to enrich the gardens of wealthy English farmers. However, much of the sailors' jargon that has entered and endured in our language came from the British navy. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, British naval and merchant ships dominated the oceans, developing their own culture with its own customs, practices, and language.
In these centuries of global exploration and commerce, boys and men, many of them illiterate, went off to sea and spent years away from home under dangerous conditions. Order and discipline were important in minimizing risk as was communication aboard ship, which had to be crystal clear. For example, different pitches of the boatswain's whistle meant different things: a call for attention, dismissal, or "piping" someone aboard. Shouted instructions often did not carry well against the noise of wind and waves, but voice commands to change the direction of sails had to be carried out immediately, whether to avoid collision with other ships in naval battles, to sail through a typhoon, or to stay on course. Also important to the orderly life of a ship was proper naming, accounting for, stowing of, and using gear.
Many terms remain in our language as a colorful legacy of the great sailing eras of history. Weekend sailors on the Chesapeake Bay and competitors in the heat of an America's Cup race use the same terms. And what teacher has not tried to get a classroom "shipshape" or commanded, "Pipe down?"
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<urn:uuid:72075614-a92b-441e-9810-f128e1d88acb>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/ocean/reflect/essay.html
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en
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One Favorite Place
William Tweed is the chief park interpreter for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. He oversees the parks' educational programs, including visitor centers and ranger-guided walks. A member of the park's staff since 1976, he answers questions about Kings Canyon, a place that Ansel Adams helped make a national park.
What is your favorite part of your job?
For me it's the sense that I am doing something of enduring value. Working with the resources of parks like these is a very special privilege.
How does one get to be a park ranger?
There are many paths. Rangers come from a variety of backgrounds, including biology, history, or natural resources management. Rangers are considered generalists who do everything from enforcing the law to educating visitors. Most permanent rangers start their careers as seasonal rangers.
Tell us what makes Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks so special.
These parks are unique. The world's largest trees grow here, and we preserve some of the best alpine wilderness in the United States, including Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the 48 states. Also special are the great canyons, several of which equal the Grand Canyon of Arizona in depth.
How big are the trees?
Giant sequoias are the biggest trees in the world. What we mean by this is sequoias have more wood in them than any other type of tree. Some other species grow taller, but they do not have as much overall volume. The General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park is the largest of all the sequoias. It contains over 52,000 cubic feet of wood in the trunk alone.
How old are they?
We can only be sure of the age if we count the annual growth rings within the trunk. Since this is hard to do on large standing trees, we can only estimate their ages. The oldest known sequoias, by actual ring count, were about 3,200 years old, but this age is not common. Many of the larger trees approach 2,000 years in age.
How rare are they?
Giant sequoia grow naturally only on the southern slope of the southern Sierra Nevada of California, mostly at altitudes between 5,000 and 7,500 feet. There are about 75 distinct groves, which vary in size from a few acres to several square miles. The Giant Forest, for example, is a large grove that covers about 3 square miles. There are many thousands of trees within the groves and nearly all of the groves are now in government ownership in either these parks or the surrounding national forests. There are also three groves in Yosemite National Park.
Do people climb Mt. Whitney?
For a tall mountain, Mt. Whitney is relatively easy to climb. A good trail leads to the top. The challenge is hiking ten miles at such high altitudes. The trail is so popular that the number of hikers each day is limited by a daily quota.
What rivers created the canyons?
Three major river systems created the canyons of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. In the western half of Sequoia, the five forks of the Kaweah River have all carved major canyons. The eastern half of Sequoia National Park is drained by the Kern River, which also carved a very significant gorge. Finally, the two largest canyons in Kings Canyon National Park were carved by the Middle and South Forks of the Kings River.
What should visitors who come to the parks for a short time see?
The primary point here is that one needs time to see these parks. Just driving through the parks on the main highway takes several hours. A minimum of a day is necessary to see even the highlights, which would be primarily the giant sequoias of the Giant Forest, Moro Rock, Crescent Meadow, the Big Trees Trail, and the Grant Grove Trail.
What can people do?
The best single thing to do is to get out of your car and take a walk in the forest. There is no better way to see the sequoias. The park has many trails. There are also opportunities to tour a marble cavern, fish, swim, picnic, photograph, watch wildlife, and much, much more.
What is a marble cavern?
Marble is a metamorphic rock made up primarily of calcium carbonate, which comes from fossilized, mostly microscopic seashells. Since calcium carbonate is water soluble, given enough time, ground water flowing through the rock will eventually dissolve passageways. When mountain uplift moves these passageways above the water table, air enters them and we recognize them as caves or caverns.
What's the best season?
It's not that simple. They're all good. Spring is great in the foothills portion of Sequoia, where wildflower shows are often magnificent. The sequoia groves at Giant Forest and Grant Grove are hospitable and good for strolling or hiking all summer and well into the fall. In the high country, the season usually runs from late June into mid-October. Winter is a great time for cross-country skiing or snowshoeing.
Some of the park is undeveloped wilderness. What kind of backwoods skills are needed to experience that wilderness?
About 84% of these parks are congressionally-designated wilderness, which means that they are closed forever to road building or other forms of development. An extensive trail system provides access for both backpackers and stock parties using horses or mules. Wilderness visitors can pick up any number of basic books that will tell them what they need to know. The Sierra is relatively benign, if basic certain common sense rules are followed. The most important thing to understand is that you must take everything with you that you will need.
What are the hidden wonders of the parks?
One of my favorites is the Washington Tree, which is the second largest tree in the world but almost never visited. It is located in the Giant Forest, about a mile by trail from either the Giant Forest Museum or the General Sherman Tree.
What is the Trek to the Trees?
On the second Sunday of each December, we have an event at the foot of the huge General Grant Tree in Kings Canyon National Park, which is the third largest sequoia. At this event several hundred people gather, often in the snow, to celebrate both this tree's status as the "Nation's Christmas Tree," and the fact that Congress has designated the tree as a living memorial to the nation's war dead.
What are the major threats to the parks?
The primary threats to these parks come from the large scale changes in the environment, including especially global climate change and the fact that lands surrounding the parks are being used in ways that leave these parks a biological island. Also significant is the fact that these parks have suppressed far too much fire over the past century, with the result that our forests are overgrown and at increased risk to destructive fire events.
Do you have species threatened by extinction?
We've already lost our grizzly bears; the last such animal in California was seen here 75 years ago. California condors are just barely hanging on, being sustained only by a very active captive breeding program. The Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep is also in trouble, with no more that 200-300 left in the wild.
What animals are thriving in the park?
Fortunately, the list is a long one. Because the environment of Kings Canyon National Park remains largely intact, nearly all of its native animals continue to fill their natural niches. Visitors to the park will see not only squirrels, deer, and bear, but also dozens of species of native birds including woodpeckers, jays, hawks, and much, much more. If they are fortunate, they will see animals that are by nature less comfortable in human presence, like bobcats, weasels, and even mountain lions.
If I saw a bear cub begging for food in the park, would it be okay to feed it?
Absolutely not! The primary reason not to feed bears is that it causes them to abandon their natural foraging habits in favor of seeking out human food. This is not only a problem for people, but is very bad for bears. Bears that become dependent upon human food often become more and more aggressive in their relationships with visitors and must eventually be destroyed. Our slogan is "A fed bear is a dead bear."
What are the best reasons for preserving these parks?
Today, Sequoia and Kings Canyon represent the best remaining sample of the natural world of the Sierra Nevada. Nowhere else in the range are natural systems in as good a condition. Nowhere else are there undammed rivers of such size. These parks must be preserved to serve as the baseline against which the rest of our world can be studied and judged.
What do you find inspiring here?
Personally, I seek out quiet. I seek out places where the mark of humankind is not to be seen. I seek out places where natural systems function as they always have. These places give me a sense of connection with nature that is almost impossible to find in most other locations.
Ansel Adams was a great advocate for the protection of wilderness, specifically of the Sierra. Does the region have as strong an advocate today?
It's hard to say. When Adams was fighting in the 1930s to create Kings Canyon National Park he was a relatively young and unknown man. It is only later that we came to realize what he had done. There are many people active today in protecting the Sierra. Only years from now will we know what they accomplished and who was most significant.
Why do you think Adams advocated especially for creating Kings Canyon National Park?
In the backcountry of what is now Kings Canyon National Park, I believe that Adams found the true heart of the Sierra -- the most remote and unblemished part of the range. There he found beauty as well as inner peace. He knew that if not protected these lands would eventually be developed with roads, dams, power plants, and much more. To him that was like building fast food outlets in a cathedral.
Did Adams contribute specifically to the Kings Canyon Park campaign?
Yes. The two activists who led the campaign in the late 1930s were Adams and David Brower, both of the Sierra Club. As the effort progressed both polished the skills that would later make both famous. Adams learned to tell powerful stories about stewardship through his photographs. Brower learned how to play the political game. They would work together for decades, in an often uneasy alliance.
How did Adams' photographs help protect the Sierra?
In that pre-video era, still photographs were the best possible medium for creating public concern about natural places. Adams took the photos that literally defined how our culture learned to think about the high Sierra.
How has the park changed since the 1930s?
Ansel Adams would find the backcountry wonderfully unchanged. He would take great satisfaction, I think, in the fact that nearly all of the wilderness he fought to preserve in these parks survives still in a very high quality natural state. I think he would be less pleased by the front country. He would probably not find modern California, with its huge numbers of recreationists, all driving around quickly from one place to another, very much to his liking. His dreams were for a more contemplative society.
What do you think is Ansel Adams' legacy?
Ansel Adams reminds us what individuals who care can accomplish, and not just by seeking fame or fortune, but rather by standing up patiently for stewardship and respect of our natural heritage. We could use many more of his caliber.
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- Prayer and Worship
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- About USCCB
The Holy Portion. 1When you apportion the land heritage by heritage, you shall set apart a holy portion for the LORD, holier than the rest of the land—twenty-five thousand cubits long and twenty thousand cubits wide; the entire area shall be holy. 2Of this land a square plot, five hundred by five hundred cubits, shall be assigned to the sanctuary, with fifty cubits of free space around it. 3From this tract also measure off a length of twenty-five thousand cubits and a width of ten thousand cubits; on it the sanctuary, the holy of holies, shall stand. 4This shall be the sacred part of the land belonging to the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who draw near to minister to the LORD; it shall be a place for their homes and an area set apart for the sanctuary. 5There shall also be a strip twenty-five thousand cubits long and ten thousand wide for the Levites, the ministers of the temple, so they have cities to live in. 6You shall assign a strip five thousand cubits wide and twenty-five thousand long as the property of the city parallel to the sacred tract; this shall belong to the whole house of Israel. 7A section shall belong to the prince, bordering both sides of the sacred tract and city combined, extending westward on the west side and eastward on the east side, corresponding in length to one of the tribal portions from the west boundary to the east boundary 8of the land. This shall be his property in Israel so that my princes will no longer oppress my people, but will leave the land to the house of Israel according to its tribes. 9Thus says the Lord GOD: Enough, you princes of Israel! Put away violence and oppression, and do what is just and right! Stop evicting my people!—oracle of the Lord GOD.
Weights and Measures.* 10a You shall have honest scales, an honest ephah, and an honest bath. 11The ephah and the bath shall be the same size: the bath equal to one tenth of a homer, and the ephah equal to one tenth of a homer; their capacity is based on the homer. 12The shekel shall be twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels make up a mina* for you.
Offerings. 13This is the offering you must make: one sixth of an ephah from each homer of wheat and one sixth of an ephah from each homer of barley. 14This is the regulation for oil: for every bath of oil, one tenth of a bath, computed by the kor,* made up of ten baths, that is, a homer, for ten baths make a homer. 15Also, one sheep from the flock for every two hundred from the pasture land of Israel, for the grain offering, the burnt offering, and communion offerings, to make atonement on their behalf—oracle of the Lord GOD.b 16All the people of the land shall be responsible for these offerings to the prince in Israel. 17It shall be the duty of the prince to provide burnt offerings, grain offerings, and libations on feast days, new moons, and sabbaths, on all the festivals of the house of Israel. He shall provide the purification offering, grain offering, burnt offering, and communion offerings, to make atonement on behalf of the house of Israel.c
The Passover. 18Thus says the Lord GOD: On the first day of the first month you shall take an unblemished young bull to purify the sanctuary.d 19The priest shall take some of the blood from the purification offering and smear it on the doorposts of the house, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the doorposts of the gates of the inner courtyard.e 20You shall repeat this on the seventh day of the month for those who have sinned inadvertently or out of ignorance; thus you shall purge the temple.f 21On the fourteenth day of the first month you shall observe the feast of Passover; for seven days unleavened bread must be eaten. 22On that day the prince shall sacrifice, on his own behalf and on behalf of all the people of the land, a bull as a purification offering. 23On each of the seven days of the feast he shall sacrifice, as a burnt offering to the LORD, seven bulls and seven rams without blemish, and as a purification offering he shall sacrifice one male goat each day.g 24As a grain offering he shall offer one ephah for each bull and one ephah for each ram and one hin* of oil for each ephah.h
The Feast of Booths. 25In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, on the feast day and for the next seven days, he shall make the same offerings: the same purification offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and offerings of oil.i
* [45:10–12] Besides the land monopoly fostered by royal greed and collusion with the wealthy (Mi 2:2; Is 3:12–15; 5:8–10), one grave social evil of preexilic Israel was dishonesty in business; cf. Hos 12:8; Am 8:5. Ephah, bath: see note on Is 5:10.
* [45:12] Mina: before the exile, a mina was worth fifty shekels; later, in imitation of Babylonian practice, its value increased to sixty shekels. A shekel weighed slightly less than half an ounce. A shekel’s monetary value depended on whether it was gold or silver.
* [45:14] Kor: a liquid and a dry measure, equal to a homer.
* [45:24] Hin: one sixth of the liquid measure known as a bath.
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Definitions for unfavorableʌnˈfeɪ vər ə bəl
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word unfavorable
not encouraging or approving or pleasing
"unfavorable conditions"; "an unfavorable comparison"; "unfavorable comments", "unfavorable impression"
(of winds or weather) tending to hinder or oppose
"made an unfavorable impression"; "unfavorable reviews"
Disadvantageous, adverse, unsuitable, inconducive; serving to hinder or oppose.
Not favorable, disapproving.
Causing obstacles or delay; not conducive to travel or work; inclement.
Not auspicious; ill-boding.
Origin: un- + favourable
not favorable; not propitious; adverse; contrary; discouraging
The numerical value of unfavorable in Chaldean Numerology is: 1
The numerical value of unfavorable in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9
Sample Sentences & Example Usage
The incident was the result of unfavorable weather conditions in the area, so there's no need to look for any conspiracy theories here.
We have seen time gradually dispel every unfavorable foreboding and our Constitution surmount every adverse circumstance dreaded at the outset as beyond control.
We must not indulge in unfavorable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain.
Our growth was impacted by an unfavorable mix of light vehicle production in North America, slower light vehicle production growth in China and weak commercial vehicle markets around the world.
It appears that at least some of that deterioration was related to temporary factors including an unfavorable shift in the weather and perhaps layoffs of temporary workers following the holiday season.
Images & Illustrations of unfavorable
Translations for unfavorable
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
Get even more translations for unfavorable »
Find a translation for the unfavorable definition in other languages:
Select another language:
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Kids love the Minnesota History Center, and why not? We have exhibits that are meant to be touched and explored, and activities that connect kids with history while they’re having fun. Plus, we have places to get a snack and take a break from the action.
Daily Museum Activities
The History Center has a wide range of exhibits for all ages. Whether participating in the interactive quiz show in MN150, climbing the replica grain elevator in Grainland, experiencing the tornado in Weather Permitting, or playing hopscotch in Open House, kids will never have a dull moment.
Some of Minnesota history's interesting people have stepped forward in time to share their stories. Some led ordinary lives. Others accomplished extraordinary things. All faced the challenges of their times in history as best they could.
Each weekend, and holiday and summer weekdays, a different character from Minnesota history is portrayed in the exhibits of the Minnesota History Center. Watch one of these History Players perform at the top of each hour and spend some time visiting with them one-on-one about their lives in Minnesota.
History Hound HiJinx
Families and children can create a make-it take-it craft on selected dates throughout the year (included with museum admission.)
Throughout the year, the Minnesota History Center offers special plays and performances that highlight exhibit stories and themes. Don't miss these opportunities to experience some of the stories, drama and emotions of a different time.
History a la Cart
Stop by one of our staffed stations in the exhibits to get a closer look at artifacts, objects, photographs and more.
Family-Friendly Series and Events
Nine Nights of Music
Enjoy free live outdoor music and dance on the History Center's terrace, Tuesday evenings in July and August.
Day of the Dead
Dia de los Muertos is an important tradition in Mexican culture. The event helps families honor and remember loved ones who have died. The History Center's annual colorful celebration features music, dance, craft activities, beautifully decorated ofrendas (altars), and hands-on activities and games.
This yearly celebration takes place in December on one of the seven days of Kwanzaa. Past activities have included West African drumming, an African-inspired fashion show, storytelling and crafts.
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Efficiency Starts at the Grid
The Union of Concerned Scientists studied the emissions that electric vehicles create from charging off the electric grid, and found, not surprisingly, that in regions where the local utilities rely on renewables and natural gas as their fuel sources, EVs slash global warming emissions compared to gasoline-powered vehicles and gasoline-electric hybrids. In nearly half the country, the emissions generated by an electric car are lower than a car that gets 50 mpg, topping the best hybrids available. And “in places like California and most of New York, EV’s environmental performance could be as high as an 80 mpg gasoline-powered vehicle.” About 37 percent of Americans live in areas where the climate impact of driving an EV is equivalent to driving a 41-to-50 mpg gasoline vehicle—similar to most hybrids. But in heavily coal-energy-dependent areas like the Rocky Mountain region, an EV produces global warming emissions equivalent to a gas vehicle with a fuel economy rating of 33 mpg. That means that an EV driver in Denver impacts the environment about as much as that of a driver of a gasoline-powered Hyundai Elantra (33 mpg) or Ford Fiesta (34 mpg).
Every EV driver stands to save money on operating costs -- $750 to $1,200 per year compared to a conventional compact vehicle, according to UCS. And they all gain the not insubstantial satisfaction of consuming less oil. (For information on the national-security implications of oil dependence, go here and here.) “No matter where one lives in the United States, electric vehicles are a good choice for reducing global warming emissions and saving money on fueling up,” the report concludes.
Photo by iStock/ZU 09
Reed McManus is a senior editor at Sierra. He has worked at the magazine since Ronald Reagan’s second term. For inspiration, he turns to cartoonist R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural, who famously noted: “Twas Ever Thus.”
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The development of space exploration and a space-based economy is currently limited by the extreme cost of launching objects from the surface of the Earth into orbit. Conventional manufacturing facilities, needed to establish infrastructure and large-scale habitation, are extremely expensive to ship to any extra-terrestrial activity. Clearly there is a need for innovative, non-contact, flexible manufacturing technology, using extra-terrestrial resources, to enable the human exploration and development of space. ASI aims to provide this technology. ASI aims to lead the space-based manufacturing industry in the 21st century, drastically reducing the costs associated with space exploration, habitation and development. We use the development of ASI as a focal point for discussion to engage customers: those who are interested in participating in the space-based economy of the early 21st century.
The following section lays out the motivating factors for ASI. A brief introduction to the technology and opportunities of Acoustic Shaping is then presented. The second chapter presents the Strategic Plan and the organizational structure of ASI's team. The following chapters present reports and proposals from each of the Divisions. These are then tied into the Customer Engagement Plan and Outreach Plan for the current year, and to NASA's HEDS program for the long term. Detailed information including our technical papers can be found at the team's public website: http://www.ae.gatech.edu/research/windtunnel/nmb/nmbhome.html
Space-related business accounted for over $121B/yr in 1998 [Covault 1998a]. The International Space Station alone is expected to grow to an Earth-weight of over 1 million lbs. by 2004 [Air&Space 1999a]. Currently, all items are shipped from Earth, with space-based operations limited to assembly: this is obviously a major constraint in mission planning. Demand for Space-based construction is projected to be $20B/yr in 2005, rising to $500B/yr by 2020 as human space exploration progresses. ASI's role in this market is both as market enabler and as supplier: many of the facilities needed to build other facilities will themselves be built cheaply and efficiently in space by ASI.
By supporting space-based manufacturing, NASA will be paving the way for future endeavors by providing an economy within which they can operate, separate from the existing Earth-based economies. We, the creators, developers, researchers, and dreamers of ASI, believe that our technology, non-contact manufacturing through acoustic shaping, will enable NASA as well as the commercial market to delve deeper into space exploration and colonization than ever before imagined.
Examples of ASI-built products
In order to survive in the harsh environments of space and other planets, humans need a variety of special structures, including pressure vessels, shelters, and solar panels. Many of these are composed of simple shapes that are efficiently manufactured using ASIís acoustic shaping technology, such as:
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|Dark-eyed Junco in February - a common winter sparrow|
You see the effects of this reality whenever you look at your bird feeders, go out for the mail, wander in the woods, or amble a town street. Most species which fill our woods and fields with song and movement from late Spring through early Fall are gone.
Internet bird notes and e-mail bird list-serves provide regular updates about what is being seen where; in particular they report on the unusual and unexpected birds for this time of year and our corner of the world. When someone from outside of the active bird watching community sees something that strikes them as unusual or unexpected, the report often comes with a surprised, “I’ve never seen that bird around here” ... or an implied, “What is that bird doing here at this time of year?”
|Red-bellied Woodpecker in February|
An aside: Birders have an imprecise vocabulary for describing bird populations: Abundant (you can’t miss it) - Common (you will probably see it) - Uncommon (you might see it if you are lucky, but no surprise) - Rare (you are really lucky if you see) - Accidental (you won’t see it because it just doesn’t belong here).
Red-bellied Woodpecker is uncommon in southeastern Vermont. You might see it, but it’s no surprise. It may even live in your neighborhood, in which case you will think it is common. The Red-bellied Woodpecker population in our area has grown significantly since its first nesting in 2001. It may not be too long before it will be as common as the Downy or Hairy Woodpecker. The Red-bellied is larger than the Hairy Woodpecker. It has a red stripe over the top and back of its head, a plain white breast, a barred black and white back, and a red belly that is almost never seen.
|Caroline Wren in December|
|American Robin in January|
|American Robin in February|
In Spring, the robins disperse in pairs to raise their young. They are seen everywhere. If you don’t see or hear a robin when outdoors during the breeding season, you simply are not looking or listening. But in winter, they gather in flocks and wander about. Int the last ten years, the Brattleboro Area Christmas Bird Count has recorded robins every year except one. The number counted has ranged from one robin, to over 150 robins. During winter, there is no assurance that you will see a robin on any given day, but on any given day you may see a robin.
What is true for the American Robin is also true for another member of the thrush family, the Eastern Bluebird. If the response to the winter sighting of a robin is surprise, the response to a winter sighting of a bluebird is likely to be astonishment. Some of the reason for this reaction to the bluebird in winter is undoubtedly due to its recent rarity. For many years, bluebirds were so uncommon, that any sighting at any time of the year was greeted with joy and astonishment. The population recovery of the bluebird has been a conservation success story.
|Eastern Bluebird in November|
There is no need to be astonished, or surprised, at seeing a bluebird during the winter. On the other hand, elation at a winter bluebird sighting is always in order. Few birds have the ability to catch my breath the way a bluebird does. In the words of naturalist John Burroughs, the Eastern Bluebird is the “bird that carries the sky on its back and the earth on its breast.”
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Updated 4 yearss ago
Rendering: Florida Power & Light’s Martin Solar Thermal Project. The utility expects to generate power from the Martin County plant in 2010. [Rendering: Florida Power & Light]
With renewable energy dominating state headlines over the past two years, you’d think Florida was leading the nation down the green, clean energy path.
In executive orders in 2007, Gov. Charlie Crist set ambitious goals to move Florida toward more solar and wind power, calling for investor-owned utilities to get to 20% renewable energy sources by 2020.
|Renewables: A Small Slice
Today’s energy generation by fuel type in Florida compared with the forecast for 2017 under current policies:
Source: Florida Public Service Commission
In 2008, the Legislature followed up with a bill requiring the Public Service Commission to set new standards for renewables in utilities’ energy portfolios. Throughout the year, new companies and old announced renewable-energy projects across the state. Florida’s largest utility, Florida Power & Light, announced three solar energy plants, including the world’s largest photovoltaic solar array, in De Soto County; the first “hybrid” energy center that will couple solar thermal technology with an existing natural gas combined-cycle generation unit, in Martin County; and the Space Coast Next Generation Solar Energy Center, a public-private partnership at Kennedy Space Center.
Those steps, however promising, won’t alter Florida’s traditional energy mix, roughly a third coal and a third natural gas — and only about 2% renewables [“Renewables: A Small Slice,” below]. FPL’s three new solar plants will generate 110 megawatts of power, enough to light up about 15,000 homes, but that represents less than half a percent of FPL’s residential customers in Florida.Look for the Public Service Commission this month to vote on the new standards. A consultant for the agency last month advised it’s possible for Florida to reach the governor’s goals, but it would require stronger market conditions — and luck.
|Florida’s largest investor-owned utilities, along with their total number of residential, commercial and industrial customers:|
|Florida Power & Light
|Progress Energy Florida
|Tampa Electric Co.
|Gulf Power Co.||427,284|
|Source: Florida Public Service Commission|
Environmentalists and alternative energy companies want to spur investment in renewables. “The way to create certainty in the market is with a strong target,” says Susan Glickman, southern U.S. regional director for the Climate Group. “The focus here has got to be on jump-starting a business market.” Lawmakers should take up the PSC’s recommendations during their regular session that begins in March.
Some of the companies looking for a larger slice of the pie include Covanta, which builds waste-to-energy facilities, and Florida Crystals, which powers its massive refinery in Okeelanta with sugar cane fiber waste called bagasse. Both companies say they want to expand their generation of green power in Florida but that it’s impossible to compete with the large investor-owned utilities that want to keep the status quo.
Three new nuclear power reactors are up for various stages of approval this year: FPL’s Turkey Point 6 and Turkey Point 7, proposed 25 miles south of Miami, and Progress Energy’s Levy County plant, eight miles north of its current reactor in Crystal River. Look for nuclear energy to be a big part of the renewables debates, as well. FPL, for example, argues that nuclear should be considered “clean energy” and eligible for compliance credits under the new renewable portfolio standards. PSC staff has recommended otherwise.
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Indian had a gun, and I suppose he was out on a hunt, but I gave my horse more slack on the bridle and passed on, and neither of us spoke. A few days later two Indians came up to the herd and wanted beef, but I told them that I had bought these cattle and had none to give away. They talked some English and asked to see my gun. I gave it to one of them and they looked it all over and soon rode away as fast as their horses could carry them. The cattle market was very low that year, so I failed to sell out all, wintering the balance in Nebraska, but they turned out bad. In crossing the Missouri River, it being frozen over, the cattle milled out on the ice and broke through, and we lost sixteen. The expense of wintering was so heavy we came out behind that year.
The first cattle I ever drove to a market was in 1867, to Houston, Texas, for a man by the name of Tumelson, from Gonzales County, and the last herd was in 1872, for a man by the name of 0. J. Baker. R. D. Cude and myself bought the cattle from a Mr. Wimberly, in Hays County. We drove to Kansas and stopped our herd about fifteen miles west of Ellsworth, near the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Everything went well except when we got into Kansas, Bluff Creek being the line. We lay over a day to rest and clean up. Next morning just about sunup, I heard a gunshot down the creek and in a few minutes we saw two Indians running two mules as fast as they could go. They had shot a white man with a gun and arrows. He came dragging up to our camp with one arrow still sticking in him and one of the boys pulled it out and we carried him to a tent not far away.
The trail drivers had many narrow escapes and were exposed to many .storms, cyclones, hail and all kinds of weather, stampedes of cattle, running over ditches and bluffs at night. Some few never came back, but were buried along the lonely trail among the wild roses, wrapped only in their bed blankets ; no human being living near, just the coyote roaming there.
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- 3 updates
Mammograms are "still the best method" modern medicine has for early detection of breast cancer and giving patients the best chance of beating it, a health expert told Good Morning Britain.
Dr Sarah Rawlings from Breakthrough Breast Cancer urged women to continue to have regular checks, despite research suggesting mammograms only prevent one death in every 368 patients who are screened.
Rearchers analysed more than 15 million "person years" and observed breast cancer deaths among 1,175 of the women who were diagnosed after receiving an invitation to screening and in 8,996 of the women who were not invited.
After adjusting for various factors they estimated that invitation to mammography screening was associated with a 28% reduced risk of death from breast cancer.
Baroness Delyth Morgan, boss of the charity Breast Cancer Campaign, said: "This study adds to existing evidence that confirms that breast screening saves lives. Diagnosing breast cancer quickly is vital, as the earlier breast cancer is diagnosed and treated, the greater the chances of survival."
"Women invited to screening in the Norwegian mammography screening programme were at a 28% lower risk of death from breast cancer than women who had not (yet) been invited," the authors wrote.
New research suggests breast cancer screening reduces the number of deaths from the disease by 28%. For every 368 women who are invited to have a mammogram, one death is prevented, the study claims.
The researchers from Norway set out to evaluate the effectiveness of modern mammography screening by comparing the effects on breast cancer mortality among screened and unscreened women.
The study, published on bmj.com, analysed data from all women in Norway aged 50 to 79 between 1986 and 2009 - the period in which the mammography screening programme was gradually rolled out across the country.
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Powerful Pictures Of Earth Being Destroyed
REUTERS/Lou Dematteis/Spectral Q/Handout It's Earth Day!
The tradition of honoring our special blueberry on April 22 has been alive since 1970.
Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin organized the first Earth Day 43 years ago in response to the growing assault on the nation's environment.
Twenty million Americans participated in the first Earth Day, which helped launch the modern day environmental movement.
In December 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created, and for the first time, anti-pollution laws were enacted to control the decline of our country's land, air, and water.
But there's still work to be done.
Around the globe, factories continue to spew toxic sludge into vital waterways, earth is ripped up to feed our energy needs, and entire villages are literally being washed away as a warming planet causes ocean levels to rise.
These images serve as a potent reminder of how easy it is to destroy our precious home, and why we need more holidays like Earth Day.
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Solving Dynamic Range Problems in Analog Systems
Many of the applications that we take for granted operate in real-world environments with high levels of dynamic range. The most common of these systems are radio and television receivers and their updated cousins—the cell phone and the iPod. The signal range for these types of household devices can vary from a few microvolts in remote areas to volts when the device is near the signal source. Situations with wide dynamic range are also found in scientific, industrial, and medical applications—such as the “front ends” of measurement equipment, ultrasound imaging for biological diagnostics, and industrial fault analysis. Designers have been faced with the dual challenges of providing the highest sensitivity amplifiers possible while at the same time making them operable under severe overload conditions.
In the early days of electronics, solutions to these challenges were sought by “tinkering” with the amplification devices. In the case of vacuum tubes, this involved adding control grids within the tube structure to alter the conductivity and thus, the gain of the device. For transistors, electronic gain control was limited to adjusting the dc base or emitter currents. While these solutions were relatively successful, they typically compromised linearity and distortion performance. A more viable solution had to wait until the advent of highly complex integrated circuits in the late 1980s, when Analog Devices invented and introduced the AD600—the first solid-state variable gain amplifier (VGA) to operate in a linear manner.
This amplifier was also called the X-amp or exponential amplifier. The advantages of this device lie in its architecture—a passive electronic gain control implemented with a resistive ladder network and followed by a fixed-gain amplifier. There are six to eight “rungs” on the ladder, connected to an “interpolator circuit” that sweeps across the ladder in response to an externally supplied control voltage. This concept has been the basis for many subsequent products that offer additional features and enhanced performance. However, the basic gain-control architecture has not changed.
The AD8336 is one of several newer solutions in Analog Devices’ VGA portfolio. This device offers an industry-leading balance of size, performance, and circuit versatility while operating across wide power supply voltage and dissipation ranges.
The versatile AD8336 variable gain amplifier features an uncommitted, fully independent voltage feedback op-amp to which ac- or dc-coupled signals of either polarity can be applied. The preamplifier output can be applied directly to the VGA input—or interstage selectivity or filtering can be inserted between the preamplifier and VGA. The preamplifier can be connected as a summing stage or differentially like any high frequency op amp—enabling fast, convenient interconnection to virtually any signal source.
Just as the preamplifier is capable of differential connections, so too is the gain control input. The input may be ground referenced or connected from a reference supply appropriate to the gain control source. This capability is particularly useful with cascading devices. For higher voltage applications, the device may be operated from supplies as high as 12 V or as low as 3 V for battery operation. To conserve battery life, the power may be reduced by approximately 50% at the expense of bandwidth.
Analog Devices offers an extensive portfolio of variable gain amplifiers for applications such as ultrasound, radar, and wireless communications. For data sheets, free samples, and additional information, please visit www.analog.com/LI-VGA or call 1-800-AnalogD.
Author Profile: James Staley is an applications engineer in the Integrated Amplifier Products Group at Analog Devices.
Copyright 1995- Analog Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 0.939912 | 769 | 3.078125 | 3 |
BUBONIC PLAGUE. 439 adrenals congested. There are often sero-sanguinoleiit effusions into the serous cavities. Klein 1 states that the intraperitoneal injection of the bacillus into guinea-pigs is of diagnostic value, produc- ing in twenty-four to forty-eight hours a thick cloudy peritoneal exudate rich in leukocytes and containing characteristic chains of the plague bacillus. Animals fed upon cultures or upon the flesh of other animals dead of the disease became ill and died with typical symptoms. When Klein inoculated animals with the dust of dwelling-houses in which the disease had occurred, some died of tetanus, one from plague. Many rats and mice in which examination showed the charac- teristic bacilli died spontaneously in Hong-Kong. Yersin showed that flies also die of the disease. Mace- rating and crushing a fly in bouillon, he not only suc- ceeded in obtaining the bacillus from the medium, but infected an animal with it Nuttall,2 in reviewing Yersin's fly-experiment, found the statement true, and showed that flies fed with the cadavers of plague-infected mice died in a variable length of time. Large numbers of plague bacilli were found in their intestines. He also found that bed-bugs allowed to prey upon infected animals took up large numbers of the plague bacilli and retained them for a number of days. These bugs did not, however, infect healthy animals when allowed, subsequently, to feed upon them. Nuttall is not, however, satisfied that the number of his experiments upon this point was great enough to 'be conclusive. Ogata found that the plague bacillus existed in the bodies of fleas found upon diseased rats. One of these he crushed between sterile object-glasses and introduced into the subcutaneous tissues Of a mouse, which died in three days with typical lesions of the plague, a con- trol-animal remaining well. Some guinea-pigs taken 1 Centralbl f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk., xxi., No. 24, July 10, 1897, p. 849. 2 Ibid., Aug. 13, 1897.
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| 0.962737 | 474 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Two weeks ago on The Forget-Me-Not Hour, Puritan expert Robert Charles Anderson joined me to talk about the Puritans of New England–who they were and his genealogical work on them. He shared how the Puritans became his life’s work as a genealogist and what projects he has completed about them.
Bob is the author of The Great Migration series of books that chronicles what is known about the 20,000 or so Puritans who emigrated from England between 1620 and 1640. So far the books cover through the year 1635.
With his newest book, called The Winthrop Fleet, Bob has extracted those people who came in the years 1628 to 1630 in the migration to New England headed by Gov. John Winthrop and presented more information on them than is in the previous books. The Winthrop Fleet will be released in August 2012. Find the book here http://www.greatmigration.org/
Listen to Bob Anderson and the fascinating topic of the Puritans here.Posted on by Jane Wilcox
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| 0.98015 | 218 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Computers can be enormous timesavers and powerful financial tools. Using budget tracking software, paying bills online and buying items more cheaply from wholesale or auction sites can make a lot of sense.
Secure your ID on your PC
- Using passwords and profiles
- Getting your guard up
- Upping the anti with software
- Running scans to stay current
- Taking wireless precautions
- Pumping up passwords
- Doubting downloads
- Avoiding public computers
- Watching smart phones and PDAs
- Scrubbing files
But before you load up your computer with sensitive information about yourself, you'll want to take the necessary steps to ensure your personal finances stay personal. Here's how to keep your computer on lockdown and off limits to identity thieves.
1. Use passwords for protectionYou wouldn't leave sensitive documents laying out for prying eyes; likewise, you need to put away the information stored on your computer in a safe place: locked behind a password in your own user account.
Even if you are a true Luddite and never intend to go online, you'll still want to password protect your computer. That's because if you have a snoopy houseguest or if a thief picks up your laptop, they could get at your information as you sleep if it's not password protected.
Set up a separate user account for others to surf on so you keep your sensitive information private.
HOW TO: For Windows-based machines, go into the control panel, choose user accounts and follow the instructions. Mac users must create a password upon using the computer for the first time and they can change their password settings by going into system preferences. There they can disable automatic login. (If you get stuck, ask a trusted techie for assistance. That goes for all these tips.)
2. Get your guard upBefore merging with the information superhighway, you're going to want to make sure that all the existing security settings your computer comes with are turned on. If you want to go out and buy added protection later, that's great. Just make sure you have basic protection enabled before going online.
First, fire up the firewall. Your computer should come with a firewall, or perhaps a software package came bundled with your purchase that includes a firewall. It's basically a set of programs that work together to enforce the safety rules you outline when you choose a security level. The firewall is the gatekeeper for Internet activity.
The default setting is usually on, but you'll want to verify that it's on if you don't see the firewall icon when you turn on the computer.
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| 0.930175 | 530 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Standards for the Practice of Art History
“Code of Ethics for Art Historians and Guidelines for the Professional Practice of Art History,” adopted by the CAA Board of Directors on November 3, 1973; revised on January 23, 1974; and June 24, 1995. Revised, retitled “Standards for the Practice of Art History” and adopted by the Board of Directors on October 26, 2014.
It is the responsibility of the CAA Professional Practices Committee (the “Committee”) to draft, amend, and revise, as appropriate, a Code of Ethics for the Practice of Art History (the “Code”). In 1995, the CAA Board of Directors adopted a revised version of the Code developed by the Committee. The Code is now replaced with these Standards for the Practice of Art History (the “Standards”). The Committee is entrusted by the Board with the task of codifying the common understanding in art-history professions of ethical behavior for scholars, teachers, and curators of art-historical materials (“art historians”). These Standards provide a broad framework of principles of professional conduct and states general ethical values. These Standards do not at the present time include provisions for their enforcement. The Committee is not empowered to investigate or adjudicate infractions of these canons of professional conduct in individual disputes or to censure infractions by reprimand, sanctions, or expulsion. Nevertheless, the Board of Directors, by its own initiative or on the recommendation of the Committee, may study and make recommendations on ethical concerns of importance to the profession, may act as an advocate and publicize with a view toward education on ethical issues, may make referrals as and when appropriate, and may undertake various initiatives designed to ensure compliance with these Standards. The Committee can recommend that the Board of Directors issue a “Statement of Concern” regarding a situation that it feels is not in the best interests of the profession or violates proper professional conduct.
The Committee also recognizes that although CAA cannot directly regulate ethical behavior, it can encourage its individual members through education to adopt these rules and principles and can encourage its institutional members to adopt codes of ethics that implement the rules and principles herein.
These Standards link to specific CAA guidelines when appropriate in order to avoid redundancies and discrepancies as other standards and guidelines are revised over time.
I. Becoming an Art Historian: Best Practices in Recruitment and Hiring
Several CAA standards and guidelines offer guidance for best practices in the recruitment and hiring of art-history academic faculty.
A. The Curriculum Vitae
The following document provides information for candidates on how to present their accomplishments within appropriate parameters:
Curriculum Vitae for Art Historians (rev. 2003)
B. Hiring Art-History Faculty
Hiring committees may consult the following document for preferred professional practices for both preliminary interviews at the CAA Annual Conference and for subsequent on-campus interviews. These suggestions should be implemented in combination with an institution's anti-discrimination and human resources guidelines:
Guidelines for CAA Interviews (rev. 2013)
This document presents an overview for best practices in recruiting:
Standards for Professional Placement (rev. 2013)
C. Retention and Tenure
1. The following document covers a range of topics, including criteria that should be addressed in an individual institution’s promotion and tenure guidelines for the discipline, teaching load recommendations based on institution type, the importance of mentoring, and guidelines for evaluating academic publications in a world in which art-history monograph publishing opportunities are diminished:
Standards for Retention and Tenure of Art Historians (rev. 2011)
2. CAA supports the AAUP Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. A copy of CAA’s Standards for the Practice of Art History is to be kept on file with AAUP.
3. Hiring and retention of art historians must also proceed with an awareness of best practices in retaining and supporting a diverse faculty and student body:
4. Adjunct Faculty
The following document details guidelines for various aspects of part-time and non-tenure-track employment, including recommended elements for inclusion in contracts:
Guidelines for Part-Time Professional Employment (rev. 2013)
II. Research and Publishing
One of the primary interests of CAA as a scholarly organization is the advancement of knowledge. Art historians must be competent researchers; they must also be fully aware of professional conduct and employ ethical practices. Scholarly integrity demands an awareness of personal and cultural bias and openness to issues of difference as these may inflect methodology and analysis. Art historians are responsible for carefully documenting their findings and then making available to others their sources, evidence, and data. They must guard against misrepresenting evidence and against plagiarism. They should fully acknowledge the receipt of financial support and institutional sponsorship, or privileged access to research material and/or original works of art, and credit those in the field who give interviews and/or provide access to materials and works. It is equally important that assistance from colleagues, students, and others be fully acknowledged. The following sections of these Standards outline the responsibilities of art historians in specific areas of professional practice.
A. Rights of Access to Information and Responsibilities of Art Historians
CAA believes that, as much as possible, there should be full, free, equal, and nondiscriminatory access to research materials for all qualified art historians. All art-historical research materials, including, but not limited to, works of art, photographs, diaries, letters, and other documents in the possession of publicly supported or tax-exempt, nonprofit, educational institutions, whether in the United States or elsewhere, where not legally restricted as to use, shall be freely and fully accessible to art historians for research and publication.
1. An art historian has the moral obligation to share the discovery of primary source material with his or her colleagues and serious students. He or she is not obligated to share anything of an interpretive nature that has been done with the source material. The recipients of documents or any other form of information from an art historian should in turn give the finder a reasonable opportunity to be the first to publish the material in question. The finder should seek to publish research within three years, thereby showing respect and appreciation of art historians of the past and present who have contributed to the profession and from whom he or she has benefited.
2. The historian of contemporary art has a moral obligation to share primary documentation of the work of living artists, whose careers and livelihoods may depend upon the dissemination of knowledge about their work. The art historian is not obligated to share material of an interpretive nature that is a result of the examination of source material. Just as all art historians have the moral obligation to share the discovery of primary source material with their colleagues and serious students, historians of contemporary art should make every effort to share primary documents in their possession in a timely way and, when applicable, in consultation with the artist and other creators of the primary documents (such as an art dealer, museum professional, collector, etc.) and consistent with applicable laws regarding copyright, fair use, and the moral rights of artists. It is equally important that colleagues, students, and others with whom such materials are shared fully acknowledge their sources. Historians of contemporary art are encouraged to plan for the long-term preservation of primary documents gathered in the course of research, preferably under the auspices of publicly supported or tax-exempt, nonprofit, educational institutions. To expedite the sharing of primary documentation of contemporary art, art historians are encouraged to experiment with current digital technologies to make data easily available to a wide audience, including colleagues, serious students, and artists.
3. The building of an archive takes time, expense, and knowledge. When this work is the personal achievement of an individual art historian, fellow art historians who seek to use that material should be mindful of these facts; therefore it is appropriate to offer to share, within reasonable limits, some of the expense incurred in obtaining particular documents.
4. An art historian may feel that he or she is the only qualified person to write on a certain artist or subject, and therefore have influenced heirs or executors of estates not to permit others to use archival material in the artist’s trust. An art historian may also influence archival custodians to reserve material, even though it may be ten or more years before a book can be published. These practices are improper professional conduct.
With respect to all art-historical research material in private ownership, CAA recognizes the rights of the owner to decide upon its use, but urges heirs and executors of estates and artists themselves to provide equal access to their holdings for all art historians. Occasionally the aforementioned may decide to invite an art historian to be the first to publish material in their possession. CAA recognizes this right and hopes that it would be accorded or accepted only after careful deliberation of such matters as the qualifications of other art historians and the period of time before the privileged material will be published. CAA appeals to the honor of art historians in the profession to adhere to the following statement in its spirit as well as its letter:
It shall be an improper professional practice for an art historian to accept exclusive use and first rights of publication of art-historical research material held in private ownership unless he or she agrees to make a good faith effort to publish this research or otherwise make available such material within a period of no more than three years.
5. Excavations, whether at classical or at other sites, present a special case as regards the “rights of access” of researchers to the finds. Generally, the agency or institution that conducts the excavation through a permit granted by the host government retains the publication rights to all excavated materials, assigning the various categories to individual specialists. In practice, there are two hazards. One is that the publication may be delayed for an unreasonably long period of time, thus “freezing” the finds and making them inaccessible to other art historians. The opposite danger is that an art historian not associated with the excavation may make improper use of photographs or other documentation, to which he or she has somehow gained access, thus anticipating improperly the officially authorized publication. In view of the foregoing, excavators and their assignees have the duty to publish with reasonable promptness the materials in their charge and to make such materials freely accessible to other art historians for study, and after a reasonable length of time, (normally no longer than three to five years after the end of active fieldwork on the project) available for publication. During the period of preparation of the publication, a scholar who is not connected with the project, but has gained access to materials, shall only make use of these materials in such ways and to such an extent as permission has been granted by the excavators and their assignees.
Architecture by its nature presents a different situation. Although the publication of a building or parts of a building (including its unpublished archaeological content) uncovered by an excavation under permit may come under the restrictive rights of an excavation, subject to a three- to five-year project time limit as outlined above, architecture that is and historically has been visible and available to the public does not. The same is true for the study and assessment of a whole site as an urban entity. The rights of access to architecture and urbanism cannot be restricted. Still, informing the excavation (even, ideally, collaborating with it) about the scope and intentions of such a study and publication is desirable as a matter of courtesy.
B. Acknowledgement of Sources and Assistance
1. An art historian must properly acknowledge assistance provided by other scholars, teachers, students, or anyone else who assists in such matters as calling attention to works of art or archival material previously unknown by the art historian.
It is a maxim of scholarship that authors should be scrupulous in crediting sources, not only of ideas and textual material but also of photographs, and to supply suggestions as to the location of documentation. Comments made by other art historians on the mounts of drawings, on the backs of photographs, recorded in museum dossiers, or reported orally should be cited when relevant to one’s research. The contributions of students to a teacher who publishes must also be acknowledged.
2. Art-historical research relating to living art traditions often takes the form of observing and recording (through photographs, films, and tapes) objects in use, techniques of manufacture, and oral traditions about the history and meaning of the objects and their practical or ritual use, as well as materials in local or national archives and museums. This field data often constitutes unique and irreplaceable documents that should be preserved, along with originals or copies maintained in the community. The researcher and the host community should jointly address concerns of preservation and publication. Scholars have responsibilities to owners, patrons, and artists in situations in which such individuals have proprietary rights. The generosity of individual informants, as well as host governments, indigenous groups, universities, archives, and museums is essential to the success of research. All too often, art historians fail to consider the host community, provide the published results of their research or archive field data with the host community or elsewhere.
It is, however, the responsibility of art historians working in the living art traditions to deposit original or copies of all field data related to said publications—documented photographs, films, video and audio tapes, and the like—in appropriate institutions in the host community in which they have worked. Should no library or museum want the material, other public institutions should be encouraged to house it. The art historian is responsible for depositing some form of any published material within the community.
C. The Illegal Traffic in Works of Art and Responsibilities of Art Historians to Discourage Illegal Traffic in Works of Art
This topic is addressed in the following CAA standards and guidelines:
1. The following statement specifically gives guidance for CAA publications and the ethics of determining what objects can appropriately be published in those works:
Statement on the Importance of Documenting the Historical Context of Objects and Sites (rev. 2004)
The statement listed above relates substantially to CAA’s statement of support in 1973 of the UNESCO Convention:
Resolution concerning the Acquisition of Cultural Properties Originating in Foreign Countries (1973)
The ethical dimensions of authentication are explored in the following CAA document:
Authentications and Attributions (2009)
E. Intellectual Property
Another aspect of the ethical practices within the profession of art history concerns intellectual property, copyright, and permissions. Especially in digital media, the understanding of fair use and intellectual property is rapidly evolving, so it is particularly important to seek the most current resources possible.
The following standard by CAA provides guidance in this area:
Copyrights and Permissions in Scholarly and Educational Publishing (currently under review)
CAA has launched a major research project to develop a code of best practices for fair use in the creation and curation of artworks and scholarly publishing in the visual arts, with anticipated completion in February 2015.
Likewise, the “Intellectual Property and the Arts” page of the CAA website contains germane advice in this area, as well as references to pertinent documents and resources that define United States copyright law.
Other academic professional organizations have produced guides on this topic, as well:
Visual Resources Association: Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study (2011)
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries (2012)
F. Contracts for Publication
Please note resources such as the Author’s Guild Model Trade Book Contract and Guide:
1. The Publication Review Process:
Publishers should acknowledge promptly the receipt of book proposals and manuscripts and notify the author when a decision is made whether the submission is to be considered further; if a publisher decides to consider the proposed publication, the author should be apprised of the status, outcome of the review, and approval process in a timely manner.
There is nothing professionally unethical about an author submitting a manuscript to more than one publisher simultaneously as long as the author notifies the publishers that he or she has made multiple submissions. Such a practice is particularly advantageous to textbook writers, who may have much to bargain for, including, for example, which party is responsible for paying fees and royalties owed for photographs. This practice also reduces delays in decision making by publishers on whether or not to offer a contract.
2. Textbook Contracts and Rights of Review by Estate
CAA recommends that authors consult a lawyer when negotiating a publication contract.
A. Responsibilities and Right to Free Speech
The “Teaching” section of the American Historical Association’s Statement of Standards of Professional Conduct delineates core principles shared within the teaching profession, in particular the public role and responsibilities of educators, as well as the respect for the principles of the right to mutually respectful free speech on the part of both faculty and students.
B. Teacher/Student Collaboration
1. Art historians occasionally invite a student to collaborate on the publication of a paper written primarily or wholly by the student. By itself and in principle this can be advantageous to all concerned, providing that the student is given full credit for what he or she has done. Unfortunately, there are cases in which teachers do not publish such papers for years because other projects take priority, resulting in a loss for the student. It is proper for a student to ask of his or her instructor when copublication will occur and where, and to arrange a reasonable time limit. If and when that time limit is not met, the student should be fully entitled to publish this work on his or her own, while crediting the teacher for his or her contribution.
IV. Museum and Other Art-Historical Consulting
CAA, the American Alliance of Museums, the American Association of Art Museum Directors, and the Association of Art Museum Curators have developed a robust range of guidelines pertaining to best practices for art historians who are museum professionals and consultants, including:
Information about Museum Ethics and Professional Practices (rev. 2013)
Professional Practices for Art Museum Curators (2007)
Statement Concerning the Deaccession of Works of Art (rev. 2013)
The document above pertains to art historians mostly in its specific reference to the necessity of museums, when they have deaccessioned works, to retain files on the works in order to facilitate their ongoing research.
A. The Role of the Guest Curator
This topic is addressed in detail in the following guidelines:
Guidelines Adopted by CAA regarding the Hiring by Museums of Guest Curators, Exhibitors/Artists, and Catalogue Essayists as Outside Contractors (2002)
B. Remuneration for Scholarly Services
Art historians are often called upon to provide, at no charge, professional advice or services. This practice is particularly common when publishers are scouting for new manuscripts or deliberating the question of a new series. Many art historians may feel that to provide such information at no fee is a service to the field, but compensation for services is becoming more commonplace.
C. Commercial Services and Privileges
1. It is proper professional practice for an art historian to request or receive a fee for professional services rendered to individuals or organizations where such services are sought or rendered in connection with a commercial project, such as when advice is requested by publishers, representatives of internet, television, and film companies, or regarding the sale of works of art, provided that the regulations of the institution employing the art historian do not restrict him or her. In setting fees, art historians are urged to consult with others of similar rank and experience.
2. Acceptance of Gifts and Requesting of Commercial Privileges
a. An art historian’s sole professional debt to another person or organization is based on intellectual exchange. This indebtedness takes the obvious form of assistance given to the art historian in the performance of his or her research and preparation of publication.
b. A person who is grateful to the art historian for services rendered may offer, by way of recompense, to make a donation to the art historian’s institution. The art historian’s duty is first to consult with the administration about the institution’[s policy in these matters. If the policy permits the donation, the art historian should then consider whether the institution’s acceptance would compromise his or her self-respect, independence of action, and judgment with regard to the donor. If there seems any possibility of conflict of interest or compromise of one’s reputation, it would be wise for the institution to refuse the gift.
c. A potential conflict arises when an art historian is offered a gift of a work of art by an artist about whom he or she will be writing or has written. In many cases the art historian’s publication could result in an increase in the value of the artist’s work: the publication, therefore, could create an incentive to make gifts that might be perceived as having an influence on the art historian’s writing. The tactful but outright refusal of gifts from artists may be frustrating, but such practice insures integrity of the scholarly process. The gift of works of art given by artists to members of the art historian's family might similarly create a conflict of interest.
d. Generally, art historians should not accept gifts from art dealers, even if there is a long and personal friendship. However, money in remuneration for services rendered (rather than a gift) is customary and may be acceptable. In practice, art historians receive payment for professional services, and the terms of their engagement, including with respect to payment and other matters, should be set out in an agreement. Even to accept price reductions as a “professional courtesy” from a dealer is, strictly speaking, unethical, as it places the art historian in the dealer’s debt. If an art dealer regularly permits installment buying by his or her customers, an art historian would not be risking his or her integrity if he or she asked for similar conditions. If this is not the case, however, the art historian is acting unethically; the art historian in such a case is, consciously or not, trading upon his or her influence and putting himself or herself in the dealer’s debt. Also, an art historian who asks an art dealer to reserve a work for him or her for an indefinite period, or for one longer than is the dealer’s custom, also raises problems of ethics.
Authors and Contributors
Submitted to the CAA Professional Practices Committee, Jim Hopfensberger (chair), by the Ad Hoc Committee for the Code of Ethics for the Practice of Art History: Anne McClanan (chair), Portland State University; Sally Block, Association of Art Museum Curators; John Bowles, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Jill Casid, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Thomas Cummins, Harvard University; John Russell, Massachusetts College of Art; and Fikret Yegül, University of California, Santa Barbara.
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Key: "S:" = Show Synset (semantic) relations, "W:" = Show Word (lexical) relations
Display options for sense: (gloss) "an example sentence"
- S: (n) mung, mung bean, green gram, golden gram, moong, mash bean, munggo, monggo, green soy, green bean (seed of the mung bean plant; used for food)
- S: (n) mung, mung bean, mung bean plant, Vigna radiata, Phaseolus aureus (erect bushy annual widely cultivated in warm regions of India and Indonesia and United States for forage and especially its edible seeds; chief source of bean sprouts used in Chinese cookery; sometimes placed in genus Phaseolus)
- S: (n) mung bean, mung, green bean, green gram, golden gram, moong, mash bean, munggo, monggo, green soy (seed of the mung bean plant used for food)
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Above is a diagram of the eye, it shows all of the major components. Now, here is some more information about the function of some of the individual parts labeled.
Choroid This is a layer in the eye's membrane that contains the blood vessels. It is also pigmented a dark colour so that there is as little light interference in the eye as possible. The layer above this is the sclera which is an outside layer protecting the eye.
The iris consists of muscles that act to adjust the amount of light entering the eye by the size of the pupil.
Cornea. This is a transparent part of the sclera where light enters, it is curved to help focusing by refraction.
Lens. This is a biconvex disc, so that light converges on to the retina. It's shape can be adjusted by the cilliary muscle to allow focusing on near and far objects.
Retina, this is a light sensitive area at the back of the eye that detects light and sends signals to the brain.
The iris controls the amount of light that enters the eye by contraction and relaxation of the radial and circular muscles in the iris (see here). This increases the size of the pupil so more light enters when it is dark and the reverse in light conditions.
Another way the eye must adjust the light is by accommodation, or focusing; it does this by refraction. Every part of the eye refracts (or bends) light by different amounts. Most refraction occurs in the cornea, because it is curved. However this only every by the same amount, therefore we adjust the shape of the lens to vary the refractive index to focus light on the retina.
The table below outlines the eye's responses to focusing on different objects.
|The ciliary muscles relax, this causes the suspensory ligaments to be pulled tense. This stretches the lens and makes it longer and thinner or less convex. This causes less refraction.||The ciliary muscles contract, causing the suspensory ligaments to slacken. This makes the lens become shorter and fatter and less refraction occurs.|
Rods and Cones
In the retina are cells responsible for detecting light, and sending this information to the brain. There are two types of cell, the rod and cone. Below is the structure of a rod cell, however the cone cell has the same features labeled, but is differently shaped.
Rod cells are responsible for detecting light/dark. They contain a pigment called rhodopsin. When light shines on this pigment, it is broken into the two proteins: retinal and opsin in a process called bleaching, this stimulates an action potential that is detected in the brain.
However, the rhodopsin is very sensitive to light, and is therefore best in dim conditions; since in brighter conditions it is broken down faster than it is reformed. This is why, in dim conditions we will see mainly in black and white.
The cone cell has a different pigment called iodopsin. There are three different types of this pigment: each sensitive to either red, blue or green wavelengths of light. Therefore we have red, green and blue cones. It is possible to see different colours by the stimulating of different combinations of iodopsins. For example, orange light is a result of red and green cones being stimulated.
The table below outlines the differences between rods and cones in terms of their sensitivity and visual acuity, which is the degree of detail it can see. So a high visual acuity means that one can see finer details.
|Are spread evenly across the retina but there are none in the fovea.
Rod cells are sensitive to low light intensities, so are made best use of at night.
They have a low visual acuity because several rod cells share a connection to the optic nerve. But this also improves the eye's ability to detect small amounts of light.
|There is a higher concentration of cone cells in the fovea.
They are more sensitve to high light intensities and therefore colour can not be seen very easily when it is dark.
Cones have a high visual acuity because each cone cell has a single connection to the optic nerve, so the cones are better able to tell that two stimuli are seperate.
Updated: 09 May 2012
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Dairy science: why ice cream melts and how to make a great chocolate ice cream
Why ice cream melts
Have you ever thought about how ice cream melts? If you put two scoops of ice cream from different manufacturers on a plate, chances are they will melt at different rates. Air, ice and fat all play roles.
The meltdown of ice cream is an important facet of ice cream science, according to Richard Hartel, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Maya M. Warren, the director of the Frozen Dessert Center, and it’s currently under study in the Frozen Dessert Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ice cream is a complex frozen dessert typically made from milk fat (at least 10% for the United States), sweeteners (typically sucrose), stabilizers and emulsifiers. This mix, after being pasteurized, homogenized and aged, is then frozen in a scraped-surface heat exchanger.
During freezing, ice crystals are formed, of course, but air is also incorporated and the phenomenon of partial-coalescence of fat globules takes place. Controlling these fat globules is key to controlling melting, according to Hartel and Warren.
Frozen ice cream is composed of ice crystals, air cells, individual fat globules and partially coalesced fat globule clusters surrounded by a serum phase. The process of forming clusters from individual fat globules is often called partial coalescence, which is influenced by formulation factors (for example, emulsifier type and content) and processing conditions (shear rate during freezing). These clusters are an important key to how ice cream melts… read more here.
The science behind chocolate ice cream
Chocolate is second only to vanilla as the most popular ice cream flavor in the United States. Therefore, it is a major component of the product portfolios of most ice cream companies, representing on average of 8% to 10% of the volume of a typical portfolio.
To formulate a quality product, you must understand the properties and attributes of cocoa and chocolate. Then you can achieve the desired flavor, body, texture and color.
Dairy Foods' columnists Bruce Tharp and Steve Young, authors of Tharp & Young on Ice Cream: An Encyclopedic Guide to Ice Cream Science and Technology, offer up their expertise on what goes into making chocolate ice cream.
Chocolate ice cream is distinguished from other ice cream flavors by a variety of factors related to composition, flavor, body (chew/bite), texture (smoothness), color and how it is regulated. As a result, its production usually involves the preparation of a separate mix that differs in its composition from that of a typical “white” mix.
Cocoa products used to flavor chocolate ice cream are usually used at a level in the range of 2% to 6%, but most frequently 2% to 4%. The most common include cocoa powders with fat levels of either 10% to 12% or 20% to 22%. Occasionally, chocolate liquor, with 50% fat, is used. Important variables include cocoa fat content; particle size; color; pH; solubility; bean source; and processing conditions. Proper selection of the type and level of any ingredient used to deliver chocolate flavor (and color) profile is critical… learn and read more about working with cocoa in ice cream here.
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December 11, 2009
The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians (ARAV) provide the following information for pet owners concerned about Salmonella associated with amphibians and reptiles.
Q: What is Salmonella?
A: Salmonella is actually the name for an entire family of bacteria, not just one type. Members of the Salmonella family usually live in the intestines of humans or animals, and the bacteria may be passed (shed) in the stool. Not all Salmonella infections cause illness.
Q: What is salmonellosis?
A: Salmonellosis is the disease that results from Salmonella infection. People with salmonellosis usually have diarrhea, stomach pain/cramps and a fever. They are usually ill for 4-7 days. Most people with salmonellosis recover from their illness without treatment, but some become very ill and need to be hospitalized and intensively treated. If the bacteria are absorbed into the blood from the intestine, they can infect other organs and the infection can become severe enough to cause death.
Q: What is the difference between being infected and being a carrier of Salmonella?
A: When someone is infected, they usually develop illness (salmonellosis). A carrier is a person or animal who has the Salmonella bacteria living in their intestinal tract (gut), but doesn't get ill. Carriers may pass the bacteria in their stool (this is called "shedding" the bacteria), and it is possible for a carrier to infect other animals or people that come into contact with the carrier's stool while they are shedding the bacteria.
Q: What types of animals can be infected with or carry Salmonella?
A: Many animals can be infected with and/or become carriers of Salmonella, including birds, livestock, horses, reptiles, amphibians, rodents, dogs and cats. And yes, even people can be Salmonella carriers. Carriers are more likely to shed the bacteria in their feces (stool) when they are stressed or when their immune systems are weakened by medications or disease.
Q: How do amphibians and reptiles spread Salmonella to people?
A: Amphibians and reptiles can harbor Salmonella bacteria in their intestinal tract (gut), and can pass (shed) the bacteria in their feces (stool) off and on or continuously. People become infected when they swallow the bacteria. Because bacteria are invisible to the naked eye, you can't see them on surfaces, your hands, etc. If you come into contact with a contaminated surface or piece of equipment (such as cage equipment, food bowls, etc.), or the stool of an animal shedding the bacteria, you can get the bacteria on your skin. If you then eat, prepare food, or touch your face or mouth without properly washing your hands first, you may end up swallowing the bacteria and infecting yourself with Salmonella.
Q: Are certain people at higher risk of being infected with Salmonella and becoming ill?
A: Yes. Elderly people and infants are at higher risk. People with weakened immune systems, due to disease or medications, are more likely to be infected and more likely to develop severe illness.
Q: Are there other ways people can become infected by Salmonella?
A: Definitely. It is a foodborne disease – most commonly, people become infected with Salmonella when they eat food that has been contaminated with the feces (stool) from an infected animal. Improperly prepared or undercooked/raw animal products, such as beef, poultry, milk (unpasteurized) and eggs, are the most common sources of foodborne salmonellosis, but even vegetables or fruit can become contaminated with feces and infect people if eaten without first being properly prepared.
Q: Are there certain species of reptiles and amphibians that are more likely to carry Salmonella?
A: One group of animals that is considered likely to spread Salmonella is turtles with shells less than 4 inches (10.2 cm) in length. This isn't because they're any more likely to be carriers, it's because their small size makes them more likely for toddlers and infants to put them in their mouths. Since 1975, it has been illegal to sell or distribute turtles with shell lengths less than 4 inches (10.2 cm).
Any amphibian or reptile has the potential to carry and shed Salmonella. For safety's sake, it is recommended that you treat all amphibians and reptiles as if they are carriers of Salmonella.
Q: Will Salmonella make my pet amphibian/reptile sick?
A: The bacteria do not usually cause illness in amphibians and reptiles.
Q: How can I find out if my pet amphibian/reptile is carrying Salmonella?
A: You won't know just from looking at it whether or not an amphibian or reptile is carrying Salmonella. Fecal (stool) or cloacal cultures will determine if your pet is carrying the bacteria. Since they have to be shedding the bacteria in their feces (stool) and some only shed the bacteria intermittently, several cultures may be necessary to detect Salmonella.
Q: My pet amphibian/reptile is a Salmonella carrier. Can it be treated so it no longer carries the bacteria?
A: Unfortunately, no. Once your pet becomes a carrier, it will most likely remain a carrier. But the good news is that simple measures, such as proper hygiene and sanitation, can dramatically reduce the chances that you or others could become infected by your pet. In addition, keeping your pet healthy and free of stress can reduce the chances it will shed the bacteria.
Q: We are expecting a child and we're worried about Salmonella. Should we get rid of our pet amphibian or reptile?
A: Absolutely not! As we've already said, there are many simple, common sense things you can do to protect your family.
Q: What can I do to protect my family from amphibian- or reptile-associated Salmonella?
A: There are many simple, common sense things you can do to protect your family.
Do not bathe reptiles or amphibians in your kitchen sink or near any areas used for food or drink preparation. If you use a bathtub for this purpose, it should be thoroughly cleaned and bleached afterward to kill any bacteria that may remain on the surface.
Q: How can I thoroughly clean and disinfect my pet reptile's/amphibian's habitat?
A: Your veterinarian is the best source of information about your pet amphibian's or reptile's care, but here are some basic guidelines for thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting the habitat.
Q: How often should I clean my pet reptile's/amphibian's habitat?
A: It varies, depending on your pet's species, hygiene habits, the size of the habitat, and how many pets you have in the habitat. Daily cleaning to remove feces (stool), uneaten food, and other items can help keep the habitat cleaner and reduce the effort required to keep it clean. In addition, it allows you to detect any changes in your pet's feces, behavior or appetite. In general, habitats should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected weekly. Consult with your veterinarian about the best cleaning schedule for your pet.
For more information about reptiles, amphibians and Salmonella:
Additional ResourcesAmphibians, Reptiles and Salmonella
Resource Links: Amphibians, Reptiles and Salmonella
Podcast: Kiss a Frog? Veterinarians warn against it
Brochure: Selecting an Amphibian
Brochure: Selecting a Pet Reptile
2016 American Veterinary Medical Association
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for National Geographic News
Komodo dragons kill using a one-two punch of sharp teeth and a venomous bite, scientists have confirmed for the first time.
The find dispels the common belief that toxic bacteria in the Komodos' mouths are responsible for ultimately killing the dragons' prey.
An animal that escapes a Komodo's initial attack soon weakens and dies. The fierce carnivore tracks the wounded creature and dines at its leisure once the prey collapses.
Researchers have long thought that the Komodo dragon, native to Indonesia, kills via blood poisoning caused by the multiple strains of bacteria in the dragon's saliva.
But "that whole bacteria stuff has been a scientific fairy tale," said Bryan Fry, a venom researcher at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Fry and colleagues studied the biochemistry of Komodo venom after they had the rare opportunity to examine two dragons from zoos that both had to be put down due to terminal illnesses.
The team found that the dragon's venom rapidly decreases blood pressure, expedites blood loss, and sends a victim into shock, rendering it too weak to fight.
In the venom, some compounds that reduce blood pressure are as potent as those found in the word's most venomous snake, western Australia's inland Taipan.
Komodo Combo Attack
While his colleagues expressed surprise at the findings, Fry said he wasn't so shocked.
His earlier research had shown that other lizard species—such as iguanas, legless lizards, and monitor lizards—are also venomous.
In fact, Fry estimates that close to a hundred of the more than 5,000 known lizard species use venom.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES
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| 0.936449 | 356 | 3.640625 | 4 |
In 2012, over 180 million pets were seen by a veterinarian yet left the vet hospital without treatment for a major disease. They were not treated for their overweight or obese condition. The one single condition that could affect the quality of these pets' future lives was completely ignored.
Why? Because both owners and veterinarians fail to recognize the seriousness of the condition. And neither wants to spend the time and effort necessary for successful treatment. Treatment of the overweight condition would add years to pets' lives and actually be profitable for veterinary practices.
Owner and Veterinary Attitudes about the Overweight Condition in Pets
A study of Australian and American pet owners found that 70 percent of pet owners underestimated their pets' fitness compared to professional assessment. These results were verified in a recent Canadian study. Worse still was that fewer than 1 percent of the 32 percent of pet owners who did agree that their pets were overweight thought that it was a problem for their pets.
Veterinarians fared no better. The above study found that veterinarians only diagnosed a condition of overweight in 2 percent of their cases despite assigning an overweight or obese body condition scores (BCS) to 28 percent of those patients. Veterinarians recorded body weights for just 70 percent of their patients and recorded a BCS for only a scant 28 percent of those same patients. BCS is a far more accurate assessment of fitness and body fat percent than weight is, yet it is widely ignored in general veterinary practice.
Why Treatment for Excess Weight in Pets is Important
Virtually everyone agrees that the overweight or obese condition is at least a nuisance. But health ramifications are not seriously recognized as evidenced by the above study. Fat is still recognized as an accumulated fuel source and insulation. Even veterinarians have been slow to accept the fact that fat, in both humans and pets, is the largest endocrine organ in the body.
Endocrine glands secrete hormones that direct body activity. Most pet owners are familiar with pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands and the diseases associated with those glands. Fat is also an endocrine gland. Scientists have identified over 100 hormones secreted by human fat and over 30 secreted by the fat of cats and dogs. Unfortunately, the majority of the hormones produced by fat promote inflammation.
The inflammatory response is the rallying of white blood cells and chemicals to combat an infection that doesn’t exist. The body of an overweight or obese pet is in this protective mode 24/7/365. This is true for even the mild to moderately overweight. This chronic state of inflammation is what is believed to cause diabetes mellitus, certain kidney diseases, respiratory diseases, arthritic conditions, and even cancer.
But there is great news. Studies show that even small losses in fat result in immediate decrease of inflammation and it appears to be permanent. A serious weight loss program can ultimately have a major impact on the future health of pets. In fact, the famous twelve year Purina study of golden retrievers (a breed known for obese tendencies) found that puppies and dogs maintained at an ideal BCS lived almost two years longer than their littermates. So why don’t more veterinarians promote weight management?
The Veterinary Paradigm
The history of a veterinarian’s role has traditionally been that of the healer. To this day, the traditional 15-20 minute appointment schedule is the norm in the majority of veterinary hospitals. Its sole goal is to identify the ailment, design the diagnostic and treatment plan, and move on to the next exam room. This has been the paradigm for our profession for over three decades.
Only recently has there been a paradigm shift from concentrating on illness to promoting wellness. But most of these programs focus on vaccines, parasite prevention, and dentistry. The 15-20 minute appointment is still the norm.
Nutritional guidance, weight loss and weight management require more than short appointments. Discussing lifestyle changes like counting calories, managing feeding strategies, and implementing activity programs require much longer sessions. Owners of weight loss patients often need on-site support, and phone coaching, and hand-holding between hospital visits. Veterinarians have been slow to integrate a separate appointment system for wellness.
What veterinarians are missing is that this can actually be profitable for them. Studies indicate that 60 percent of their patients are in need of these services, yet few veterinarians offer serious programs. Unfortunately, we veterinarians are a thick lot. It is going to take increased pressure from pet parents to impact the veterinary practice paradigm. Pet owners must lead the war on pet obesity. Demand will drive the necessary changes to veterinary practice.
Dr. Ken Tudor
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| 0.960813 | 940 | 3.125 | 3 |
Update: As pointed out by Jason in the comments to my last post, it has been confirmed that none other than Tesla Motors will begin supplying Mercedes Benz with an electric battery to power Mercedes' new electric car, rumored to begin production in 2010. This is huge news to EV advocates and I think it shows how automakers are hesitant to invest too much into Hydrogen vehicles since it is taking the governments so long to provide the necessary refueling infrastructure. This news backs up my claim that electric vehicles are the fastest way to energy independence.
The biggest concern with EVs is that right now the majority of the electricity for charging the vehicles will have to come from dirty GHG emitting coal or natural gas poewr plants. If we want to replace our oil addiction with more electricity usage something has to give, and right now that means a decision between new coal plants or new nuclear plants.
Constantine "Costa" Samaras, a clean energy advocate and PHD candidate at Carnegie Mellon, wrote a report with one of his colleagues on how cleaner power sources are needed in order for plug in electric vehicles to have a positive impact on GHG reduction. Here are some quotes that summarize their report:
The potential for PHEVs to achieve large-scale GHG emission reductions is highly dependent on the energy sources of electricity production...If large life cycle GHG reductions are desired from PHEVs, a strategy to match charging with low-carbon electricity is necessary.
...For large GHG reductions with plug-in hybrids, public policies that complement PHEV adoption should focus on encouraging charging with low-carbon electricity.
Back in May Costa wrote this note to me explaining their study (my apologies for not posting sooner!):
We have a new paper out in Environmental Science and Technology looking at life cycle GHGs from plug-in hybrids, including battery production and use of cellulosic ethanol. It it titled "Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles: Implications for Policy". The policy headline is the types of power plants installed in the next two decades will not only affect how much we can reduce emissions from electricity, but also from vehicles if we plan on plug-in hybrids playing a substantial role. If you want to buy a PHEV two or three vehicle purchases in the future, the types of plants installed today will be in the mix that powers that vehicle. While maybe obvious, it is missing from the current discussion on PHEVs, which assumes decarbonizing the power sector as external to the PHEV discussions and policy, when in fact it is a critical system component. We also find that running on traditional coal, PHEVs have higher life cycle GHGs that ordinary hybrid vehicles.
Our press release is here:
and a post at Green Car Congress about our paper is here:
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| 0.941611 | 573 | 2.828125 | 3 |
What is IPM?
IPM follows a stepwise approach:
- Identification: The first step in solving any pest problem effectively and safely is the correct identification of the pest. It is critical to find out what kind of pests you have and where they are coming from. Since each pest has different habits, biology and life cycles, its positive identification will lead to more effective control.
- Prevention and Exclusion: Prevention of the conditions that pests need is critical to successful control. In the case of rodents, ants and cockroaches, it can be accomplished by eliminating pests’ food, water and shelter. This means cleaning up food and beverages and their packaging or wrappers, fixing leaky plumbing, and eliminating clutter. Entry to a building or home by pests is prevented by caulking cracks and crevices, repairing screens, repairing drains and installing door sweeps.
- Monitoring: New infestations can be controlled best if spotted early. With IPM, pest populations are regularly monitored using traps. Pest sightings are recorded to document where and when the problems occur.
- Multiple tactics: IPM typically uses several non-chemical tactics to deal with the pest. Pesticides are used only as a last resort and only by a licensed and experienced professional.
Because IPM focuses on prevention, it provides more effective, long-term control than a reactive, spray-based approach to pest control. It also reduces the need to use pesticides.
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| 0.943549 | 292 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Water touches our lives in so many ways from a cool drink on a hot summer day to that favorite ice fishing hole in the dead of winter. Without water, life as we know it would cease to exist. Yet, while water is everywhere, there’s a lot we don’t know about it.
Here are a few interesting things to know about water:
- 97 percent of the water found on earth is salty and 2.5 percent is locked up in ice
- Americans use 5.7 billion gallons of water a day to flush our toilets
- It takes 20 gallons of water to make an 8-ounce glass of beer; most of that water is used to produce the barley
- More than 1 billion people on earth lack access to clean water
Water is a fixed asset. All that we have today is all we’ll ever have. If we use it wisely, we can ensure it will meet our needs and the needs of nature today and in the future.
The Nature Conservancy is working with partners across Wisconsin to ensure that people and nature have enough clean water to live and thrive. We are protecting the forests and wetlands that help keep our water clean. And we are testing new ways to use land and water to meet our needs while protecting water quality and quantity. Explore our freshwater work in Wisconsin!
We’re collaborating on a tool to help decision-makers in Wisconsin decide where to invest in wetland protection and restoration.
11 farmers participate in an experiment to improve water quality in the Sheboygan River watershed.
The Conservancy, farmers and other partners take a targeted approach to improving water quality in the Pecatonica River watershed.
The Conservancy and partners in Wisconsin and Michigan have developed a plan for conserving and restoring Green Bay.
We’re protecting an island refuge in the Great Lakes for migratory birds and other wildlife.
Voluntary program will improve our stewardship of the world’s freshwater resources
Most of us get our drinking water from lakes and rivers. Use this interactive map to find out where the water for many cities, perhaps even yours, comes from.
The Conservancy is working with partners to protect Great Lakes migratory bird stopover habitat.
Bob Hansis helps nature make a comeback in southwest Wisconsin.
More than 14 miles of two Wild Rivers—the Pine and the Popple—flow through the 64,600-acre Wild Rivers Legacy Forest.
Wabikon Waters and Woodlands encompasses 15 lakes and portions of 16 rivers including the Peshtigo, Oconto and Wolf.
Clough Island is the centerpiece of the St. Louis River Estuary near Lake Superior and is essential to its protection.
The Mukwonago River, one of SE Wisconsin’s cleanest streams, provides important habitat for rare fish and mussels.
This 24,000-acre expanse of forests, wetlands, lakes, and streams in northern Wisconsin holds limitless recreation opportunities.
This slender limestone peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan is well-known in Wisconsin and beyond for its natural beauty.
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Polar bears can swim for days, covering hundreds of miles of open water at a time, accoding to new GPS tracking data.
Sea ice provides crucial habitat for polar bears, which hunt for prey, primarily seals, from it. But recent years of warming temperatures have brought significant declines in sea-ice cover over Arctic waters. Scientists worry this decline is causing bear cubs to drown on long swims and creating problems for walruses that also depend on the sea ice.
Over the course of six years, U.S. Geological Survey researchers used GPS collars to track 50 long-distance swims made by 20 adult female bears, some of which had cubs with them. The swims that were documented lasted from 17 hours to nearly 10 days and covered between 33 and 427 miles (54 and 687 kilometers) in the southern Beaufort Sea.
The frequency of the swims appeared to increase over the course of the study, which ended in 2009.
Due to a lack of historical data, it wasn't clear whether these long-distance swims were new for polar bears. However, in past decades there was not enough open water in the southern Beaufort Sea for bears to swim distances like these, according to the USGS.
Of the 20 adult female bears to make the long-distance swims, 12 had cubs when they were outfitted with a collar. Of the 10 recaptured a year later, six still had cubs with them.
"These observations suggest that some cubs are also capable of swimming long distances. For the other four females with cubs, we don’t know if they lost their cubs before, during, or at some point after their long swims," lead researcher Anthony Pagano, a USGS scientist, said in a story published by the USGS.
While the female bears and their cubs appeared capable of swimming long distances in open water, the swims are likely draining. The data suggest that the bears did not pause to rest or eat during the swim. [Fun Facts About Polar Bears]
The research was published online in the Canadian Journal of Zoology April 27.
Related on LiveScience:
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved.
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| 0.978153 | 461 | 3.375 | 3 |
March 2013 | Volume 121 | Issue 3
On the Cover | Focus
After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Soviet officials took immediate steps to limit the health impacts of the contamination by removing the region’s residents and managing the land as a protective buffer absent of human communities. In contrast, Japan’s current recovery plan following the Fukushima Daiichi explosions revolves around removing contamination from the landscape to allow residents to move back home. But this management strategy is meeting with opposition from Fukushima residents. Lessons learned from Chernobyl may yet prescribe a different path forward for Japan.
Commercial PCBs were banned in 1979 because of concerns about their environmental persistence and adverse human health effects. Until recently, PCBs that were being detected in the environment were thought to come entirely from “legacy” sources. But other, lesser-known PCBs continue to be generated and released into the environment, not from intentionally created commercial products, but as unintentional by-products of manufacturing processes—most notably, according to recent studies, processes including those used to make certain pigments used in dyes, inks, and paints.
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| 0.964139 | 224 | 3.359375 | 3 |
How to be happy28 November 2013 | by Alban McCoy | Comments: 3
Thomism and moral theology
Many lay Catholics taking part in the Vatican’s survey will have struggled with the questions concerning natural law and sex and relationships. Here, a theologian explains Aquinas’ thinking and dismisses some myths in the process
In the Vatican’s questionnaire, ample reference is made to natural law, an idea commonly associated specifically, if not exclusively, with Catholic moral theology. But natural law is one of the oldest and, until relatively recently, most influential ideas in moral and political thought.
However much disagreement there might be about specifics, we seem unable to dispense with the notion that some things are natural or appropriate to human life. And nowhere is this more so than in the context of family relations, sexuality and medical practice.
Again, only relatively recently, dating from the early modern period, has the idea of natural law come under suspicion, especially among theologians. But the first stirrings of that suspicion were felt in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries when voluntarist thinkers such as the Franciscans, John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) and William of Ockham (1285-1349), downplayed our ability to grasp the truth about reality with our minds, on the basis that the order of things was established by the sovereignly free and therefore arbitrary will of God, thus putting it beyond our understanding, and calling instead for acceptance and obedience. According to these thinkers, moral principles were decreed by God such that, if God were to decree that adultery is acceptable, so be it. Something is good or bad, on this view, simply because of God’s fiat.
Later, in the early modern period among secular political thinkers such as Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), an entirely secular, non-theological concept of natural law emerged, enshrining for the first time human and political rights but also leading to a quasi-mathematical calculus for demonstrating moral principles. This extreme rationalism led to absurdity and a wholly justified discrediting of natural law theory, as it had come to be formulated.
The medieval notion of natural law could not have been more different. It was firmly embedded in an explicitly theological context, in which the concept of nature itself was theological. Natural law provided an indispensable framework within which it was possible to judge and evaluate changes in the understanding of marriage, economics and much else associated with the rapid expansion of the new cities in medieval Europe. Natural law as understood by such thinkers as St Thomas Aquinas is still relevant for contemporary thought.
Aquinas’ account of natural law takes the raw material of morality to be the human nature with which we have been endowed by God: and the point of moral reflection is to discern ways in which this nature might flourish. For Aquinas, flourishing and true happiness are the same thing; so the first question of ethics asks about what makes human beings genuinely and lastingly happy.
That starting point predetermines, as the Dominican Brian Davies says, an ethics of opportunity rather than obedience. The implications of this distinction between obligation and happiness as the starting points of ethics are vast. Each gives rise to an entirely different moral outlook: happiness leads to talk of virtues, obligation to talk of duties. If morality concerns the quest for fulfilment by seeking what is genuinely good for us and thereby answers to our most basic needs, the door is open for talk of communion and wholeness, love and friendship.
In so far as it figures at all, obedience follows from and serves love. To focus on obligation, on the other hand, implies an arbitrary and external principle of action in which conformity to law is the all-important goal. In this account, love is subordinated to obedience, and the door is open for an unhealthy and unhelpful concentration on sin and what is to be avoided, rather than on goodness and what we are to do and become.
Aquinas takes his cue from the fact that we human beings have certain shared, natural inclinations to certain goals or ends, which are specific to our nature. One of them is our desire for understanding and truth, in pursuit of which our reason is prominent. Natural law for Aquinas is not so much a theory, and certainly not a device, for making moral decisions: rather it is a way of asserting that human nature is, in principle, however difficult to ascertain in practice, objectively knowable; and that our reason is central to the task of understanding our nature and what fulfils it or diminishes it.
Many who criticise natural law point to its inflated claims to a quasi-mathematical certainty but neither Aristotle nor Aquinas would have claimed that such a degree of certitude is possible. Aquinas, for instance, is clear that though there will always be agreement on the most fundamental, primary principles of natural law – the preservation of life, reproduction, nurture and education of offspring, and knowing the truth and God – the secondary precepts, in which we seek to discern what actually is applicable in any given case, will always be subject to error and disagreement, requiring, as they do, lived experience and the exercise of reason, the two ingredients of human wisdom. “Therefore judgement concerning individual cases must be left to the prudence of each person,” says Aquinas.
One misdirected criticism of natural law is that it concentrates too much on what we have in common with other animals, failing to acknowledge those aspects of our human nature that distinguish us, namely culture, society and a whole host of other factors belonging to human beings as social and political creatures. But the medieval notion of what it is to be human could not be detached from the idea that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, which is the theological grounding for our social natures. Aquinas was clear that natural law referred to our existence in society and community, as much as our instincts shared with other animals.
But even viewed in this richly theological context, Aquinas was clear that reason and experience, which the natural law account of morality promotes, are not enough, if we are to attain final and complete happiness. For this, God’s grace is needed. Aquinas speaks of the Old Law, meaning the Torah, the law of God from Moses. With the coming of Christ, there is a transition to what he calls the New Law or the Law of the Gospel. “The New Law consists chiefly in the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is shown forth by faith working through love,” he says.
The papal questionnaire raises the question of natural law specifically in question two, dealing with sexual ethics and the family. It is here that the medieval notion of natural law is most helpful in gaining clarity in the face of much misunderstanding.
There are many ways of misunderstanding both sexuality and sex, but two stand out. The first is prudery and prudishness, which is so often laid at the feet of Catholics. On this view, sex is far too messy to be an important part of our lives, and it certainly has nothing to do with our spiritual lives. Admittedly, this has been the understanding of many religious sects in history, including some based on Christian heresies; but it is a view that leads, at best, to missed opportunities for human flourishing and, at worst, to neurosis, hypocrisy and hardness of heart. Whatever individual Christians may have thought and taught, Christianity as such does not deny the intrinsic goodness of our sexuality. Christian mystics have freely and famously used the language of erotic love and sexual metaphor to describe the communion with God to which Christians believe all human beings are called.
If the first misunderstanding fails to register the importance of sexuality, the second makes of it an idol. Our age is undeniably genitally fixated and the conflation of sexuality and having sex is one of the outcomes. The confusion is a failure of imagination as much as anything else and it has led to thinly concealed boredom, instead of mutual delight and life-giving intimacy. In an oddly paradoxical twist, permissiveness and prudishness arrive at the same impoverishment.
Our sexuality is intrinsic to our natures as human beings and it follows that sex can never be insignificant, no matter how casually we may try to treat it: it will always either enhance our lives or diminish them. In a committed, exclusive and permanent relationship, it can be life-giving in every sense, leading to lifelong trust and love. Conversely, casual or “recreational” sex trivialises trust and alienates us from one another.
Sex is safest (in the fullest sense and not just “hygienic”) in the context of a permanent, exclusive and committed relationship, open to the possibility of new life, in which the free gift of shared intimacy is not inhibited by a desire to avoid the consequences of commitment in both biological and psychological terms.
A final point: chastity is not primarily concerned with sex, but with all our relationships. It mainly concerns reverence and respect for others. To be chaste is to relate to others freely, respectfully and with integrity, without manipulating or invading their freedom to be themselves. It is to treat other people as ends and never means, relating to them in themselves and for themselves.
Of course, chastity is particularly important in the area of sex because, more easily than many of our other appetites, it can lead us to offend against another’s good by crossing boundaries. But we should never lose sight of the fact that to fear and dislike sex is as much a negation of chastity as to abuse it for selfish gratification. Chastity challenges prudery as much as promiscuity.
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| 0.957344 | 2,026 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Religious Beliefs. In Spain as a whole, the Catholic church was long the only religion; freedom of worship became permissible by law only in recent decades. Andalusia is known for having its own emotionally charged and personalized brand of Catholicism, best exemplified in the extravagant Holy Week (Santa Semana) celebrations. There is a strong Madonna focus organizing Andalusian religious beliefs, and some scholars of the region trace the preeminence of the Virgin Mary to pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices in which a nurturant mother-goddess (variously personified as Aphrodite [Greek], Astarte [Phoenician], and Tanit [Carthaginian]) is paired with a son/father/consort figure (Apollo, Melkart, Hercules), citing these pairs as prefiguring the later emphasis upon Madonna and Christ figures. Traditional Holy Week saetas (lyric verses with a religious theme) make strong use of invocations of the Madonna's powers to intervene and protect the people, as well as commemorating her status as the grieving mother of the crucified Christ. The belief that saintly figures, and particularly the Madonna, are capable of being recruited to assist the faithful in daily life is strong throughout the Iberian peninsula, but it finds its most extreme expression in Andalusian religious practice. There are strong undercurrents of acceptance of the miraculous and belief in the power of penitence, which together form an essential element of Andalusian religion.
Religious Practitioners. Religious practitioners are the duly ordained priests of the Catholic church, but they are assisted by members of lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods.
Ceremonies. Life-cycle events such as baptism, marriage, and death are attended by church ritual. In the past, such ceremonies might have involved the entire village population, although today baptisms and marriages tend to be much more a family affair. Although church attendance is not strictly observed on a day-to-day basis, particularly among men, the High Holy Days of the Catholic liturgical calendar still tend to bring out the majority of parishioners, and the Lenten period is in practice the single most important ceremonial occasion. The Santa Semana masses are attended by nearly everyone, but the more secular processions and fiestas held during that week evoke the greatest degree of enthusiasm and participation among the people. Massive floats bearing the likenesses of the Madonna and the Christ figure are borne along the streets, each sponsored, prepared, and carried by a particular cofradia, and there is a strong competitive flavor to the comparisons (often couched in the verses of saetas) among the Madonnas of the different cofradías.
Arts. The "quintessentially Spanish" art forms of bull-fighting and, especially, flamenco are in fact "quintessentially Andalusian" in origin. It is in Andalusia that the fighting black bulls were first bred, and long before the development of bullfighting as we currently know it, bull rituals and bull cults were established in the region—predating the Mithraic cult of the Roman empire and perhaps deriving from prehistoric practices. At least, there are prehistoric Andalusian cave paintings and stone carvings of bulls that have an extremely early provenance. Flamenco, too, has an ancient tradition. "The dancers of Gades [Cadiz]" were known as far back as the second century B.C. , and the "puellae Gaditanae" ("girls of Cadiz") are referred to by Strabo, Martial, and Juvenal. This Andalusian tradition of the dance formed the basis upon which the Gypsies, who arrived in the region in the 1400s, elaborated and stylized to yield the form we know today as flamenco. But the region's artistic production is not limited to modern variations on ancient artistic practice. Andalusia was, after all, the birthplace of Picasso, and it has been claimed that the region provided the greatest inspiration for the development of his art. Outside of the sphere of formal performance, Andalusia also has a long tradition of folk composition, particularly represented in lyric verse (secular coplas and the more religiously oriented saetas), both of which are strongly emotional in content.
Death and Afterlife. Andalusian attitudes toward death are strongly colored by Catholic beliefs, and funerary ritual is oriented around the Catholic sacraments of confession and extreme unction. Masses must be said for the deceased, and there has long been a tradition of charitable donations as commemoration for the dead. The expenses for both of these practices are borne by the cofradia to which the deceased belonged during his or her lifetime.
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| 0.962204 | 983 | 3.296875 | 3 |
The genus Larix, with around ten species, makes up a large fraction of the tree cover of the Boreal forests of Russia, with different species localised to particular longitudinal bands. Siberian larch trees are light-seeking pioneers which survive forest fires better than their competitors — a problem now that fires are controlled. They are often the biggest and oldest trees in mixed forests.
The history of larch silviculture in Scandinavia runs from the larch forest established by Peter I at Raviola, just outside St Petersburg, down to the Russian-Scandinavian seed project of the 1990s, which studied the success of larch seeds sampled from across Russia. Martinsson and Lesinski touch on seed treatment and seedling production, stand establishment and forest management, natural regeneration, yields, and pests and diseases.
With a dense, resistant heartwood that makes up most of the timber, untreated Siberian larch could potentially replace treated pine. Martinsson and Lesinski present results from tests of its decay resistance and mechanical properties, and of different methods of kiln-drying. They also include a range of photographs of furniture, bridges, buildings, etc. made with larch.
"The latewood is the dark part of the annual ring. This wood is formed in the later part of the growing season and has approximately three times higher density compared to the light part of the annual ring, the earlywood, which is produced at the beginning of the growing season. For mechanical strength and biological decay the total proportion of latewood is of great importance."
Siberian Larch could easily have been printed as a technical report, but the Jämtland County Council Institute of Rural Development has published it as an attractive hardcover with glossy paper and many colour photographs. There is the occasional problem with the English, but nothing too disconcerting.
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Millions of people in the UK are currently struggling under the weight of their personal debt. Squeezed household budgets, the rising cost of living and a stagnant economy have pushed many people to the edge of or over a financial cliff. The impact of this debt can extend far beyond the monetary consequences, affecting people’s heath, family stability and employment prospects.
In our 2007 report, Breakthrough Britain, the Centre for Social Justice identified some of the root social and economic causes of serious personal debt, including issues of materialism, exploitative lending and poor financial skills. This report also examined how high levels of personal debt were especially prevalent in Britain’s poorest communities who were suffering as a result and often left trapped in poverty. Sadly, six years on, this situation has not improved.
This report builds on this research, exploring how the financial and social landscape has changed following the financial crash and how personal debt has continued to grow. While not all debt is bad and while everyone across the income spectrum can struggle financially, we are focussed on ‘problem debt’ and the impact it can have on low-income and vulnerable people.
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| 0.963464 | 234 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Happy Columbus Day!
Columbus Day is observed in the United States every year on the second Monday of October. The holiday celebrates Christopher Columbus' arrival to the Americas on October 12, 1492. Lucky for all you book lovers, the library is open on Columbus Day!
Here are some fiction and non-fiction children's books about Christopher Columbus that we have checked in:
Who Was First? : Discovering the Americas by Russell Freedman
The Nina, the Pinta, and the Vanishing Treasure by Jill Santopolo
Who Discovered America by Valerie Wyatt
Christopher Columbus: Explorer of the New World by Peter Chrisp
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| 0.886077 | 130 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Posted at: 10/30/2013 10:22 AM
Updated at: 10/30/2013 10:23 AM
By: Associated Press
The federal government is issuing its first guidelines to schools on how to protect children with food allergies.
The voluntary advice calls on schools to take such steps as restricting nuts, shellfish or other foods that can cause allergic reactions, and to make sure emergency allergy medicines like EpiPens are available.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted the guidelines on its website Wednesday.
About 15 states - and many schools or school districts - already have policies of their own. But experts say many of their policies are probably not comprehensive.
A recent CDC survey estimated that about 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies.
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| 0.955591 | 158 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Putting to one side the controversial aspects of climate change, there are any number of other reasons why green technologies make sense.
McKinsey Quarterly has an interesting report into what it sees as five potentially key future technologies that could have a major impact on energy usage.
Placing rapidly evolving technologies such as these on a resource cost curve, however, is difficult: their impact could be very big or very small. And that’s even more the case for technologies that require significant scientific and engineering innovations to reach commercial scale at viable cost. This article describes five technologies that could start arriving in earnest by 2020 or so: grid-scale storage, digital-power conversion, compressorless air conditioning and electrochromic windows, clean coal, and electrofuels and new biofuels…
Many other technologies could play a major role further out in the future, such as small, modular “Gen IV” nuclear reactors; next-generation fusion technology; small, shrouded wind turbine designs; solid-oxide fuel cells; and low-cost ground-source heat pumps. Not all of them will come to fruition, but some will—and those that do could change energy markets dramatically. The rate of change in the underlying technologies is much faster than the market currently expects. Leaders of companies and countries who neglect what is happening on the margins today risk being pushed to the margins themselves in the not-too-distant future.
McKinsey Quarterly: Five technologies to watch [Registration needed]
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/01/06/five-new-green-technologies/
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en
| 0.949087 | 301 | 2.890625 | 3 |
by Taylor Caldwell
“This is a true story about a nation which was once great. At the outset, we will call that nation "Honoria;" but you will readily guess her true name, as the story unfolds. Honoria had always been distinguished by a strong, sturdy, industrious middle class, composed of farmers, artisans, shopkeepers- virtuous and sane and devout. But the middle class presented a threat to an all-powerful government, determined to protect the rich and the strong- and the worthless, the mean, the haters-of-work, the whining cowards who wanted everything for nothing. So the government decided to get rid of the middle class.
But the greedy mobs could never be satisfied. They made endless demands on the Senators. They stood in government offices and howled. They howled for more. And they got it. But still the howl went up for more and more; and the Senators, now the creatures of the mobs, tried to provide everything the mobs demanded.
And the middle class, the backbone of the nation? They were reduced to despair. They dared not have children; they couldn't afford them. While the mob enjoyed their public housing, their free sports, their free meals, the middle class worked ceaselessly, trying to get ahead of their tax bills, trying to live, trying to keep their schools alive for their children. It was all no use. They began to dwindle away. They had to leave their houses. The mobs moved into their houses and turned them into slum dwellings. Crime became so commonplace that it was dangerous to be on the streets at night. Morality was dead.
The middle class, the hardworking, the self-reliant, slowly smothered from despair. Who cared? The mob had a full belly today and government promised to fill it again tomorrow. The middle class of Honoria stood in the way; it must be destroyed. Then, the elite could rule by oppression; and the craven, the despicable, the cowards, the worthless, could live on the bodies of the nobles and the heroic- through taxation.
The monstrous state, the top-heavy bureaucracy, was happy. The cynical laughed among themselves. Freedom? Why, the people didn't want freedom. They wanted free entertainment, free bread, free housing. A degenerate nation deserved no freedom, no consideration.
An old general, who had been victimized by the government, stood up and cried aloud to Honoria to remember her past, to return to honor, to decent government, to the principles of the Founding Fathers, to God. The people hooted: He was a reactionary. He was eliminated. He retired, with bitterness, and thought his anguished thoughts. A Senator dared to stand up in the Senate and cry a halt to foreign subversion of Honoria and to constant foreign aid and the draining away of the people's money. Other Senators shrieked him down and called him vile names. He, too, was liquidated. And the nation fell deeper and deeper into debt, became more luxurious and rotten.
Honoria joined a league of the world, with her enemies. They exploited her. She taxed her citizens more and more to send her wheat and meat to those nations.
In one of Honoria's stupid wars she allied herself with powerful barbarians who were full of hatred and envy, and the lust for power. Honoria sent "experts" to the barbarians to teach them the latest scientific discoveries.
Honoria had become a corrupt and monstrous nation. Foreign tyrants and domestic mobs called the tune, and the spineless rulers of Honoria danced. The very walls of government echoed to the ever-growing demands for more foreign aid, more security, more bread, more sports, more government, more restrictions on the proud and the self-respecting. And the middle class finally died.
And what of the barbarians? They looked on Honoria with contempt. They were fierce and dedicated men. They had allies in the government of Honoria. Who could oppose them, with their savage ferocity? The time had come for them to take over Honoria, and destroy civilization. And the barbarians moved in. Who had made the barbarians so strong? Honoria, of course. Honoria had given the barbarians access to the wealth of Honoria, at the expense of the betrayed and ruined citizens of Honoria. Honoria had sacrificed her people so that her alleged allies could make common cause against her with the barbarians.
What is the real name of Honoria? Ancient Rome. You know what happened to ancient Rome. The barbarians, in the fifth century, invaded Rome and destroyed her; and for hundreds of years, there was a long, black night of slavery and despair and rain. Rome had not only betrayed herself but all the civilized world with her. The barbarians ranged over that civilized world; and the cultures of thousands of years were destroyed, so that only fragments have come down to us, mere fragments of great and mighty literature, and law, and beauty.
Fortunately, one thing did survive: The Twelve Tables of Common Roman Law. Those Tables of Law formed the basis of English Common Law and, more indirectly, of the American Constitution. Had Rome retained her Constitution, she would perhaps have survived and her splendor would not have been extinguished. But she permitted the slow erosion of her Constitution, just as we are permitting the quicker erosion of our Constitution.
Everything which strikes at our Constitution brings us closer to death as a free nation, just as Rome died. Each time a new treaty of alliance is signed with foreign nations, we die a little more, as Rome died. Each time the Supreme Court or the President violates the Constitution, we come closer to slavery- as Rome came.
Nearly two thousand years stand between us and Rome. Never before the rise of Rome, and never since, did two nations so remarkably resemble each other, in history, in splendid rise in civilization, in magnificent communication between nations, in grandeur and wealth. In strange and amazing ways, we are the counterpart of ancient Rome. Her history, almost step by step, is our history.
Shall we continue along the path which led to the extinction of Rome? We have made her terrible mistakes; we have duplicated her crimes and stupidities, almost to the letter. WE are destroying our Constitution, the only safeguard we have in the face of domestic and foreign enemies, just as she destroyed hers. We are permitting government by men, now, instead of government by law- just as Rome finally did.
So long as Rome remained Rome- patriotic, proud, virtuous and healthy- she remained a strong and powerful nation. When she became internationalistic, underwrote the economies of other nations, permitted her rulers to become dictators, enmeshed herself with the problems of aliens and taxed her own people to support those aliens, she began to die.
When she became militaristic, and had her armies spread on foreign soil, the fabric of her life was weakened and strained, and the wild sword of the barbarian cut it easily.
It is a stern fact of history that no nation that rushed to the abyss ever turned back. Not ever, in the long history of the world. We are now on the edge of the abyss. Can we, for the first time in history, turn back? It is up to you."
The complete article, "Honoria" can be found here:
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http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html
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en
| 0.978993 | 1,536 | 2.65625 | 3 |
American engineer and teacher, cowinner (with John Bardeen and Walter
H. Brattain) of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 for their development
of the transistor, a device that largely replaced the bulkier and less-efficient
vacuum tube and ushered in the age of microminiature electronics.
After the war, Shockley returned to Bell Telephone as director of its research program on solid-state physics. Working with Bardeen and Brattain, he resumed his attempts to use semiconductors as amplifiers and controllers of electronic signals. The three men invented the point-contact transistor in 1947 and a more effective device, the junction transistor, in 1948. Shockley was deputy director of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group of the Department of Defense in 1954-55. He joined Beckman Instruments, Inc., to establish the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1955. In 1958 he became lecturer at Stanford University, California, and in 1963 he became the first Poniatoff professor of engineering science there (emeritus, 1974). He wrote Electrons and Holes in Semiconductors (1950).
During the late 1960s Shockley became a figure of some controversy
because of his widely debated views on the intellectual differences
between races. He held that standardized intelligence tests reflect
a genetic factor in intellectual capacity and that tests for IQ (intelligence
quotient) reveal that blacks are inferior to whites. He further concluded
that the higher rate of reproduction among blacks had a retrogressive
effect on evolution.
Main Page | About Us | All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Timeline of Nobel Prize Winners is not affiliated with The Nobel Foundation. A Special Thanks to the 3w-hosting.com for helping make this site a success. External sites are not endorsed or supported by http://www.nobel-winners.com/ Copyright © 2003 All Rights Reserved.
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<urn:uuid:0870ea3e-48c9-4c19-911c-8ff8cfab28f6>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/william_bradford_shockley.html
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en
| 0.944741 | 394 | 3.140625 | 3 |
- BACKGROUND ART
The present invention relates to a pair of eyeglasses preset for connection to cellular telephones for transmitting and receiving calls.
Over the last few decades, as telephony has developed, telephone connections have become increasingly frequent; however, while fixed telephones require interrupting any activity in order to make and/or receive calls, the arrival of the cellular telephone has given a new meaning to the concept of telephony, allowing telephone connections even in particular situations that are not strictly linked to the work or private environment and without the need to have a telephone connected to the telephone line by means of wires and placed in a specific room.
It is in fact possible to communicate substantially in any enclosed or open location covered by the telephone network and without necessarily having to interrupt activity or work.
- DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
However, the use of a cellular telephone, which entails the use of one's hands to hold and handle the device, reply and/or dial the number, as well as the use of one's sight to perform certain functions, distracts the user's attention and concentration from the activity he is performing, such as for example driving a vehicle, maneuvering a machine, performing sports activities, et cetera, possibly producing dangerous situations.
The aim of the present invention is to provide eyeglasses which, in addition to the normal optical and/or sunlight-barrier function, are capable of constituting a means for transmitting and receiving cellular telephone calls, so that the user can receive and make calls without taking his attention off the activity he is performing.
Within this aim, a consequent object of the invention is to provide eyeglasses that reduce the risk of emission of electromagnetic waves, which are believed to be dangerous for human organs such as the brain.
Another object is to provide eyeglasses that can be worn as easily and comfortably as conventional eyeglasses.
A further object is to provide eyeglasses that can be used with any kind of cellular telephone.
Another object is to provide eyeglasses in which the devices for transmitting and receiving cellular telephone calls are integrated so as to not alter their ergonomic features.
A still further object is to provide eyeglasses whose structure allows industrial-scale production at competitive costs.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
This aim and these and other objects that will become better apparent hereinafter are achieved by eyeglasses, characterized in that they comprise a microphone in a front part thereof, electronic noise-reduction components, connection cables located inside the structure, and a connector for a cable for connection to a cellular telephone.
Further characteristics and advantages of the invention will become better apparent from the following detailed description of an embodiment thereof, illustrated by way of non-limitative example in the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a rear perspective view of eyeglasses according to the invention;
FIG. 2 is an enlarged-scale perspective view of a detail of the eyeglasses of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the eyeglasses of FIG. 1 with a corresponding telephone;
FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram of the components located inside the frame of the eyeglasses;
FIG. 5 is a detail view of a universal three-contact connector for a connecting cable that is used;
WAYS OF CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
FIG. 6 is a detail view of a four-contact connector for a connecting cable that is used.
With reference to the figures, a pair of eyeglasses according to the invention is, as usual, constituted by a front 10, which supports lenses 11 (of the sight-correcting type or of the sunlight-barrier type), to the ends of which temples 12 are articulated.
According to the invention, the eyeglasses comprise a microphone 13, preferably an ultraflat high-sensitivity one, which is located in the inner front part that is not in sight, for example of one of the temples 12. Electronic noise-reduction components, described hereinafter in greater detail, are also located inside the frame, as well as connecting cables 16. A connector 17 for a cable 18 for connection to a cellular telephone 19 is also provided.
The microphone 13 can also be integrated in the front 10, in which case electrical contacts for continuity must be provided at a corresponding hinge 20.
As regards the connector 17, it is of the female type and is embedded in a terminal 15, and can be of the commonly commercially available type that is complementary to a male connector 22 normally used in cellular telephone connections and located at the end of the connecting cable 18.
The connecting cable also comprises a branch, at the end of which an in-ear headset 14 is arranged.
The other end of the cable 18 is provided with another male connector 23, which can be inserted in a corresponding female connector 24 of the telephone 19.
The connector 23 can be either of the universal three-contact type (FIG. 5), or of the four-contact type (FIG. 6, designated by the reference numeral 23 a).
The connector 17 is conveniently of the three-contact type in order to interface with all telephone connection kits.
The connecting cables 16 (preferably of the shielded coaxial type in order to eliminate any interference) are embedded in the plastics material in the case of eyeglasses with a frame made of plastics, or are located inside hollow regions of the structure in the case of eyeglasses having a metal structure.
As regards the electronic noise reduction components, with particular reference to the previously cited FIG. 4, an SMD passive noise reduction component is arranged in parallel to the microphone 13; such component is constituted by a capacitor 27 with a resistor 28 in series, also of the SMD type, in order to eliminate all transmission noise caused by electrostatic discharges.
A button 29 is further integrated in the temple 12, adjacent to the microphone 13, and is connected in parallel to the microphone 13 and in series to an interface resistor 30, which allows to recognize the clearance signal given by the button 29.
The button 29
, which avoids the need to pull out the telephone whenever it is used, has at least one of the following functions:
- manual answer (call acceptance);
- end of call;
- voice call start.
In a board 31 on which the electronic components are located, the surface arranged opposite the components is shielded with conducting material in order to avoid external noise.
In practice it has been found that the intended aim and objects of the present invention have been achieved.
The eyeglasses in fact appear to be entirely similar to normal corrective eyeglasses or sunglasses and can be used normally for this purpose, with the additional possibility, for example when driving, motorcycling, cycling or in other situations, to connect the microphone, by means of a cable, to a cellular telephone and to a corresponding in-ear headset and therefore to be able to transmit and receive calls.
Moreover, with the automatic answer function it is not necessary to hold the telephone in one's hand, and by means of the button 29 it is possible to make calls locally without taking one's sight off the action, avoiding dangerous situations that can occur when driving a car.
In practice, the materials used, so long as they are compatible with the contingent use, as well as the dimensions, may be any according to requirements.
The disclosures in Italian Utility Model Application No. PD2002U000007 from which this application claims priority are incorporated herein by reference.
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<urn:uuid:f3975bdc-4b2c-458c-bf4f-fb1207033691>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.google.fr/patents/US20050213026
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en
| 0.939629 | 1,552 | 2.796875 | 3 |
The John Muir
John Muir was an explorer back around 1900 and he really thought a lot of the High Sierra Mountains. So much so, he made it a point to bring about the preservation of Yosemite National Park and in 1892, became one of the cofounders of the Sierra Club.
I think the most important thing about John Muir was how much he valued the vast beauty of the wilderness and believed it was important for people to see what it had to offer so they would know it was (and still is) worth protecting.
The John Muir Trail
Depending on who you talk to, the John Muir Trail (JMT) is 211 to 236 miles. Construction began about a year after John Muir’s death and the region he spent most of his life exploring. More...
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<urn:uuid:49c457ed-4f33-4e57-91b0-d666eb76fabd>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.begreenjournal.com/
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en
| 0.984087 | 166 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Completing the square always works when solving a quadratic equation, but it's almost always a pain in the butt to actually do. We want a method that's faster and easier to use while being just as reliable.
What we want is the quadratic formula. Here it is, in all its glory (when ax2 + bx + c = 0):
You'll want to memorize this handy little formula. Luckily, it's pretty distinctive. It is possible to derive the formula from scratch, though it requires completing the square (natch). You can see the derivation here, if you like.
Solve the quadratic equation 2x2 – 5x – 3 = 0 using the quadratic formula.
We recognize this problem. We did this in the last section—there were all kinds of fractions, and it was nasty to work through. Let's see how it goes with the quadratic formula. To start, we note that a = 2, b = -5, and c = -3. We then set up the equation:
Solve the equation 2x2 + 2x + 5 = 0 using the quadratic formula.
Using the quadratic formula is pretty mindless once you know the formula. Just plug and chug and plug and chug and choo choo. Sorry, we got carried away.
That's right, rolling along like a train. Next we check our answers.
One down, one to go.
Excellent. Now we pull into the station.
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<urn:uuid:00d31c5d-b411-4e54-80d5-1a7ee0901623>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.shmoop.com/quadratic-formula-function/quadratic-formula.html
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en
| 0.933597 | 318 | 3.09375 | 3 |
June 21st, 2012
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?Uncategorized, by Catherine Higgins.
It’s a decision that drivers face every day when approaching an intersection – to slow down and stop upon seeing a yellow signal or to maintain speed and risk running a red light.
The dilemma zone is the space before entering an intersection where drivers make that sometimes tough call to stop or keep going. On a high-speed roadway, the decision needs to be made in seconds, and the wrong choice can be dangerous.
Intersections are complex configurations where two roadways intersect. Many of the most important driving skills – such as maintaining an appropriate speed, staying attentive and alert, and using good judgment – come into play all at once. The crash types that are common at intersections include rear-end and T-bone; both can cause serious injury or death.
To improve safety at intersections, UDOT has installed dilemma zone detectors. The detection equipment uses radar to see cars as they approach an intersection. Software used with the equipment is programmed to extend the signal phase to allow cars more time to get through the intersection.
Deciding when extra time is needed based on scientific studies that show how most drivers are likely to behave, explains UDOT Traffic Signal Operations Engineer Mark Taylor. Traffic signal engineers use those studies to define three fields drivers cross before entering an intersection. Drivers in the field closest to the signal usually always go through the light. In the field farthest from the intersection, most cars stop.
The middle section is the dilemma zone “where drivers realize ‘I’ve got a decision to make,’” says Taylor. Cars entering that dilemma zone at a pre-determined point in time trigger the system to extend the signal phase, eliminating the dilemma and also the potential for an un-wise decision. While the system is backed up by science, Taylor uses some engineering judgment as well. “I put logic in with that radar,” he says.
“UDOT’s policy is to install Dilemma Zone Detection on every approach that is 40 miles per hour or higher,” says Taylor. Over five hundred intersections in Utah have been equipped with Dilemma Zone Detection.
For more: Read this article about how Dilemma Zone Detection can show a twenty percent reduction of cars exposed to the yellow signal and 70% reduction in red light running.
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<urn:uuid:659466eb-c1d3-438c-a8fb-0fc6cf35f5d9>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://blog.udot.utah.gov/2012/06/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/
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en
| 0.944822 | 496 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Close behind Plymouth, close beside this home of the Pilgrims, close to this spot where three hundred years ago began the campaign against the wilderness, there is still an immense tract of wild and lonely woodland, there are miles and miles of wildness almost unbroken except by roads; there are seemingly endless stretches of oak trees intermingled with lovely pines and sentineled by cedars, and underneath is a tangle of huckleberries and sweet fern and bracken, with frequently the white sand gleaming through the darker soil that has tried to accumulate. In the very heart of this wilderness one may come with almost startling unexpectedness upon some old house aflame with trumpet-vine or white with flowering masses of paniculata, but the few homes are widely isolated. The region is even now wild enough for one to imagine the presence of the prowling bear and the prowling Indian of early days; and, in fact and with-out imagination, the deer and the fox are frequently to be met. “Ye whole countrie, full of woodes & thickets, presented a wilde & savage heiw,” as Brad-ford himself, leader among the Pilgrims, wrote. Much of Massachusetts has reverted to wilderness; immense tracts that once were a succession of farms have gone back to scrub woodland; but nowhere is it more noticeable than here.
The ancient town of Plymouth still has much of an old-fashioned aspect in spite of the inroad of modern buildings; it is still a comely American town, sitting decorously beside the sea, with its older portion close to the water-front, where a few old houses still stand, in shingle-sided irregularity, beneath the low-rounding rise where the first burials were made in graves that were left unmarked from fear of the Indians creeping in and counting the deaths; away from this there sweeps a little stretch where the greater part of the town was built and where still is much of an aspect of staid dignity; and behind all this is the watch-hill that became the principal graveyard of the settlement.
Little fishing boats lie at their moorings, and fisher-men in yellow oil-skins lean, gregariously gossiping, against the buildings beside the piers, and nets are stretched out to dry, and sea-gulls go curving and dip-ping and flying, and across the water are barrier spits of sand, greened with grass, and along the shore are scattered a few attractive homes, with greenery close about them, and far out at the left of the bay and far out at the right, are jutting promontories, tree-clad.
But it is not a stern and rock-bound coast; it is a sandy coast; and it is seldom that the breaking waves dash high in this sheltered nook; and yet they were inspired lines that Felicia Hemans wrote, for they represented the bravery and the loneliness of it all, the unbreakable, undaunted spirit that moved those early Pilgrims,; and the lines ought never to be forgotten by Americans :
“Not as the flying come, In silence and in fear, They shook the depths of the desert’s gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer.”
It is curious that this British woman so felt and expressed the spirit of the band of exiles who moored their bark on this wild New England shore; and it is curious that she, who could so perfectly express the feeling of early America, has better than any other poet expressed the sense of the beauty and finish of England, in her lines beginning “The stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand !” On this sandy shore it must have been difficult for the Pilgrims to find a boulder big enough to land upon, but, as if recognizing that posterity would really need a Plymouth Rock, they managed to find one, and here it is, carefully preserved, at the waterside, after having wandered about the town, from one stopping-place to another, in the course of the centuries, and even having suffered in its travels a fracture which was carefully repaired. It now has the protection of a stone canopy and a gated iron fence, but the gates are usually kept open, for there is such a general and profound respect for this stone that no one thinks of treating it carelessly, and I have seen even little children who have run under the canopy in a sudden shower rub their hands gently over the stone as if in reverence. It has not been chipped or spoiled, as stone monuments open to the opportunities of vandal-ism are so likely to be. Round about the memorial is a little grassy spot that has been made charming with roses and barberries.
The low rise that was originally the burial-hill is still surprisingly steep, for it has never been graded away; a little back from it stand a hotel and some homes, but at the very edge a little landslide a few years ago uncovered some of the bones of the very earliest settlers. Away from this low rise there runs the little stream beside which the Pilgrim leaders first met Massasoit, and the garden plots that lie be-hind the backs of- the houses mark the original “meersteads” or homestead limits of the original allotment.
Old records have been kept, and among them is one narrating how, seven years after the landing, the Pilgrims divided by lot, with meticulous particularity, the few cattle and goats into thirteen portions each: “the Greate Black cow came in the Ann” as it is set down; “the red Cow and the Heyfers,” so it is written, with freedom of spelling and capitalization, came in the Jacob”; and there are various details in regard to “the greate white backt cow” and the other stock.
Plymouth possesses a great deal of attractiveness, and indeed real beauty. The deep blue of the water, edged by the promontoried greenery of trees, makes a charming frontage, and within the town itself there are many huge trees, some of them carefully marked with records of their planting; there are great elms, and there are lindens of giant size. In any direction one may see masses of dahlias, or the flowering honey-suckle, and there are ancient gardens charmingly in-closed within the greenery of ancient box.
There are houses of red brick and there are houses of white-painted frame; there are houses with gambrel roofs and great old chimneys and pillared porticoes. There is still many a dignified old front, broad and generous with doorway of loveliness; there are still some of the old-time fan-windows over the entrance-ways; there are reeded pilasters; there is still much of the bulgy old-time window-glass.
On the way up the low slope from the water is an interesting looking old gambrel-roofed house with wooden front and brick ends, and somehow it pleased me to hear a little girl who was sitting on the steps called “Barbara” y her father, for the name seemed to fit the old-time house as did also the ancient looking pussy-cat sitting there in dignified sedateness. And a tablet upon this old house shows that it stands on the spot where an even more interesting house once stood for it was “erected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to mark the site of the first house built by the Pilgrims. In that house on the 27th of February, 1621, the right of popular suffrage was exercised and Miles Standish was chosen captain by a majority vote.”
Just up the slope and but a short distance from the Rock, stands an old mansion of interest as a survival of early architecture, although of a time much more recent than that of the Pilgrims; it is a house of unusually noble beauty and spaciousness and about it is a garden of flowered charm.
The modern and unattractive that have come into the town may easily be disregarded by those who desire to see old Plymouth. Much of the old, much that has made the atmosphere of the past and which rouses memories of the brave old times, is still here.
A streak of meticulousness must have become implanted by the early itemizing of the thirteen shares of cattle, for in what other town would one find a notice to motorists warning them of a dangerous corner fifty-eight feet away! And as to other public noticeswell, stop to gaze at some interesting-looking tablet and you will probably find it a warning that there will be a fine of twenty dollars if you spit on the sidewalk.
The First Church in Plymouthalthough it is really the fifth first churchis tableted as a “meeting house,” although in reality it is a solid stone building, early Norman in design. It faces the little town square, where three veteran elms shade the yellow sand that covers the open space. Diagonally across from this structure, and also looking out upon the little square, is a much older church, a highly attractive building in white painted wood, with white pillars, and attractive pillared tower. This church is called the Church of the Pilgrimage.
Burial Hill, the height that rises from these two churches, is dotted thick with gravestones, and among them are noted the boundary spots of the early fortifications. This’ hill was beacon hill and fort hill and burial hill in one, as if to show very materially that life and death depended upon watchfulness and fighting. On the highest part is a stone that marks the grave of doughty old Bradford, the several times governor. Looking down upon the town from this hilI-top one sees a broad massing of the greenery of trees, with here and there the white or red of the houses peeping through and with three lovely belfries rising in variant charm, one being covered with copper, another being all white, and the third showing a top of gold.
Standing on top of this hill the memory came to me of the top of that hill on Hope Bay, in Rhode Island, where King Philip made his last stand against the white man; and I thought of it not only because the two hills are in a general way alike in looking over an expanse of land and water along a generally level coast line, but because the head of King Philip, that noble Indian who had been given his name by the white men from King Philip of Macedon, was brought here to Plymouth and placed publicly on a spike, where it remained a memento of ignoble triumph for many years. Webster, in an oration at Plymouth, said, “like the dove from the .Ark, the Mayflower put forth only to find rest”; but the people who came in the Mayflower were certainly not all doves. The barrel of the very gun that belonged to King Philip has been preserved, not as a matter of shame but of pride, and it is shown in the museum of Plymouth in Pilgrim Hall.
It is pleasant to notice on the stones above the graves the frequency of the name of Priscilla, and the dates show that it was a common name, even before the time when Longfellow made it so famous, thus showing that from early days the history of this sweet young Pilgrim girl fascinated the general imagination; or, as Longfellow himself would have expressed it, that the region was “full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla.”
Priscilla was a very real girl, and her last name was Mullines; not the “Mullins” into which the name has been rather commonized. But the name was spelled with some variety even by Governor Bradford, who mentioned it three times in his history and each time differently, the most important entry being that “Mr. Molines, and his wife, his sone, and his servant, dyed the first winter. Only his dougter Priscila survied, and maried with John Alden, who are both living, and have 11. children. And their eldest daughter is married, & hath five children.”
Bradford himself did not stand much for romance, and it is from other sources that there comes the story of the courtship of John Alden. It seems, so the old story has it, that Alden first presented the proposal of Standish, not to Priscilla, but to Priscilla’s father, who promptly called Priscilla into the conference, with the result that she made the forever-to-beremembered query of the bashful John as to speaking for himself. What her father said or thought is not on record, but it was very shortly after the proposal that John and Priscilla were married; and the tradition is, not as Longfellow gives it, that Standish and Alden again became friends, but that Alden was never forgiven by Standish. John Alden’s daughter Sarah, however, did afterwards marry Standish’s son Alexander.
Courtships and marriages went very quickly in those early days, when children were a decided asset to any family in aiding to clear the wilderness, and when loneliness was a great disadvantage. As an ex-ample, the wife of Winslow died in March of 1621, the husband of Susanna White died in February of the same year, and in May of that year the short-time widower Winslow and the short-time widow White married. Miles Standish, in his courtship of Priscilla, was similarly hasty; for his wife, whom he had married in England, died late in January, 1621, and as Alden and Priscilla were married early in that year it may be seen how swift was the courtship of Stan-dish, and also that Alden was not at all slow in following up his own desires. After this refusal Standish waited three years before he married for the second time, but it is possible that some other woman refused him meanwhile.
There is a collection at Plymouth, in Pilgrim Hall, which is rich in mementoes of the very early days. There is the great circular gate-legged table, almost six feet across, rigid and strong and plain and under-braced, which was the, council table when Winslow was governor. There is the very chair of the first governor, John Carver, who died in the first winter, a plain, massive turned chair which seems as severe as the popular idea of the most severe belongings. There is the veritable sword of Miles Standish, a Damascus blade. There is a dear little wicker cradle, a Dutch cradle, in shape like a basket with a hood to keep off the draft, carried with the Mayflower for little Peregrine White, named from the peregrinations of his parents, and the first white child born on the soil of New England. Little Oceanus Hopkins might have taken away the title of precedence from Peregrine had Oceanus not been born, as his name implies, before the Mayflower reached the promised land. Many other things, little and big, are preserved. There are early spoons and early needle work. There is some superb ecclesiastical silver designed for the early churches and preserved with record of where it was made.
Standing anywhere along the shore at Plymouth, or on the hill, one cannot but notice a monument that rises, lofty and striking, far out beyond the leftward stretch of the bay; and this is the monument to Miles Standish. Although he was not a Puritan, and not really a Pilgrim, for he was a soldier of fortune, who had been fighting for the Dutch against the Spanish and then as a soldier of Queen Elizabeth, a Dalgetty, who was out of employment as a fighter when the Pilgrims sailed and was engaged as an excellent man to meet the savages, he has been given a far more prominent monument than has any other of those early men; and so nobly did he develop, at Plymouth, in bravery, in self-sacrifice, in the finest qualities of manhood that he well deserves prominent remembrance. The .old chronicle has it Captain Standish and Elder Brewster, more than any others, “to their great comendations be it spoken, spared no pains night nor day, but with abundance of toyle and hazard of their own strength helped others in sickness and death, a rare example worthy to be remembred”; and in addition Standish was a man of absolute bravery.
The monument is reached by a roundabout way, of several miles, from Plymouth. The figure of Stan-dish tops the structure; and by some unexplainable freak he is made to face away from the town that honored him and for which he did so much. The monument is on the summit of a considerable bill and there is in view a long, long line of shore; and looking toward the sea one may see, as I have seen, the water dotted with the mackerel fleet, setting homeward ; and a thin gray vagueness on the horizon marks the distant line of Cape Cod. Looking landward, one sees endless miles of bluish pine woods through which the white spire of a meeting house rises with effective unexpectedness, and Iooking across the bay toward Plymouth there is a wonderful effect as if the city is still a place crowded against the waterside at the edge of a vast wilderness.
A rather small old house, a story and a half high, sleeping under the shelter of this hill, a house with a sort of distinction in spite .of its smallness, and with a great lilac bush at its front, a house that must always have been rather solitary, is the house in which some have believed that Standish lived for the last years of his life; but in reality it would seem that his own house, long vanished, stood close beside where this house stands and that this was put up by an immediate descendant.
That Standish was a short man, sinewy and robust, and that his little library actually contained, just as the poet has described it, the Commentaries of Caesar, are among the rather slender facts known in regard to his personality, but an inventory of the property left by him at his death itemizes that in his possession, among other things, were 4 bedsteads and 1 settle bed, 5 feather beds with blankets and sheets, 1 table-cloth and 4 napkins, 4 iron pots, 3 brass kettles and one dozen wooden plateswith no plates of any bet-ter material mentioned. There were muskets and sword; and, as if in defiance of the spinning-wheel of Priscilla which, after all, was more a matter of concern to Alden than to him, there were two spinning-wheels. Horses and cattle must have increased in the colony since the earliest days for he left at his death 2 mares, 2 colts and 1 young horse, 4 oxen, 6 cows, 3 heifers, 1 calf, 8 sheep, 2 rams, 1 wether and 14 swine.
At quite a distance, naturally, from this spot, is where John Alden and Priscilla lived, but, like this, within the limits of Duxbury. It is a pleasant drive across country, from one place to the other, through a region of blue inlets setting in from the blue, blue sea, with much of pine woods, and of the little bushes that bear beach plums.
The house built here by John Alden has disappeared, but the present building stands on its site and, it is believed, was built by a grandson. But it looks old enough to have been built toward the end of John Alden’s long life, and it is possible, though not probable, that he actually lived in it. Often, it is impossible to fix the precise date of construction of an ancient house, as the only definite records are likely to be of land alone and not the buildings.
This Alden house stands on the top of a low mound; it is shingled-sided; and the present occupant confided to me that if he did not keep a close eye on visitors every silvery old shingle would soon be stripped off as a souvenir! The entire front of the house is massed in a luxurious greenery of grapevines, en-twined with scarlet dotted trumpet-vines; a peach tree is espaliered on the side and a great trumpet-vine has clambered upon the roof; and nearby is a field that, when I saw it, was a great yellow splendor of golden-rod, bordered empurplingly with asters.
How strange it must all have seemed to Alden! He never intended to be a Pilgrim. He was a cooper, hired at Southampton when the Mayflower touched there, and it was expected that he would return in the ship from America. But he was “a hopfull young man,” and the leaders quietly hoped that he would remainand Priscilla did the rest. It is so pleasant to think of the poetic wedding journey with the bride mounted on the white bull, that it is needlessly iconoclastic to point out that the very first cattle, three heifers and a bull, did not reach Plymouth until 1624.
It is sometimes forgotten that the first landing of the Pilgrims in the New World was not made at Ply-mouth but at the inside of the tip of Cape Cod; where, not long after their visit, the settlement of Province-town was made.
Cape Cod, at the time of their visit, was a desolate region, but had earlier been visited by others. First, the Norsemen; afterwards, Bartholomew Gosnold, who gave the cape its fishy name; even the picturesque Champlain made a brief stop here, as did the equally picturesque Captain John Smith, who described the fields of corn and “salvage gardens.” So many people were here before the Pilgrims as to give almost an effect of crowded life! But it was lonely enough when the Pilgrims actually came, though they did finally see some Indians, who, although they ran off, did so, “whistling to their dogge”!
Sand is the principal product of Provincetown. The whole Cape is shifting sand, that changes with every wind, and that makes hills into valleys and valleys into hills, and that threatens to destroy the little town itself.
Many have been the wrecks on Cape Cod; and most interesting was that of the Somerset, on the outer edge of the narrow cape. This was the big man-of-war, of from forty to sixty cannon and a crew of al-most five hundred men, under whose lee, when it was in Boston harbor, Paul Revere was rowed when starting with the message to Lexington. It aided in the bombardment of the Americans on the day of Bunker Hill, and afterwards won a cruel reputation for its seizures of American shipping. In a great storm in 1778 it was driven ashore here, and the tradition of the Cape has it that, most of the men being absent on military duty, the women took an active share in holding captive the men from the wreck and in getting the guns to land to save them for the use of the American army. The wreck was completely dismantled; gradually it was covered with sand and the very place was forgotten. Years afterwards, a storm uncovered it, and then the sands covered it again, and many years later it was again uncovered and fully identified by details of its structure from official records furnished by the Admiralty in Lon-don. Before the sands covered it again I saw it my-self, with its grim and blackened vertebrae; and it was fascinating to find such a memento of the Revolution lying on this lonely outward shore, so near little Provincetown.
Growing wild in hollows among the dunes, with scrub pines and oaks, is the marvelously fragrant bay-berry from which the early settlers made their candles and from which a later generation made bay rum. And in these hollows wild roses grow in luxuriousness, and innumerable red beach-plums.
Provincetown is distinctly a sailor’s town; there are sailors here who have been all over the world; but it will be noticed that “barges” are not boats but wagons! A figurehead from some old ship leans for-ward from a post; fish-shaped weather-vanes turn with the varying winds; you naturally see a seamen’s bank; a profusion of binoculars pervades the place; you may even catch sight of the backbone of a whale in a captain’s yard; wreckage is stacked for fire-wood; and in some of the old pilastered or porticoed houses there are preserved the original logs of whaling trips, showing whales, pictured in ink that long since yellowed, to mark the days of fortunate catches.
Every sailor seems to have the title of captain; most, in fact, have a right to the title, for each has been in charge of at least a fishing-boat; and these captains are men of individual interest. One is a gatherer of ambergris (romantic name!), and he also sells watch-makers’ oil, which he poetically procures from porpoise heads. Another of the captains, a gentle soul, is a story-teller who, unfortunately, has so out-told himself that the same narratives are given over and over. “Have I ever told this before?” I heard him interrupt himself to ask one day; and when the goaded interlocutor, another captain, replied that he had, the first captain responded, gently tolerant, “Oh, well, I’ll tell it again then.” Another captain, confiding to me that he had been married fifty-five years, gravely added, as he pointed to his old dog lying beside him, `I And that is all I’ve got left to show for it.” Another told of a life-time sea-friend who had recently died at the age of ninety-two. “Did he leave any family?” “No,” said the captain. “His father and mother were both dead.” When, speaking with another, I commented on the roses growing in profuse loveliness in the gardens of the town, in spite of the difficulties of sand, he replied, from some pessimistic association of ideas: “Yes, but if there is ever a year when the rose-bugs don’t get after the roses the dogfish are sure to get after the mackerel.” But optimism is the prevailing note, as with a captain, an ancient, earnest citizen, who exclaimed to me: “Why, the man who would complain of this Cape Cod climate would complain if he were going to be hung!” Another still tells the story of a sea-serpent that he saw many years ago; and I was told that when his townsmen ridiculed him and frankly told him, from knowledge of his idiosyncrasies, that he must have been drinking, he went before a notary and made affidavit that “I was not drinking on the day I saw the sea-serpent”and he still fails to see why everybody laughs. Another, speaking of the general truthfulness of the place, deemed it measurably referable to ancient strictness of law, giving as an example that in the good old formative days “a captain was fined five dollars for lying about a whale.”
The Portuguese, always locally referred to as “Portygees,” have come in so freely from the Azores and the Cape de Verde Islands, that they give a markedly alien touch, with their distinctive language, religion, dress and costumes. The town is permeated by them. They are active rivals, on the sea, of the descendants of the early Americans, and I remember that a sailing race, open to all, was won by a boat whose captain and crew were all Portuguese; but none the less did Provincetown royally welcome the victors, and deck its streets with brooms and buckets. A still further alien touch is given by a lofty monument, set up a few years ago as a memorial to the landing here of the Pilgrims, and which, from some odd reason, is of distinctly Italian style.
A town-crier still busies himself with the crier’s ancient duties, and the townsfolk claim that the custom has kept on undisturbed from early times.
The talk and interests of Provincetown are of cod and mackerel and haddock, and when a boat comes in with a catch the event is eagerly discussed along the entire three miles of far-flung water front. The town is principally one long and sinuous and attenuated street, but there are also little lanes twisting away from it. A few old-time houses still remain with silver-gray shingles on their roofs and sides. Everywhere is an aspect of scrupulous neatness, as if on shipboard, and the houses in general have a snuggled and tucked-in look as if triced down for a storm. Many are shaded by big trees; and it is curious that there are so many great elms and enormous swamp-willows in spite of the discouraging environment.
When the tide sweeps out, great flats of green and yellow and gray stretch off in front of the town, and amphibious horses, half submerged, draw far out, in the track of the receding tides, little carts, likewise half-submerged, into which to unload such fishing-boats as return at a time when they cannot reach the piers.
But sand is the prevailing feature. Surely, round about Provincetown is where the Walrus and the Carpenter walked together. You remember the lines?
“The sea was wet as wet could he, The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky :
The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand:
`If this were only cleared away,’ They said, `it would be grand!’
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The Awful German Language - 2
by Mark Twain
From Mark Twain’s A Tramp Abroad (1880)
Mark Twain: Part 1 > Part 2
Note that the German orthography is that of the late 19th century.
Tale of the Fishwife and Its Sad Fate
2. I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion.
It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin which he eats, himself, as his Reward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck he goes; now its Chin it goes; now its Nose she goes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy, with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of it for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.
There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I suppose that in all languages the similarities of look and sound between words which have no similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the foreigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the German. Now there is that troublesome word vermählt: to me it has so close a resemblance either real or fancied to three or four other words, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the latter. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. To increase the difficulty there are words which seem to resemble each other, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they did. For instance, there is the word vermiethen (to let, to lease, to hire); and the word verheirathen (another way of saying to marry). I heard of an Englishman who knocked at a man's door in Heidelberg and proposed, in the best German he could command, to "verheirathen" that house. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize the first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the emphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there is a word which means a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to the placing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies to associate with a man, or to avoid him, according to where you put the emphasis and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place and getting into trouble.
There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. Schlag, for example; and Zug. There are three-quarters of a column of Schlags in the dictionary, and a column and a half of Zugs. The word Schlag means Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field, Forest-clearing. This is its simple and exact meaning that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin with Schlag-ader, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to Schlag-wasser, which means bilge-water and including Schlag-mutter, which means mother-in-law.
Just the same with Zug. Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does not mean when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet.
One cannot overestimate the usefulness of Schlag and Zug. Armed just with these two, and the word also, what cannot the foreigner on German soil accomplish? The German word also is the equivalent of the English phrase "You know," and does not mean anything at all in talk, though it sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth an also falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to get out.
Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of the situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a Schlag into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a plug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a Zug after it; the two together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they should fail, let him simply say also! and this will give him a moment's chance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load your conversational gun it is always best to throw in a Schlag or two and a Zug or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of the charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with them. Then you blandly say also, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air of grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English conversation as to scatter it full of "Also's" or "You knows."
In my note-book I find this entry:
July 1. In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient a North German from near Hamburg; but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The sad event has cast a gloom over the whole community.
That paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the most curious and notable features of my subject the length of German words. Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these examples:
These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them marching majestically across the page and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:
Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed. They are compound words with the hyphens left out. The various words used in building them are in the dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the materials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a tedious and harassing business. I have tried this process upon some of the above examples. "Freundschaftsbezeigungen" seems to be "Friendship demonstrations," which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying "demonstrations of friendship." "Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen" seems to be "Independencedeclarations," which is no improvement upon "Declarations of Independence," so far as I can see. "Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen" seems to be "General-statesrepresentativesmeetings," as nearly as I can get at it a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism for "meetings of the legislature," I judge. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our literature, but it has gone out now. We used to speak of a things as a "never-to-be-forgotten" circumstance, instead of cramping it into the simple and sufficient word "memorable" and then going calmly about our business as if nothing had happened. In those days we were not content to embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monument over it.
But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the present day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. This is the shape it takes: instead of saying "Mr. Simmons, clerk of the county and district courts, was in town yesterday," the new form put it thus: "Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons was in town yesterday." This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward sound besides. One often sees a remark like this in our papers: "Mrs. Assistant District Attorney Johnson returned to her city residence yesterday for the season." That is a case of really unjustifiable compounding; because it not only saves no time or trouble, but confers a title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. But these little instances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal German system of piling jumbled compounds together. I wish to submit the following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:
"In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno'clock Night, the inthistownstandingtavern called `The Wagoner' was downburnt. When the fire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's Nest reached, flew the parent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest itself caught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-stork into the Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread."
Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos out of that picture indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. This item is dated away back yonder months ago. I could have used it sooner, but I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. I am still waiting.
"Also!" If I had not shown that the German is a difficult language, I have at least intended to do so. I have heard of an American student who was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered promptly: "I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German phrase `Zwei Glas'" (two glasses of beer). He paused for a moment, reflectively; then added with feeling: "But I've got that solid!"
And if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriating study, my execution has been at fault, and not my intent. I heard lately of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no longer the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and healing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word Damit. It was only the sound that helped him, not the meaning; and so, at last, when he learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay and support was gone, and he faded away and died.
3. It merely means, in its general sense, "herewith."
I think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episode must be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this character have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German equivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash, roar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, explosion; howl, cry, shout, yell, groan; battle, hell. These are magnificent words; the have a force and magnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their German equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep with, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not for superior usefulness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a Schlacht? Or would not a consumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in a shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song word Gewitter was employed to describe? And observe the strongest of the several German equivalents for explosion Ausbruch. Our word Toothbrush is more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans could do worse than import it into their language to describe particularly tremendous explosions with. The German word for hell Hölle sounds more like helly than anything else; therefore, how necessary chipper, frivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to go there, could he really rise to thee dignity of feeling insulted?
Having pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I now come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. The capitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. But far before this virtue stands another that of spelling a word according to the sound of it. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any German word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our language if a student should inquire of us, "What does B, O, W, spell?" we should be obliged to reply, "Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if off by itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out what it signifies whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod of one's head, or the forward end of a boat."
There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, repose, and peace; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the sound of the words is correct it interprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear, the heart.
The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the right one. they repeat it several times, if they choose. That is wise. But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in a paragraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak enough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates exactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish. Repetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse.
There are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble to point out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly about their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind of person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very well, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper suggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I have devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and critical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in my ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could have conferred upon me.
In the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses the plurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case, except he discover it by accident and then he does not know when or where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or how he is going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but an ornamental folly it is better to discard it.
In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really bring down a subject with it at the present German range you only cripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be brought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked eye.
Thirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue to swear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things in a vigorous ways.
4. "Verdammt," and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the sounds are so mild and ineffectual that German ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be induced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip out one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or don't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our "My gracious." German ladies are constantly saying, "Ach! Gott!" "Mein Gott!" "Gott in Himmel!" "Herr Gott" "Der Herr Jesus!" etc. They think our ladies have the same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely old German lady say to a sweet young American girl: "The two languages are so alike how pleasant that is; we say `Ach! Gott!' you say `Goddamn.'"
Fourthly, I would reorganize the sexes, and distribute them accordingly to the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing else.
Fifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for refreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.
Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not hang a string of those useless "haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden seins" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a speech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, and should be discarded.
Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the re-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise the final wide-reaching all-inclosing king-parenthesis. I would require every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of this law should be punishable with death.
And eighthly, and last, I would retain Zug and Schlag, with their pendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify the language.
I have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important changes. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing; but there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case my proposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the government in the work of reforming the language.
My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.
A Fourth of July Oration in the German Tongue, Delivered at a Banquet of the Anglo-American Club of Students by the Author of This Book
Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, this vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country where they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally set to work, and learned the German language. Also! Es freut mich dass dies so ist, denn es muss, in ein hauptsächlich degree, höflich sein, dass man auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes worin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafür habe ich, aus reinische Verlegenheit no, Vergangenheit no, I mean Höflichkeit aus reinische Höflichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German language, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie müssen so freundlich sein, und verzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie und da, denn ich finde dass die deutsche is not a very copious language, and so when you've really got anything to say, you've got to draw on a language that can stand the strain.
Wenn aber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm später dasselbe übersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte. (I don't know what "wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte" means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German sentence merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)
This is a great and justly honored day a day which is worthy of the veneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and nationalities a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and speech; und meinem Freunde no, meinen Freunden meines Freundes well, take your choice, they're all the same price; I don't know which one is right also! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says in his Paradise Lost ich ich that is to say ich but let us change cars.
Also! Die Anblick so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischer hier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and inspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it? Can the terse German tongue rise to the expression of this impulse? Is it Freundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenthümlichkeiten? Nein, o nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to pierce the marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and produced diese Anblick eine Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen gut für die Augen in a foreign land and a far country eine Anblick solche als in die gewöhnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein "schönes Aussicht!" Ja, freilich natürlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht auf dem Königsstuhl mehr grösser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht so schön, lob' Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in Bruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn, whose high benefits were not for one land and one locality, but have conferred a measure of good upon all lands that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahre vorüber, waren die Engländer und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heute sind sie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure; may these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they never any more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was kindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon a map shall be able to say: "This bars the ancestral blood from flowing in the veins of the descendant!"
BACK > Part 1 - The Awful German Language
DEUTSCH > Die schreckliche deutsche Sprache - German translation from altvit.de
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Green, orange, or yellow fruit, often quite large and weighing several pounds. Fruits tend to be very fleshy, with an inside cavity containing numerous seeds. Flesh is sweet, sometimes mildly acidic, with a texture much like that of a melon.
Seeds are not available for the Papaya. Please visit our seed store to view current selections. Seeds were last available in November 2011.
Very fast growing, perennial herb. While papaya's look much like a tree, they are not, and do not develop bark characteristic of trees. The plants typically grow 10-20ft tall, but may bear when only a few feet high. Most papaya's bear male and female flowers on separate trees. There is no way of telling the sex until flowering. Some varieties are bisexual.
They are easily killed by freezing and even frosty temperatures, although they are subtropical, and can be kept as a container plant and in many cases, grown as an annual.
Trees are not salt tolerant, and while they enjoy lots of irrigation, they are not flooding tolerant. They do well in full sun.
Generally eaten raw, but also used in juices, chutneys, and various desserts.
Native to tropical America. Grown worldwide in tropical and subtropical areas as a commercial crop. Papaya's spread easily and have become naturalized in many areas.
Oak Leaved Papaya
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Childhood Schizophrenia - Topic Overview
Schizophrenia in children younger than 15 years of age is rare. Sometimes autism, depression, anxiety, or other conditions are confused with childhood schizophrenia.
In general, the condition develops slowly. The child usually starts by having problems in school, at home, and in social situations. Children with schizophrenia often hear voices and other noises that other people do not hear (auditory hallucinations). They also firmly believe something is true even when there is proof that it is false (delusion). They also may:
- Stray away from a topic or not make sense during a conversation (disorganized speech).
- Develop unusual behaviors, such as continually repeat a series of movements.
- Not be able to show emotion, speak, or start or continue a task without direction.
Childhood schizophrenia does not appear to be related to intelligence, because children with schizophrenia have average intelligence. They usually do not have any other physical illnesses.
Treatment for childhood schizophrenia includes medicine, counseling, and family support.
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Local Distribution of a Fern Sawfly Strongylogaster multicinctus (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae)
Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society
Vol. 39, No. 2 (Apr., 1966), pp. 347-354
Published by: Kansas (Central States) Entomological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25083525
Page Count: 8
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Spatial and seasonal distribution of adults were investigated in a five-acre clearing and surrounding aspen forest in northern Lower Michigan by means of window traps, sweep-net, and direct observation. Trapping measured flight activity, a parameter directly related to population density, which reached its maximum in the clearing during the period of June 4 to 16. This corresponds to the time during which bracken fronds in the clearing were 3 to 10 days old, the stage in which this sawfly oviposits. The low sawfly population levels in the forest appears to be due to the advanced development and consequent immunity of the host plant there. Bracken fronds emerge earlier and stands mature more rapidly in forests than in clearings.
Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society © 1966 Kansas (Central States) Entomological Society
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A couple of weeks ago, I delivered several presentations to a school district in the mid-west, one of the numerous August back-to-school gigs I’m doing fewer of each year. It was a rewarding day, more so than many. Keeping the attention of hundreds of teachers, just back from vacation, catching up with friends, weighing in the politics of new leadership, and desperately needing to be in their classrooms makes this a pretty tough gig. Not so on this day.
After a presentations about expanding our notions of literacy, a teacher came up asking, “But what’s to be done about students accessing all the information on the Internet that is simply not true.”
I reminded him that I had just made the point that it isn’t just the Internet we need to be worried about. Then I gave him one of my usual responses,
If I was still teaching history, and my students turned in a paper, they would be waiting for the challenge. It happens every time. It’s part of the ongoing classroom conversation.
Placing a student’s paper on his desk and pointing to one paragraph, I ask, “How do you know that’s true?” If the student can’t answer the question, he’s going to lose points. Even if the paragraph is true, he’s going to lose points. My students would be responsible for their information’s appropriateness and the evidence that supports its appropriateness.
I wonder now if this response makes sense only to me, a figment of a private fantasy. So I thought I’d spend some bits trying to unpack this approach into something that better distinguishes a “new way” from an “old way.“
The difference is in what we call attention to. Our tendency, as teachers, is to address the problem by focusing on the mistakes, red-penning what’s not accurate, not reliable, not valid, doesn’t make sense. It’s logical because whats not true is a fundamental problem to education. We work to keep wrong information out of our textbooks, whiteboards, libraries and lectures. We foster a learning environment where we can all take comfort in the assumption that the information is “true.”
Our position, as teachers, is based on this assumption.
For the problems caused by the Internet, we create checklists to identify the breakage in information.
If you can check all of the above, then you can use the information.
We teach research and writing as a practice in avoiding problems,
..but not as a practice in solving them.
If we teach our learners to research and communicate in order to solve a problem, then we entirely change the approach. We assess their work through conversations about the “best way” rather than the “wrong way,” and learners become active defenders rather than passive accepters of judgement. The classroom conversation changes. Students become more active, empowered and invested. They become stakeholders in their learning, and ultimately, responsible to an authentic context/audience.
They own what they write, present or make, because they did the work and defended it. They’re accountable.
They own the learning.
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Farquhar & Milnes: Diabetes levels are way to high
In the whole history of mankind, the prevalence of diabetes has never been as high as it is now.
What has caused this?
The most important reason is a dramatic change in our food pattern. Pre-historic man had to either hunt for his food or grow it. A lot of energy was spent doing this.
There were periods of starvation between meals.
However, the physiology of our body was well adapted to cope with starvation, as energy could be stored in our liver and fat tissue.
Indeed, it even seems that our bodies need some time without food between meals to ensure a proper balance between energy supply, expenditure and storage.
Contrast this picture with what is happening today.
The only exertion required to obtain food now is to get in the car and drive to the nearest fast food restaurant. You can even save that little bit of effort by calling for a home delivery.
Nobody stays even slightly hungry for very long. It is no wonder that the delicate physiological balance of food metabolism has been disrupted, which over time has led to the rising prevalence of diabetes.
Therefore the first step to take when you have diabetes is not to start the latest medication straight away, but to review what you eat and how much you eat. I would say that this is the most important step in controlling your diabetes.
In his last article, Dr. Farquhar mentioned some of the important diet modifications required for a healthy diet which are worth repeating: Increase fiber and vegetables in your diet and cut down on salt, saturated fat and red meat. The amount and type of carbohydrate needs to be assessed carefully.
Portion size is also important.
Compared to the rest of the world, food in North America is high in sugar and sodium, so make sure you read the food labels when shopping.
Vegetables, such as broccoli, spinach, carrots and peppers, are high in vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants and should be a part of every balanced diet.
Unhealthy food is often thought to be much tastier than healthy food, but this is not true.
With a little bit of imagination and experimentation in the kitchen, wonderfully tasty food can be made that is also extremely healthy.
However, it does require a willingness to try new things and move away from past food habits.
Changing life habits is not easy, but in the long run you will feel the difference as there are many medical benefits.
These include a lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol, a lower risk of certain types of cancers and of course better diabetes control.
Who knows, when you make the change, those around you such as your spouse, partner, children or friends may also feel inspired to make changes to their diet themselves.
So eventually, you could be the cause of a whole group of people enjoying better health.
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The DAN Emergency Oxygen for Scuba Diving Injuries course is designed to train and educate interested individuals in the techniques of administering emergency oxygen for a suspected diving injury. This course introduces participants to the fundamentals of dive-injury recognition and proper first-responder care with a a variety of oxygen delivery systems.
Serious hazardous marine life injuries are rare, but most divers experience minor discomfort from unintentional encounters with fire coral, jellyfish or other marine creatures. This course teaches divers to minimize these injuries and reduce discomfort and pain.
Learn how to conduct a layman's neurological assessment on a potentially injured diver. The information gained in this assessment can help convince a diver of the need for oxygen first aid and help a dive physician determine the proper treatment.
The DAN Basic Life Support: CPR and First Aid (BLS: CPR&FA) course offers entry-level training in providing basic life support (BLS) to adults with life-threatening injuries while activating emergency medical services.
Whether you are diving a few hours from shore or days from civilization, dive accidents frequently require more advanced levels of care than are offered by traditional or entry-level CPR programs. CPR:Health Care Provider (CPR: HCP) teaches advanced techniques of basic life support.
This program integrates the knowledge and skills from several DAN training programs into a single course — at a significant time savings without sacrificing any skills.
This program is intended for divers who are required to have first aid, CPR and oxygen first aid training prior to diving as part of their job responsibilities. It combines the training from Emergency Oxygen for Scuba Diving Injuries, Neurological Assessment, First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries as well Basic Life Support: CPR and First Aid.
Dive Medicine for Divers (DMFD) provides a comprehensive educational approach to diving physiology and first aid. It is a three-part program.
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Another fascinating use of the Arduino development platform has been demonstrated by Joe Birch, who has created a device to display information in Braille. Joe's motivation was:
... I had idea early in the month for a refreshable braille display that could be used in public places (shops etc), so that people with sight loss could also be aware of constantly changing variables in their surroundings – such as latest offers, news updates and other piece of information that is constantly changing. Braille could be printed and changed over when this news changes, but why do that when an automated system can be put in place!
And this has been executed very well using six small solenoids as shown in the following video:
Have you been reading about Arduino and would like to understand more so you can hack cars like the example above, but not sure where to start? Then order one of our Experimenter's Kit for Arduino:
The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit.
However we don't leave you alone to figure it all out, included is a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. In other words - this is everything you need to get started for a fun range of electronics and Arduino related projects! So to get started or for more information and to order, check out the product page.
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On July 2, 1999, Ricky Byrdsong, former head basketball coach at Northwestern University, was shot and killed in Skokie, Illinois, the quiet suburban community where he lived. Coach Byrdsong was walking home from a playground with two of his children when a young college student, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, fired from his car and fatally shot him. Ricky died in the hospital later that night—victim of a drive-by shooting by a person he didn’t even know.
That same weekend the white supremacist wounded several Jewish people in Chicago, fired shots at Asian people in downstate Illinois, and killed a Korean doctoral student, Won Joon Yoon, who was standing in front of his Presbyterian church in Indiana. The shooting spree and the senseless loss of human life that resulted were motivated by racial hatred, ethnocentrism and fear. The murders of Coach Ricky Byrdsong and Won Joon Yoon shook up many Christians, but even more, they disturbed a nation that doesn’t want to believe that people of color and ethnic Jews can still be vulnerable to such racial hatred and violence.
THE RACE PROBLEM
Unfortunately, this story could be repeated many times over, because there is still a race problem in America. Since September 11, 2001, suspicion, hostility and violence have increased between people from different racial and religious groups. It is estimated that in the next twenty years white Americans will become a minority in the United States, and most of the nation’s population will be Asian and Hispanic.
The demographic shift deepens an atmosphere of increasing fear and contempt. People of other races, ethnicities and nationalities are often viewed as threats to mainstream Americans’ opportunity and economic security. As a result, government programs such as affirmative action are being repealed, and many people speak out vehemently against allowing any more people—usually people of color—to immigrate to this country. In economically uncertain times and in the face of increased globalization, it is no surprise that hate groups, acts of terrorism and racially motivated violence have increased in our nation and around the world.
The tragic events of September 11 reminded us that we cannot continue pursuing our own national self-interest with indifference to other nations and peoples. We must wake up, discern the signs of the times and recognize that we must relate differently to people who are unlike us. September 11 also taught us that we are not able to control the world or to keep ourselves safe.
However hard we may try, our technological skills and military might cannot completely guard us from destructive forces. Although we know this to be true, we continue our desperate efforts to get back in control and feel powerful again. Many people grope for coping mechanisms—some legal, some illegal—in vain attempts to control their world and feel safe. Others are choosing the way of violence and isolation, stockpiling weapons and segregating themselves from other people. All of this is evidence of a spirit of fear that is endemic to our society and can be changed only by the Spirit of God.
Billy Graham, the famous international evangelist, recognizes the challenge. Toward the end of his public ministry, he said, “Racial and ethnic hostility is the foremost social problem facing our world today. From the systematic horror of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia to the random violence ravaging our inner cities, our world seems caught up in a tidal wave of racial and ethnic tension. This hostility threatens the very foundations of modern society.”1
Unfortunately, the Christian church seems woefully inadequate to rouse itself from apathy in the face of these deep-rooted global and social problems. We have failed to proactively declare and demonstrate the truth and power of the gospel to create unity across cultures, ethnicities and nationalities. There is a tremendous disparity between the vision God has for us and our current social reality, and Christians seem powerless to even begin bridging the gap.
Michael Emerson and Christian Smith help us understand our ineffectiveness in their seminal book Divided by Faith.2 These Christian professors provide an outstanding historical and contemporary analysis of how and why the evangelical church has been racist throughout its history. Their findings reveal that evangelical theology itself is partly to blame for the impotence of most Christians in dealing with racial and ethnic injustice. They discovered that most evangelicals view their faith, conversion and transformation as an individual matter that affects society one life at a time. Unfortunately, this theological individualism has rendered most evangelical Christians completely ill-equipped to deal with major social structures or grapple with corporate and institutional evil.
This blindness to the larger forces and institutional realities affects our ability to even see the racial problem in America. The blindness became painfully clear to Rick when he was driving his son and two other kids home from church recently. The conversation in the car focused on the sermon the pastor had preached calling for racial harmony and justice. One of the European American teenagers piped up: “I don’t see what the point of that sermon was. I could see it if our church were located in the inner city. But we don’t have a race problem in the suburbs of Chicago. Why was the pastor making such a big deal about it? I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
This teen is not alone in his perceptions. You may feel that way too. Although there is an immense interest in racial reconciliation among many young people today, many others manifest disinterest in and apathy about racial issues. Most whites really believe that we no longer have a race problem in our society. They’d like to think all that got solved with the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Most whites really believe that the playing field has been leveled and equal opportunity has been made available to everybody. As a result, they think minority people should buck up, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and quit complaining and whining and “playing the race card” every time they want something.
On the other hand, we have observed that most people of color have no doubt that there is still a very significant race problem in America. Not long ago Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois, held a weekend service titled “Bridging the Racial Divide.” The service began with stories told by people of color who are Willow Creek members and have experienced discrimination.
An African American executive employee of the church told about how he was followed by a police officer after stopping to fill his car with gas. When he pulled over to ask what the problem was, he was told that being black, he fit the description of someone the police were looking for.
An Asian American woman told about going shopping for a coat at a local department store. She found one she wanted and asked an employee to put it aside while she continued shopping. When she returned to buy the jacket, she was shocked to find a white woman walking out with it. The store manager gave her no apology, and she never got the jacket.
Still another story came from a biracial woman who experienced a painful breakup with her boyfriend because his white family rejected her. They did not want him dating an African American and couldn’t stand the idea of having mixed-race grandchildren. The rejection left a deep scar on the young woman’s heart. She began to wonder whether she would ever find true acceptance at a predominantly white church.
The last story was a Latino man’s recounting of a painful memory from his childhood. He worked as a caddy at a golf course. On his day off he invited a friend to come and swim with him, since this was one of the perks of the job. His friend was ordered out of the pool, and when he asked why he was told, “We don’t allow Hispanics in here.” Since the caddy had fair skin, they had assumed he himself was Anglo. They said they would make an exception for him, but instead he chose to quit his job that day.
These stories moved and shocked many of the white members of the Willow Creek congregation, who had assumed that those kinds of things just don’t happen anymore. But people of color in the congregation were not shocked at all. They know these kinds of things happen all the time.
If you think about it, it makes sense. Blacks live with the residual effects of four hundred years of unthinkable oppression at the hands of white people of northern European origin. Native Americans live with the past experience of an almost totally successful genocide campaign against them, again by whites of northern European background.
Latino people experienced conquest by southern Europeans of Spanish background and then lost the whole of the Southwest United States to whites of northern European background. Asian Americans experienced hatred and resentment in the early years of immigration, during World War II after the Pearl Harbor attack when many were put into internment camps, and more recently because their economic and educational success has angered many whites who feel disempowered by the success of other groups. Most people of color are keenly aware of all the continuing interpersonal and systemic inequities in America.
HOW SHOULD WE RESPOND?
What should the church’s response be in a world being torn apart by prejudice, hatred and fear? We believe it is imperative that the Christian church regain its integrity to address injustice. This will require that we relinquish the individualism and isolation that have been prevalent among evangelical Christians in the past, so that we can develop new models of racial reconciliation, social justice and spiritual healing. Our unity and reconciliation efforts could be the greatest witness of the church to the power of the gospel in the twenty-first century.
So let’s look at the mission of the church in the twenty-first century to bring reconciliation to a divided and wounded world. But first, let’s pause and pray.
Each chapter in this book closes with our prayer about the themes of the chapter. Make this prayer your own and pray with us. Racial reconciliation is a spiritual issue, and we are called to prayer that moves us into action.
God, too often our hearts and eyes have been closed to the suffering of others in our racially divided world. Give us eyes to see and hearts that share your heart for the unity and reconciliation of all peoples. We pray in your name. Amen.
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Sexual abuse is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior on one person to another. There several dangers of sexual abuse such as strangers,family member turning on another member and even neighbors with bad intentions. Sexual abuse leads to effects such as substance abuse,post traumatic stress,sleeping disorders,eating disorders,depression,sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy. Sexual assault is a crime of motive and taking advantage of the opportunity and most of the crimes are usually committed by someone known to you.
Click here, for more information on Sexual Abuse.
Watching pornography films with someone could pose a threat of being sexually abused by the person you are watching the film with. The abuser actually views it as the initial step of actually going on towards harming his victim. Keeping the danger out has become difficult nowadays,with today’s technology and the internet a stranger is capable of coming to your house and assault or abuse the person at home. Through the internet,the chances of coming in contact with a stranger are very high and hence increasing the chances of being abused if you decide to meet up with the stranger. Family members also posses the danger of sexual abuse since they are most trusted in the family. Inappropriate touching by someone you trust could lead to sexual abuse such as rape. In a society where sex and violence movies are a form of entertainment posses a threat because they teaches people to view power as a commodity in which they can use to demand sex. Sexual abusers tend get their dates drunk in order to get their way with them which escalates to more violent rape offenses.
The following are the effects of sexual abuse,
Post traumatic stress disorder – Victims of sexual abuse tend to experience severe feelings of stress,fear and anxiety known as post traumatic stress disorder. If the disorder is left untreated for long could grow worse and could even take months and years before the victim completely heals.
Depression – Sexual abuse victims tend to experience severe depression due to the abuse and they could need a doctor’s intervention in order to deal with the horrifying experience.
Sexually transmitted diseases – These diseases STD’s includes HIV and Aids,syphilis,chlamydia,herpes and gonorrhea. If not treated they could be very harmful to the life of the victim.
Unwanted pregnancies – Sexual assault victims do have concerns about becoming pregnant from the rape ordeal. These unwanted pregnancies could lead to abortions by the victims because they may not want to have a baby conceived through rape.
Substance abuse – Rape or sexual assault victims may turn to drugs and other hard substance in an attempt to relieve some emotional suffering experienced. Childhood sexual abuse victims may use drugs to make them forget the painful memories of sexual violence they experienced when young.
Sometimes you may not be able to protect yourself completely from sexual abuse,there are some precautions you may take to reduce the chances of being assaulted. These precautions includes; avoiding isolated areas,trusting your instincts,being aware of your surrounding and avoiding putting music earphones on both ears so as to be aware of your surrounding at any time.
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Molecular Biology and Genetics
Statistics of barcoding coverage
Specimens with Sequences:71
Specimens with Barcodes:71
Species With Barcodes:18
Cranes are a clade (Gruidae) of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the group Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back. Cranes live on all continents except Antarctica and South America.
Most species of cranes are at the least classified as threatened, if not critically endangered, within their range. The plight of the whooping cranes of North America inspired some of the first US legislation to protect endangered species.
They are opportunistic feeders that change their diet according to the season and their own nutrient requirements. They eat a range of items from suitably sized small rodents, fish, amphibians, and insects, to grain, berries, and plants.
Cranes construct platform nests in shallow water, and typically lay two eggs at a time. Both parents help to rear the young, which remain with them until the next breeding season.
Some species and populations of cranes migrate over long distances; others do not migrate at all. Cranes are solitary during the breeding season, occurring in pairs, but during the non-breeding season they are gregarious, forming large flocks where their numbers are sufficient.
The cranes are large to very large birds, including the world's tallest flying bird. They range in size from the demoiselle crane, which measures 90 cm (35 in) in length, to the Sarus crane, which can be up to 176 cm (69 in), although the heaviest is the red-crowned crane, which can weigh 12 kg (26 lb) prior to migrating. They are long-legged and long-necked birds with streamlined bodies and large rounded wings. The males and females do not vary in external appearance, but on average males tend to be slightly larger than females.
The plumage of the cranes varies by habitat. Species inhabiting vast open wetlands tend to have more white in the plumage than do species that inhabit smaller wetlands or forested habitats, which tend to be more grey. These white species are also generally larger. The smaller size and colour of the forest species is thought to help them maintain a less conspicuous profile while nesting; two of these species (the common and sandhill cranes) also daub their feathers with mud to further hide while nesting.
Most species of crane have some areas of bare skin on the face; the only two exceptions are the blue and demoiselle cranes. This skin is used in communication with other cranes, and can be expanded by contracting and relaxing muscles, and change the intensity of colour. Feathers on the head can be moved and erected in the blue, wattled and demoiselle cranes for signalling as well.
Also important to communication is the position and length of the trachea. In the two crowned-cranes the trachea is shorter and only slightly impressed upon the bone of the sternum, whereas the trachea of the other species is longer and penetrates the sternum. In some species the entire sternum is fused to the bony plates of the trachea, and this helps amplify the crane's calls, allowing them to carry for several kilometres.
Distribution and habitat
The cranes have a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring across most of the world continents. They are absent from Antarctica and, mysteriously, South America. East Asia is the centre of crane diversity, with eight species, followed by Africa, which holds five resident species and wintering populations of a sixth. Australia, Europe and North America have two species. Of the four genera of crane, two, Balearica (two species) and Bugeranus (one species) are entirely restricted to Africa, and the third Anthropoides has one entirely African species and one species that is found in Africa, Asia and Europe. The remaining genus, Grus, contains the most species and is the most widespread genus, although only a single species occurs in Africa as a wintering migrant.
Most species of crane are dependent on wetlands and require large areas of open space. Most species of crane nest in shallow wetlands. Some species nest in wetlands but move their chicks up onto grasslands to feed (while returning to wetlands at night), whereas others remain in wetlands for the entirety of the breeding season. Even the two species of Anthropoides crane, which may nest and feed in grasslands (or even arid grasslands or deserts) require wetlands for roosting in during the night. The only two species that do not always roost in wetlands are the two African crowned-cranes (Balearica), which are the only cranes to roost in trees.
Some crane species are sedentary, remaining in the same area throughout the year, others are highly migratory, travelling thousands of kilometres each year from their breeding sites. A few species have both migratory and sedentary populations.
Behaviour and ecology
The cranes are diurnal birds that vary in their sociality by season. During the breeding season they are territorial and usually remain on their territory all the time. In contrast in the non-breeding season they tend to be gregarious, forming large flocks to roost, socialise and in some species feed. Species that feed predominately on vegetable matter in the non-breeding season feed in flocks to do so, whereas those that feed on animals will usually feed in family groups, joining flocks only during resting periods, or in preparation for travel during migration. Large aggregations of cranes are important for safety when resting and also as places for young unmated birds to meet others.
Calls and communication
Cranes are highly vocal and have a large vocabulary of specialized calls. The vocabulary begins soon after hatching with low, purring contact calls for maintaining contact with their parents, as well as food begging calls. Other calls used as chicks include alarm calls and "flight intention" calls, both of which are maintained into adulthood. The cranes' duett calls are most impressive. They can be used for individual recognition (see below external link).
The cranes as a family consume a wide range of food, ranging from animal to plant matter. When feeding on land they consume seeds, leaves, nuts and acorns, berries, fruit, insects, worms, snails, small reptiles, mammals and birds. In wetlands roots, rhizomes, tubers and other parts of emergent plants, other molluscs, small fish and amphibians are also consumed as well. The exact composition of the diet varies by location, season and availability. Within the wide range of items consumed there are some patterns; the shorter-billed species usually feed in drier uplands while the longer-billed species feed in wetlands.
Cranes employ different foraging techniques for different food types. Tubers and rhizomes are dug for and a crane digging for them will remain in place for some time digging and then expanding a hole to find them. In contrast both to this and the stationary wait and watch hunting methods employed by many herons, they forage for insects and animal prey by slowly moving forwards with their heads lowered and probing with their bills.
Where more than one species of crane exists in a locality, each species will adopt separate niches in order to minimise competition and niche overlap. At one important lake in Jiangxi Province in China the Siberian cranes feed on the mudflats and in shallow water, the white-naped cranes on the wetland borders, the hooded cranes on sedge meadows and the last two species also feed on the agricultural fields along with the common cranes.
Cranes are perennially monogamous breeders, establishing long-term pair bonds that may last the lifetime of the birds. Pair bonds begin to form in the second or third years of life, but it may be several years before the first successful breeding season. Initial breeding attempts often fail, and in many cases newer pair bonds will dissolve (divorce) after unsuccessful breeding attempts. Pairs that are repeatedly successful at breeding will remain together for as long as they continue to do so. In a study of sandhill cranes in Florida, seven out of the 22 pairs studied remained together for an 11-year period. Of the pairs that separated 53% were due to the death of one of the pair, 18% due to divorce and the fate of 29% of pairs were unknown. Similar results had been found by acoustic monitoring (sonography / frequency analysis of duett and guard calls) in 3 breeding areas of common cranes in Germany over 10 years.
Cranes are territorial and generally seasonal breeders. Seasonality varies both between and within species, dependent on local conditions. Migratory species begin breeding upon reaching their summer breeding grounds, between April and June. The breeding season of tropical species, however, is usually timed to coincide with the wet or monsoon seasons. Territory sizes also vary depending on location. Tropical species can maintain very small territories, for example Sarus cranes in India can breed on territories as small as one hectare where the area is of sufficient quality and disturbance by humans is minimised. In contrast red-crowned crane territories may require 500 hectares, and pairs may defend even larger territories than that, up to several thousand hectares. Territory defence is usually performed by the male. Because of this females are much less likely to retain the territory than males in the event of the death of a partner.
Taxonomy and systematics
SUBFAMILY BALEARICINAE – crowned cranes
SUBFAMILY GRUINAE – typical cranes
- Genus Grus
- Common crane, Grus grus, also known as the Eurasian crane
- Sandhill crane, Grus canadensis
- Whooping crane, Grus americana
- Sarus crane, Grus antigone
- Brolga, Grus rubicunda
- Siberian crane, Grus leucogeranus
- White-naped crane, Grus vipio
- Hooded crane, Grus monacha
- Black-necked crane, Grus nigricollis
- Red-crowned crane, Grus japonensis, also known as the Manchurian crane and Japanese crane
- Genus Anthropoides
- Genus Bugeranus
- Wattled crane, Bugeranus carunculatus
The fossil record of cranes leaves much to be desired. Apparently, the subfamilies were well distinct by the Late Eocene (around 35 mya). The present genera are apparently some 20 mya old. Biogeography of known fossil and the living taxa of cranes suggests that the group is probably of (Laurasian?) Old World origin. The extant diversity at the genus level is centered on (eastern) Africa, making it all the more regrettable that no decent fossil record exists from there. On the other hand, it is peculiar that numerous fossils of Ciconiiformes are documented from there; these birds presumably shared much of their habitat with cranes back then already.
Fossil genera are tentatively assigned to the present-day subfamilies:
- Palaeogrus (Middle Eocene of Germany and Italy – Middle Miocene of France)
- Pliogrus (Early Pliocene of Eppelsheim, Germany)
- Camusia (Late Miocene of Menorca, Mediterranean)
- "Grus" conferta (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Contra Costa County, USA)
Sometimes considered Balearicinae
Sometimes considered Gruidae incertae sedis
- Eobalearica (Ferghana Late? Eocene of Ferghana, Uzbekistan)
- Probalearica (Late Oligocene? – Middle Pliocene of Florida, USA, France?, Moldavia and Mongolia) – A nomen dubium?
- Aramornis (Sheep Creek Middle Miocene of Snake Creek Quarries, USA)
In mythology and symbolism
The cranes' beauty and their spectacular mating dances have made them highly symbolic birds in many cultures with records dating back to ancient times. Crane mythology is widely spread and can be found in areas such as the Aegean, South Arabia, China, Korea, Japan and in the Native American cultures of North America. In northern Hokkaidō, the women of the Ainu people performed a crane dance that was captured in 1908 in a photograph by Arnold Genthe. In Korea, a crane dance has been performed in the courtyard of the Tongdosa Temple since the Silla Dynasty (646 CE).
In Mecca, in pre-Islamic South Arabia, Allāt, Uzza, and Manah were believed to be the three chief goddesses of Mecca, they were called the "three exalted cranes" (gharaniq, an obscure word on which 'crane' is the usual gloss). See The Satanic Verses for the best-known story regarding these three goddesses.
In China, several styles of kung fu take inspiration from the movements of cranes in the wild, the most famous of these styles being Wing Chun, Hung Gar (Tiger Crane), and the Shaolin Five Animals style of fighting. Crane movements are well known for their fluidity and grace.
The Greek for crane is Γερανος (Geranos), which gives us the cranesbill, or hardy geranium. The crane was a bird of omen. In the tale of Ibycus and the cranes, a thief attacked Ibycus (a poet of the 6th century BCE) and left him for dead. Ibycus called to a flock of passing cranes, who followed the attacker to a theater and hovered over him until, stricken with guilt, he confessed to the crime.
Pliny the Elder wrote that cranes would appoint one of their number to stand guard while they slept. The sentry would hold a stone in its claw, so that if it fell asleep it would drop the stone and waken. A crane holding a stone in its claw is a well-known symbol in heraldry, and is known as a crane in its vigilance.
Aristotle describes the migration of cranes in the History of Animals, adding an account of their fights with Pygmies as they wintered near the source of the Nile. He describes as untruthful an account that the crane carries a touchstone inside it that can be used to test for gold when vomited up. (This second story is not altogether implausible, as cranes might ingest appropriate gizzard stones in one locality and regurgitate them in a region where such stone is otherwise scarce.)
Throughout Asia, the crane is a symbol of happiness and eternal youth. In Japan, the crane is one of the mystical or holy creatures (others include the dragon and the tortoise) and symbolizes good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years. The crane is a favourite subject of the tradition of origami or paper folding. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane. After World War II, the crane came to symbolize peace and the innocent victims of war through the story of schoolgirl Sadako Sasaki and her thousand origami cranes. Suffering from leukemia as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and knowing she was dying, she undertook to make a thousand origami cranes before her death at the age of 12. After her death, she became internationally recognised as a symbol of the innocent victims of war and remains a heroine to many Japanese girls.
Cranes folded in origami paper
- Archibald, George W. (1991). Forshaw, Joseph, ed. Encyclopaedia of Animals: Birds. London: Merehurst Press. pp. 95–96. ISBN 1-85391-186-0.
- Archibald, George; Meine, Curt (1996). "Family Gruidae (Cranes)". In del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Sargatal, Jordi. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 3, Hoatzin to Auks. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. pp. 60–81. ISBN 84-87334-20-2.
- Gaunt, Abbot; Sandra L. L. Gaunt, Henry D. Prange and Jeremy S. Wasser (1987). "The effects of tracheal coiling on the vocalizations of cranes (Aves; Gruidae)". Journal of Comparative Physiology A 161 (1): 43–58. doi:10.1007/BF00609454.
- "craneworld.de". craneworld.de. Retrieved 2012-07-29.
- Nesbitt, Stephen A. (1989). "The Significance of Mate Loss in Florida Sandhill Cranes". Wilson Bulletin 101 (4): 648–651.
- Wessling, B. (2003). "Acoustic individual monitoring over several years (mainly Common Crane and Whooping Crane)". Craneworld.de.
- Miller, Alden H. & Sibley, Charles G. (1942). "A New Species of Crane from the Pliocene of California". Condor 44 (3): 126–127.
- *Lambrecht, Kálmán (1933): Handbuch der Palaeornithologie. Gebrüder Bornträger, Berlin, p. 520
- Leslie, J. (1998). "A bird bereaved: The identity and significance of Valmiki's kraunca". Journal of Indian Philosophy 26 (5): 455–487. doi:10.1023/A:1004335910775.
- Hammer, Niels (2009). "Why Sārus Cranes epitomize Karuṇarasa in the Rāmāyaṇa". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. (Third Series) 19 (2): 187–211. doi:10.1017/S1356186308009334.
- "The Internet Classics Archive | The History of Animals by Aristotle". Classics.mit.edu. Retrieved 2012-07-29.
- Hayes, M.A. (2005): Divorce and extra-pair paternity as alternative mating strategies in monogamous sandhill cranes. MS thesis, University of South Dakota, Vermilion, S.D.. 86 p. PDF fulltext at the International Crane Foundation's Library
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Organs that can be transplanted are the liver, small bowel, kidney, pancreas, heart, and lung.
A kidney transplant operation places a healthy kidney in your body. This kidney takes over the work of the two kidneys that failed, so you no longer need dialysis. Transplanted kidneys come from a deceased or living donor.
Often, the new kidney will start making urine as soon as your blood starts flowing through it.
After surgery, most patients return to work and their normal levels of activity.
Lung transplant surgery can replace one or both diseased lungs. Lungs can come from either a deceased or living donor.
A transplant may be recommended if you have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cystic fibrosis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, interstitial lung diseases, or primary pulmonary hypertension, among others.
A heart transplant replaces a damaged/diseased heart with a healthy one from a donor who has died. This is the final treatment option for people with heart failure where all other options have failed. Heart failure may occur due to congenital heart disease, coronary heart disease, damaged heart valves, heart muscles, or viral infections.
As with other transplants, you must take medication to prevent your body from rejecting the new heart.
The pancreas makes insulin and enzymes that help the body digest and use food. A pancreas transplant is surgery to place a healthy pancreas from a deceased donor into a person with a diseased pancreas. A common reason for this type of damage is diabetes.
People who have transplants must take medication to keep their body from rejecting the new organ.
Small bowel transplant replaces a diseased or shortened small bowel with a healthy bowel from a donor. A small bowel transplant is considered when complications develop from total parenteral nutrition (TPN) or when a person is unable to tolerate this form of feeding. TPN nutrition is where liquid nutrition is given through a drip. After surgery, you will need to take medication to prevent organ rejection.
Tissue transplantation includes corneas, skin, bone, cardiovascular tissue the islet cells of the pancreas and connective tissue. One donor can provide tissue for many recipients undergoing various procedures.
Bone grafts repair or rebuild diseased bone in hips, knees, spine and other joints - often as a result of fractures or cancers. Once your body accepts the bone graft, it provides a framework for growth of new, living bone.
Bone for transplant comes from donors who have died.
Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) is the transplantation of multiple tissues such as muscle, bone, nerve and skin as a functional unit. Examples of VCA include upper limb (hand), facial tissue and abdominal wall.
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Type of stress, not duration, key to heart enlargementDURHAM, N.C. -- When judging whether or not an enlarged heart is healthy or potentially at risk for heart disease, the nature of the physiological stress that produced the enlargement is more important than the duration of the stress, according to a new study led by Duke University Medical Center investigators.
This distinction has significant clinical implications, the researchers said. While enlargement of the heart can be a natural and beneficial response to exercise training, it can also be an early warning sign for such harmful conditions as heart failure.
These findings, based on a series of experiments in mice, could help settle a long-running controversy among cardiologists concerning heart enlargement, or cardiac hypertrophy, according to Duke cardiologist Howard Rockman, M.D., who led the team of Duke and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill researchers.
The researchers published their findings on June, 1, 2006, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
"If you look at the hearts of athletes, they are larger than normal," Rockman said. "On the other hand, patients with high blood pressure also tend have larger-than-normal hearts. So why are some cardiac overloads, such as exercise, good for the heart, while others, such as high blood pressure, not?"
In athletes, the heart's pumping chambers enlarge to compensate for the body's increased demand for oxygen-rich blood. But in patients with heart failure, the heart walls themselves become thicker, heavier and less efficient in pumping blood.
"For more than a century there has been intense debate over why some stresses or overloads on the heart are beneficial and others lead to disease," Rockman continued. "The prevailing wisdom was that since exercise is an intermittent event and high blood pressure is a chronic condition, the duration of the cardiac stress was key. However, our studies appear to demonstrate that it is not the duration of stress that leads to a disease state, but rather its nature."
Their studies demonstrate that intermittent occurrences of cardiac stress in the form of high blood pressure, or hypertension, initiates a cascade of events that eventually leads to abnormalities in heart muscle cells as well as damage to blood vessels. The studies also showed that these potentially harmful responses can begin before the heart itself begins to enlarge, the researchers reported.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers developed a novel method for inducing hypertension in mice. The researchers tie a "slipknot" around each mouse's aorta with a suture, which they manipulate from outside the mouse through a small incision in the back. For their experiments, the researchers tied off, or occluded, the aortas in one group of mice for 90 minutes twice a day. A second group of mice exercised for 90 minutes twice a day, either by swimming or running in a wheel.
At various intervals, the researchers performed detailed genetic and histological analyses of the hearts and cardiovascular systems of all the mice. Comparisons between the exercising mice and hypertensive mice highlighted important differences quite early, Rockman said.
"After seven days, the hearts of the swimming mice were gorgeous," he said. "The hearts of the hypertensive mice were similarly enlarged and appeared from the outside to be functioning normally, but individual heart muscle cells already showed significant structural and cellular abnormalities."
Specifically, the researchers found a pronounced alteration in the function of beta-adrenergic receptors located on the surface of the heart muscle cells. These receptors, are protein switches that nestle in the cell membrane and are activated by the hormone adrenaline to enhance the heart's pumping action in response to exercise or stress.
"When blood pressure increases, it causes the myocytes to stretch," Rockman said. "We believe this stretching releases factors into the bloodstream that interfere with the integrity of the endothelial lining of blood vessels."
Rockman said that while endurance exercise, such as running and swimming, is beneficial in that the increased load on the heart is not harmful to myocytes, other activities that cause blood pressure spikes could lead to the pathological form of hypertrophy.
"We would predict that weightlifters, for example, would exhibit heart enlargement like that seen in the abnormal mice in our experiments because they have sudden bursts of extreme overload," he said. "We would also predict that patients suffering from sleep apnea, who often wake up suddenly in a panic state, would also have hearts like our abnormal mice. It appears that like many other things in life, moderation is the best policy.
"Our results indicate that hypertrophy of the heart is a time-dependant reaction to cardiac stress that by itself does not necessarily lead to negative effects on the heart," Rockman said. "Instead, it appears that the molecular signature of the overloaded heart, not the growth itself, is the trigger that leads to either cardiac adaptation or decline."
Duke members of the team included Cinzia Perrino, Sathyamangla V. Naga Prassad, Lan Mao, Takahisa Noma and Zhen Yan. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill collaborators included Hyung-Suk Kim and Oliver Smithies.
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 30 Apr 2016
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
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Sulfate Aerosol EvolutionEntry ID: ucar.scd.vets.vg.rs
Abstract: The NCAR Community Climate Model (CCM3) is used to model sulfate aerosols in
the atmosphere that originate from coal burning and smelting operations around
the globe.Researchers at NCAR used the CCM3 model to show global sulfate
aerosol evolution and how sulfate aerosols are transported between different
continents. The sulfate aerosols shown here are primarily from ... man-made sources
including coal burning and copper smelting. Other natural sources (20% of the
total) such as dimethyl sulfide produced by phytoplankton in the ocean and
volcanic emissions are not modeled in this case study. Emissions are seasonal.
For example, in Europe, there tends to be more coal buring during the winter to
produce energy for heating. In the US, however, emissions are more constant.
Like Europe, coal is burned in the winter to produce power for heat, but
because of energy demands for air conditioning systems, which are more
prevalent in the US than in Europe, yearly sulfate emissions are more constant
in North America.
Seasonal variations, however, are dominated by the chemical process of
converting sulfides into sulfate aerosols. A process which requires sunlight
and water vapor. These elements are more prevalent in the North American
summer, and so we see peak levels in June, July, and August.
There are two main effects from the increased sulfate aerosol levels in the
atmosphere: the direct and indirect effects. The direct effect is that
radiation is scattered back into space resulting in less energy entering the
climate system. Some theories propose that this leads to a cooler climate and
helps mitigate global warming.
The indirect effect is that the sulfate aerosols act as cloud condensation
nuclei resulting in the formation of more drops compteting for the same amount
of water vapor. This produces clouds that persist longer and that have smaller
droplets that do not precipitate as easily, and they are brighter, reflecting
even more radiation. This, in turn, may offset the greenhouse effect.
Data Set Citation
Dataset Originator/Creator: Phil Rasch (scientist), Mary Barth (scientist), Jeff Kiehl (scientist), Tim Scheitlin (animator)Online Resource: http://cdp.ucar.edu/browse/browse.htm?uri=http%3a%2f%2fdataportal.u...
Start Date: 0001-01-01
Temporal Resolution: 1 Day
Temporal Resolution Range: Daily - < Weekly
ISO Topic Category
Use Constraints Copyright 2002, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
Distribution Size: 1 GB
Extended Metadata Properties
(Click to view more)
Creation and Review Dates
Last DIF Revision Date: 2016-01-27
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By Dr. Mercola
The US Poison Control Center receives nearly 500,000 calls per year related to young children accidently getting into medicine. This works out to one call every minute of every day.
In 2012, 64,000 kids were treated in emergency rooms for medicine poisoning; that's one child every eight minutes, according to a new report from Safe Kids.1 The report, which is based on data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Poison Control Centers, sheds light on this entirely preventable problem, including where children are most likely to be exposed to potentially deadly medicines.
Parents' and Grandparents' Medications Cause Most Child Drug Poisonings
In three out of four cases of child drug poisonings, the medication belonged to a parent (39 percent of cases) or grandparent (38 percent of cases). The fact that grandparents' medication represents this much of a poisoning threat is due to the changing nature of typical households in the US.
There's been a 23 percent increase in the number of grandparents living with their grandchildren since 2005, and one in eight grandparents provide regular care for their grandchildren.
Considering that older adults are among the most heavily medicated populations, with the average adult aged 65 and older taking 28 prescriptions per year,2 this factor alone significantly increases children's risk of accidental drug poisoning.
The Safe Kids' report even revealed that 74 percent of grandparents said they take a prescription medicine every day, which means "kids are around more medicine than ever before." While both parents and grandparents acknowledged that the safest place to keep medications is "up and away" from children, many were making exceptions that would put kids at risk.
Many Grandparents Worried More About Electrical Outlets Than Drugs
When asked what grandparents worried over in terms of keeping kids safe, more identified electrical outlets than medications. Yet, 36 times more children visit emergency rooms due to medication poisoning than electrocution.3
The fact is, medication usage is so common that many become complacent, neglecting to regard their pills as potential killers. Adding to the problem, many seniors take medications multiple times a day and purposely keep them in easy-to-access, prominent locations so they don't forget a dose. The report revealed that among grandparents who take care of their grandkids every day:
- 28 percent keep their medicines in easy-open containers or bottles without a child-resistant cap
- 42 percent of those who use easy-open containers also keep their medicine on a bathroom or kitchen sink, counter, table, or shelf
- 12 percent keep prescription medications on a nightstand or dresser
A young child can grab a pill off a counter, table, or the floor and swallow it in the blink of an eye. Tragically, that is often all it takes to cause life-threatening, and sometimes fatal, reactions in their small bodies.
It May Take Only One Pill to Kill a Small Child
Deaths from prescription drug overdoses have been called the "silent epidemic" for years, and now, with one American dying every 19 minutes from an accidental prescription drug overdose,4 it's being described as "the biggest man-made epidemic in the US."5
If prescription drugs are this deadly in adults, imagine, then, the toll they can take if they fall into the hands of children. In many cases, just one pill – or less – can cause permanent or life-threatening damage in a small child. The following seven medications are examples:
Heart Pills -- In children, they can cause dangerously low blood pressure and heart rate, and even lead to shock.
||Muscle Rubs -- Camphor is especially dangerous because ingesting it works so quickly; symptoms occur within 10-20 minutes, and often children can go into seizures without any warning.
||Prescription Pain Medications -- For an infant, even half a tablet of hydrocodone can be lethal.
|Aspirin and Oil of Wintergreen -- Oil of wintergreen is particularly hazardous because its pleasant smell tempts toddlers to ingest it, but one teaspoon of oil of wintergreen is the equivalent of nearly 90 baby aspirins -- a life-threatening dose for a toddler or child.
||Antidepressants -- After pain medications, antidepressants are the second highest cause of accidental death from poisoning in children younger than six.
||Blood Pressure Patches, Eye Drops, and Nasal Sprays -- These medications, designed to be absorbed over time through your skin, can lead to serious consequences when ingested by a toddler. As little as 6 ml can lead to a coma.
|Diabetes Drugs -- As these medications are more commonly prescribed, the incidence of pediatric poisonings has also increased.
Signs Your Child May Have Ingested a Medication
If you see your child ingest a pill or medication of any kind, don't wait to take action. Your child may appear fine at first, but deadly side effects can appear hours later when it's too late. If you're in the US, call 911 or the National Poison Control Center at 1-800-222-1222 if you even suspect your child has eaten an adult (or unknown) medication.
If you're in another country, contact emergency help immediately. Likewise, if your child is displaying any of the poisoning symptoms below, you should call for help immediately.
|Seizures ||Low blood pressure or heart rate
||Nausea or vomiting
Remember that preventing medication poisoning in children is often as simple as keeping these drugs safely out of children's reach at all times. Safe Kids recommends the following common sense precautions:
- Keep all medicine (including children's medicine) up and away when young children are around, even medicine you take every day.
- Be alert to potential hazards of medicine stored in other locations, like pills in purses, vitamins on counters, and medicine on nightstands.
- Even if you are tempted to keep it handy in between doses, put medicine out of reach after every use.
- Choose child-resistant caps for medicine bottles, if you're able to. If pill boxes or non-child resistant caps are the only option, it's even more important to store these containers up high and out of sight when caring for kids.
- If you live in the US, program the US Poison Help Number (1-800-222-1222) into your phones.
Reducing Your Reliance on Medications Sets a Positive Example for Kids
There are clearly some cases where medications are useful and even lifesaving. I am not opposed to medication – provided it is used correctly and only when necessary. And that latter point is key. Medications are often promoted as necessary when they actually aren't. So many adults are taking prescription and over-the-counter drugs as a matter of course, and aside from the risks of accidental poisoning, kids grow up believing that this is normal. We're now at a point where one in four teens has misused a prescription drug at least once in their lifetime, a 33 percent increase in the last five years.6
Many teens and their parents believe prescription drugs are "safer" than illegal street drugs, when in reality they are just as deadly – and often more so. Prescription drugs, often taken from a parent's medicine cabinet, are now a preferred way for teens to get high, but despite this growing reality, 86 percent of teens surveyed said their parents had not talked to them about the risks of abusing prescription drugs.7
This again stems back to the fact that kids, and often their parents, are of the mindset that medications are generally safe. But as stated in the documentary Pill Poppers: "The difference between a drug and a poison is basically the dose." If you are taking a drug for a medically necessary reason, then by all means keeping it safely out of reach of your children is essential. But at the foundational level, reducing your reliance on drugs in the first place is going to benefit yourself and your kids infinitely more.
How to Break Free of the Drug Paradigm
You've probably heard the advice that eating healthier, exercising, and relieving your stress – all facets of a healthy lifestyle – can help you to prevent and even treat diseases. But perhaps you haven't really taken it to heart. The problem is that this knowledge doesn't always translate into actions, and rather than starting an exercise program or drinking a freshly prepared green vegetable juice, many visit their physicians and receive a prescription for medication.
Even many physicians neglect to tell their patients about the simple and, oftentimes, free changes they can make to dramatically improve their health, simply because they have been brainwashed by the conventional system and are convinced that drugs are part of the, if not the sole, answer for virtually any health condition. Examples of health problems that typically don't require drug intervention include short-term conditions like colds and flu, headaches and minor aches, and pains to chronic conditions like:
This is why some of the most important common-sense questions you need to ask before you take any drug (or give one to your child) include:
- Do I really need it?
- What are the alternatives? (lifestyle-based or otherwise)
- Is it prescribed appropriately, or is it being prescribed for an off-label use? (the latter is particularly common in children)
- What are the side effects? (Both common and uncommon side effects)
- Is it addictive and is it known to interact with any other drugs, supplements, or foods that I'm taking?
Viewing drugs as a last resort rather than a first-line defense will go a long way toward keeping you healthy, as will embracing positive lifestyle choices. An excellent starting point is my free nutrition plan, which virtually anyone can follow starting right now. As mentioned, please do keep any and all medications out of reach of your children. But also, give careful consideration to which medications you have in your house, and whether or not they are truly medically necessary.
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Statistics on Differentiated Pediatric Thyroid Cancer
- Papillary and follicular thyroid cancer accounts for only approximately 1% of all pediatric cancers in the 5-9 year old age group and up to 7% of cancers in the 15-19 year old age group.
- Only 1 in a million children younger than age 10 years will get thyroid cancer.
- In children under age 10, thyroid cancer tends to affect boys and girls with about equal frequency, but thereafter it generally becomes more common in girls. The ratio of girls to boys with differentiated thyroid cancer reaches a peak of over 5 to 1 in the 15-to-20 year-old age group.
- Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) accounts for 5% to 10% of all thyroid cancers. In children and adolescents, it is a very rare disease, affecting less than one child per million per year.
As the National Cancer Institute notes, no one knows the exact causes of thyroid cancer. Doctors can seldom explain why one person gets this disease and another does not.
Research has shown that people with certain risk factors are more likely than others to develop thyroid cancer. The following risk factors are associated with an increased chance of developing pediatric thyroid cancer:
Pediatric Differentiated Thyroid Cancer
- For differentiated thyroid cancer, a risk factor is exposure at a young age to ionizing radiation, whether from ingestion of radioactive iodines (iodine is the building block of thyroid hormones) or external radiation, as used to treat some childhood cancers. The main example of this was the increased rate of thyroid cancer identified in children following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.
- In general, the differentiated thyroid carcinomas are not diseases that are passed from one generation to the next. However, there are some hereditary forms of the disease, although the exact cause of the disease in these families is not yet known. Some genetic syndromes such as Gardner syndrome and the Carney complex can have papillary thyroid carcinoma as part of the spectrum of disease. Some follicular thyroid carcinomas can be associated with a mutation in the PTEN gene, which causes Cowden syndrome. Gene mutations (RET/PTC, BRAF, among others) that cause differentiated thyroid cancer have also been identified within tumor cells. These mutations are not in all cells of the body and therefore are not expected to be hereditary.
Pediatric Medullary Thyroid Cancer
- In children and adolescents, medullary thyroid cancer is almost always the familial form, meaning that it is due to a specific mutation (defect) in the DNA of the cells of the body. This mutation occurs in a gene called the RET proto-oncogene.
Last updated: February 21, 2007
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| 0.952159 | 554 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Chapter 4.—The Accidental Always Implies Some Change in the Thing.
5. That which is accidental commonly implies that it can be lost by some change of the thing to which it is an accident. For although some accidents are said to be inseparable, which in Greek are called ἀχώριστα, as the color black is to the feather of a raven; p. 89 yet the feather loses that color, not indeed so long as it is a feather, but because the feather is not always. Wherefore the matter itself is changeable; and whenever that animal or that feather ceases to be, and the whole of that body is changed and turned into earth, it loses certainly that color also. Although the kind of accident which is called separable may likewise be lost, not by separation, but by change; as, for instance, blackness is called a separable accident to the hair of men, because hair continuing to be hair can grow white; yet, if carefully considered, it is sufficiently apparent, that it is not as if anything departed by separation away from the head when it grows white, as though blackness departed thence and went somewhere and whiteness came in its place, but that the quality of color there is turned and changed. Therefore there is nothing accidental in God, because there is nothing changeable or that may be lost. But if you choose to call that also accidental, which, although it may not be lost, yet can be decreased or increased,—as, for instance, the life of the soul: for as long as it is a soul, so long it lives, and because the soul is always, it always lives; but because it lives more when it is wise, and less when it is foolish, here, too, some change comes to pass, not such that life is absent, as wisdom is absent to the foolish, but such that it is less;—nothing of this kind, either, happens to God, because He remains altogether unchangeable.
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| 0.975779 | 413 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The Museum of Flight was proud to premier Red Tails, Silver Wings, an exhibit featuring 46 paintings and drawings by local artist, Chris Hopkins. The paintings capture the history of America's first African American fighter squadron, the Tuskegee Airmen. The exhibit was on display in the Great Gallery from February 28, 2013 and through May 12, 2013.
The Tuskegee Airmen challenged racial segregation and paved the way for the integration of the armed forces. At the beginning of World War II, the United States armed forces were still segregated and the U.S. Army Air Corps refused to train African Americans as pilots. In response to a lawsuit, the Army Air Corps agreed to an experiment training pilots and crews at Tuskegee University, Alabama.
Though the government thought the experiment would fail, the Tuskegee Airmen, as the pilots and crews came to be known, defied expectations. They amassed a remarkable record escorting allied bombers over Europe. Very few bombers were lost under their escort and their pilots fared significantly better in this mission than many other squadrons. The pilots flew Curtiss P-40 Warhawks, Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, and North American P-51 Mustangs in combat with distinction. Although they also trained to fly the North American B-25 twin-engine bomber, the war ended before these were deployed.
Chris Hopkins began his painting career as a commercial illustrator working in the entertainment industry. Among other things, he produced iconic posters for movies including Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Return of the Jedi. He was also nominated for a Grammy for his album cover art for Styx's Paradise Theatre.
After moving to the Northwest in 1988, Hopkin's career began to change from slick airbrush advertising to a more painterly style working on private commissions to depict historical events. Hopkins produced works depicting the histories of Northwest Native tribes and portraits of Northwest Native American artists. He also became known for his military artwork. Hopkins produced works honoring the men and women who served in Operation Desert Storm and in the war in Vietnam.
Hopkins began work on his Tuskegee Airmen series as part of his work for the Northwest chapter of the Air Force Art program. Over the years, the series has moved beyond the Air Force Art program to become a personal mission and passion for Hopkins. The Tuskegee Airmen project is a tribute that consists of more than 40 paintings that accurately portray the foreign and domestic exploits of the first African American fighter pilots, their support crews, their families, their predecessors as well as their legacy. With the help of surviving Tuskegee Airmen, Pentagon personnel, and noted historians, this body of work has been created with tremendous attention to detail and accuracy.
To learn more about Chris Hopkins and his Tuskegee Airmen series, be sure to visit his website chrishopkinsart.com
From Evening Magazine - February, 2012:
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| 0.975352 | 598 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The Snapping Turtle is the largest turtle in Minnesota, and also the most aggressive. Growing up to 50 cm in length, this species is seen in shades of brown, gray, black, or olive. The serrated carapace of the Snapping Turtle is often covered with alga due to its almost exclusively aquatic lifestyle, and the plastron (bottom shell) is extremely small, preventing the turtle from completely protecting itself.
The lifespan of the Snapping Turtle nearly reaches that of the human, and they are most often seen in early June when females deposit their eggs on land. The snap that earns their name is merely a defensive behavior used when on land, and these turtles, like Painted Turtles, can only swallow when submerged in water. Surprisingly, though this species has been known for eating ducklings and small mammals, a majority of its diet is in fact plant life or decaying matter.
There is a healthy population of this turtle species at the Saint John’s Arboretum, and they can be found in nearly every large wetland.
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One year since the country began to excavate common graves, chilling information has come to light: the “paras” (paramilitaries) gave courses on how to dismember a human body, the recently formed “Black Eagle” paramilitaries have been digging up graves and throwing the remains into the rivers and victims remain fearful.
Whose shoes are those? Who was she? Why was she killed? Is a tormented older woman with the memory of a lost daughter looking for her? These are the questions that spring to mind with this photograph taken in Facatativá, Cundinamarca in central Colombia by the Attorney General’s office (Fiscalía). They are only a few of the daily questions asked—during every waking hour—by those mourning for the 10,000–31,000 people who in the recent years of war have disappeared without a trace. (The first estimate is from the Fiscalía, while the latter is from the Colombian Commission of Jurists.)
With the first year of searching for common graves nearing a close this month, the fiscalía has received 3,710 claims of places believed to contain graves, but the majority of these sites have gone uninvestigated due to lack of resources: 533 bodies have been found, but the most dramatic aspect is that only 13 have been officially identified; that is, through DNA tests. Another 173 bodies have been preliminarily identified (by clothing, tattoos, etc.).
They Gave Quartering Classes
When we decided at El Tiempo to do a special report on the phenomenon of common graves a scene began to repeat itself in our newsroom: one by one, reporters coming back from the field, returned mortified.
Few discoveries have shaken us so deeply and few are as difficult to write about: from the scale of the horror, to the way they died, and by the insatiable pain of the families, as well as—perhaps most unsettling—realizing the magnitude of the work that remains to be done throughout the country. Will a significant number of the dead be unearthed and identified to alleviate their families? Will we be able to mourn, as we should, to prevent a third chapter of extreme violence from enrapturing Colombia?
Paramilitary testimonies and the results of forensic teams lead us to conclude that the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary umbrella group, not only designed a method to quarter human beings, they also took the extra step of actually giving classes on the subject, using live people taken to their training camps.
Francisco Villalba, the paramilitary commander that directed the barbarism of the Aro massacre in the department (province) of Antioquia in which 15 people were tortured and butchered over five days, has revealed previously unknown details of those acts. “They were elderly people and were taken in trucks, alive, with their hands tied…. They were divvied up in groups of five … the instructions were to take off their arms, their heads … quartering them alive,” reads the testimony in his file.
A recent investigation into the Maripipán massacre yielded 57 dismembered bodies contained in the small white sacks.
The evidence collected from cadavers so far does not indicate the use of chainsaws. “Among other reasons, because it wasn’t practical. The chainsaws would get caught on people’s clothing, which is why they preferred to use machetes,” explains one of the prosecutors specializing in the exhumations. Seventy percent of those exhumed on the Caribbean coast were dismembered by machete and the majority of the 106 bodies found in the department of Putumayo—where paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño exported his killing machine from his headquarters in the departments of Urabá and Córdoba—had received a gunshot to the head and were subsequently torn apart at each prominent joint of their limbs.
Why dismember the bodies? A macabre pragmatism: to reduce the risk they ran at the hands of national and international judges they had to bury the bodies. And to avoid having to dig deeper graves, which would require expending more energy, it was easier to cut the bodies into pieces.
“At the middle of the torso (of the victim), you make a hole, a deep one. And you stick all the pieces into it. With four or five women, the job can be done in like ten minutes,” said one commander that led groups of paras in the southeast region of the country known as the “Llanos” (plains). It seems hiding victims has no anthropological explanation, just a practical solution.
Paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso confessed that to prevent authorities from finding the body of indigenous leader Kimi Pernía, they dug up his grave and threw his remains into the Sinú River. Informed sources allege that before beginning his demobilization negotiations with the government, Mancuso ordered land that was seeded with the dead on the Ralito estate to be dug up to hide his crimes. Now, investigators say the “Black Eagles,” which are a successor group of the paras, are going around the country digging up graves and throwing the remains into the rivers.
And the guerrillas? Their common graves have been found as well, especially in the department of Cundinamarca, but 98% of the denunciations and claims of graves being investigated by the Fiscalía are connected to the paras.
“Bogotá Could Give a Damn”
Disinterring the disappeared is a vital chapter if we are to embark on a process to heal this country’s wounds.
As Eduardo Pizarro, president of the National Reparations Commission, says: “They (the paramilitaries) are trying to erase our memory…. We have to unearth the dead, [because] the most important thing for the victim is to recover the body of their son.”
One of the biggest problems is that this issue does not seem to unsettle the nerves of country. “Every time it’s as if nothing happened: we keep finding common graves and it seems like this doesn’t cause the country any pain,” complains one of the prosecutors. María Victoria Uribe, an anthropologist who has spent nearly 50 years teaching the country about violence, notes: “Bogotá’s society could give a damn that 15 cadavers are discovered in Sucre.”
In the former Yugoslavia, for example, a DNA bank was created that led to the identification of 10,000 victims. Some positive steps have been made in Colombia: a search plan was approved, the Fiscalía’s investigative team was beefed up at the end of 2006—the number of specialized prosecutors went from one to three with an extra eight supporting prosecutors. But a central registry of disappeared has yet to be created, though it is required by law since 2000, and those exhuming bodies sometimes have to use the graves as trenches to protect themselves from attacks by armed groups.
Each of the victims’ personal histories are heart-wrenching. One lawyer has traveled for eight months along the shores of the Magdalena River looking for the remains of his brother, and then there’s the woman from Amalfi that lost her four children. She has even poked through truckloads of cadavers trying to find them. There are countless stories like these.
Discoveries: Compensation and Leniency
How many graves will be found? Authorities are tipped off about the location of common graves by informants who want the 500,000-peso reward (about $240) or by paramilitaries seeking to reduce their sentences by up to a quarter.
Among those found in Maripipán were the remains of two young girls, who make up part of a case against the Colombian government for collusion with paramilitaries at the Inter-American Human Rights Court.
Those trying to get money for locating the graves of the dead are in many cases obstacles, because they often pass on rumor and give information that ends up wasting the time of investigators. The claims filed by the paras are more credible. Indeed, these claims have climbed by 500% since the “Justice and Peace Law,” which regulates paramilitary demobilizations, was implemented. Nonetheless, since the leniency and benefits provided by the law are now in doubt, confessions have declined: in 2006 3,214 claims were made (about nine per day), while in 2007 the daily average has thus far fallen to five. And denunciations made by victims’ families are also declining due to fear: “Many [family members] don’t want to come with us,” says one investigator, “but at night they leave little sticks to guide us to the graves.”
What will the country do? As the first effort in Colombian history to learn the truth about an atrocious period, there would be no justification for the urban part of the country living in the twenty-first century to do nothing in preventing the destruction and barbarism of the countryside.
Luz María Sierra is an editor of the Bogotá daily newspaper El Tiempo. This article was published in the April 24th edition of El Tiempo and translated from the Spanish by Teo Ballvé. All photos are provided courtesy of Fotos, Fiscalía General.
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Large study shows females are equal to males in math skills
The mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the current online edition of journal Psychological Bulletin. One portion of the new study looked systematically at 242 articles that assessed the math skills of 1,286,350 people, says chief author Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
These studies, all published in English between 1990 and 2007, looked at people from grade school to college and beyond. A second portion of the new study examined the results of several large, long-term scientific studies, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
In both cases, Hyde says, the difference between the two sexes was so close as to be meaningless.
Sara Lindberg, now a postdoctoral fellow in women's health at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, was the primary author of the meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin.
The idea that both genders have equal math abilities is widely accepted among social scientists, Hyde adds, but word has been slow to reach teachers and parents, who can play a negative role by guiding girls away from math-heavy sciences and engineering. "One reason I am still spending time on this is because parents and teachers continue to hold stereotypes that boys are better in math, and that can have a tremendous impact on individual girls who are told to stay away from engineering or the physical sciences because 'Girls can't do the math.'"
Scientists now know that stereotypes affect performance, Hyde adds. "There is lots of evidence that what we call 'stereotype threat' can hold women back in math. If, before a test, you imply that the women should expect to do a little worse than the men, that hurts performance. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"Parents and teachers give little implicit messages about how good they expect kids to be at different subjects," Hyde adds, "and that powerfully affects their self-concept of their ability. When you are deciding about a major in physics, this can become a huge factor."
Hyde hopes the new results will slow the trend toward single-sex schools, which are sometimes justified on the basis of differential math skills. It may also affect standardized tests, which gained clout with the passage of No Child Left Behind, and tend to emphasize lower-level math skills such as multiplication, Hyde says. "High-stakes testing really needs to include higher-level problem-solving, which tends to be more important in jobs that require math skills. But because many teachers teach to the test, they will not teach higher reasoning unless the tests start to include it."
The new findings reinforce a recent study that ranked gender dead last among nine factors, including parental education, family income, and school effectiveness, in influencing the math performance of 10-year-olds.
Hyde acknowledges that women have made significant advances in technical fields. Half of medical school students are female, as are 48 percent of undergraduate math majors. "If women can't do math, how are they getting these majors?" she asks.
Because progress in physics and engineering is much slower, "we have lots of work to do," Hyde says. "This persistent stereotyping disadvantages girls. My message to parents is that they should have confidence in their daughter's math performance. They need to realize that women can do math just as well as men. These changes will encourage women to pursue occupations that require lots of math."
Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Large study shows females are equal to males in math skillsfrom Science CentricWed, 13 Oct 2010, 13:41:00 EDT
- Females are equal to males in math skills, large study showsfrom Science DailyTue, 12 Oct 2010, 22:40:40 EDT
- Large study shows females are equal to males in math skillsfrom PhysorgMon, 11 Oct 2010, 13:08:48 EDT
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DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation
Methylation of cytosine is a covalent modification of DNA, in which hydrogen H5 of cytosine is replaced by a methyl group. In mammals, 60% - 90% of all CpGs are methylated. Methylation adds information not encoded in the DNA sequence, but it does not interfere with the Watson-Crick pairing of DNA - the methyl group is positioned in the major groove of the DNA. The pattern of methylation controls protein binding to target sites on DNA, affecting changes in gene expression and in chromatin organization, often silencing genes, which physiologically orchestrates processes like differentiation, and pathologically leads to cancer [reference see publications below].
Biological functions of DNA methylation
- Transcriptional gene silencing
- Genome stability
- Chromatin compaction
- Genome defense
- Suppression of homologous recombination between repeats
- X chromosome inactivation (females)
- (Nature Genetics 38:1359 (2006))
Same Genes but a Different Kink in the Tail. PLoS Biol 1:3 (2003)(Photograph courtesy of Emma Whitelaw, University of Sydney, Australia.)
Hypermethylation of CpGs leads to cancer
Comparison of cytosine, methylcytosine and hydroxymethylcytosine
Cytosine hydroxymethylation was recently discovered as another important epigenetic modification on DNA in mammalian cells. Similar to methylation, hydroxymethylation replaces, at the C5-position in cytosine, the hydrogen atom by a hydroxymethyl group. It has been demonstrated that cytosine hydroxymethylation is also involved in gene regulation. For example, the hydroxymethylation level has been found to be associated with pluripotency of stem cells. Disturbed hydroxymethylation of DNA cytosine can result in disordered cell functions, causing different types of cancers, e.g., myeloid cancers [reference see publications below].
Using nanopore to detect DNA methylation
We have reported measurements and simulations of the permeation of methylated DNA through a synthetic nanopore, using an electric field to force single molecules to translocate across the membrane through the pore (see also our nanopore site). We observe a voltage threshold for permeation of methylated DNA through a < 2nm diameter pore, which we attribute to the stretching transition of DNA, occurring in such pore induced by the voltage gradient; the degree of stretching can differ by >1V/20nm depending on the methylation level, but does not depend sensitively on DNA sequence. The threshold for squeezing unmethylated DNA through 1.8 nm pore is about 3.6 V while fully-methylated DNA shows a threshold 2.7 V. In MD simulation, we recognized a significant difference between the translocation speeds of methylated and unmethylated DNA, namely, speeds of 1.0 nm/ns and 0.8 nm/ns, respectively. The velocity difference implies that methylated DNA passes the pore more readily than unmethylated DNA, which indeed is consistent with the threshold voltage difference measured. Conformations of the DNAs are shown in the figure below. One can recognize that both translocating DNAs exhibit a B-form structure. However, methylated DNA is considerably more ordered and adheres more closely to the ideal B-form than does unmethylated DNA. More detail can be found here.
Using nanopore to detect DNA methylation
DNA methylation affects strand separation
The role of cytosine methylation in epigenetics is generally understood to involve effects of DNA methylation on chromatin structure or on the action of transcription factors, either one effect controlling in a long-time manner gene expression levels and, thereby, cell differentiation. The small effect of cytosine methylation on DNA thermodynamic properties let one to believe that a change of DNA physical properties by themselves, i.e., not ones mediated by the nucleosome and transcription factors, do not need to be considered for a role in epigenetics. Our study shows now that a role of methylated DNA physical properties needs to be reconsidered as a direct epigenetic control factor. We found through novel and extremely extensive force measurements comparing non-methylated and various methylated DNAs that methylation affects the propensity for mechanical DNA strand separation to a significant degree.
Determination of the mechanical stability of methylated DNA by molecular force assay measurements. Measurements stretching DNA mechanically to the point of strand separation were carried out with a new chip technology, molecular force assay (MFA), that permits one to stretch and rupture apart thousands of DNA double strands organized by methylation type on spots on the chip with a fluorescent signal readout. The experimental setup of the MFA at a molecular level consists of molecular force probes (MFPs). The MFPs are composed of two DNA duplexes, a target duplex 1 • 2 and a reference duplex 2 • 3, which are coupled in series and connected between two surfaces. Here, the target DNA duplex is 20 bp long and contains zero (nDNA), one (mC-1c-DNA) or three (mC-3-DNA) 5-methylcytosines (mC) per strand, while the reference duplex is the same for all three different MFPs. About 104 MFPs per μm2 are anchored in parallel between a glass slide (lower surface) and a PDMS stamp (upper surface). The different MFPs are immobilized as well separated spots on the glass substrate (see figure below).
During separation of the two surfaces, a force builds up gradually in the MFPs until one of their two DNA duplexes ruptures, either the target duplex or the reference duplex. After separation, the ratio of ruptured target to reference duplexes is read out via the fluorescence signal of the MFPs on the lower surface and analyzed to obtain the normalized fluorescence (NF). The NF is defined as the ratio of broken reference bonds to the total amount of MFPs that have been under load. Thus the NF is a measure for the relative mechanical stability between target and reference DNA duplexes of a MFP: a higher NF denotes a mechanical stability of the target duplex elevated over that of the reference duplex. The difference in NF reflects a significant difference in mean rupture force between nDNA, mC-1c-DNA and mC-3-DNA.
Molecular force assay
Determination of potential width and dissociation constant. To further investigate the differences in strand separation of methylated and non-methylated DNA, single molecule force spectroscopy rupturing the DNA double-strand was performed by AFM. In all experiments one single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) was bound with a poly-ethyleneglycol (PEG) spacer to the cantilever tip of the AFM and a second ssDNA was immobilized with a PEG spacer on a glass substrate. While the tip of the AFM approached the surface, the ssDNA on the tip and the ssDNA on the glass substrate could form a 20 bp duplex. The tip was then retracted from the surface and the DNA duplex was loaded with an increasing force until it finally ruptured (see figure below). The same sequence of the DNA duplex was used as in the MFA experiments with zero (nDNA), one (mC-1c-DNA) or three (mC-3-DNA) 5'-methylcytosines (mC) per strand. Complementing the MFA experiments, the AFM experiments reveal an elevated mechanical stability for mC-3-DNA and a decreased stability for mC-1c-DNA in comparison to nDNA.
Atomic force microscopy
MD simulations of DNA strand separation. In our simulations, non-methylated DNA (nDNA), center-methylated DNA (cDNA) and fully-methylated DNA (fDNA) were subjected to a stretching force directed along the helical axis. Figure below shows force-extension curves for nDNA, cDNA and fDNA stretched with a pulling velocity of 1 Å/ns. The force-extension profile exhibits in each case a clear peak followed by a rapid force decrease. The force-extension curve of cDNA exhibits a minor and a major force peak. Examination of the respective simulation trajectory revealed that some flipped-out bases of the two already separated strands of cDNA stacked on each other after initial, partial separation (minor peak). As a result, a stronger force (major peak) was needed to completely separate the DNA strands. Before DNA reaches an extension of 13.8 nm, the force-extension curves of fDNA, cDNA and nDNA are indistinguishable. However, upon further extension the force needed to extend methylated DNA is larger than the force needed to extend non-methylated DNA, indicating that methylation affects the late-stage of force-induced DNA strand separation.
We characterized the strand separation pathway through the 5' end - 5' end distance (extension), stacking energy of DNA bases, and intermediate DNA geometries. Because of thermal fluctuation, some bases keep floating out of the zipper-like packing, and leave holes in the zipper, referred to as ``bubbles". The amount of developed bubbles influences the stability of DNA against strand separation. As can be seen in the figure below, the density of bubbles, on average, is lower for DNA with more methylation sites, which is consistent with the result that fDNA requires a stronger rupture force than nDNA in our simulations.
Strand separation pathway of stretched DNA
To investigate the strand separation of nDNA and fDNA under conditions closer to the experimental loading force, we carried out SMD simulations at 200 pN constant force on two DNAs for 90 ns. The figure below shows that under 200 pN stretching, nDNA and fDNA extend along the backbone axis as the DNA increases over 90 ns its extension values. Monitoring stacking energy and length of DNA, one can distinguish two different conformational spaces occupied by nDNA and fDNA. Consistent with the strand separation pathways obtained from fast-pulling (10 Å/ns) SMD simulations, fDNA remains more compact than nDNA does. From the conformations shown in the inset of Figure below, one can see that zipper-like fDNA develops less bubbles than zipper-like nDNA does.
Stacking energy vs. extension data from two 90-ns-long constant force simulations pulling DNA
DNA hydroxymethylation affects strand separation
Molecular force assay setup. Each MFP is comprised of DNA strands 1, 2 and 3, which form two DNA duplexes that are coupled in series. DNA strand 1 is anchored to the substrate (lower surface) and strand 3 is modified with a biotin for coupling to streptavidin on the PDMS-stamp (upper surface). The target duplex exhibits three different variants with none (nDNA), one (hmC-1-DNA) or three (hmC-3-DNA) 5-hydroxymethylated CpG steps, while the reference duplex is the same for all three cases. Furthermore, DNA strand 2 carries a Cy5 (red) and strand 3 a Cy3 (green) fluorescent marker. Depending on the sequences of the DNA strands, the DNA duplexes are oriented such that they are loaded in shear or zipper geometry as shown in (a) and (b).
Schematic representation of molecular force probe.
Molecular force assay measurements. Representative results for a typical experiment in zipper and shear geometry are shown in figure below. The Gaussian fits of the histograms of the NF-images result in the mean values and standard deviations, as shown in (a) zipper geometry and (b) shear geometry. The MFA experiments prove a significant influence of hydroxymethylcytosine on the mechanical properties of DNA. The strength of the influence on the mechanical stability depends on the direction of the applied force (zipper versus shear geometry). In zipper geometry we found that the mechanical stability increases with the number of hmC bases. In shear geometry hmC-1-DNA exhibits a lower mechanical stability than nDNA, and hmC-3-DNA a higher stability. Our results indicate that cytosine hydroxymethylation of DNA can both enhance and also decrease the propensity for strand separation. All reported cases show a significant change in mechanical stability of the DNA.
Normalized fluorescence and histograms of one MFA experiment.
Molecular dynamics simulations. In order to demonstrate at the atomic level how hydroxymethylation affects DNA strand separation, SMD simulations were performed to stretch DNA with the same sequence and hydroxymethylation patterns as used in experiments.
When dsDNA is stretched in zipper geometry, the DNA helix unwinds and the base pairs break one by one, forming eventually two extended single-stranded DNA molecules, as shown in figure below (a). In all unzipping simulations, the frequency of appearance of force peaks is close to the frequency of base pair breaking, indicating that almost every base pair breaking event gives rise to a small force peak. After averaging all force values over time, we obtained mean rupture forces for nDNA, hmC-1- DNA and hmC-3-DNA. Consistent with MFA results, hmC-3-DNA exhibits strongest mechanical stability and requires the strongest rupture force.
When dsDNA is stretched in shear geometry, DNA strand separation in two steps. In the first step, DNA elongates and unwinds as can be seen in the 30 ns and 60 ns snapshots in (d). In the meantime, DNA Watson-Crick base pairs begin to break and bases of the two separate strands begin to stack on top of each other, forming the so-called zipper-like DNA, as seen in the 90 ns snapshot in (d). The force increases slowly during the first step (see (e)). In the second step, the acting force increases rapidly. When the pulling force reaches a certain peak value, the two strands of DNA separate (see the 115 ns snapshot in (d)), after which moment the force drops very rapidly to around zero, as seen in (e). Accordingly, a typical rupture force profile for shearing DNA exhibits a peak rupture force, reflecting the DNA stability against strand separation by shearing. In general, hmC-3-DNA assumes a more ordered DNA form with intercalated bases (less bubbles inside the DNA zipper and more compact ends) than do hmC-1-DNA and nDNA; hmC-1-DNA assumes the most disordered conformations, which reduces its mean peak rupture force. Similar to the findings in a previous study on effects of methylation on strand separation of methylated DNA, hydroxymethylation also affects bubble formation during DNA stretching, which controls the propensity for strand separation.
Summary. We demonstrated through experiment and simulation a pronounced effect of methylation and hydroxymethylation on the propensity of DNA strand separation. Even though we identified this effect, we could not uncover fully the associated molecular mechanism. Therefore, further investigations are needed. The effect of hydroxymethylation exceeds in strength what was previously demonstrated for the effect of methylation. Our study reveals that methylation and hydroxymethylation could regulate gene expression through altering mechanical properties of DNA.
Methyl-CpG binding domain (MBD) proteins recognize methylated DNA
MBD protein family. At present, five proteins with mCpG-binding motifs have been identified in the MBD family, namely MBD1, MBD2, MBD3, MBD4 and MeCP2. All MBD proteins share a similar MBD of about 75 amino-acid residues. Sequence alignment of MBD proteins reveals several highly conserved residues on the interface between MBD and methylated DNA (mDNA). Figure below shows that the most conserved region in the primary structure of the MBD is located between residues ARG22 and LYS46, including loop L1, strand β3, strand β4 and loop L2. The conserved residues of the MBD form the interfacial surface contacting mDNA and are responsible for recognition of the methyl-CpG steps.
Sequence alignment of five methyl-CpG binding domain (MBD) proteins from human and mouse.
MBD proteins bound to mDNA. The NMR structures of MBD1, MBD2 and the X-ray structure of MeCP2 proteins bound to the mDNA provide useful information on how residues in the MBD contact mDNA. Figure below illustrates the MBD interaction with the mCpG steps in the major groove of mDNA. The methyl groups of methyl-cytosine are buried in the mDNA-MBD interface. The principal mCpG binding interface composed of hydrophilic and hydrophobic residues involves two types of interaction with mCpG steps: the polar atoms in MBD form hydrogen bonds with the polar atoms in the DNA, while the non-polar atoms in MBD form a hydrophobic patch around the methyl groups.
MBD proteins binding to mDNA. Shown are the structures of (a) MBD1-mDNA, (b) MBD2-mDNA and (c) MeCP2-mDNA complexes.
Molecular dynamics simulation. Structures of MBD1-mDNA, MBD2-mDNA and MeCP2-mDNA complexes reveal that the conserved residues ARG22 and ARG44 form hydrogen bonds with guanines in the mCpG steps. To investigate the role of ARG22 and ARG44 in recognizing the mCpG steps, we conducted a 100-ns molecular dynamics simulation of the NMR structure of the human MBD1-DNA complex. Simulations showed that the spatial configurations of mCYT106-ARG22-GUA107 and mCYT118- ARG44-GUA119 adopt a so-called stair motif. Similar stair motifs are formed and remain stable at the MBD2-mDNA and MeCP2-mDNA interface.
Stair motifs in the interface of MBD1-mDNA.
Mutational studies in which mCYT106 and mCYT118 were substituted by nCYT106 and nCYT118 (nCYT denotes non-methylated cytosine) revealed that MBD1 does not bind to non-methylated DNA, indicating that the 5-methyl groups on the methyl-cytosines are critical for the formation of the stair motif in MBD-mDNA binding interfaces. The influence of methylation on the stability of the stair motif was investigated through a 30-ns MD simulation for the MBD1-nDNA complex, where the mCYT106 and mCYT118 nucleotides were mutated into two non-methylated cytosines. Our resutls showed that the interactions between ARG and mCYT are more stable than those between ARG and nCYT, as methylation increases the contact area between mDNA and the MBD.
Effect of methylation on the MBD1-DNA contact area.
Ab initio quantum chemistry calculations. We performed quantum chemistry calculations of the interaction energy in the mCYT-ARG-GUA and nCYT-ARG-GUA stair motifs in order to determine the impact of the methyl group on the stair motif stabilization. QM calculations show a stabilization effect of cytosine methylation on the studied system, see figure below. The blue line (squares) shows the interaction energy calculated for the mCYT106-ARG22-GUA107 stair motif, the red line (triangles) shows the interaction energy calculated for the mCYT118-ARG44-GUA119 stair motif, while the green line (dots) shows the combined energy difference.
Influence of cytosine methylation on MBD1 binding energy.
Free-energy contributions of DNA methylation to MBD1-DNA complex stabilization. The protein-DNA binding affinity is affected by different interactions. In order to account for the total effect of methylation on the stability of the MBD-DNA complex, we performed FEP calculations to characterize the free-energy contribution of the methyl group to the MBD-DNA complex. The BAR (see Methods) free-energy difference for the free DNA was determined to be ΔG1 = 54.9 ± 0.0 kcal/mol, with -0.12 kcal/mol hysteresis between forward and backward transition; for the MBD-DNA complex, the free-energy difference was determined to be ΔG2 = 53.7 ± 0.1 kcal/mol, with 0.2 kcal/mol hysteresis between forward and backward transition. Following thermodynamic cycle shown below, one can obtain ΔΔG = -1.2 ± 0.1 kcal/mol, hence, indicating that methylation makes a favorable contribution to the binding free energy.
Thermodynamic cycle describing DNA methylation in the DNA-MBD complex.
Effects of cytosine hydroxymethylation on DNA strand separation Philip M.D. Severin*, Xueqing Zou*, Hermann E. Gaub, and Klaus Schulten Biophysical Journal, In press
Recognition of methylated DNA through methyl-CpG binding domain proteins Xueqing Zou, Wen Ma, Ilia Solov'yov, Christophe Chipot and Klaus Schulten Nucleic Acids Research, 40:2747-2758,2012
Cytosine methylation alters DNA mechanical properties Philip M.D. Severin*, Xueqing Zou*, Hermann E. Gaub, and Klaus Schulten Nucleic Acids Research, 39:8740-8751, 2011
Nanoelectromechanics of Methylated DNA in a Synthetic Nanopore U. Mirsaidov, W. Timp, X. Zou, V. Dimitrov, K. Schulten, A. P. Feinberg, and G. Timp Biophysical Journal, 96:L32-L34, 2009* Equal contribution authors
Related TCB Group Projects
Page created and maintained by Xueqing Zou.
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The Edmonton Journal ·
How many people can benefit from one organ and tissue donor? One? Five?
As many as 80.
Although people regularly read about heart, liver and kidney transplants, other organs and tissue that can be donated include the pancreas, lungs, bowel, stomach, corneas, heart valves, bone grafts and skin.
Polls and surveys reveal most Canadians lack general knowledge about organ donations, mostly because death is a morbid topic they don't want to talk about.
Canada consistently has one of the worst organ donor rates of industrialized countries: about 13 donors per million people, compared with 20 per million in the U.S., and more than 31 per million in Spain.
In 2005, 1,905 organ transplants were performed in Canada, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
That same year, 275 Canadians died while on a waiting list of almost 4,000 potential recipients.
The gap between transplant patients on waiting lists and the number of available organs is widening because demand is increasing, with people are living longer and more medical treatments are available to extend life, while the number of donors remains stagnant.
Historically in Canada, organs have been taken only from people who are declared brain dead, meaning the brain shows no sign of life. But brain death from strokes, injury or trauma occurs in only about 1.5 per cent of all in-hospital deaths, severely limiting the donor pool.
According to Health Canada, 96 per cent of relatives agree to organ donation if they already know the wishes of the donor, but only 58 per cent agree when they have not been included in the process in advance.
However, families that have donated the organs and tissues of a loved one say it helped them through the grieving process to know there was further purpose to a life cut short, especially if the person was young.
And if their deceased family member was a giving person, they see organ and tissue donation as their loved one's final gift: the gift of life to somebody else.
Anyone at any age can become an organ and tissue donor. The oldest organ donor on record was over 90 years old,
and the oldest corneal donor was 102, according to Health Canada.
Locally, 255 organ transplants were performed at Capital Health in 2007. The most common were cadaver liver transplants from deceased donors, followed by cadaver kidney transplants.
Thirty-one Albertans in the Capital Health transplant program (excluding kidney transplants) died in 2007 waiting for an organ or organs.
As of Dec. 31, 2007, 371 organs in the Capital Health region, were waiting for a transplant.
Only 29 people who died in the Capital Health region donated organs in 2007, compared with 22 in 2006, a significantly low year.
For more information about organ and tissue donation check out capitalhealth.ca/HOPE or call 1-866 407-1970.
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Translating Better Breast Cancer Treatments
(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Typically the changes some cancerous tumors undergo can make the disease more difficult to treat. An example of this is when a breast cancer tumor becomes less receptive to estrogen, making anti-estrogen therapies less effective treatments. An Australian study is helping to discover more about how this change occurs, possibly opening the door to new breast cancer treatments.
Prior to the new study the transcription factor ELF5 was proven to be the cause behind certain cells in the breast developing into estrogen-receptor-negative cells, which produce milk during pregnancy. Because of this ELF5’s transformative abilities, researchers decided to test whether the transcription factor could turn a tumor into an estrogen-insensitive tumor.
"This work tells us that cancers which become refractory to anti-estrogen treatment often do so by elevating their levels of ELF5 and becoming functionally estrogen receptor negative," Chris Ormandy, a professor at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.
Study researchers also demonstrated that altering the subtype of breast cancer is plausible through the manipulation of the transcription factor.
Now knowing how these transformations take place also led researchers to believe that the information could assist others in creating breast cancer treatments that manipulate women’s levels of ELF5.
Source: PLOS Biology, 27 December 2012
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image credit: R.J. Celotta, S. Balakirsky, J.A. Stroscio/NIST; image source; larger image
This scanning tunneling microscope (STM) image shows a "corral" for electrons that was created on a crystal surface. To find out how how these images are made, visit The Scanning Tunneling Microscope. For an artistic gallery of similar images, see IBM: STM Gallery.
(This feature was updated on March 23, 2012.)
Standing Waves: Harmonics and Patterns
To find out how two running waves in a tube add up to a standing wave, visit this Penn State animation. For a tutorial on standing waves, with animations, visit Standing Waves: Harmonics and Patterns.
(This feature was updated on March 21, 2012.)
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As promised, to go along with the Animal Classification Booklet download, here are my plans and resources for the first two groups we talked about in co-op, mammals and fish. Again, this class is for ages 5-8.
In our first class, we covered mammals but began with the idea of classification itself, discussing the two big groups of animals (vertebrates and invertebrates) and how scientists make that first divide (by whether they have a backbone). We found our own backbones.
Vertebrate Teaching Poster Set; I’m using the appropriate poster for each class, starting off our discussion of the group by talking about the information and animals on the poster.
What is a Vertebrate? by Bobbie Kalman, to have on hand for pictures and to refer to.
Dichotomous key: We did this together, keying out most of the included animals, to show how scientists use differing characteristics to place animals in smaller and smaller groups until the species has been identified.
Mammal matching: Each student had a copy, but we did it together as a group. This demonstrates how mammals are divided into smaller groups.
We also filled in the pages of their books as a group, with each student writing in their own booklet.
Mammal word search
We began our second session by reviewing the characteristics of mammals before moving onto fish. In this way we could compare the groups (which are very different!). Again, we discussed the poster and wrote in the booklets.
What is a Fish? by Bobbie Kalman
Various field guides/books of fish
Fashion a Fish from Aquatic Project Wild: I received my copy many, many years ago by going through the Project Wild and Aquatic Project Wild training; this remains the only way to obtain this curriculum. Google tells me some folks have scanned in this activity and posted it online, but you’ll have to search yourself, because I’d feel uncomfortable linking. However, that link above includes a link to the state coordinator page for this program. Training is, as far as I know, still free, and you get an entire book of resources for free, too.
Birds, reptiles, and amphibians will be upcoming as we cover them!
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| 0.957526 | 469 | 3.609375 | 4 |
1The tip of the wing of an aircraft, bird, or other animal.
- We flew through overcasts in formation, wing tip to wing tip, coming out on top to see a beautiful white blanket brightened by the blazing sun.
- It was common practice to find a ladder at the wing tip of the aircraft, as well as a fire bottle and some AGE equipment.
- These tail fin tip vortices have been interpreted to be analogous to wing tip vortices of aircraft.
2North American A shoe with a toe cap having a backward extending point and curving sides, resembling the shape of a wing.
- I watched, in mute fascination, as the black wingtip shoe sliced through the air.
- As if to reassure myself, I glanced down at my school uniform: at the polished black wingtip shoes, the freshly ironed khaki trousers, the crisp white button-down shirt, the silk navy colored tie, and the sharp navy colored suit jacket.
- Ray was, of course, dressed in the standard Gordon Bailey uniform: white button down shirt, navy suit jacket, navy tie, khaki trousers, black wingtip shoes.
For editors and proofreaders
Syllabification: wing tip
Definition of wing tip in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
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en
| 0.884795 | 292 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Payroll taxes are taxes withheld or paid by an employer, for or on behalf of employees. Payroll taxes include federal income tax withholding, state income tax withholding, social security and Medicare taxes, and federal and state unemployment taxes. Taxes paid are based on compensation, which includes all items paid to or on behalf of an employee such as wages and commissions (except for certain excludable amounts such as qualified reimbursed business expenses or nontaxable moving expenses).
Employee or Independent Contractor
Before you can determine how payment for your services will be treated in terms of payroll taxation, you must determine if you are an independent contractor or an employee for purposes of the work in question.
Independent contractors are people such as lawyers, accountants, architects, contractors, or subcontractors who follow an independent trade or profession in which they offer their services to the public. However, whether such people are actually employees or independent contractors depends on the facts of each particular case. Traditionally, anyone who performs services is an employee if the company or person paying for those services (the "payor") can control the details of how the services are to be performed. Facts indicative of the employment relationship include:
- Instructions as to when, where, and how to perform the work;
- Payor-provided training;
- Reimbursement of business expenses;
- Payment by the hour, week, or month; and
- Payment of employee-type benefits such as insurance, vacation, and retirement benefits.
Facts indicative of an independent contractor relationship include:
- Emphasis on results;
- Independent training;
- Unreimbursed business expenses;
- Investment by the worker in work facilities;
- Payment by the job rather than by time period; and
- Extent to which the worker can realize a profit or loss on the transaction.
Payroll Taxes for Employees
If an individual is an employee, the employer must withhold payroll taxes, including federal and state income taxes. The amount withheld depends on the amount of wages paid, the filing status (i.e. single or married), the number of pay periods, and the number of allowances claimed by the employee. Each employee is required to give the employer a signed Form W-4 that indicates the filing status and number of personal allowances claimed. The employee completes a worksheet provided with Form W-4, to assist with the computation of the correct number of personal allowances. An employee can claim fewer personal allowances but cannot claim more because the employee will be underpaid and subject to underpayment penalties.
Social Security Taxes
Both the employer and employee are required to pay social security taxes. The employer pays 6.2% of the taxable wage base and withholds 6.2% of a fixed taxable wage base from the employee. Both the employer and employee are also required to pay Medicare taxes. The employer pays 1.45% of wages and the employer withholds another 1.45% from the employee. Wages for social security purposes include 401(k) contributions and deferred compensation.
Employers also must pay federal and, where applicable, state unemployment taxes. The tax applies to the first $7,000 of wages paid to each employee. For state unemployment taxes, the rate of tax and wage base will differ from state to state. However, an employer can take a credit against federal unemployment for amounts paid to state unemployment funds up to fixed percentage of taxable wages.
Employers are required to provide each employee with a Form W2, which is an annual summary of wages paid, and taxes withheld. The employer also files Forms W2 with the Internal Revenue Service and state taxing departments. The form is due to the employee by January 31 of the year following that for which income taxes will be filed, so for employees filing income taxes for 2004, employers must provide a Form W2 by January 31, 2005.
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| 0.959599 | 789 | 2.765625 | 3 |
What Is Artificial Lighting?
The scientific definition of natural light is any light that comes from the sun. This is natural light that appears in the universe. However, not all light that we experience everyday comes from the sun. Much of the light we experience daily is actually artificial.
Artificial lighting by definition is any light that does not come from sunlight. It is man made lighting, including fluorescent, tungsten, mercury vapor, sodium vapor, halogen, compact fluorescent, etc. In addition, all artificial light can be turned on and off with a switch.
Is Artificial Light A Good Substitute For The Sun?
Many people wonder whether or not artificial light is a good substitute for the sun. After all, since the sun does not operate on a switch, there are times when you may not see the sun for days. This can be depressing. Therefore, a person may try to add brightness in their lives using other means. This is a great idea in theory; however, you need to make sure that you use the right types of lights. There are specific lights available that work to mimic that effectiveness of the sun. These lights are 10 times stronger than a normal house lamp. If you are lacking sunlight, this type of artificial light might be the best option for you.
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http://sadtherapylamps.com/blog/sad/article/what-is-artificial-lighting
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| 0.938574 | 261 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Working together we can keep Fort Meade safe from terrorism
By Col. Edward C. Rothstein
Fort Meade's ultimate goal in preventing a terrorist attack involves every organization, every unit and every person in our efforts to promote heightened awareness and vigilance against terrorism.
Antiterrorism Awareness Month focuses on four major themes: antiterrorism training; education and awareness; suspicious-activity reporting; antiterrorism roles and responsibilities for leaders and staff; and enhancing antiterrorism preparedness through emergency response planning.
Throughout the month, we should all strive to enhance our understanding of the nature of terrorism and the potential for terrorist attacks on our installations and in our surrounding communities.
As I have often said, our responsibilities and relationships extend well beyond the Fort Meade fence line. The vitality of our surrounding communities is dependent on our collective efforts to work together to keep our homes, neighborhoods, schools and workplaces safe.
A reporting program we should all become familiar with is iWatch. The community awareness program was created to educate and encourage citizens to vigilantly watch what is happening around them and report suspicious behaviors that may have connections to crime, as well as local, state or national security threats.
The program is designed to make it possible for everyone to report suspicious activities.
Fort Meade established an iWatch program in the spring of 2011. iWatch allows the Directorate of Emergency Services to work with local and federal police and emergency service agencies to share information about potential crimes or suspicious activities.
The iWatch program empowers each of us to protect places where we live, work and play. To learn more about the website, visit iWatchftmeade.org.
We can all take steps to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of terrorism. It begins with each of us taking a proactive mind-set about the security environment where we live, work, go to school and travel.
General awareness tips include:
* Maintain situational awareness of your surroundings at all times.
Pay particular attention to activities around you in order to identify anything unusual. If necessary, leave the area and report suspicious activity or behavior to local authorities.
* Protect your personal information at all times.
Do not reveal details of your personal life such as where you live and work, family members, your association with the U.S. military, email addresses or phone numbers to anyone you do not know and trust.
* Do not discuss personal information or military missions in public, on the telephone or on the Internet.
* Take extra precaution with social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Avoid posting or providing personal information. Criminals and terrorists are known to use these forums for open-source information gathering and for recruitment. These media do not provide "secure" communications.
The key point to remember is everyone can learn to be watchful and help prevent terrorism. Reporting even a minute detail can stop an incident from happening.
We all play a role in helping to keep our neighbors and our communities safe.
We must remain vigilant and aware of the dangers of terrorist activities and we should all make vigilance an everyday focus.
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Col. Brian P. Foley
Public Affairs Officer
Chief, Command Information
Assistant Editor & Senior Writer
General Advertising Inquiries
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| 0.921663 | 668 | 2.546875 | 3 |
In the wake of last summer's highly publicized accident in which a train hauling crude oil crashed into the center of a Canadian town and killed 45 people, the freight rail industry is pressing the federal government to raise the standards for tank cars used to transport flammable liquids.
In comments filed earlier this month with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)
, part of the Department of Transportation, the American Association of Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association called on regulators to require that all tank cars used to carry liquids such as crude oil and ethanol to be retrofitted or phased out, and new cars built to more stringent standards to decrease the likelihood of a release if a car is involved in an accident.
The AAR estimates that about 92,000 tank cars currently in service move flammable liquids, with approximately 78,000 of those requiring a retrofit or a phase-out based on its proposal. Another 14,000 newer tank cars that comply with the latest industry safety standards will also require certain retrofit modifications under the AAR proposal.
Crude oil is a small but rapidly growing line of business for railroads as energy companies in the past few years have taken advantage of new high-tech drilling techniques to pump oil out of shale rock formations in The Plains states and other parts of the country. Domestic oil production is growing so fast that last month it exceeded U.S. oil imports for the first time since 1995, although the drop in imports can also be attributed to less consumption because of more fuel-efficient vehicles and high prices that have dampened demand.
"We believe it's time for a thorough review of the U.S. tank car fleet that moves flammable liquids, particularly considering the recent increase in crude oil traffic," AAR President Edward R. Hamberger said in a statement. "Our goal is to ensure that what we move, and how we move it, is done as safely as possible."
The AAR is recommending that PHMSA should:
- Increase federal tank car design standards for new cars to include an outer steel jacket around the tank car and thermal protection, full-height head shields, and high-flow capacity pressure relief valves;
- Require additional safety upgrades to those tank cars built since October 2011, when the rail industry instituted its latest design standards that exceed federal requirements, including installation of high-flow capacity relief valves and design modifications to prevent bottom outlets from opening in the case of an accident;
- Aggressively phase out older-model tank cars used for flammable liquids that are not retrofitted to meet new federal requirements; and
- Eliminate the current option for rail shippers to classify a flammable liquid with a flash point between 100 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit as a combustible liquid.
Rail cars ordered since October 2011 have been built to a higher standard. The higher standard is a consensus position reached between railroads, rail car operators, shippers and suppliers. The industry coalition opted to initially focus on applying the standard to new car builds because of the spike in demand for capacity to haul crude oil, AAR spokeswoman Holly Arthur said.
She disputed some reports that the industry is reluctant to retrofit older cars, saying a document filed with PHMSA about the changes only mentioned in a footnote that a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation to modify the weld that holds the tank to the bottom of the rail car was not feasible. The AAR's new comments on PHMSA's advanced notice of proposed rulemaking does include other retrofit suggestions.
Arthur said freight railroads felt it was important to lay down safety standards because they want to ensure their continued ability to haul crude oil.
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| 0.955772 | 753 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Before bookbinding became mechanized, most books were sold unbound. The purchaser, not the publisher, was responsible for the binding of the book. This meant that one could have his books bound according to budget or taste. Above is an example showing three copies Jean Jallabert’s Experiences sur L’Electricité (1750), bound in three different ways.
The first two volumes are bound using decorative paper – an inexpensive, but attractive option. The third copy is slightly larger because it was bound with another book, and was given a more elegant full leather binding.
Bindings can give us important clues about a book’s history, such as who owned it and how it was used. For this reason, it is often important to preserve a book’s covers as well as its contents. These three volumes will be preserved in the Institute Archives and Special Collections so that we can continue to study them – inside and out.
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| 0.982072 | 195 | 3.203125 | 3 |
‘Topsy turvey’ lives up to its name
How aptly named can a plant be? Just look at the “Topsy Turvy” for an answer to that question. This quick-growing succulent takes on a swirling, rosette shape with its leaves pointing inward toward the center of the plant. It looks like your favorite ride at the carnival.
The official name of the “Topsy Turvy” is Echeveria runyonii monstoras. Its beautiful white marble color makes for a unique garden pinwheel.
Dr. Robert Runyon found this plant in the early 1900s in a garden in Matamoros, Mexico, collected it and gave it his name. Interestingly, according the San Gabriel Succulent Society, the genus Echeveria was named after a Spanish illustrator of a projected “Flora Mexicana” book, Atanasio Echeveria, in the late 1700s. The enlightened King Charles III of Spain sent Atanasio as part of a 15-year horticultural expedition to Mexico.
The Getty Museum used thousands of these Echeveria swirls to make a formal, geometric statement on the front façade of the building. This stunner would work equally well in a high and dry part of your yard as a unique ground cover. Or imagine them in mass in a rock garden. A little cover for the hottest of days would be appreciated.
You can count on a growth of about 12 inches in height and about half as wide. Their succulent grayish leaves are the perfect backdrop for some brightly colored, drought tolerant flowers.
Joette is an avid gardener and prides herself on staying up-to-date on the latest gardening activities and tips. To share your gardening news with Joette, call (409) 832-1400 or fax her at (409) 832-6222. Her e-mail is joreger [at] msn [dot] com.
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| 0.934284 | 416 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Aloe vera plants grow wild in many areas of Africa. These succulent plants form rosettes of pointed leaves that contain a wet sap. Many burn ointments and preparations contain this sap as a primary ingredient. Aloe vera plants produce underground rhizomes that spread and form new clusters of nearby plants. With more than 180 species, aloe vera plants thrive in warm, outdoor locations or as indoor houseplants. These houseplants require minimal care and quickly grow and reproduce in favorable conditions.
Plant or transplant your aloe vera plant into a gritty soil. These plants require the same type of soil as many types of cactus plants. Mix course sand and fine gravel with average potting soil. Combine equal parts of each to create a coarse, loose mixture. Use a pot with a large drainage hole in the bottom to minimize excess water near the roots of your aloe vera plant. Scoop a hole in the soil in the pot and place the small roots of your plant into the hole. Cover with your prepared soil and tamp down around the roots and base of the plant. Set the pot in a drip tray to collect drainage. Apply enough water after planting until water drips from the drainage hole.
Set your aloe vera plant in a bright, sunny location. Set near a window with a southern or western exposure. Do not place your aloe vera plants in areas with fluctuating temperatures, such as those near air conditioners and heating vents.
Water your aloe vera plant thoroughly throughout the summer months. Allow the surface of the soil to dry slightly between watering and apply enough water to cause drainage from the hole in the bottom of the pot. Reduce the frequency of watering during the winter months to allow the soil near the roots to dry slightly before applying more water.
Move your indoor aloe vera plant outside during the warm summer season to provide periods of full sunlight. Protect it from pets, heavy rains and strong winds. Bring your plant indoors before the temperatures begin to cool in the fall.
Propagate the offspring from your aloe vera plant to add to your houseplant collection or to share with others. Use a sharp knife to cut the small shoots away from the parent plant. Allow these shoots to remain out of soil for a couple of days. Plant these cuttings into soil, water and place in a sunny location.
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| 0.927707 | 488 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Analysis: Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Voyage and Return
Anticipation Stage and 'Fall' into the Other World
The guests learn of Heidegger's elixir; they drink
Booker writes that, in this stage, the characters are in a state "which lays them open to a shattering new experience." It's clear that here, that experience is to grow young again. The "other world" is the world of youth, or second youth, in this case.
Initial Fascination or Dream Stage
The guests are thrilled to be young again
Each of Heidegger's four guests revels in their newly given youth. The Widow admires her looks, Mr. Gascoigne shouts about politics, Colonel Killigrew belts drinking songs from the top of his lungs, and Mr. Medbourne seems to think he's on Wall Street again. Everything is great! Surely nothing can go wrong from here.
Something goes wrong
The three men begin fighting over who gets to dance with the now smoking hot Widow Wycherly. Things quickly get out of hand.
The romping guests shatter the vase
Sure…it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye – or, in this case, shatters a rather lovely vase full of the elixir of life (or possibly just booze, depending on your interpretation).
Thrilling Escape and Return
The guests grow old again, effectively returning from the "world" of youth to normal reality
Booker says of this stage: "At this point the real question posed by the whole adventure is: how much have they learned or gained from their experience? Have they been fundamentally changed, or was it all 'just a dream'?" That is indeed a central question in "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," and one that we address in "What's Up with the Ending?"
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http://www.shmoop.com/dr-heideggers-experiment/voyage-return-plot.html
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| 0.948354 | 454 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Numerical and Metrological Graphemes: From Cuneiform to Transliteration: Notes
1 I wrote the first version of this paper for a meeting of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) held in Berlin in May of 2008, particularly to contribute to ongoing discussions about the transliteration of numerical and metrological signs used in the mathematical texts. The exchange of views during the meeting and in subsequent e-mails were very fruitful, and I am grateful to Jacob Dahl, Peter Damerow, Steve Tinney, Manfred Krebernik and Bob Englund, as well as to Madeleine Fitzgerald and the referees of CDLJ, for their help, clarifications and comments. Abbreviations follow those of CDLI (http://cdli.ucla.edu/wiki/doku.php/abbreviations_ for_assyriology), adding:
Needless to say, any remaining faults in this paper are my own.
3 Bennett 1963; Bennett 1972; Olivier and Godart 1996: 12. My warmest thanks go to Françoise Rougemont and Maurizio Del Freo, who provided me with the bibliographic references and numerous helpful ideas from the field of Mycenology.
4 The numbers of mathematical school tablets found at some important sites are, for example, the following: ca. 900 tablets at Nippur; ca. 150 at Mari; 64 at Ur; and 62 at Kiš.
5 In this regard, the comparison between Nippur and Mari is enlightening. The contents of elementary mathematical tablets from both sites are highly similar, proving a strong uniformity of the knowledge transmitted. The differences in tablet typology merely indicate local variations in pedagogical methods.
6 See the study of N. Veldhuis on the lexical texts from Nippur (Veldhuis 1997); see also E. Robson (2001) on the tablets found in House F at Nippur, and my own work (2007) on the complete corpus of Nippur mathematical texts. The reconstruction of the curriculum is mainly based on the correlation of texts written on “type II” tablets, as initiated by N. Veldhuis (1997, ch. 2).
7 These data derive from tablets excavated in the course of archaeological campaigns funded by the University of Pennsylvania towards the end of the 19th century (Babylonian Expedition), which provided the bulk of Nippur sources. For other statistical data concerning mathematical tablets from Nippur, see Robson 2001; Proust 2007: 268-275.
9 The existence of an additional table for heights is linked to the methods of calculation for volumes (Friberg, 1987-1990; Proust 2007, §6.6).
10 As Veldhuis stressed in the case of late lexical texts, “vertical reading” of a list reveals important information about conceptual substrata: “Mesopotamian culture has no textual modes for abstract reasoning nor, in other terms, any meta-discourse. Abstract notions such as morpheme, polyvalency of graphemes, square, and square root are demonstrated by listing. First millenium lexical lists are to be read in two dimensions. The horizontal dimension is represented by the single item that clarifies the reading of one sign or the translation of one Sumerian word. The vertical dimension clarifies the abstract principles through the sequentiality of the items” (Veldhuis 1997: 134-135). This vertical structure is developed to great effect in some mathematical texts as “series texts” (Proust 2009).
11 This “factor diagram” representation was introduced by J. Friberg (1978: 38).
12 These numerical notations appear in many school tablets; I will limit myself here to a few quotations. Lists of capacities with gur: Ist Ni 5376, reverse; Ist Ni 3913, reverse; Ist Ni 5206, reverse; Ist Ni 3711, reverse; HS 249, obverse (TMH 8 no. 3); HS 236, reverse (TMH 8 no. 7); HS 1703, obverse (TMH 8 no. 8), and many others; lists of weights with gu2: Ist Ni 5108 reverse; HS 247, reverse (TMH 8 no. 10); HS 249, obverse (TMH 8 no. 3).
13 See for example Friberg 1978; Damerow, and Englund 1987: 127, 165; Nissen, Damerow and Englund 1993: 28; Friberg 1999.
14 This transliteration is slightly different from that of Sjöberg (see more details in Proust 2008: 151-152).
15 Powell 1971.
17 Thureau-Dangin 1900; Allotte de la Fuÿe 1930; Friberg 1978: 46; Damerow and Englund 1987: 142, 165; Powell 1987-1990; Nissen, Damerow and Englund 1993, ch. 10.
18 Allotte de la Fuÿe, in his study of the surface units in Jemdet Nasr texts, takes bur3 as the basic unit and then “établit la nature sexagésimale de cette numération” (Allotte de la Fuÿe 1930: 70). In fact, from the sign bur3 onwards, we can observe the same alternation of ratios 10 and 6 as in system S. However, if we look at the whole system both in its primitive form and in its Old Babylonian form, we can see that it is only partially sexagesimal. Another observation made by Allotte de la Fuÿe in the same study shows that the form of the graphemes is a reflection from numerical ratios: the sign eše3 is made up from the ligature of a horizontal wedge and a Winkelhaken, a form which can be seen as the combination of a 60 and a 10, corresponding to the representation of the value 600; this brings us back to the ratio 1(eše3) GAN2 = 600 sar (Allotte de la Fuÿe 1930: 66).
20 For recent data from Syria and Ugarit, see for example Chambon 2006; Bordreuil 2007.
21 One aspect of this issue is the order in which the words were uttered. It seems that numbers, units and commodity names were probably not enumerated in the spoken language in the same order as they are recorded in the script, neither in Sumerian nor in Akkadian. There are also, potentially, historical variations (Powell, 1971: 2-5).
22 In cuneiform texts these substantive graphemes can represent magnitudes (length, surface area, volume, capacity, weight), commodities (grains, oil, earth, stone…), or collections (persons, animals, years, tablets, lines or sections in a tablet, bricks …).
23 The discovery of this polysemy in the corpus of archaic texts has allowed J. Friberg to make considerable progress in the decipherment process of proto-cuneiform numerations (Friberg 1978; Nissen, Damerow and Englund 1993, 25).
24 These classifications and the associated vocabulary are partially inspired by Mycenologists (Bennett 1963; Olivier and Godart 1996: 12), and correspond also to Tinney’s white paper (Tinney 2004): Semantic aspect = Formal Constituent; Graphic aspect = Written instantiation; Integer number = Count; Unit of measure = Unit; Measure (Integer and/or fractional number + Unit of measure) = Value (Count + Unit); Commodity = Commodity; Arithmogram = Count-grapheme; Metrogram = Unit-grapheme. Fractional number, klasmatogram and substantive grapheme have no counterpart in the white paper.
25 This phenomenon is described by Ritter (1999).
26 Such notations would be analogous to the peculiar fractional notations discovered by Laurent Colonna d’Istria in the šakkanakku texts from Mari (“Les shakkanakkû de Mari, nouvelles perspectives,” paper read by L. Colonna d’Istria at the workshop Recherches récentes sur l’histoire et l’archéologie du Moyen Euphrate syrien, University of Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, in December 2007; paper read at a REHSEIS seminar, on 10 April 2008).
27 The transliteration made according to the rules established by the CDLI is 1(aš) 1(barig) gur.
29 Consider these examples of transliterations of GAN2 in the context of mathematical texts: Thureau-Dangin: gan; Neugebauer (1935): gan2; (1945): iku in superscript; Friberg: aša5; Høyrup: iku in superscript; Robson: gana2 in superscript; CDLI: GAN2.
31 See also Ritter 1999: 230 about the consequences of the introduction of phonetic script on the distinction between numbers and units of measure.
32 Thus, the same numbers appear repeatedly in the right column of metrological tables. For scribes, reading metrological tables from left column to right column is easy, but reading them from right to left column requires a mental control over the orders of magnitude.
33 As Friberg wrote, all the Mesopotamian systems of measures are “sexagesimally adapted. What this means is that all the “conversion factors” appearing in the various factor diagrams […] are small, sexagesimally regular numbers. Indeed, all the conversion factors are equal to one of the following numbers: 1, 1/2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 30.” (Friberg 2007: 379). For this reason, since ninda corresponds to number 1, all other units of measure correspond also to a “sexagesimally regular number.” This property makes the system of calculation very powerful.
34 Traces of an explicit algorithm for multiplication in Late Babylonian sources have been discovered by J. Friberg (2007: 456-460).
35 I checked this by means of the tablets quoted as sources in ETCSL 2.1.1: the Nippur tablets CBS 13293+13484 (the first fragment published in Poebel 1914: 4, both fragments together in Hallo 1963: 54), CBS 14220 (Legrain 1922: 1), CBS 13981 and 13994 (Poebel 1914: 2-3); the Tell Leilan tablet L87+ (Vincente 1995: 244-245); the Tutub tablet UCBC 9-1819 (Finkelstein 1963: 40); and the Susa tablets (Scheil 1934).
36 In my opinion, this should be the case in the translation and commentaries as well, since the addition of marks as zeros or degrees, minutes, etc., is more a trap than a help for the modern reader. But this opinion differs from Neugebauer’s position on the subject, and is far from being generally accepted (Proust 2008c).
37 As I said above, this paper concerns only transliteration, not translation, for which notations by specialists are even more various and complex, and generally indicate the order of magnitude of the numbers.
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New Orleans Public Library
|Administrations of the Mayors of New Orleans|
Gerard Stith (1821-1880)
Gerard Stith was elected the fifteenth Mayor of New Orleans on June 7, 1858, being the candidate of the American or “Know Nothing” party. He served until June 18, 1860. He had been a member of the Council under Mayor Crossman and at that time was considered a staunch Whig; now he was a good American or “Know Nothing” as the party was called. Stith, it appears, was very much disliked and this prejudice lasted for many years up to the stirring days of the war between the States.|
Stith was born in Fairfax County, Virginia in 1821, the fourth son of Griffin Stith and Mary Dent Alexander. His family was prominent in the affairs of Virginia. One of his paternal ancestors in direct line, was President Stith, head of William and Mary’s College from 1752-1755, who was known as the “Historian of Virginia.” Gerard left his home at an early age and resided in Washington City where he began his career as a printer. His first work in that capacity was done in the printing house of Gideon. Subsequently he was engaged at the office of the Globe Newspaper, then conducted by Rives and Blair. He married Miss Clara Morsell, daughter of Judge Morsell of that city.
He first came to New Orleans in 1845 and was employed in the office of the old Bulletin. His connection with the Picayune began in the fall of 1845 and he was, in fact, if not in name, the real editor of that paper. The Picayune made its first appearance on January 25, 1837. He was also the first president of the New Orleans Typographical Union.
Stith’s administration was featured by several items of importance. No Mayor before him ever had, as he had, a definite policy with regard to public improvements. The need for proper enforcement of sanitary measures prompted him to advocate extension of granite block paving, improved street drainage and the reclamation of the swamps between the city and the lake.
At first he did not have the co-operation of the public in these projects, but his persistence and the assistance furnished by the press, eventually led to a complete change of public opinion with the result that at the end of his administration there were great improvements in the conditions of the streets which up to that time were considered the worst not only in this city, but perhaps of all cities in the United States. The cost of paving of the intersecting streets and those of Canal and Esplanade, was estimated to have been $100,000, an extravagant figure for those times. The Mayor introduced a system of flushing the gutters with water from the river, pumped for this purpose by a plant established on the levee facing the city. A new Normal School was opened in 1858. The Boys’ House of Refuge where trades were taught, was restored. John L. Lewis had been the first Mayor to recognize the importance of these boys having a chance to learn a trade which would enable them to make their way in the world.
During Stith’s administration, the remains of John Mc Donogh the millionaire, were taken from the tomb in the swamp cemetery in back of Algiers and brought to the city to be forwarded for reinterment at Baltimore. It is not known through what arrangements this was done, but it is presumed that it was agreed upon by the Baltimore and New Orleans Commissioners of the Mc Donogh Estate. So those who may visit his tomb and read its inscription, must remember that the body of this illustrious philanthropist is not there, having been removed on May 1, 1860.
Stith was a man of strong personality and great independence of mind. His popularity no doubt suffered through these traits, but they helped him in correcting a great number of abuses which were committed by the administration, so that in bidding him farewell in an editorial published the day he left office, the Picayune was able to say that his period of service was the beginning of a new epoch in city affairs. No man ever left office with as much assurance for future popularity. After leaving the post of Mayor, he became foreman for the “Delta” and later he returned to his post as foreman of the Picayune.
The failure of his health was sudden and unexpected. As a very ill man, he left his home at 83-85 Gasquet Street near Canal, to return to his old homestead at Wythville, Virginia, where he died. He was survived by his wife and one daughter, two children having died in infancy, and one manly son having succumbed to the yellow fever epidemic of 1878.
|Members of the Stith Administration|
June 21, 1858-June 18, 1860
Back to the Introduction
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The conference was formally titled, “The Moral Equivalent of War. From William James to Camp Williams James and Beyond: Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy and the Social Representation of Truth.” The conference commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the publication of Williams James’s famous essay, “The Moral Equivalent of War.” Professor Rosenstock-Huessy found so much value in James’s essay that he and a group of young men formed a work camp in Vermont in 1940 named Camp William James. The concerns of the camp were not only to eliminate war, but also with soil conservation and forestry, community revitalization, land re-settlement, leadership, the integration of incompatible social and economic classes, education for all, and more. Though the camp lasted little more than two years the ideals it strove towards are still ones that we strive for today. Professor Rosenstock-Huessy had one theme that he held to until his death in 1973, namely that in order to achieve a better future for humankind, men and women, the individual and the community, must be actively engaged in creating that future.
The conference was made possible by the Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Society, the Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Fund, the William Jewett Tucker Foundation, the Ethics Institute, and by generous donations from Paul Lee, Theodore Weymouth, and others.
Last Updated: 1/25/11
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Benthic disturbance by fishing gear in the Irish Sea: a comparison of beam trawling and scallop dredging
Kaiser, M.J., Hill, A.S., Ramsay, K., Spencer, B.E., Brand, A.R., Veale, L.O., Prudden, K., Rees, E.I.S., Munday, B.W., Ball, B. and Hawkins, S.J. (1996) Benthic disturbance by fishing gear in the Irish Sea: a comparison of beam trawling and scallop dredging. Aquatic Conservation Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 6, (4), 269-285. (doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0755(199612)6:4<269::AID-AQC202>3.0.CO;2-C).
Full text not available from this repository.
1.?The distribution of effort for the most frequently used mobile demersal gears in the Irish Sea was examined and their potential to disturb different benthic communities calculated. Fishing effort data, expressed as the number of days fished, was collated for all fleets operating in the Irish Sea in 1994. For each gear, the percentage of the seabed swept by those parts of the gear that penetrate the seabed was calculated.
2.? For all gears, the majority of fishing effort was concentrated in the northern Irish Sea. Effort was concentrated in three main locations: on the muddy sediments between Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man (otter and Nephrops trawling); off the north Wales, Lancashire and Cumbrian coast (beam trawling); the area surrounding the Isle of Man (scallop dredging).
3.?In some areas, e.g. between Anglesey and the Isle of Man, the use of scallop dredges and beam trawls was coincident. A comparative experimental study revealed that scallop dredges caught much less by-catch than beam trawls. Multivariate analysis revealed that both gears modified the benthic community in a similar manner, causing a reduction in the abundance of most epifaunal species.
4.? Although beam trawling disturbed the greatest area of seabed in 1994, the majority of effort occurred on grounds which supported communities that are exposed to high levels of natural disturbance. Scallop dredging, Nephrops and otter trawling were concentrated in areas that either have long-lived or poorly studied communities. The latter highlights the need for more detailed knowledge of the distribution of sublittoral communities that are vulnerable to fishing disturbance. ©British Crown Copyright 1996.
|Digital Object Identifier (DOI):||doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0755(199612)6:4<269::AID-AQC202>3.0.CO;2-C|
|Subjects:||G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GC Oceanography
Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
|Divisions:||University Structure - Pre August 2011 > School of Ocean & Earth Science (SOC/SOES)
|Date Deposited:||27 May 2011 12:43|
|Last Modified:||31 Mar 2016 13:40|
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What is a pseudomonas infection?
A pseudomonas infection is caused by a very common type of bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa (say "soo-duh-MOH-nuss ay-roo-jee-NOH-suh").
Healthy people often carry these bacteria around without knowing it and without having any problems. Sometimes these germs cause minor problems like swimmer's ear and hot tub rash. But for people who are weak or ill, these germs can cause very serious—even deadly—infections in any part of the body.
The infections are hard to treat because the bacteria can resist many types of antibiotics, the medicines normally used to kill bacteria.
Who gets this infection?
People in the hospital may get this infection. In hospitals, the bacteria can spread through medical equipment, cleaning solutions, and other equipment. They can even spread through food. When they spread to patients who are weak because of illness, surgery, or treatment, they can cause very serious infections. For example, pseudomonas is one of the main causes of pneumonia in patients who are on breathing machines.
These bacteria like moist environments, such as hot tubs and swimming pools, where they can cause a skin rash or swimmer's ear.
People who wear contact lenses can get serious eye infections if the bacteria get into their contact lens solutions. This can happen if you aren't careful about keeping your contact lenses and equipment sterile.
What are the symptoms?
Symptoms depend on where the infection is. If it's in a wound, there may be green-blue pus in or around the area. If you have swimmer's ear, your ear aches. If the infection causes pneumonia, you may get a cough. When the infections are elsewhere in the body, you may have a fever and feel tired. But all pseudomonas infections can make you very sick if they spread through the bloodstream (septicemia). A serious infection can cause symptoms of high fever, chills, confusion, and shock.
How is an infection treated?
Antibiotics are the main treatment. Usually two different kinds are used. It can be hard to find the right antibiotic, because the bacteria are resistant to many of these medicines.
In some cases, surgery is used to remove infected tissue.
If your doctor prescribes antibiotics, be sure to take all the medicine even if you begin to feel better right away. If you don't take all the medicine, you may not kill all the bacteria. No matter what your treatment, it's important to call your doctor if your infection doesn't get better as expected.
How can you prevent getting or spreading this infection?
As more antibiotic-resistant bacteria develop, hospitals are taking extra care to practice infection control. This includes frequent hand-washing and isolating patients who are infected.
Here are some other steps you can take to protect yourself:
If you have a pseudomonas infection, you can keep from spreading the bacteria.
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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In a June 13 article in The Guardian of the UK, reporter John Vidal writes that the weather extremes our planet is now experiencing constitute a “new normal.” WMR has been citing planetary anomalies for a few years and now the so-called “main stream” media is beginning to take notice. Vidal calls the phenomenon “global weirding.” While Vidal does not add the increase in quakes and volcanic eruptions plaguing the Earth, the suggestion that something is radically wrong is being noticed.
Although U.S. government scientists and their stenographers in the media continue to call the spate of quakes, volcanoes, and wild weather “normal,” it is becoming clear that our planet is being affected by forces that have little to do with human activity. Whether the planet is flipping its axis prior to the cataclysmic event foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar is still any one’s guess, but what is clear is that Earth-changing events are now affecting politics, economics, the environment, and standards of living around the planet.
Volcanic ash is even affecting the ability of U.S. leaders to travel abroad. Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was forced to cut off a visit to Ethiopia after the Nabro volcano in Eritrea closed air routes to and from the Horn of Africa. Just last month, President Obama was forced to cut off his trip to Ireland when Iceland’s Grimsvotn volcano forced the closure of air routes in northern Europe. And last November, Obama was forced to cut short his visit to Jakarta after volcanic ash imperiled the planned air route for Air Force One.
Ash from Chile’s Puyehue volcano, which is blanketing southern South America, has forced Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica a visit to Argentina. Airports are closed throughout Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, contributing to travel chaos, such as that previously experienced in Europe when an eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano resulted in cancellations of European and transatlantic flights, stranding thousands of travelers at airports. Obama was forced to cancel his attendance at the Lech Kaczynski in April 2010 when ash from Eyjafjallajökull prevented Air Force One from crossing the Atlantic.
The fact remains that never in recent history has the Earth witnessed such a degree of disruption from repeated natural disasters and drastic earth changing events. Japan’s economy, the world’s third largest, was devastated as a result of the super-quake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear core meltdown. Haiti is still in economic paralysis from its devastating quake and New Zealand continues to be hit by a series of destructive quakes. Extreme weather in the United States and Australia has partially destroyed entire towns.
Tornadoes in the southern states of the U.S. and Missouri have devastated small businesses, contributing to pre-existing high unemployment in the states most affected by the extreme weather. The Gulf Coast of the United States is still recovering from the twin disasters of hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil blowout.
Based on The Guardian’s prediction about the future of weather patterns on our planet, we should all prepare ourselves for the a continuation of “disaster capitalism” policies that see wealthy investors thrive on natural disasters and the man-made calamities that stem from them.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2011 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
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| ||Herbal Medicine: Cayenne --This Popular Herb is Hot||
It's well known that cayenne pepper is an important ingredient in hot sauces,
salsa and spicy restaurant dishes, but mostly unknown that extracts of cayenne
can help ease the terrible burning pain of shingles (herpes zoster), reduce
muscle soreness, speed healing of strains and sprains, heal ulcers of the
digestive tract, and stimulate metabolism, helping the body get rid of excess
The herb (and spice) cayenne is the ripe fruits (called peppers) of a blend
of varieties of Capsicum annuum var. minimum and small-fruited
varieties of C. fructescens from the nightshade family.
History of Use
The origins of this herb, now used as food and medicine in most countries
of the world, is uncertain. Cayenne was not mentioned in writings from ancient
Egypt (1500 BC), Greece (455 BC to 50 BC), Rome (25 BC to 150 AD), Persia
(13th century), India and China, so historians claim Cayenne peppers originated
from the Americas, most likely from the banks of the Amazon. It is impossible
for modern botanists to say where cayenne grew in some ancient time as a
wild plant, because it has been domesticated and widely cultivated for so
many centuries. Thus, we are content today to enjoy its fruits without being
sure of its true origin and much of its history, though it is likely that
cayenne went to India and China as early as the 14th or 15th century, and
began to be cultivated in Europe in the 16th century.
Today, cayenne is as popular as ever as a food, and modern science has continued
to support its use as a healing herb with a number of well-designed clinical
and laboratory studies. It's world-wide acceptance as an effective medicine
is supported by ts official status in the Pharmacopoeias of Austria, Egypt,
Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Switzerland and Belgium.
Popular and Folk Uses
As anyone knows who has eaten a very spicy meal at a Thai or Mexican restaurant,
Capsicum at first causes a strong burning sensation of the lips and mouth,
followed by a sense of warmth spreading to the stomach and intestines.
Casein-containing foods (such as milk) can quickly lessen the burning feeling
of cayenne on the lips and mouth, probably because the heat-producing compounds
of cayenne are fat-soluble and are taken up and removed from the local area.
Not only do people of warm climates love cayenne in spicy dishes, but as
a folk remedy for weak digestion and loss of appetite accompanied by gas
and sluggish elimination, and as a stimulant to the circulation and the
powers of resistance to help ward of colds and flus.
Cayenne is a favorite with herbalists from many countries, and in the U.S.,
it was the "number two" favorite remedy of Samuel Thompson of
the early 1800s, who started a popular herbal multi-level marketing extravaganza
with his patent formulas--sort of a 19th century Herbal Life. He used it
especially for helping to ward off and even expel the contagion of serious
infectious diseases. It was also a favorite of the well-known Dr. Christopher,
a Mormon herbalist who traversed the country in the 1960s and 70s, helping
to bring herbal medicine back into American consciousness. In the late 70s,
I remember watching him in a dynamic Seattle lecture, to the amazement of
onlookers, put cayenne directly into his eyes as a healing and clearing
remedy (don't try this at home folks!). He was enthusiastic about its use
for numerous complaints, including as a styptic to help stop the bleeding
Today, cayenne is one of the most-often used herbal remedies and is commonly
recommended by herbalists for increasing circulation in people with cold
hands and feet, as a metabolic stimulant for people with sluggish metabolisms
who are overweight, as a warming stimulant with other herbs such as garlic
and ginger for protecting against colds and upper respiratory tract infections,
and externally as a liniment or in ointments for sore muscles, arthritis,
rheumatism, low back pain, strains, sprains, bruises and neuralgia.
Scientific Investigations and Medical Uses
The most important active ingredient in cayenne are components of a pungent
oleoresin, most importantly, capsaicin, but also a number of other related
compounds. Capsaicin Cayenne is also rich in carotenoids (orange and red
coloring compounds), which are receiving current interest for their cancer-protective
and strong anti-oxidant properties, as well as a number of vitamins (especially
A and C).
There has been some discussion about whether cayenne, if it is used excessively,
can irritate or even cause ulceration of the intestinal tract. In reviewing
the modern scientific literature, studies agree that cayenne not only does
not harm the intestinal mucosa (the protective covering), but on the contrary,
can speed healing--though some people seem to be more sensitive to the irritating
effect than others. In one study, daily consumption of meals containing
3 grams of chili powder did not worsen patients with duodenal ulcers who
were also taking antacids. A recent study, using a video camera threaded
into the digestive tract, found no visible damage to the mucosa of the stomach
or upper small intestine of 12 healthy volunteers who consumed 30 grams
of jalapeÒo peppers. When the subjects were given a meal containing
2 grams of aspirin, multiple gastric ulcers were seen in 11 out of the 12.
In animal studies, cayenne has actually shown a protective effect on the
gastric mucosa, prompting some researchers to call for further human studies.
One of the more interesting effects of cayenne (or capsaicin) is its proven
enhancement of the metabolic rate and thermogenesis. Preliminary studies
suggest that capsaicin or cayenne may increase the burning of fat in the
There is also an indication from laboratory studies that capsaicin can slow
fat absorption from the small intestine. Although more work needs to be
done before its effectiveness in weight loss programs can be proven, products
are currently being developed and a few are already available in health
Capsaicin has received tremendous attention as a topical analgesic for relieving
the pain that often accompanies herpes zoster (shingles) outbreaks and other
skin ailments. Capsaicin is approved by the Food and Drug Administration
as an Over-the-Counter (OTC) medication and is commonly recommended by doctors
under the trade name ZostrixÆ for this purpose, as well as for controlling
pain from rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Studies show that capsaicin
may block the feeling of pain by depleting and then blocking the production
of "substance P," which is thought to be the main chemical messenger
of pain from the peripheral sensory nerves to the brain. It may also be
involved with the release of inflammatory substances in affected joints
Because capsaicin is very alcohol-soluble, tincture of cayenne may be effective
as a home-remedy for the relief of mild pain. Although I recommend seeking
the advice of a qualified health professional for shingles or arthritis
before attempting to self-medicate with cayenne, I have found the tincture,
or ointments or salves that contain it are often effective for relieving
mild to moderate muscle aches or pains. The preparations should be applied
consistently at least 3 or 4 times daily (up to 5 or 6 times) for up to
2 weeks, or even a month before they are effective. After 4 or 5 months
of pain relief, up to 50% of the people who use a capsaicin product may
not experience further pain. For those that do, treatment can be continued.
A few drops of a tincture of cayenne was recommended in the British 19th
century medical press as a sure remedy for a toothache.
Redness and a burning sensation sometimes accompanies the application, but
this usually disappears after two or three weeks. After control of the pain
is achieved, the cayenne preparation has to be used continuously for continued
relief to occur. Clinical studies indicate that up to 80% of the volunteers
who use a capsaicin cream experience some measure of relief, which is significantly
better than placebo groups. Watch for any irritation or redness of the skin
locally, which might indicate an individual sensitivity to cayenne, and
make sure to keep all cayenne and capsaicin preparations away from the eyes.
In this case, use less often or consult a qualified health care practitioner
for guidance. Unlike mustard, which can blister and burn the skin, cayenne,
even in its most powerful forms will not cause these undesirable side-effects.
Finally, there is some recent evidence to suggest that capsaicin-containing
preparations may be useful for treating psoriasis.
In the food industry, cayenne is used in numerous foods and beverages besides
hot sauces and condiments, including alcoholic beverages, meat products,
candy, baked goods, puddings, and frozen dairy desserts (cayenne ice-cream
The next time you enjoy a spicy Thai dinner, think of all the additional
benefits from mother nature's food pharmacy that accompany the warm glow
of a satisfying meal.
Martindale, The Extra Pharmacopoeia (3oth ed., 1993).
The Physician's Desk Reference (47th ed., 1993).
Potter's New Cyclopaedia of Botanical Drugs and Preparations, 1988.
Encyclopedia of Common Natural Ingredients Used in Food, Drugs and Cosmetics,
United States Pharmacopeia, Complete Drug Reference, 1993.
A Modern Herbal (Grieve), 1930.
|Christopher Hobbs is a fourth generation herbalist and botanist with over 30 years experience with herbs. Founder of Native Herb Custom Extracts (now Rainbow Light Custom Extracts) and the Institute for Natural Products......more
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http://www.healthy.net/Health/Article/Cayenne_This_Popular_Herb_is_Hot/866
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.931485 | 2,203 | 2.875 | 3 |
From Rowland Unified
The sixth grade at Blandford Elementary is experimenting with water conservation today in Rowland Heights. The students joined The LivingWise Program sponsored by Southern California Edison and Southern California Gas to learn the importance of natural resources and how to reduce their usage.
This program includes reading material and experiments. In today’s exercise, the sixth graders will experiment with the school’s sprinkler system. They want to find out if the sprinklers are wasting water when the school waters the fields and grassy areas.
After students collect the data, they hope to have the opportunity to present this information to our district, so changes can be made.
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<urn:uuid:ebc435be-f39d-44d0-af8a-6851f49176c8>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.insidesocal.com/classnotes/tag/blandford-elementary/
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.93904 | 136 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Research & Innovation Information Centre
Tick (check) box to add article to PDF "basket"
EU-funded researchers have conclusively shown that large-scale, cost-effective manufacturing of graphene is possible, opening up new product possibilities and ensuring that Europe remains at the cutting edge of applied nanotechnology.
Published: 3 March 2016
The Respon-SEA-ble project aims to help raise awareness of our individual and collective responsibility towards maintaining healthy oceans through better targeted communication. A change in behaviour will help to reduce mans impact on marine ecosystems and open up new opportunities to explore the ocean's potential.
Published: 1 March 2016
The Mediterranean and neighbouring countries are a climate change hotspot, the climate research community believes. Projections suggest water availability is highly likely to fall, while demand will rise. The EU-funded CLIWASEC project cluster studied climate change impacts on water and security, and helped prepare Europe and its neighbours for the challenges ahead with guidance on water efficiency and stakeholder involvement.
Published: 26 January 2016
The TIME SCALE project is investigating the feasibility of growing food crops in space and whether this might provide astronauts with long-term supplies of food and oxygen. The findings could lay the foundations for a manned mission to Mars and also lead to more sustainable production back on Earth.
Published: 24 December 2015
Inflammation is not your enemy. It's a mechanism the body uses to keep us healthy, e.g. to fight invading pathogens. But sometimes, the immune system doesn't know when to stop, say EU-funded researchers. They are learning how to get the message across, in a bid to help tackle diseases caused when our tiny defenders go rogue.
Published: 25 November 2015
Chemotherapy can have a considerable impact on patients' quality of life, causing nausea or hair loss as well as depression and anxiety. More personalised care could help many patients and even improve outcomes. The EU-funded project eSMART is putting a mobile phone-based remote patient monitoring system to the test.
Published: 17 November 2015
Used since ancient times, bismuth is still found in items as different as lipsticks, medicine and electronics. The metal has been a magnet for scientific study. But the BisNano project was the first to take bismuth compounds down to the nano-scale. The results have made the metal even more attractive and have led to technology transfer between Europe and Mexico, as well as several applications.
Published: 6 November 2015
An EU-funded project has developed a forecasting model for biotoxic algal blooms. The project aimed at providing aquaculture farmers early warnings of approaching dangerous 'phytoplankton' - allowing them to take effective action to keep fish and shellfish from algae-induced contamination - and protect their livelihoods.
Published: 5 November 2015
While weather forecasts - including those for wind - have improved significantly, change is always imminent. When wind power rises or falls unexpectedly, it can have a knock-on effect on infrastructure and power supply. An EU-funded research project has improved the accuracy of short-term forecasts, helping Europe rely more on wind power as it moves towards a more secure and cleaner energy future.
Published: 28 October 2015
It isn't "Iron Man", but European researchers in the Robo-Mate project are developing a robotic "exoskeleton" to protect workers from injuries due to heavy and repetitive work. A first prototype has already been unveiled.
Published: 26 October 2015
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<urn:uuid:8428c907-5661-48b4-aef1-bca16abf9990>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/all_headlines_en.cfm?item=Countries&subitem=Ireland&start=11
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s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00010-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
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en
| 0.947594 | 715 | 2.71875 | 3 |
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