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This is sentencing 101, so let’s start with a basic definition: A sentence is an official punishment handed down by a judge to someone who has been convicted of a crime. Not all sentences involve prison time. Defendants can also be sentenced to probation and ordered to pay a fine. Many times, defendants will get sentenced to a little (or a lot) of all of the above: They serve time in prison, have to report to a probation officer after they get out, and must pay money to the government (fines) and to their victims (restitution).
FAMM’s work focuses on sentences that send people to prison. In particular, we’re concerned with overly harsh and outdated sentences, which fall into two categories: Mandatory minimum sentences and guideline sentences.
How a sentence is determined: Mandatory minimums and guidelines
In the Federal Courts system – which handles cases brought by federal prosecutors who work for the U.S. Department of Justice, rather than cases brought by local or state prosecutors – judges base their sentences on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, mandatory minimum sentencing laws, or both.
Mandatory minimum sentences – set by Congress, not judges – require automatic, minimum prison terms for certain crimes. Most mandatory minimum sentences apply to drug offenses, but Congress has enacted them for other crimes, including certain gun, pornography, and economic offenses. For example, under federal law, selling 28 grams of crack cocaine triggers a minimum sentence of 5 years in prison. And if you’re caught selling 280 grams of crack, you’ll face a minimum of 10 years behind bars even if the judge does not think you need such a long sentence (there are a few exceptions such as safety valves and cooperating with the government).
Judges also use the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual. As its name suggests, the manual guides judges toward a sentence based on the facts that led to the conviction. Unlike mandatory minimums, the sentencing guidelines are advisory, not mandatory. Judges must calculate them, but they are allowed to go below or above someone’s guideline sentence depending on the circumstances of the case.
Here’s an example of how a federal judge uses the guidelines to determine a sentence for a man convicted of distributing seven kilograms of marijuana (a drug amount that is too low to trigger a mandatory minimum):
1.) The judge opens the manual to the Drug Quantity Table, which is used to determine the “base offense level,” or the starting point, for a drug sentence. The Drug Quantity table says that at least five kilograms of marijuana, but less than 10 kilograms of marijuana triggers a base offense level of 14. Level 14 is now the starting point for the judge’s sentence calculation. (The guidelines have 43 base offense levels; the higher the level, the longer the sentence.)
2.) Next, the judge uses the guidelines to determine if the sentencing level should be raised or lowered. Let’s say the defendant sold marijuana with some friends. If he was the “organizer or leader” of that group, and the group contained five or more people, the guidelines manual says his sentencing level should be increased by four levels, which in this case would be level 18. If the defendant rented a garage where he stored and from where he sold marijuana, he would get the 2-level enhancement for maintaining drug-involved premises, or if he asked his 17-year old brother to keep an eye out for the cops, the guidelines add two levels for using a minor to commit a crime. Judges can also lower the defendant’s sentencing range if, for example, the defendant played a particularly minor role or has accepted responsibility for his crime.
3.) The judge then takes the offense level she’s calculated and converts it to a sentence using the manual’s Sentencing Table. In the case of our marijuana defendant, the sentencing table converts a Level 20 offense to a sentence of 33-41 months for someone with little or no criminal history. But let’s say our defendant has been in trouble for marijuana before; perhaps he was on probation for a smaller marijuana charge dating back a few months when he is caught with the seven kilos. That will get him at least one criminal history point for his prior conviction and an extra two points for being on probation at the time of his arrest. Three criminal history points puts him in criminal history category II, which increases the recommended sentence to 37-46 months.
4.) Once the judge has come up with a guideline recommended sentence, she then considers whether any “departures” are appropriate. The Sentencing Guidelines provide for many upward and few downward departures based on a variety of factors. For example, the judge might consider the criminal history calculation overstates our young man’s true criminal history and depart back to Criminal History Category I, lowering the recommended guideline sentence as a result.
5) Finally the court consults a federal law to test whether the guideline sentence is enough, but not too much, to punish, deter, incapacitate and rehabilitate the defendant. If the judge finds the recommended guideline sentence is greater than necessary (or in some cases, not sufficient), he or she is free to “vary” below or above the recommended sentence.
While judges can vary from the sentencing guidelines, they can’t sentence below the mandatory minimums (except in very limited circumstances). If there is a mandatory minimum, it always trumps a lower guidelines sentence. Read this FAQ for even more information about how federal sentencing works.
What about the states?
What we just went over is what happens in federal court. If you are prosecuted for a crime in state court, the laws and processes will be different. Some states use sentencing guidelines and some have mandatory minimums, but each state does it differently. Learn about sentencing laws in Massachusetts and Florida and check out our state map.
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Treatment depends on the type of porphyria you have and is directed at relieving symptoms.
Treatment of acute porphyrias focuses on providing rapid treatment of symptoms and preventing complications. This may require hospitalization in severe cases. Treatment may include:
- Stopping medications that may have triggered symptoms
- Medication to control pain, nausea and vomiting
- Prompt treatment of infections or other illness that may have caused symptoms
- Intravenous sugar (glucose) or sugar taken by mouth, if able, to maintain an adequate intake of carbohydrates
- Intravenous fluids to combat dehydration
- Injections of hemin, a medication that is a form of heme, to limit the body's production of porphyrin
Treatment of cutaneous porphyrias focuses on reducing exposure to sunlight and the amount of porphyrins in your body to help eliminate your symptoms. This may include:
May 20, 2014
- Drawing blood (phlebotomy). Drawing a certain amount of blood from one of your veins reduces the iron in your body, which decreases porphyrins. You may need to have a phlebotomy repeated at regular intervals before cutaneous porphyria goes into remission.
- Medication. Drugs used to treat malaria — hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) or, less often, chloroquine (Aralen) — can absorb excess porphyrins and help your body get rid of them more quickly than usual. These medications are generally used only in people who can't tolerate a phlebotomy.
- Beta carotene. Long-term treatment of cutaneous porphyrias may include daily doses of prescription beta carotene. Beta carotene may increase your skin's tolerance to sunlight. Your doctor can tell you what kind of beta carotene will work best for porphyria photosensitivity.
- Reducing or eliminating triggers. Triggers, such as certain medications or too much sunlight, which activated the disease, should be reduced or removed if possible, with guidance from your doctor.
- Vitamin D. Supplements may be recommended to replace vitamin D deficiency caused by avoidance of sunlight.
- Information for professionals. The Porphyrias Consortium. https://rarediseasesnetwork.epi.usf.edu/porphyrias/professionals/index.htm. Accessed Feb. 7, 2014.
- Learning about porphyria. National Human Genome Research Institute. https://www.genome.gov/19016728. Accessed Feb. 7, 2014.
- Porphyria. National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NDDIC). http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/porphyria/. Accessed Feb. 7, 2014.
- Anderson KE. Porphyrias: An overview. http://www.uptodate.com/home. Accessed Feb. 7, 2014.
- Overview of porphyrias. The Merck Manuals: The Merck Manual for Health Care Professionals. http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/endocrine_and_metabolic_disorders/porphyrias/overview_of_porphyrias.html. Accessed Feb. 7, 2014.
- Porphyria. Genetics Home Reference. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/porphyria. Accessed Feb. 7, 2014.
- Riggin, EA. Decision Support System. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Nov. 21, 2013.
- Panhematin hemin for injection (prescribing information). Lebanon, N.J.: Recordati Rare Diseases, Inc.; 2013. http://www.aiporphyria.com/. Accessed Feb. 12, 2014.
- Porphyrin tests. Lab Tests Online. http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/porphyrins/tab/sample. Accessed Feb. 17, 2014.
- Tracy JA, et al. Porphyria and its neurologic manifestations. Handbook of Clinical Neurology. 2014;120:839.
- Pittelkow MR (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, Ariz. March 17, 2014.
- Solberg LA Jr. (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Fla. March 18, 2014.
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On the Road Poverty Quotes
How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
"We’ll just pick him up for kicks!" Dean laughed. The man was a ragged, bespectacled mad type, walking along reading a paperbacked muddy book he’d found in a culvert by the road. He got in the car and went right on reading; he was incredibly filthy and covered with scabs. He said his name was Hyman Solomon and that he walked all over the USA, knocking and sometimes kicking at Jewish doors and demanding money: "Give me money to eat, I am a Jew." (II.6.9)
Sal allows us to see many different faces of poverty in the characters he meets on the road.
Poor Bull came home in his Texas Chevy and found his house invaded by maniacs; but he greeted me with a nice warmth I hadn’t seen in him for a long time. He had bought this house in New Orleans with some money he had made growing black-eyed peas in Texas with an old college schoolmate whose father, a mad-paretic, had died and left a fortune. Bull himself only got fifty dollars a week from his own family, which wasn’t too bad except that he spent almost that much per week on his drug habit - and his wife was also expensive, gobbling up about ten dollars’ worth of benny tubes a week. Their food bill was the lowest in the country; they hardly ever ate; nor did the children - they didn’t seem to care. (II.6.32)
It becomes apparent to Sal that poverty is linked with drug abuse.
At Sonora I again helped myself to free bread and cheese while the proprietor chatted with a big rancher on the other side of the store. Dean huzzahed when he heard it; he was hungry. We couldn’t spend a cent on food. (II.8.18)
To Sal and Dean, motion is so important that they are willing to go hungry in order to keep traveling.
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Miniature Pot- Bellied Pig
The pot-bellied pig is a breed of domesticated pig originating in Vietnam with fourteen sub-species. Considerably smaller than standard American or European farm pigs, most adult pot-bellied pigs are about the size of a medium- or large-breed dog, though their bodies are denser at a weight of 27 to 136 kg (60 to 300 lb). Pot-bellied pigs can be easily discerned from other pig breeds by their size, upright ears and straight tail. Pigs with fat rolls over their eyes or a belly that touches the ground are easy visual indicators that the pig is overweight. Although they have a pot belly and a swayed back, these are not indicative of weight. Pigs in proper weight still have the sway and belly, but the hip bones can easily be felt with minimal pressure and the eyes (whole socket) should be easily visible.
Because pot-bellied pigs are in the same species as ordinary farmyard pigs and wild boars, they are capable of interbreeding. The Swedish Agriculture Ministry has been assisting Vietnam with its pork production by introducing large breeds of pigs into Vietnam since the mid-1980s.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This post was originally posted on the Progressive Pulse by Tazra Mitchell of the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center at the N.C. Justice Center on Thursday, February 28, 2014.
Imagine living in a community that includes the most undesirable and hazardous amenities a place has to offer such as a waste transfer station, a sewage treatment plant, and several landfills. Now, imagine being represented by county officials who decide to provide water and sewer services to an animal shelter but not to the residents—who happen to be more than three-quarters African American. And, these facilities primarily serve the majority-white residents in adjacent communities. Unfortunately, the residents of Royal Oak in Brunswick County don’t have to imagine this; they face this reality every day.
Majority-minority* and low-income Tar Heel communities face widespread environmental injustices—and environmental racism—that harm residents’ overall health and economic security. Such exclusion is exposed in a UNC Center for Civil Rights report, The State of Exclusion: An Empirical Analysis of the Legacy of Segregated Communities in North Carolina ().
The author of the report, Peter Gilbert, analyzed the exposure rate to solid waste facilities—such as landfills, waste transfer stations, and incinerators—to review how exposure varies from community to community. Unsurprisingly, communities that are majority-African American are the hardest hit, being more than twice as likely to live within one mile of a solid waste facility as the average North Carolinian. African American’s exposure rate is also far higher than the exposure rate for other majority-minority communities of color, as illustrated in the chart below. Residents living in majority-minority communities in the Tier 3 counties—or, the least poor counties per the Department of Commerce’s designation—have the highest exposure rates. The same goes for residents living in the Piedmont.
Duke Energy’s recent Dan River coal ash pond spill is bringing a lot of attention to the hazards of living near power plants and solid waste sites. Although there is not a significant racial disparity present near the Dan River location, nearby residents of all races will be impacted by the spill. There are, however, two coal ash ponds in the state that show a dramatic racial disparity, according to data provided by the Southern Environmental Law Center. These ponds are located in Stokes and New Hanover counties. Nearly 60 percent of the populations living within one mile of these ponds are comprised of minority residents, much higher than the state’s share at 30 percent.
If you attended Policy Watch’s Crucial Conversation yesterday, you know that the toxins found in coal ash are so dangerous that living near a coal ash pond is far more dangerous than smoking a pack of cigarettes per day (), according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And, people living within 1-mile of such facilities have a 1 in 50 risk of cancer (), far higher than what the Agency considered to be the norm or acceptable.
Why should we care about this if these aren’t “our” communities? Well, because it impacts us all. We know that opportunity is deeply connected to “place”— or, in other words, our neighborhoods and surrounding environment matter for socioeconomic outcomes. Living on the proverbial “wrong side of the tracks” or in the wrong zip code can stifle one’s ability to achieve economic security and live a long, healthy life, according to a growing body of evidence. And this holds down all of our potential to benefit from a stronger economy.
The data is clear: North Carolina needs policies that reduce place-based racial disparities and enhance opportunity for all residents.
*A community is majority-minority if at least 75 percent of the population is some race other than white only.
Posted by Peter Hull Gilbert on Wed. March 5, 2014 3:22 PM
Brunswick County, Community Inclusion, Environmental Justice, Race Discrimination, Segregation
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Early Church Fathers
Elucidations.The Confession, improperly called the Creed of Athanasius, is acknowledged to embody the (Athanasian) doctrine of the Nicene Council; and I append it here as an index to the state of theology at the period which is the limit of our series. Nothing is properly a "creed" which has never been accepted as such by the whole Church, and the Greeks knew no other creed than that called Nicene. The Anglo-American Church has ceased to recite this Confession in public worship, but does not depart from it as doctrine. The "Reformed" communion in America12 retains it among her liturgical forms, and I suppose the same is true of the Lutherans. It is a Western Confession, and, like the Te Deum, is a hymn rather than a symbol, though breathing the spirit of the Creed.
Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions
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A Biogas Friendly Bill
Since the Public Utility Regulatory Act was passed in 1978, power utilities have been required to pay an “avoided cost” rate to certain types of small power production, cogeneration facilities and other types of qualifying facilities. That rate is typically the cost of the cheapest type of energy the utility has in its portfolio—usually coal—and that’s a price with which small renewable energy providers cannot compete.
More than 20 years later, PURPA is doing something it was never intended for—limiting individual states’ ability to make their own decisions about incentivizing small distributed renewable energy. A new bill introduced in the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, however, could change that.
PURPA Plus, which is intended to encourage distributed generation of renewable energy, would remove the avoided cost restriction and let states set their own prices, according to Patrick Serfass, executive director of the American Biogas Council. In many cases, PURPA makes small renewable energy generation unfeasible.
For example, if a biogas producer has to turn on his facility’s lights or use power for something else, he’s probably paying a retail rate, Serfass says. “If he is selling any power back, he is getting a small fraction of that rate, so he’s not even getting paid the same rate he’s being charged. In most cases, they only have to pay you for the cost of avoiding the same amount of electricity from coal.”
PURPA Plus is a way for states to raise that price to incentivize distributed renewable electricity generation. “Generally in the energy industry it makes the most sense to produce your own electricity where you need it because it costs money to move it some place,” Serfass explains. “If you have a locally available resource, and people who need energy locally, why not produce and use it there? That’s where distributed generation comes in. If states want to encourage that, not only does it create business for those companies and jobs, but also increases the amount of electricity the state produces without having to upgrade transmission systems.”
The most important component of PURPA Plus is that it allows states a choice, and it is at no cost to taxpayers, Serfass says. “It’s a gateway for states to create more incentives, one of which could be a feed-in tariff. That would allow biogas projects to compete with other traditional energy sources on a level playing field.”
Though it’s less of a priority, the ABC would like to see PURPA Plus tweaked so that the cap is raised from 2 to 5 megawatts.. “Over half of current biogas projects are less than that, but a lot of larger projects in the works are between two and five,” Serfass says. “A slightly larger project could have a big impact on the industry.”
The ABC is urging its members to write their senators to request support of the bill. “With the current Congress being focused on cutting our federal budget and reducing costs everywhere, this bill is important because it doesn’t cost taxpayers any money,” Serfass reiterates. “It’s a really valuable piece of legislation.”
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Wyoming Skies for August
July 28, 2009 — (A monthly look at the night skies of Wyoming, written by Ron Canterna, professor in the University of Wyoming Department of Physics and Astronomy.)
August is always a particularly good time for viewing our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
The night skies this month are dominated by the bright star Vega looming directly overhead. Notice a little to the east the northern cross, or Cygnus the swan, which presents itself. A large number of star clusters can be easily recognized with binoculars in this part of the Milky Way.
Cassiopeia, the big "W" in the sky, lies along the northeast horizon and also is home to many star clusters. The constellations of Scorpius, the scorpion, and Sagittarius, the teapot, are easily visible to the south. Note the brilliant red star Antares in Scorpius. This is the direction to the center of the galaxy.
If you notice any dark regions or prominent dark patches along the Milky Way "haze," these are dust lanes that are projected against the background of fainter stars, blocking out the distant light.
Planet Watch: Mercury and Saturn are on the western horizon right after sunset. Saturn is oriented so that you will not see its rings, which occurs every 14-15 years. Jupiter rises around 9 p.m. and dominates the entire night.
Mars rises at 2 a.m. followed by the bright "morning star" Venus, which rises two hours later.
The yearly August Meteor Watch: The Perseids should peak in early morning around August 13-14, with a spectacular expected rate of 60 shooting stars per hour.
August 2009 Interest: Going to Mars
This past month NASA and the American people celebrated the first human landing on extra-terrestrial soil, the moon. The trip was quite short and brief (eight days or so) compared to a "real adventure," such as going to Mars. A Martian trip will take about 180 days, or half-a-year, just to get there.
NASA estimates that the round trip would last about 500 days, due to extensive exploration and long travel time for the mission. A large crew of at least six or more well-trained and cross-trained astronauts would be needed for the long trip.
Water and air would have to be recycled, food may have to be grown in flight or on a Mars site. The long confinement would stretch the psychological concerns of the crew.
Water and air may be "recharged" once Mars is reached, but that will depend on the site chosen and the planned use of the Martian environment.
Finally, two possible propulsion systems would be considered: A safe nuclear thermal engine, based on earlier 1960s NASA designs and research, or a traditional liquid oxygen and hydrogen chemical engine.
The size and weight requirements will be enormous, similar to those of the International Space Station. Landing on the moon was a great human accomplishment by the United States. Going to Mars, a more colossal human achievement, may require more than one nation.
Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2009
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Some short Sketches among the Gnostics, mainly of the First Two Centuries—a Contribution to the Study of Christian Origins based on the most Recently Discovered Materials.
I. Introduction.—Outlines of the Background of the Gnosis; Literature and Sources of Gnosticism.
II. The Gnosis according to its Foes.—Gnostic Fragments recovered from the Polemical Writings of the Church Fathers; the Gnosis in the Uncanonical Acts.
III. The Gnosis according to its Friends.—Greek Original Works in Coptic Translation; the Askew, Bruce, and Akhmim Codices.
Classified Bibliographies and Index are appended.
(Second and Revised Edition now Ready.)
xxviii., 650 pp. large octavo. Cloth. 10s. 6d. net.
“Mr. Mead has done his work in a scholarly and painstaking fashion.”—The Guardian.
“The ordinary student of Christian evidences, if he confines his reading to the Fathers, learns nothing of these opinions [the so-called Gnostic heresies] except by way of refutation and angry condemnation. In Mr. Mead's pages, however, they are treated with impartiality and candour. . . . . These remarks will suffice to show the unique character of this volume, and to indicate that students may find here matter of great service to the rational interpretation of Christian thought.”—Bradford Observer.
“Whatever may be the worth of the Gnostics speculations, there seems to be little doubt that these early heretics, among whom were some deep thinkers, as well as men of blameless character, have not been very impartially dealt with by their orthodox opponents, and those who wish to see their views treated in a more sympathetic way than has been usual with ecclesiastical historians, will do well to read this able volume of Mr. G. R. S. Mead. . . . . The book, Mr. Mead explains, is not intended primarily for the student, but for the general reader, and it certainly should not be neglected by anyone who is interested in the history of early Christian thought.”—The Scotsman.
“The work is one of great labour and learning, and deserves study as a sympathetic estimate of a rather severely-judged class of heretics.”—Glasgow Herald.
“Written in a clear and elegant style. . . . . The bibliographies in the volume are of world-wide range, and will be most valuable to students of theosophy”—Asiatic Quarterly.
“Mr. Mead writes with precision and clearness on subjects usually associated with bewildering technicalities and mystifications. Even the long-suffering general reader could go through this large volume with pleasure. That is a great deal to say of a book on such a subject.”—Light.
“This striking work will certainly be read not only with the greatest interest in the select circle of the cultured, but by that much larger circle of those longing to learn all about Truth. . . . . May be summed up as an extraordinarily clear exposition of the Gnosis of the Saints and the Sages of philosophic Christianity.”—The Roman Herald.
“Mr. Mead does us another piece of service by including a complete copy of the Gnostic Hymn of the Robe of Glory . . . . and a handy epitome of the Pistis Sophia is another item for which the student will be grateful.”—The Literary Guide.
“The author has naturally the interest of a theosophist in Gnosticism, and approaches the subject accordingly from a point of view different from our own. But while his point of view emerges in the course of the volume, this does not affect the value of his work for those who do not share his special standpoint. . . . . Mr. Mead has at any rate rendered us an excellent service, and we shall look forward with pleasure to his future studies.”—The Primitive Methodist Quarterly.
“The writing of the present work has been a congenial task to Mr. Mead, and he has brought to bear, lovingly and zealously, upon the portraiture of the figure of Christ and of early Christianity all the knowledge which a deep study of Oriental religions from their emotional side could furnish. The book is published by the Theosophical Publishing Society, and bears, of course, the marks of its associations; but it may be stated at the outset that there is very little of what is commonly regarded as the Theosophic method apparent in the work, which is the product of a scholarly though, withal, very devotional spirit. . . . . In his endeavour to realise the object which he has set himself, Mr. Mead has traversed a wide field. . . . . In fine, we have in his volume a bird's-eye view of the whole field
of early Gnosticism written for the general reader in a style and method requiring no knowledge of the ancient tongues.”—The Monist.
“We are glad to see that the Theosophists. . . . . are settling down to the study of religion. . . . . Though we do not appreciate their fundamental philosophy, so far as we understand it, we think they may do good work if they produce books like this of Mr. Mead—comprehensive, interesting, and scholarly though evidently biassed. . . . . Readers not familiar with the learned German works on Gnosticism will find here an account of its varying phases and of the influences which helped to produce it. The chapters entitled Some Rough Outlines of the Background of the Gnosis are well written, and they tend to focus the philosophic and religious movement of the ancient world. . . . . There is a very excellent bibliography.”—The Spectator.
“Mr. Mead, whose translation of the Pistis Sophia was a welcome boon, gives us here some short sketches among the Gnostics, mainly of the first two centuries. Most readers, unless they are Theosophists, will think them too long, and Mr. Mead's enthusiasm for the Forgotten Faith of Gnosticism will remind them of the proverb: The cow in the meadow, knee deep in clover, often looks over the hedge and longs for the common. . . . . Justice was not done to the Gnostics by their opponents, and we cannot wonder. Moderns, like Harnack, however, have tried to make amends, and Mr. Mead has done his best. We commend this book to all who are tired of Christianity, and who want something deeper than the Lords Prayer, more sublime than Pauls hymn to Love, and more practical than the Sermon on the Mount.”—The Christian World.
“Mr. Mead is a sympathetic student, and regards the theosophists, of whom he is one, as the inheritors, more or less, of the Knowledge of the early Gnostics, who, while anathematised as heretics, powerfully influenced the thought of the Christian Church in its earlier centuries. Mr. Mead is as far removed from the received orthodoxy as the men whose speculations he discusses.”—The Manchester Guardian.
“Lopera, cui lautore dà modestamenti il nome di Brevi studi, è invero il frutto di dotte e pazientissime ricerche, di vasta e profunda erudizione; è dinteresse grande per il soggetto che tratta ed è accessibile anche a chi non sia uno studioso di religione comparata od un teologo, per la maniera abile e piacevole con cui il sogetto è trattato. Lautore stesso spiega perchè volle cosi lopera sua con queste parole: poichè io stimo tal sogetto di profundo interesse umano e non di mera importanza accademica. Il libro, che vide la luce proprio all alba del nuovo secolo, risponde ad un bisogno del memento o, meglio, risponde ad un bisogno che sempre si è fatto e si farà sentire, ma che mai forse come nell epocha presente ebbe fra noi tanta intensita.”—La Nuova Parola.
FRAGMENTE EINES VERSCHOLLENEN GLAUBENS. Ins Deutsche übersetzt von A. von Ulrich. Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn.
This is the First Attempt that has been made to bring together All the Existing Sources of Information on the Earliest Christian Philosophers.
A critical Study of the only existing Record of his Life, with some Account of the War of Opinion concerning him, and an Introduction on the Religious Associations and Brotherhoods of the Times and the possible Influence of Indian Thought on Greece.
i. Introductory. ii. The Religious Associations and Communities of the First Century. iii. India and Greece. iv. The Apollonius of Early Opinion. v. Texts, Translations and Literature. vi. The Biographer of Apollonius. vii. Early Life. viii. The Travels of Apollonius. ix. The Shrines of the Temples and the Retreats of Religion. x. The Gymnosophists of Upper Egypt. xi. Apollonius and the Rulers of the Empire. xii. Apollonius the Prophet and Wonder-Worker. xiii. His Mode of Life. xiv. Himself and his Circle. xv. From his Sayings and Sermons. xvi. From his Letters. xvii. The Writings of Apollonius. xviii. Bibliographical Notes.
160 pp. large 8vo. Cloth. 3s 6d. net.
“Mr. Mead is already favourably known to scholars as a well-informed writer on the origins of religion. His particular province of study is that which passes by the name of occult—a word that may be little more than a euphemism for our ignorance. . . . Mr. Meads work is careful, scholarly, and critical, yet deeply sympathetic with those spiritual ideals of life which are far greater than all the creeds. . . . . Will be found very useful to English readers.”—Bradford Observer.
“With much that Mr. Mead says about Apollonius we are entirely disposed to agree.”—Spectator.
“Mr. Meads sympathetic monograph is based upon a careful study of the literature of the subject. . . . . Writes with moderation, and has rendered good service by examining Apollonius from a fresh point of view.”—Manchester Guardian.
“We give a specially cordial welcome to Mr. G. R. S. Meads Apollonius of Tyana. . . . . It is a book which all well-instructed spiritualists will be able to appreciate and understand.”—Light.
“A charming and enlightening little work, full of knowledge, bright with sympathy, and masterly in style.”—The Coming Day.
“It is not only interesting, it is fair, and to a great degree scholarly, although it is slight and popular in conception. The spirit and tone are admirable. Mr. Mead neither flouts what he thinks mistaken nor states uncritically what he believes. . . . . He uses his authorities with care and judgment, and gives exact references. Some good suggestions are made in the book.”—Literature.
“Through this jungle of fable, controversy, and misunderstanding, Mr. Mead has heroically set himself to cut his way to the man as he was. Practically he regards him as a theosophist of the first century, who had been initiated into the loftier orders and commissioned to regenerate the cults at many of the larger sanctuaries. The author has studied the original authorities carefully, and also the work of his predecessors. It is, of course, impossible to say whether his attempt to get back to the real Apollonius has been successful. In most respects his account is plausible, and quite possibly may represent the facts. . . . . At any rate, impartial students will be grateful for his sympathetic vindication of Apollonius from the too frequent charge that he was nothing better than a charlatan. He thinks that Apollonius must surely have visited some of the Christian societies, and have met with Paul, if not earlier, at least at Rome in 66. It seems to us very problematical that he should have taken any interest in the Christians, though the probability would be much enhanced if Mr. Meads view of primitive Christianity could be substantiated.”—The Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review.
“Students of the religious history of the earlier centuries of the Christian era are already indebted to Mr. Mead for his elucidations of more than one obscure document of that remote age. His account of Apollonius of Tyana will be all the more welcome because, treating its subject without theological or denominational prepossessions, it reveals the ancient philosopher in a new light, which may very well be also a true one. . . . . Mr. Mead gives a readable and well-studied account of him, reviewing what little remains known of his life, and inquiring, without controversy, what must have been the character of one who had so real an influence on the religious life of his time. . . . . The book is rich in suggestions of the actualities of the religious life of the ancient world when Christianity was still in its infancy. It is well worthy of the attention of all who are interested in the subject.”—The Scotsman.
“This little book is an attempt to tell us all that is definitely known of one of the most extraordinary figures in history. . . . It is done in the main with absolute impartiality, and with considerable learning. It is not a satisfactory book, but it is useful and interesting, and, in default of anything better, it may be recommended.”—Saturday Review.
“The task Mr. Mead has set himself is to recover from Philostratus highly romantic narrative the few facts which can be really known, and to present to the public a plain and simple story which shall accord with the plain and simple life of the humble Tyanean; and he has achieved no little success. His book is thoroughly readable, the manner of writing most attractive, and his enthusiasm evidently sincere. . . . . Mr. Meads last work is a thoroughly scholarly one, and he has contributed a very valuable page to philosophical history.”—Chatham and Rochester Observer.
“Mr. Meads works are always worth reading. They are characterised by clearness, sanity, and moderation; they are scholarly, and are always conceived in a profoundly religious spirit. The bibliographies are excellent. With Mr. Meads workmanship we have only one fault to find. In order to give elevation to the utterances of his hero, he not only affects poetical expressions—which is permissible—and poetical inversions of speech—which are not permissible—but he indulges in a whole page of irregular blank verse. Mr. Mead is master of an excellent prose style, and Pegasus is a sorry hack when Pegasus goes lame.”—Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
“This well-written volume affords a critical study of the only existing record of the life of Apollonius of Tyana. . . . . His principles, his mode of teaching, his travels in the east and in the south and west, his mode of life, his sayings, letters, and writings and bibliographical notes, are all set forth in a clear and interesting style.”—Asiatic Quarterly Review.
“Verfasser will auf Grund der philostratischen Biographie ein Bild vom Leben und Wirken des Apollonius geben. Es fehlt ihm dazu nich an besonnenen Urteil, eben so wenig an der nötigen Belesenheit in der einschlägigen Litteratur. . . . . Verf. hält sich auch, obwohl offenbar selbst Theologe, frei von der theologischen Voreingenommenheit, die bei der Beurteilung des Apollonius so früh und so lange Unheil gestiftet hat.”—Wochenschrift fur klassische Philologie.
Ὁ κ. Mead γράφει λίαν γλαφυρῶς, πραγματεύεται δὲ τὸ θέμα του κριτικώτατα καὶ μετὰ μεγάλης νουνεχείας καὶ δίδει ἡμῖν οὕτω τὴν ἀξιοπιστοτέραν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἀνδρὸς.—Erevna.
Preamble—A Glimpse at the History of the Evolution of Biblical Criticism—The “Word of God” and the “Lower Criticism”—The Nature of the Tradition of the Gospel Autographs—Autobiographical Traces in the Existing Documents—An Examination of the Earliest Outer Evidence—The Present Position of the Synoptical Problem—The Credibility of the Synoptists—The Johannine Problem—Summary of the Evidence from all Sources—The Life-side of Christianity—The Gospel of the Living Christ.
200 pp. Large octavo. Cloth, 4s. 6d. net.
“A clear, intelligent, and interesting account of the history of the development of Biblical criticism . . . . a thoughtful and learned, yet readable book, which well deserves the attention of readers interested in its subject.”—The Scotsman.
“Mr. Mead begins with a sketch of the recent progress of Biblical criticism. The tone is not altogether what one would wish—the Conservatives were, after all, fighting for what they held to be very precious—but it is substantially true.”—Spectator.
“Mr. Mead describes his book as a study in the most recent results of the higher and the lower criticism. The description is incomplete rather than inadequate, for the study is made from a neo-Gnostic point of view, and under neo-Gnostic prepossessions. . . . Mr. Mead has shown, in previous volumes, how the fascinating glamour of their writings has attracted him, and, though they are mainly represented by imperfect but suggestive fragments, he has done his best to reconstruct them and to revive, where possible, their lingering vitality. His work, on these lines, has met with due appreciation. . . . . He regards Gnosticism as a suppressed religion which may yet result in an all-embracing creed, which will combine and focus the scattered rays now dispersed abroad among divergent faiths.”—Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
“In his modest preamble the author describes himself as neither scientist nor theologian, but as a friendly spectator, who, as a devoted lover of both science and religion, has no partisan interest to serve, and, as a believer in the blessings of that true tolerance which permits perfect liberty in all matters of opinion and belief, has no desire to dictate to others what their decision should be on any one of the many controversial points touched upon. Further on he strongly advises the disturbed reader, who fears to plunge deeper into the free waters of criticism, to leave the matter alone, and content himself with the creeds and cults of the churches. We, therefore, cannot complain if in the sequel he puts forth conclusions widely different from those generally held, even in this advanced age, by the average thoughtful student. He claims to treat the subject without fear or favour, and, while disclaiming the ultra-rationalism of the extreme school of criticism, he nevertheless feels himself compelled largely to accept the proofs brought forward of the unhistorical nature of much in the Gospel narratives, and also the main positions in all subjects of Gospel criticism which do not involve a mystical or practical religious element. As a theosophist, he seems to have a peculiar affection, on mystical grounds, for the fourth Gospel, which, however, he sees fit to class with Hermes Trismegistus. It would be far too elaborate a task to attempt to deal with the details of his argument here. Its results claim to be based on Nestles deservedly popular work. Anyone who wishes to see Nestle theosophically interpreted may well read Mr. Meads lucid and interesting pages for himself. . . . . There are many other points we should criticise if we had space. But there are many points, on the other hand, which call for hearty commendation; not least, Mr. Meads crusade against book-worship.”—The Guardian.
“This work consists of various chapters which have appeared from time to time in a Review devoted to the study of religion from an entirely independent point of view, and perused by a class of readers belonging to many Churches of Christendom, to schools or sects of Brahmanism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Zoroastrianism, and others who follow no religion. The author considers that the controversies which have been waged under the term of the Higher Criticism have almost exclusively been that of progressive knowledge of physical facts (natural, historical, and literary) and the conservatism of theological traditional views, and never, at any time, between Science and Religion in their true meaning.”—Asiatic Quarterly Review.
“While Mr. Mead is thus in general agreement with the extreme left wing in criticism, he is very far from adopting their rationalistic point of view. . . . . As to dates, the author assigns all the Gospels to the reign of Hadrian. The phenomena of the Synoptic
[paragraph continues] Gospels, he thinks, point to concerted effort, and he believes that they were written in Egypt. It is not surprising that he lays much stress on Gnosticism, but he has no wish to revive it. He rather pleads that we should study it with a view to recovering precious truths that have been lost. The book is written in a pleasant style, and we have read it with interest, but we cannot regard it as Mr. Meads most successful effort.”—The Primitive Methodist Quarterly.
“This anlysis of the Gospels, however, is preliminary to a vindication of that eternal Gospel which lies beneath all such literature. Mr. Mead contends that this Gospel may be discovered in Gnostic writings which were condemned by the early Christian Church as heresies. He admits freely that the forms of the ancient Gnosis cannot now be revived, but he finds in the popular Evangelical doctrine of the living Christ an adumbration of the ancient wisdom of the condemned Gnostics. But the Christ of Mr. Meads teaching is one of a sacred brotherhood, including Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, and other great enlighteners of the race. These are all living spiritual energies, inspiring and guiding mankind in its toilsome quest for truth and righteousness. Readers will find in Mr. Meads thoughtful and scholarly pages much that will help in that rational and spiritual reconstruction which is the great religious task of the hour.”—Yorkshire Daily Observer.
“Ὁ ἐμβριθὴς ἐρευνητὴς τῶν ἀρχῶν τοῦ χριστιανισμοῦ κ. G. R. S. Mead ἐδημοσίευσεν ἄρτι μελέτην περὶ τῆς χριστιανικῆς φιλοσοφίας ἐξόχως διδακτικήν. . . . Ὁ κ. Mead εἶνε εἷς τῶν κορυφαίων σκαπανέων τῆς ἐρευνητικῆς ταύτης ἰργασίας καὶ πᾶν ὅ, τι γράφει κρίνω ἰδιαζούσης προσοχῆς ἄξιον. . . . Ἐμπνεόμενος ὑπὸ τῇς ὑγιοῦς ταύτης ἀρχῆς ὁ κ. Mead συνετέλεσεν ἐσχάτως θαυμάσιον ἔργον.”—Erevna.
An Enquiry into the Talmud Jesus Stories, the Toldoth Jeschu, and some Curious Statements of Epiphanius—Being a Contribution to the Study of Christian Origins.
440, xvi. pp. Large octavo. Cloth, 9s. net.
“A close and learned investigation. . . . . Mr. Mead is a theosophical scholar whose previous works dealing with Gnosticism and Gospel criticism are of some value not only to theosophists, but to theologians.”—The Times.
“On the examination of these little known tales Mr. Mead expends an amount of patience, labour, and learning which the ordinary man . . . . would deem ridiculous. Happily, however, the world is not yet peopled exclusively with fat, plump, commonplace people, and those who follow Mr. Mead can be sure of reward in matter which will set them thinking. . . . These researches are contributions to the study of the origins of Christianity, and their uniqueness lies in the fact that very few writers ever enter the fields where Mr. Mead works with such praiseworthy diligence. The ordinary reader trusts too implicitly, in these matters, to his Geikie and his Farrar, and even the student who has the dash of the heretic in him is too easily contented with his Renan. For both these classes of readers Mr. Meads chapters will open up new fields of thought. The reader will find himself in the midst of those fierce fanaticisms, and weird, occult theosophies which were part of the atmosphere in which infant Christianity grew. Without an adequate acquaintance with these, Christian origins cannot be understood. This knowledge Mr. Meads readers will obtain if they follow him closely, and their view of the beginnings of Christianity will be correspondingly full and true.”—The Yorkshire Daily Observer.
“Mr. Meads previous wanderings in historic by-ways have resulted in much curious lore associated with Gnosticism and the Neo-Platonists, and he seems to have been attracted to this adjacent field as one likely to contain hidden treasure. . . . . For those who desire an introduction to this branch of literature, Mr. Mead has made it easily accessible.”—The Sheffield Daily Telegraph.
“Written by a professed theosophist, this work is yet entirely free from the taint of dogmatism of any kind. It is indeed a valuable contribution to the literature on the subject, which is as abundant as it is chaotic. The author has collected and reviewed this mass, and has summarised and criticised it until he has shaped it into something of a coherent whole. The Rabbinical and other Hebrew legendary and historical matter dealing with the reputed origin and life of the Messiah is carefully sifted, and the subject is approached with befitting reverence. . . . . That the book is most valuable from a suggestive point of view cannot be denied. It merits the attention of all interested in Christian criticism.”—The Scotsman.
“This book, with its remarkable title, deals in a very critical spirit with the origins of Christianity. . . . Although critical in the highest degree, the author does not dogmatise, and preserves a philosophical calm thought.”—The Chatham and Rochester Observer.
“The author of this learned work is not propounding a mere theological riddle, nor can he be said to be coming forward wantonly merely to increase the number of puzzles that confront the student of Christian origins. . . . . The author has been a very diligent student of the Talmud, and perhaps his lengthened account of that extraordinary body of traditions is one of the best in our language. . . . . The argument throughout is marked by great erudition and remarkable modesty.”—The Glasgow Herald.
“The question is not a fools question. It is serious, and Mr. Mead takes it seriously.”—The Expository Times.
“Mr. Mead has done much first-rate work, on untraditional lines, in early Church history, and has propounded theorems of which a good deal more will be heard. He always writes as a scholar, with complete avoidance of infelicities of theological utterance such as too often have handicapped suggestive heterodoxies.”—The Literary World.
“The materials for the further pursuit of the inquiry are all brought together in this volume, and the author is at very evident pains to hold the balance carefully as between the different authorities whom he quotes. He has read everything of any importance that has been published relating to the subject of which he treats. He is evidently a very widely read man, and is possessed of much critical acumen, as also of all the best qualifications of historical inquiry and original research. The work will, we doubt not, be largely read by Christian theologians.”—The Asiatic Quarterly Review.
“This is the fifth book by Mr. Mead that we have had the pleasure of bringing before our readers. In our notices of his earlier volumes we have been glad to recognise, whether we agreed with him or not, the learning, the earnestness, the scientific method, and the deep religious spirit by which they have been animated. The title of the present volume will, we anticipate, cause many readers to regard it as a piece of cranky speculation. . . . It is not, however, a work to be dismissed with a mere shrug of the shoulders. . . . Mr. Mead has brought out not simply an interesting but a valuable work, even apart from the special thesis which he investigates.”—The Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review.
“I would direct the attention of educated scholarly men to a very remarkable book . . . . written by G. R. S. Mead. . . . . I invite our educated and serious-minded Protestant clergymen everywhere to read this book and tell me, privately, what they think about it.”—Standish O Grady, in The All Ireland Review.
“A much more remarkable collection of apocrypha is the subject of a curious book by Mr. Mead, known to the small public who are interested in such things as learned in the fantasies of Gnosticism. . . . . We have not often read a learned book from which we dissent so widely with more genuine interest, and we are bound to recognise the dignified and scholarly fashion in which Mr. Mead puts forward his theses, strange and Impossible as some of them seem to us to be.—The Pilot.
(With Extracts from the Books of the Saviour appended.) Originally translated from Greek into Coptic, and now for the first time Englished from Schwartzes Latin Version of the only known Coptic MS., and checked by Amélineaus French version. With an Introduction and Bibliography. 394, xliv. pp. large octavo. Cloth. 7s. 6d. net.
(Out of Print. A Revised Edition is contemplated.)
“The Pistis Sophia has long been recognised as one of the most important Gnostic documents we possess, and Mr. Mead deserves the gratitude of students of Church History and of the History of Christian Thought, for his admirable translation and edition of this curious Gospel.”—Glasgow Herald.
“Mr. Mead has done a service to other than Theosophists by his translation of the, Pistis Sophia. This curious work has not till lately received the attention which it deserves. . . . . He has prefixed a short Introduction, which includes an excellent bibliography. Thus, the English reader is now in a position to judge for himself of the scientific value of the only Gnostic treatise of any considerable length which has come down to us.”—Guardian.
“From a scholars point of view the work is of value as illustrating the philosophico-mystical tendencies of the second century.”—Record.
“Mr. Mead deserves thanks for putting in an English dress this curious document from the early ages of Christian philosophy.”—Manchester Guardian.
With Bibliography. Octavo. Cloth, 1s. net.
Half Octavo. Cloth, 1s. 6d. each net.
Contains a Translation of the Īsha, Kena, Kaṭha, Prashna, Muṇḍaka, and Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣhads, with a General Preamble, Arguments, and Notes by G. R. S. Mead and J. C. Chaṭṭopādhyāya (Roy Choudhuri).
Contains a Translation of the Taittirīya, Aitareya, and Shvetāshvatara Upaniṣhads, with Arguments and Notes.
Traduction française, de E. Marcault. Paris: Librairie de lArt Independant, 10 rue Saint-Lazare.
Quarto. Wrappers, 5s. net. (Out of print.)
Contents: The World-Soul; The Vestures of the Soul; The Web of Destiny; True Self-reliance. Octavo. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net. (Out of print.)
With three Charts and Bibliography. Will serve as an Introduction to Hellenic Theology. Octavo. Cloth, 4s. 6d. net. (Out of print. )
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A clear, colorless, unaged liquor, the name of which comes from the Russian zhiznennaia voda, "water of life." Vodkas can be made from everything from potatoes to beets, although those made from grain (primarily barley and wheat, sometimes rye or corn) are considered the best. Vodka's purity is the result of distillation at high proof levels, then filtration through activated charcoal to remove most remaining impurities that would contribute distinctive characteristics. Some vodkas are triple-filtered for ultimate purity. Even so, vodka connoisseurs note distinct flavor differences when vodkas are tasted at room temperature sans mixers. In general, however, vodka served straight should be served icy cold. Flavored vodkas, long common in Russia and Poland, may be flavored with anything from fruits to hot peppers. Some flavored vodkas are sweetened slightly.
From The Food Lover's Companion, Fourth edition by Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst. Copyright © 2007, 2001, 1995, 1990 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
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There have been a few announcements recently that have included security enhancements.. The typical security for...
the storage devices is addressing controlling access to the device. In reality, there are multiple elements to security for storage that need to be considered:
1. Access to the device -- to make sure unauthorized or inadvertent access to data can't occur2. Access to the data in transit -- data in transit is moving across a network or interface that can't be captured or modified 3. Data protection through encryption -- even if the data is accessed only with the proper keys can it be meaningfully used 4. Management access to a device -- access to tools, protecting configuration, and other access controls
Storage systems usually have some type of control of access to devices that is done by LUN management. The LUN management includes functions such as LUN masking where only a specific host interface (World Wide Name of an HBA in a server for example) can access particular devices through a specific port on the storage system and an allegiance of a LUN to a server. Storage devices don't usually address data in transit protection or encryption of the data at rest. Management controls security and is usually implemented on most storage systems.Switches and directors have additional protection capabilities added to them. The Brocade Secure Fabric OS, for example, has features to provide for "trusted switches" to be able to allow for management between switches, binding of HBA ports to switch ports to prevent spoofing, digital certificate exchange using keys for switch linkage and restricted management access among other standard security features. Encrypting data is a very complex operational consideration. Who manages the keys, how they are exchanged and the degree of standardization between the different solutions can have a major impact on how business is done and how much administrative overhead is required. Doing encryption in a storage system has not been seen to be the best solution up to this point. There are some start-up companies working toward encrypting devices (or appliances). Taking a step back and looking at the data access problem, it would seem that the best place would be at the application level which would solve both the data in transit and data at rest problems. Since the application created it and is the access point for the data, it might be the best place to perform the encryption as well as the authentication and authorization for access.
All of the security announcements show improvements in control of access to storage devices. None really address data in transit. The problem is, security is not just a single solution and not a totally technology-based solution. It has to be a layered set of protections that are part of an overall storage strategy. Security is strategic and needs to be planned and administered with people who have the responsibility and the resources. Only a comprehensive solution will work. The features on the products will be a part of that solution but only a part. Without a comprehensive plan, they can't be effectively utilized.
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Battle of Athens State Historic Site [MO]
Battle of Athens State Historic Site interprets the northernmost Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River. Some of the land and buildings included in the site were part of the once-thriving town of Athens. Located on the Des Moines River, 19th-century Athens boasted about 50 businesses before the Civil War, including a large mill that produced flour, cornmeal, lumber, cotton, and woolen goods. A large brick hotel, the St. Louis Hotel, was one of many other buildings on the Athens waterfront. Today, only a few structures remain. The historic site administers the remaining buildings in the town of Athens, including the Thome-Benning House, which was pierced by a cannonball during the battle. Exhibits and tours interpret the battle and the history of the town.
The site offers exhibits, tours, occasional living history events, and occasional educational and recreational events.
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A spot in Scotland has picked up an international award, confirming it as one of the best places for stargazing in the world. But what is the importance of being able to see the stars?
The harsh orange glow of sodium street lights and blinking of lights on 747s are about the only sights in the night-time sky for the average town-dweller in Britain.
The urban spread is such these days that even in the countryside, the dark delights of shooting stars and sprawling galaxies are muted by light pollution from towns and cities.
But those deprived of real darkness now have at least one destination in the UK to head for - Galloway Forest Park. The 300sq mile Forestry Commission site has been commended for its dark skies and named one of the best places in the world for stargazing.
Some may question why anyone would want to plunge themselves into a black abyss, with only the speckled flecks of brightness from thousands of light years away to feast their eyes on. But for others, a glimpse of what dwells in pitch-black sky goes some way to unlocking the mysteries of life itself.
In short, gazing upwards can prompt some profound inward gazing too.
"I saw dark skies and was totally hooked at a very young age," says Steve Owens, who is UK coordinator for the Unesco International Year of Astronomy.
"It's something quite primitive in human nature. Humans are inquisitive creatures, they like to ask questions and it makes you think about your place in the universe," says Mr Owens, speaking from Galloway Forest Park.
"It can seem like problems on Earth are big, but when you come here, you realise your place in the world is quite small. It does provoke deeper thoughts, it inspires people to be more introspective."
It is estimated about 7,000 stars can be spotted from the Galloway park, compared with a paltry few hundred, at most, in Britain's towns and cities.
Light pollution - less of a problem in the old days
From the prime location of the park, the Milky Way and the nearest galaxy to our own, Andromeda, can be glimpsed with the naked eye. It also provides ring-side seats for spectacular meteor showers.
This sky there is "as dark as anything you will ever see" says Mr Owens.
"Even if you drive half-an-hour outside a city you can't see as much. When you bring someone to see a sky as dark as this you get a real 'wow' moment. People get hooked on astronomy after just one experience out here.
"The only limit to what you can see is how good your eyes are. When you've been outside for half-an-hour and your eyes become used to the light, more and more will appear."
But the spread of artificial light - and the way it has eroded our sense of real darkness - means most people don't give a split second of thought to stars in the sky, says Mr Owens, "whereas it was a big part of people's lives just a couple of hundred years ago".
The issue of light pollution has become a rallying cause for environmentalists in recent years, with the British Astronomical Society running a Campaign for Dark Skies. But in just seven years between 1993 and 2000, light pollution in England increased by 24% while the amount of "truly dark night sky" fell from 15% to 11%, according to the Council for the Protection of Rural England.
But it's not just a pretty view of the night sky that light pollution is interfering with. Some scientists think the 24/7 glow that many of us live with gives rise to health and environmental problems.
Unceasing light is thought to disrupt the body's natural internal clock, its circadian rhythms of sleep and wakefulness.
"Research seems to suggest this has a detrimental affect," Mr Owen says.
And it's not just humans who are experiencing the side effects. From turtles and terrapins in the Caribbean, whose breeding patterns have been shown to be disrupted, to nocturnal creatures such as bats, light can affect where the insects they feed upon gather. It can also make it easier for predators to prey upon them.
"We're only beginning to understand the impact this can have on animals."
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Roots Of Shotokan:
Funakoshi's Original 15 Kata
Part 1- Classification & Knowledge Of Kata
by Joe Swift
Editor's Note: The first of this three part
series that examines the roots of Shotokan karate through Gichin Funakoshi's
15 original kata. The first article discusses the controversy over Funakoshi's
classification of Shorin and Shorei by body type, as well as his knowledge
of kata. The last two articles focus on in-depth discussions of the
meaning and origin of Funakoshi core kata.
Gichin Funakoshi is probably the best known karate master of the early
20th century and is known by many as the "Father Of Japanese Karate."
It was Funakoshi who was first selected to demonstrate his Okinawan
art on mainland Japan. In Japan Funakoshi helped build the popularity
of his fledgling art and helped it gain acceptance by the all important
Japanese organization founded (and sanctioned by the government) to
preserve and promote the martial arts and ways in Japan (the Dai Nippon
Butokukai). An author of several pioneering books on karate, he was
the founder Shotokan karate from which many other styles derived.
When Funakoshi arrived in Japan in 1922, he originally taught a total
of fifteen kata, although it has been speculated that he probably knew
many more. The purpose of this article will be to introduce some of
the theories on the possible origins of these kata, provide some historical
testimony on them, and try and improve the overall understanding of
the roots of Shotokan.
Funakoshi's Kata Classification System
Funakoshi, following a traditional model of classifying karate by divided
it into two separate traditions, Shorei and Shorin.
This classification derives from early karate masters which were not
associated with their own ryu or martial traditions, but with the towns
within which they lived and practiced: Shuri, the capital and political
center; Naha, a nearby seaport and trade center, and Tomari a smaller
sea port. The early karate practiced in Shuri and to a lesser extent
Tomari combined to be known as Shorin-ryu and is associated with the
descendants and/or styles of such karate luminaries as Soken Matsumura
(Shuri), Kosaku Matsumura (Tomari) and followed by Anko Itosu and Chosin
Chibana. The karate of Naha became known as Shorei-ryu and is associated
with such karate styles of Goju-ryu and Uechi-Ryu.
It was the Shorei and Shorin classification of styles (ryu) that Funakoshi
followed. He characterized them as follows. Funakoshi said that "Shorei-ryu
is suitable for people of large build, whereas Shorin-ryu is suitable
for those of smaller frames, less physically powerful or thin, like
a willow. For basic posture, Shorei- ryu is good, but it lacks the speed
necessary for a real confrontation. Shorin-ryu is quick, but if the
practitioner is grabbed, they will be unable to move. Therefore, for
those who aspire to practice karate, it is important to pick up the
good points of each." (Funakoshi 1922, pp. 5-6)
This specific classification, i.e. dividing Shorin-ryu and Shorei-ryu
by the body types of the practitioners, can be traced as far back as
1914, when Funakoshi penned an article on karate for the Ryukyu Shinpo
newspaper, based on the lectures of his main teacher Anko Asato, and
writing under his pen name Shoto. While it is true that Funakoshi's
other main teacher Anko Itosu, had also stated that there were two "styles"
of karate, Shorin-ryu and Shorei-ryu, in his 1908 letter addressed to
the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of War, he never characterized
them as relating to body types. The famous Okinawan Bubishi also mentions
Shorinji-ryu and Shoreiji-ryu (see, for example, Mabuni, 1934), but
again, does not state the differences between the two.
other prominent teachers of the day also took exception to Funakoshi's
classification. In 1930, Chojun Miyagi was quoted as saying that the
breakdown of Shorin-ryu and Shorei-ryu into kata for differing body
types, as Funakoshi did, was unfounded (Miki, et al, 1930). Miyagi also
went on to say basically the same thing in his 1934 essay Karatedo Gaisetsu
(McCarthy, 1999). At the 1936 "meeting of the masters," he
said that the only real difference between Shorin-ryu and Shorei-ryu
lay in their teaching methods (ibid.).
Mabuni Kenwa and his co-author Nakasone Genwa, in their 1938 publication
"Kobo Kenpo Karatedo Nyumon," also disagreed with Funakoshi's
The main thrust of the Mabuni/Nakasone argument is that if this is
indeed a valid classification system, then why did Funakoshi change
the classifications of certain kata, namely Wanshu (Shorei-ryu to Shorin-ryu),
Chinto (Shorei-ryu to Shorin-ryu) and Jitte (Shorei-ryu to Shorin-ryu,
than back to Shorei-ryu)?
They also argue that following Funakoshi's classification method, Chojun
Miyagi's (founder of Goju karate) brainchild Tensho would clearly belong
to the Shorei-ryu. However, as Mabuni (founder of Shito-Ryu karate)
and Nakasone (a famous Tomari/Matsumura karate-ka) state, Tensho was
based on the chapter entitled Rokkishu (showing six open hand positions
with some description of their application) in the Bubishi (a once secret
text on White Crane and Monk Fist kung fu hand copied and passed among
many early Oknawan karate masters), and it is clearly stated within
that Rokkishu belongs to the Shorin(ji)ryu (Mabuni et al, 1938).
Funakoshi's Kata Knowledge
The fifteen kata in Funakoshi's syllabus included:
However, his early books indicate that he may have had at least a passing
familiarity with several others. In his 1922 "Ryukyu Kenpo Karate,"
Funakoshi also lists an additional 16 kata (Funakoshi, 1922) including:
an additional Passai kata (listing both Dai & Sho) and Kushanku
kata (listing both Dai & Sho), Gojushiho, Chinte, Jiin, Wandau,
Rohai, Jumu, Wando, Sochin, Niseishi, Sanseiru, Suparinpei, Wankan,
Kokan, and Ushu.
It is also no less interesting that in his 1925 "Rentan Goshin
Karate Jutsu," he lists the same kata, with the addition of Sanchin
So, we can see that Funakoshi had at least a passing familiarity with
many kata outside of his own curriculum of fifteen. This is only natural
as Funakoshi himself tells us that he had received brief instruction
from many prominent masters of that era, including Sokon "Bushi"
Matsumura, Peichin Kiyuna, Seisho Aragaki and Kanryo Higashionna (Funakoshi,
1956). Some sources even point to the famous Taite (Kojo) Kogusuku as
being Funakoshi's first instructor (Fujiwara, 1990; Iwai, 2000).
Although he does not quote his source, noted Japanese martial arts
historian Ryozo Fujiwara states that Funakoshi first learned Pechurin
kata under Taite Kogusuku, Kushanku under Anko Asato and Naifuanchi
under Anko Itosu (Fujiwara, 1990).
two articles in this series will discuss each of these
kata in depth, including discussion or their possible origin and meaning.
About The Author:
Joe Swift, native of New York State (USA), has lived in Japan since
1994. He works as a translator/interpreter, and previously served
as an assistant instructor at the Mushinkan Okinawa Karate Kobudo
Dojo in Kanazawa. Swift now resides in Tokyo and will be opening a
a branch of the Mushinkan Dojo (Okinawa Shoreiryu) in that city. A
well know karate historian and researcher, Swift has published articles
in the Dragon Times and other leading martial arts journals and on
a variety of martial arts sites around the world. He is a Contributing
Editor for FightingArts.com.
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Harmonizing can be an extremely challenging thing to do well. You need to take key, number of parts, pitch and piece into account. But this article is designed to give you a good starting point.
1Know what harmony is. Harmony - Noun: the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce a pleasing effect. The term harmony is used to refer to notes that, basically, sound good together! The melody consists of the essential notes that form the basic structure of any tune. Harmony requires at least 2 tones or voices and can be done with any number of additional tones or voices. Most harmony is written for 3 to 6 voice parts. Some arrangements go to as many as 8 or more parts, but these are uncommon.
- A good step to harmonizing is to fully know the melody, and then sing to it in a slightly lower pitch not an octave low. If you have another person with you, it also helps to sing with a piano first, and then move on to singing and harmonizing more independently.
- Once you have some sense of the basic 1,3,5 major chord -- or 1,3,5,7 major 7th chord -- you can harmonize by singing any of the notes. The 1 is the soprano or lead (Lead is singing soprano an octave low for a male or female with a lower alto voice.). The more people you have the more of the notes you can sing. Once you have a sense of the basics of harmony in some key, you can experiment with other notes in other, such chords.
2Form a chord with the melody. A chord is when 3 or more notes are played or sung at once (in tones, or voices). These notes are often referred to as triads with 3 tones (1,3,5 intervals) the most basic chord for harmonizing, the 1,3,5 chord.
3Try the most basic chords (1-3-5) like "C-E-G." The 1 represents the 'root' note, then skip one up to note 3 that represents the 3rd (the note 2 places up from the first one). Then skip from the 3rd to place 5 which represents the 5th (or the note 4 places up from the root and 2 places up from the 3rd). You can also have 1-3-5-7 by adding the 7th and/or the 1st (root) note up or down the octave.
4Practice singing harmony, by trying harmony with a keyboard or a piano. When you play a piano, a good note to harmonize is: Assuming a C major scale, strike the C note and, then strike 2 together with your harmonizing note (two) which is found by skipping the next note, and singing the next one in the same direction, from the original note. But that's rather crude.
5Sing along with a recorded song the way you're supposed to. Slower songs like hymns are easier.
6Try to sing a little bit higher or lower in pitch. Try to sing along at this higher or lower pitch and have it sound good.
7Realize this might sound awful when you first try it. Just continually try to sing a little higher or lower than the original and have it sound good. If it sounds bad, then you're not harmonizing. If it sounds good, then you probably are.
8Harmonizing to a great degree is intuitive. You learn what sounds right and wrong, and that proves that you know the right/wrong notes. Just loosen up and try to sing at the slightly higher (or lower) pitch... If you play an instrument like a guitar or piano you can find the harmony by first playing the note you are singing then move that note up to the 3rd on the scale (in the key) of the song you are playing like C (C-E-G) or G (G-B-D); notice they skip a letter, but of course sharps and/or flats are found in many keys which is usually the black keys on a piano type of keyboard.
Can you harmonize without an instrument?wikiHow ContributorYes, you can. As long as the people you harmonise with have an idea as to which note to sing, it should be fine. The instrument is mainly there so that you don't mess up, when tuned it has perfect pitch and you can figure out from there, but it isn't a necessity.
How to harmonize within the chord (G), but the leading melody line has no G, but A?wikiHow ContributorThe G triad is G, D and B. A is the second of G, you should play G(9), but if you play this chord there would be two intervals of a second, which can be quite dissonant. It depends of the other notes of the melody line, but it is recommended that you play G(9).
If the song is on the E scale, then what should be the scales for harmony?wikiHow ContributorIf the song is in E major you can use C# minor scale, it depends on the chord that you are playing at the moment. If the compass's chord is D minor, you can use the E dorian, which is equal to D minor.
How will I know which part I'm singing?wikiHow ContributorTenor will usually be the lowest note, alto the middle note, and soprano the top note. You will likely be assigned a part before you start practicing or singing the song. If you are not assigned a part, then choose a part based on your vocal range: tenor, alto, or soprano.
How do I harmonize choral songs?wikiHow ContributorFor most choral songs, sheet music is normally included along with harmonies. If it dosen't, you would want to have a look at the key signature and use those notes in the scale to help find the harmonies, making sure that they fit in with the overall tone of the song.
- If you are harmonizing, don't overpower the singer doing the main melody, either by volume or power. Soften the notes, even for a rock song, even if the roles somehow got confused.
- Singing an entire octave above or below the note is not harmonizing; that is unison.
- You must practice to get this right. It may take a while, but you will get it with practice, and you will have a ton of fun!
- Don't over think this. Don't think of the exact notes that you are supposed to sing, if you are knowledgeable of scale theory. This is all by ear. Ear first, thoughts second.
- It will help if you or a friend can play notes on a piano. You can hear how different note combinations (chords) sound together. It's much easier to learn the basics of harmony by hearing the notes played on a piano and matching one of them. Then start to sing along to the piano, and then move on to singing harmony with another singer.
- A key point here is that harmonizing is intuitive. If you were to sing karaoke to a song, you might actually be singing at a slightly different pitch (in the same key) than the written vocal melody. You are in effect harmonizing to the original note without realizing it. Also, the phrasing of music, chord and/or lyric progression also dictates you may not stick maintain the gap between notes and 'phrases'. Sometimes, you may match the lead note to make transitions or to finish the verse or chorus.
- Try singing to a karaoke song at a slightly higher or lower pitch. Vocals in a song may confuse your attempt at harmonizing because you will want to make your pitch identical to the lead singing voice. But the leading voice can change, even for a duet, which is a great way to hear how harmonizing is done. Karaoke removes that distraction.
- Try to harmonize with every song in the car. Guys can match some of the range using falsetto (ie., their girly voice). But if you have a low range, don't force it and lower your voice. Imagine: Telling Johnny Cash to sing Christina Aguilera's 'Hurt' in full voice and not changing key is WAY too far-fetched.
- Besides the major chords, there are also minor chords, diminished and augmented chords, but that's not for introductions to music or harmony.
- Traditional two-part harmony is a third or fourth above and below the lead vocal melody. To those of you not familiar with that terminology, that means just a LITTLE bit higher than the original. Or as Julie Andrews taught us: If I am singing 'do', your harmonizing note is 'mi', or 'la' or 'so'.
- Match up the notes before trying to harmonize. For example, if you match up 'doh' and 'soh' it will sound nice. Find out what notes will sound nice with what notes, then find out what are the notes you have in your song and match them up!
- Have fun the pressures of performing are hard enough. If you are well practiced and have performed your notes well at practices you will do fine. If you find your self struggling with the same note you might need to make adjustments to your harmony or wait longer before a performance.
- Do not use the earphones, if it is a slightly damaged cable, because you may be able to manipulate it, but only that harmony and the back round music of the song will be listened to the plays.
- If you want to sing with your partner, just say "aah" either slightly higher or lower and then make someone sing in the middle of both pitches. Eventually they will balance each other out and will sound awesome!
- Be prepared to accept constructive criticism from your various 'singing instructors' without taking it personally. Anyone who genuinely wants to help you become a better singer is not interested in making fun of your abilities.
- Practice a lot before trying this in public.
- Not all songs harmonize easily or well. But you can still 'harmonize' by echoing or layering lyrics.
- Before you do any kind of singing, it's a must that you warm up your voice to avoid harming your vocal chords. Singing without having warmed up first can result in long-term damage that can cause you to lose your ability to sing altogether. The vocal chords are muscles, just like any other muscles in the body. So, like a jogger does some stretches before a run to prevent pain and damage, singers warm up their voices. There are thousands of vocal warmups and tips for how to properly warm up available online that can be easily accessed by doing a search.
- Record yourself and listen to the recordings often. You will be surprised at how you sound. Don't be discouraged. No one sounds the way we think we do. The sounds we hear in our head are much different to what other people hear. A recorder will help you adjust and learn to make your voice sound more pleasant.
- Be patient with yourself. Learning how to harmonize may be frustrating for you. But anyone can learn how to do it with patience and perseverance!
- Don't cross over. It is a general musical rule that if you are lower than your partner, to never go higher than his/her notes. It becomes even more strictly reinforced the more people are involved in harmonizing. The only exception is when all are singing the same notes. In a four-part harmony, the two people singing the middle range can sing the same notes, the one in the lowest and highest range may not.
- The logical downward ending isn't always correct. If you are the higher singer in a two-part a harmony, while a musical phrase from C ('do') to A (lower 'la') or E ('mi') to C ('do') sounds logical in a solo, it is incorrect in a duet or harmony. The one singing lower B ('ti') should move up to C to end the song. You have to stay in E so you won't lose the harmony.
- Once you have some comfort with singing harmony you can try to move up to singing acapella (without accompaniment). If you are a decent singer you should consider joining an acapella singing group. There are several nationwide acapella singing organizations and most areas have several choruses to choose from. Joining such a chorus will really help.
- For men there is the Barbershop Harmony Society. For women there are two organizations, Harmony International and the Sweet Adelines. Though these sound like they are only for older folks they actively seek younger members and have very active youth programs. These groups are an excellent way to learn how to sing better, as singing techniques are taught in regular rehearsals and are the focus of year-round workshops, coaching sessions and retreats.
Things You'll Need
- A piano
- A tape recorder or recording MP3 player
In other languages:
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 671,604 times.
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Caves are some of the most fragile ecosystems in the Hill Country. Light is limited and the air is still. It is with great care that caves are protected for the fragile life within them. Adaptations in caves range from huge pinchers to feel around in the dark to a complete lack of eyes. Caves in central Texas are often the connecting link of the Edwards Aquifer and the earth’s surface.
Why is it called "Airmen's" Cave? In March of 1971, two airmen who were stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base discovered the cave, and began excavation in the entrance.Later that year, a captain in the Air Force, along with local cavers went back to the cave and proceeded to explore it and created a map.
Does anything live in the cave? Yes! Airmen's Cave is home to a number of creatures, including raccoons, tri-colored bats, cave crickets, spiders, millipedes, and scorpions. Information below (potentially as a placeholder until the ecoweb is up and running)
Why is the cave gated? For a long time the cave remained open and available for exploration by any who dared. Unfortunately, there have been multiple rescues of people who had gotten lost, and a very apparent rise of the cave being used for illegal substance abuse. In response, those in charge made the decision to close the cave to the public in hopes of preserving the cave's ecological influence, and as a safety precaution for those who would mistreat themselves or the cave.
I've been there before, how do I get access again? The cave will be open and available to the public on certain dates. Please contact the cave manager by email.
Special Cave Creatures All six of the karst invertebrates protected under the BCCP were listed as endangered in September of 1988 and live in only a few local caves. Though not much is known about them, they do have some things in common. As invertebrates they do not possess an internal skeleton as humans do for providing rigidity and form to their bodies. Rather, they have a rigid exterior, or exoskeleton, for that function--hence the term “invertebrate”. They are all troglobites, a name that describes animals so completely adapted to a cave that they spend their entire life cycle there and can exhibit loss of pigment and can lack functional eyes.
The primary threat to survival for these cave-obligated species is urban development. Complete loss of habitat occurs when caves are filled in. Paving over caves or creating new openings can affect hydrologic flow and change cave temperature and humidity beyond a range the species can tolerate. Urban development also results in pollution from pesticides, fertilizers, roadway runoff, and other chemicals that seep through soil and porous limestone to contaminant caves and groundwater.
Tooth Cave ground beetle (Rhadine persephone) Measuring in at about 1/4 of an inch, this tiny, reddish-brown beetle is the largest of the protected karst invertebrates. It does possess very small eyes though it lives its entire life in a cave. It rapidly runs across the cave floor searching for tiny cave insects or can be found in areas of deep, loose silt where it digs to search for cave cricket eggs. It has been documented in almost 30 local caves.
Tooth Cave pseudoscorpion (Tartarocreagris texana) This is the second tiniest of the protected cave invertebrates at 3/16 of an inch long. Similar to a scorpion, it has pinchers, though quite tiny, that it uses to catch its prey of small invertebrates. It lacks any type of tail and has no eyes. It is typically found under rocks and little is known about its habits or reproductive patterns.
Tooth Cave spider (Neoleptoneta myopica) At 1/16 of an inch long, this pale, cream-colored spider is the tiniest of the protected cave invertebrates. It has relatively long legs and rudimentary eyes. It can be found hanging from a small tangle or sheet web from cave ceilings and walls seeking tiny invertebrates to eat.
Bee Creek Cave harvestman (Texella reddelli) This small invertebrate is a light yellowish-brown and averages 1/8 inch long with long legs typical of most harvestman. It lives in total darkness under rocks and doesn’t have eyes. Similar to other harvestman, it doesn’t create a web, catching its prey of tiny insects as it walks slowly about the cave.
Bone Cave harvestman (Texella reyesi) Listed as endangered in September 1988, this long-legged harvestman is less than 1/8 inch long. Similar to the Bee Creek Cave harvestman it is blind, is a pale orange-brown color, and feeds on tiny invertebrates. It is typically found under rocks. Studies have indicated this species is especially sensitive to low humidity and will retreat to the coolest and most moist places of a cave during hot summers.
Kretschmarr Cave mold beetle (Texamaurops reddelli) Listed as endangered in September 1988, this tiny dark-brown beetle is less than 1/8 inch long. It has short wings, long legs, no eyes, and can be found in total darkness under rocks and organic debris that has washed into the cave. Very little is known about this beetle including exactly what it eats.
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CHICAGO — A strange, new genetic code a lot like that found in all terrestrial life is sitting in a beaker full of oily water in a laboratory in Florida, a scientist said today, calling it the first example of an artificial chemical system that is capable of Darwinian evolution.
The system is made of the four molecules that are the basic building blocks of our DNA along with eight synthetic modifications of them, said biochemist Steven A. Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville.
The main difference between the synthetic molecules and those that make up conventional DNA is that Benner's molecules cannot make copies of themselves, although that is just "a couple of years" away, he said.
The wild biochemistry finding, described to a small group of reporters today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, offers ideas about new types of life for scientists to look for beyond our planet, or even possibly hidden on our planet.
"Unless it happens to shoot at you with a ray gun, the life that you encounter off of Earth will not necessarily have same biochemistry as us," Benner said.
And the step from Benner's system to something that could be called artificial life is still large. "There is not enough information in them to build organisms," Benner said.
Expanded alphabet for DNA
For some 20 years, Benner's labs have been involved in trying to make artificial life or things approximating it, with similar genetic and inheritance properties to life on Earth. (Previously, Benner worked at the University of Florida.)
He and his colleagues have focused in part on expanding the DNA alphabet to develop an "Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System," which now has its own supporting molecular biology.
The building blocks of DNA are four chemicals called nucleotides that are referred to as A, C, T and G, for short. The nucleotides pair up and bond in predictable ways to form the double helix structure of DNA. Benner's new nucleotides, which he and his colleagues have named Z, P, V, J, Iso-C, Iso-G, X and K, are reshufflings of the constituents of those molecules found in our DNA.
The evolution in this system happens when the 12-letter genetic code makes copying mistakes and subsequent sequences have properties that make them more liable to get copied. Those sequences would survive in greater numbers than the original sequence.
Benner's synthetic approach was conceptualized using "ball and stick plastic model chemistry," he said, the technique used by James Watson and Francis Crick to arrive at the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953.
The human genome's DNA includes 3 billion base pairs. Some of the molecules synthesized in Benner's lab are 81 base pairs long — relatively short.
The molecules are "fed" and grow via a process called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) that allows the molecules to make copies of themselves. Once the replication of the molecules in Benner's system is self-catalyzed, without PCR, the process is self-sustaining. Benner claims, "then it's artificial life."
Dreaming up extra-terrestrial life
The research resulted from a NASA-funded project to try to understand what life might look like beyond Earth. Such life might live in water, but it could also live in liquid nitrogen or methane (as speculated for Saturn's moon Titan) and in environments with extremely high or low acidity.
The results are published in a technical book, "Life, the Universe and the Scientific Method," of which Benner has made about 100 copies to distribute to his colleagues.
"One of the ways scientists try to understand life as a universal concept … is you try to make life on your own in the lab," Benner said. "We try to put together chemicals that do that."
Any potential life forms made from such molecules would be "so alien in terms of their biochemistry that they will not able to eat you," Benner said.
NASA has been involved in searching for extra-terrestrial life along numerous avenues for decades, including the Viking mission to Mars in the 1970s and its recent missions to the red planet which have searched for signs of habitability there. NASA also funds an Astrobiology Institute, which partners with hundreds of researchers world-wide who study of the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe
The trick to searching for alien life is how to look for it, said Paul Davies of Arizona State University, who also spoke with reporters here today.
"All of the techniques which microbiologists use to [look for alien life] are customized to life as we know it," Davies said. "It's no surprise that microbiologists haven't come across micro-organisms that seem to have relatively different biochemistry."
In the future, more scientists could "talk with Steve Benner," Davies said, "to come up with perfectly good molecules that life could use — but doesn't."
- Breakthrough Could Lead to Artificial Life Forms
- Genes: The Instruction Manual for Life
- All About DNA and Genes
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Where Were The Regulators?
When people advocate government regulation, they fall prey to a critical error: they believe government can actually successfully regulate! Despite the fact that government regulation simply creates loopholes and exceptions that can be exploited, those advocates still believe in the basic premise of the system.
What then, to make of this?
But a darker side to the beef industry was revealed in January, when the Humane Society of the United States released a video showing sickening conditions at a California slaughterhouse. Cows too ill or injured to stand were shoved along by forklifts or dragged by their legs across the floor. Downer cows, as they are called, are unfit for human consumption. But many at the slaughterhouse run by the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company were killed, processed, and their meat sent to the National School Lunch Programme. “They’re going onto the plates of children,” said Wayne Pacelle, the head of the Humane Society.
You think the government can keep us safe? They can’t even certify that what they buy themselves is safe!
The next time someone tells you that they expect that government regulators are better than those of the private sector, remind them that it wasn’t government that saved you from the bad beef, it was committed non-government citizens.
The bureaucrats will offer to save you, by instituting some new regulation or some new rule. How did that work after the first mad cow care?
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In her book The Language Police, Diane Ravitch opens our eyes to the world behind school textbooks, a world ruled by censorship and dictated by the demands of interest groups.
Textbooks have changed tremendously in the past 50 years, and rightly so, since our society has changed tremendously as well. Women have become fixtures in almost every industry imaginable. Barriers between races have fallen and our society is truly a mixture of every kind of person – every age, race, sex, culture, hair color.
It is these everyday differences that are omitted from our children’s textbooks. Censorship has become the rule. In efforts to make sure our children see men and women of all different races living in the new roles they occupy, all references to traditional roles are discarded. Textbook publishers have an elaborate protocol of self-censorship, each with its own list of bias guidelines followed to keep the different pressure groups at bay. Passages, pictures, stories and words are removed in efforts to avoid offending someone, sometimes at the price of dumbing down history and making our children miss out on hearing traditional stories. But who are the publishers trying not to offend with their adherence to these guidelines, the children or the interest groups?
More often than not, the publishers are the victims of the state textbook adoption process. In The Language Police, we learn that almost half of the states in our country buy textbooks for their schools, and securing those contracts is incredibly important to publishers. “Publishers whose textbooks do not get adopted in one of the states sustain an economic blow and must struggle to sell their books to smaller states and individual districts,” explains Ravitch, a former assistant education secretary under George H.W. Bush and now a research professor of education at New York University.
This state textbook adoption process squeezes smaller publishers out of the game because they cannot always afford what’s involved in ridding their books of offensive content— the consultants, the reviews by multi-cultural committees, the hours of searching for appropriate passages for their books.
According to the guidelines, the following are examples of ways girls should not be depicted: as peaceful, emotional, warm, dependent, passive, cooperative, indecisive, nagging, gentle, illogical, silly, frightened, neat, or short. Boys, on the other hand, can not be portrayed as athletic, independent, adventurous, angry, intelligent, curious, logical, quiet, easygoing, or able to overcome obstacles. African-Americans are not to be depicted as athletes or working hard to overcome discrimination, nor Asian-Americans as scholarly or hard-working.
“Not only does censorship diminish the intellectual vitality of the curriculum, it also erodes our commitment to a common culture… our nation has a history and a literature, to which we contribute. We must build on that common culture, not demolish it,” writes Ravitch. In the world we live in, our children grow up in cities and in suburbs, on farms or on the street. When they enter school and open their textbooks, they are not invited into an interesting world of new ideas and intriguing stories that make them think. They read dull stories and see politically correct illustrations, but hey, at least they won’t get any bad ideas from them. In fact, they won’t get any ideas, period.
What should we do to combat, what Ravitch calls, “the numbing nihilism of the contentless curriculum produced by the puritans of the left and right [that] merely feeds the appetite for the exciting nihilism of an uncensored and sensationalized popular culture, skillfully produced by amoral entrepreneurs who are expert at targeting the tastes of bored teenagers”?
· One, eliminate the state textbook adoption process. States should publish specific standards and then let teachers decide what to use in doing their job;
· Two, make the publishers’ bias guidelines (and their authors) available to the public for their own review;
· And three, require teachers to know what they are teaching, minimizing their reliance on textbooks for answers and ideas.
“Let us, at last, fire the language police,” says Ravitch. “We don’t need them. Let them return to their precincts where speech is rationed, thought is imprisoned, and humor is punished.”
Anna M. Frederick is a research assistant at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
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Every second of every day the air around you is full of particles. We only really notice these when they stream infront of a light beam through an open window, but they are always there, and they can even travel the world.
These particles include dust, smoke, soot, and even sea salt, according to F*ckYeahFluidDynamics. These particles help form rain and snow in the atmosphere. These air flows can also transport bacteria across continents.
The data used in this model come from August 2006 through April 2007. From the NASAexplore YouTube commentary:
Through mathematical experiments, modelers can move Earth forward or backward in time to create a dynamic portrait of the planet. NASA Goddard's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office recently ran a simulation of the atmosphere that captured how winds whip aerosols around the world. Such simulations allow scientists to better understand how these tiny particulates travel in the atmosphere and influence weather and climate.
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| 0.917279 | 194 | 3.71875 | 4 |
Costs of Mitigation
Economic analyses tend to produce differing
estimates on the economic implications of policies aimed at greenhouse
gas (GHG) mitigation. The main reasons appear to relate to differences
in underlying modelling approaches, in specific assumptions being
adopted and in policy scenarios being simulated.
There are broadly three types of modelling approach
that have been used to consider the costs of emission reductions.
(i) Macroeconomic. These models are
generally very country specific. They may allow for supply and
demand to be out of balance (for markets not to clear). Hence,
they are probably best suited to the consideration of the dynamics
of transition towards lower carbon futures and for applications
in the short to medium term. Results, in terms of GDP response,
show considerable variation across modelsthey can be very
model-dependent, according to the particular assumptions employed.
(ii) General equilibrium. These models
assume that markets clear (ie that demand always equals supply).
They cannot address transitional costs, but are better suited
to long run estimates, on the basis that in the long-run resources
are re-deployed and the economy reverts towards long-run trends.
(iii) Bottom-up. These models will
tend to represent technology and energy efficiency from a detailed
set of choices. The model will choose the technologies to deploy
depending, in particular, on their costs and the costs of energy
inputs. Depending on the particular model it may be possible to
constrain the choices in some way. But in general, like general
equilibrium models, this type of approach is better suited to
consideration of long-run impacts than transitional costs. The
MARKAL model we have used is one version of a bottom-up model.
It is generally considered that models of types
(i) and (ii), may overestimate costs. They start from a position
that deployment of resources in the base case is optimal. Such
an approach is criticised for underestimating the potential for
low cost efficiency improvement and ignoring gains that may be
tapped by non-price policy change. Worst case results come from
models using macro-economic models, with lump sum recycling of
revenues, no emission trading and no non-carbon backstop technology.
Bottom up models of type (iii), on the other
hand, assume that there is a lot of low or nil cost technology
or energy efficiency potential. Estimates from such models can
be criticised for under-estimating costs on the basis that they
ignore various hidden costs, transaction costs or other constraints
that in practice limit the take-up of what are, otherwise, cost-effective
In terms of specific assumptions and policy
scenarios, there are several factors that help explain differences
in cost estimates, including:
Choice of baseline emission
on the elasticity of substitution between different fuels and
Scope for international permit
trading; which help drive down costs by allowing firms to reduce
emissions in the most efficient way;
If/how revenues from carbon
taxes are used to reduce distortionary taxes elsewhere in the
economic system, for example, reducing social security payments
or if the revenues are used to provide consumers with lump-sum
The time horizon over which
mitigation targets may be achieved;
The possibility of win-win policies
and low cost outcomes through increased energy efficiency uptake;
The role of further ancillary
benefits (for example, improvements in air quality and subsequent
reduction in health related illnesses).
In spite of these drivers of variation, we have
a relatively good idea of at least the order of magnitude of economy-wide
costs of mitigation action. Both IPCC's assessment and analysis
by the UK Government for the Energy White Paper suggest that the
deep cuts needed to put us on a path to stabilisation compatible
with limiting eventual temperature rise to 2ºC at around
500 ppm need not be largeof the order 0.5 to 2 per cent
GDP over 50 yearsa delay of a few months in reaching a
particular level of GDP.
It should be clarified that although economy-wide
costs are unlikely to be prohibitive this does not mean that reducing
emissions is going to be easy: industry will face great engineering
challenges as a wide range of technologies (from renewables, to
energy conservation, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen production
and decentralised energy networks) need to be developed further.
Keeping the cost manageable depends on the steady
introduction of measures, starting from now, which is why the
UK has a long-term policy. If we tried to get say 60 per cent
cuts in CO2 over a few years rather than the period to 2050, costs
would become much larger. Also, the risk if no early action is
taken is one of "lock-in" into an energy system that
is highly reliant on fossil fuels, which would make the transition
to a low carbon economy at a later stage (when the most worrying
climate change scenarios may well have been confirmed) extremely
expensive or even impossible.
A further caveat is that manageable economy-wide
costs can disguise higher costs for some sectors of the economyenergy
intensive industries for example. Careful policy design ensures
that the costs of taking action are fairly distributed across
the economy, taking account of what particular sectors can achieve,
given the technologies available. UK policy seeks to achieve this,
eg by flexible mechanisms such as emissions trading.
Finally, an important issue that has only recently
begun to be addressed by the economic models of climate change
policy is the role of the technological change that may be induced
by the adoption of mitigation policies (as opposed to models assuming
cost-reduction purely following precedents). According to several
models policy-induced technological change can make a significant
difference to cost estimates. For example, a recent literature
review by the Pew Center
concluded that technological change induced by early action aimed
at reducing emissions may significantly reduce the ultimate costs
of mitigation policies. The Pew Center report goes on to recommend
that the level of abatement should then increase over time following
the cumulative nature of technological change. Defra is currently
sponsoring a Cambridge-led Innovation Modelling Comparison project
on this issue, involving a large group of modelling teams from
Europe and beyond. Preliminary results should be available in
There are numerous examples from business that
suggest that significant reductions in emissions can be achieved
at zero or negative cost. Since 1990, through its aggressive actions
to save energy IBM has avoided 8.45 million tonnes of CO2 emissions
and achieved operating cost savings of $791.4 million. IBM reduced
global GHG emissions associated with energy consumption by 65.8
per cent between 1990 and 2003 (35.4 per cent due to energy conservation.
In 1998, BP set itself the target of reducing its greenhouse gas
emissions by 10 per cent within 12 years. It achieved this goal
inside just three years (Absolute reduction 18 per cent). The
company integrated emissions targets into its senior managers'
performance contracts. It also introduced an innovative emissions
trading scheme to minimise cost. The programme cost the company
$20 million to implement, but saved it $650 million over the three
year period. Executives are confident that there is at least another
$650 million in value to be realised.
Many economists would agree that in theory decision-making
frameworks that look at climate policy choices as a problem of
sequential decision-making under uncertainty are preferable to
deterministic cost-benefit analyses. Typically these decision-making
frameworks allow for "learning", ie the possibility
of acquiring new information on the climate change problem, which
tends to reduce uncertainty over time. Some have argued that the
benefit of acquiring new, better information is an argument for
delaying irreversible investment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But the risk of committing resources to irreversible investment
in low carbon technology should be compared and contrasted to
the symmetrical risk of a "lock-in effect" into an energy-economy
system that relies excessively on fossil fuels. Also, a strategy
of waiting to learn more on the risks of climate change is likely
to reduce the opportunity of "learning by doing" through
investment in low-carbon technology.
A good review of the relevant theoretical empirical
literature is provided by Alistair Ulph and Alan Ingham (Ulph
and Ingham, 2003). Most
of the studies reviewed by Ulph and Ingham suggested that the
prospect of getting better information at some point in the future
should lead to a small reduction in current mitigation efforts.
However, Ulph and Ingham stress that these results are very much
dependent on specific model assumptions. Furthermore, none of
the empirical studies led to the recommendation of "doing
nothing" as a short-term strategy.
21 The EU ETS is a tangible illustration of using
such flexible mechanisms in order to allow firms to meet their
emission reduction commitments in the most cost effective and
efficient way. Back
LH Goulder, "Induced technological change and climate policy".
Prepared for The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, October
2004. http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-in-depth/all_reports/itc/index.cfm Back
see http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/working_papers/wp37.pdf Back
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Witnessing time – from 445 million year old rocks exposed in the Fjords to ~4 thousand year old small ice caps
By Hakim Abdi, LDEO.
My first flight on the P3 and the scenery was nothing short of breathtaking. The science mission involved flights in the north over the Steensby glacier that passes through Sherard Osbron Fjord, and Ryder glacier constrained by the Victoria Fjord. In northeast Greenland we overflew the Hagen glacier and the Flade Isblink Ice Cap in Kronprins Christian Land.
The sheer dimensions of the fjord cliffs on the northern flights were striking. In north Greenland they were quite steep, at almost 90 degrees, and appeared to be carved with surgical precision. Formed in the last glacial period as Greenland was covered with ice and snow, the weight of the ice depressed the crust and glaciers cut through surrounding rock. Since the end of the last ice age, a phenomenon called ‘crustal rebound’ has taken place. The formerly depressed land masses have slowly risen in a process is called isostasy, resulting in these awe-inspiring cliffs.
Outside the scientific community, glaciers are sometimes thought of as ‘just a block of ice’, but they are much like landmasses in their own right, close to inland islands. They are solid, yet they are dynamic, with internal layers that record events during the lengthy history of their formation. They also have surficial features, including crevasses, such as those shown below. Crevasses are deep cracks in the ice sheet, equivalent to fractures in rock, and are formed due to a combination of factors including differences in the ice speed between the edges and center of the glacier, stresses generated by flow over an uneven terrain, and the stress created from the glacier’s lower layers being more malleable than its upper layers.
In Northeast Greenland we focused on the Hagen glacier and the Flade Isblink icecap. Like the flights over the northern glaciers we are resurveying historical ATM lines. Flade Isblink is a small, ~600 m thick, icecap in the furthermost northeast corner of Greenland located just south of Station Nord (a permanently occupied Danish scientific and military base) in Kronprins Christian Land. Flade Isblink faces the Polar Ocean and is separated from the central ice sheet so the age of the ice in this small icecap was recently determined to be much younger than the main icesheet. An ice core drilled by the Centre for Ice and Climate, Copenhagen University, suggests the age of this small ice cap to be between 2800 -4000 yrs (A. Lemark, 2010).
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| 0.965017 | 556 | 3.375 | 3 |
Amsterdam, 02 March 2009 Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin on February 12th, 2009, a special issue of Behavioural Processes "Comparative Cognition in Context" was published by Elsevier.
Guest edited by Karen Hollis, the special issue features 16 papers original research articles as well as insightful theoretical reviews by leading researchers in the field of comparative cognition, demonstrating how animals perceive, learn about and understand their physical and social worlds.
Prof. Karen Hollis of the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience & Behavior at Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, commented,"The articles document not only the rapidly expanding dimensions of comparative cognition an expansion to new study species, new techniques and newly discovered abilities but also the breadth and depth of the field's multidisciplinary analyses, a field that truly is a realization of Darwin's argument for mental, as well as morphological, continuities."
Titled "Comparative Cognition in Context", the special issue honors the scientific contributions of Sara J. Shettleworth, whose influential book, Cognition, Evolution, and Behavior (Oxford University Press) argues for an evolutionary approach to animal cognition. As Prof. Nicola Clayton, Nature author and contributor to the Special Issue remarked. "Darwin argued for continuities between the minds of animals and humans, claiming it was a case of differences in degree, rather than differences in kind."
"We are very fortunate and proud to have been able to publish, under the guidance of Prof. Karen Hollis, an issue documenting latest discoveries in the field of comparative cognition, and by doing so to mark the 200th anniversary of birth of the very man who identified this territory," commented Ewa Kittel-Prejs, the journal publisher.
|Contact: Anna Hogrebe|
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| 0.916242 | 366 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Space Science Center wants to bring
spacecraft home after 31 years
By John Flavell
Morehead — A car-sized spacecraft launched in 1978 to measure the solar wind, then repurposed to fly alongside two comets, then lost and silent for decades, could be recycled again into a sun observation platform now that it has been found … again.
And Morehead State’s Space Science Center may get the keys to drive it.
During the announcement Thursday of the Craft Academy for Science and Mathematics in the rotunda to the MSU’s Space Science Center, space systems engineer Robert Kroll and electrical engineer Jeffery Kruth made their way down from the second-floor control room with barely-controlled excitement. They had to tell center director Ben Malphrus the “big news.”
Using the dish on a mountain above the university, they had found the beacon signal to the International Cometary Explorer, originally called the International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3), launched in August 1978. The craft was the first to achieve Lagrangian Libration Point 1, a relatively stationary orbital position between the Earth and the sun. From there, it achieved another first: it observed and measured the solar wind against the Earth’s magnetic field.
And then it was “stolen” by Robert Farquha, the very man who pioneered the Lagrangian Libration Point 1 orbit. . . .
Continue Reading . . .
LADEE Spacecraft Soon to Crash into Moon
UFO Followed Apollo Spacecraft To The Moon | UFO CHRONICLE - 1975
Lunar Spacecraft Runs into Trouble Shortly After Launch
SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE
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| 0.915154 | 352 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The Link Between Genital Herpes And Stress
Genital herpes is a highly contagious STD which causes symptoms including pain, itching and sores in the genital area. There is no cure for genital herpes and it can reoccur many times causing a lot of stress and embarrassment.
What Causes Genital Herpes?
There are two types of herpes simplex virus that can cause genital herpes. The HSV type 1 usually causes cold sores and blisters around the mouth area but can be spread to the genital area through oral sex. The HSV type 2 virus is the more common cause of genital herpes and it spreads through skin to skin contact. It's very common and highly contagious.
What Triggers An Outbreak?
The first episode of genital herpes usually occurs two to twelve days after sexual contact with a person who is actively infected. It is not yet fully known why the virus is reactivated; however there are some causal factors that are associated with recurrence.
Physical - these symptoms can include being run down and having a low immune system. Skin damage, exposure to strong sunlight and drinking a lot of alcohol have also been identified as triggers.
Psychological - studies have shown that prolonged periods of stress can cause frequent recurrences. It can be a hard cycle to break as episodes of genital herpes can themselves cause a lot of stress and anxiety.
What Affect Does Stress Have On Herpes?
Stress plays a big role in health. It can put the body under a lot of strain and make it more susceptible to illness. There is a causal link that the more stress you have, the more often you are likely to suffer genital herpes outbreaks. The causal factors can be physical such as an episode of the flu, or emotional stress such as exams or job worries.
Suggestions For Coping With Stress
Counseling - many people are shocked or depressed by their herpes diagnosis. It's important that sufferers understand the implications for the future. Counseling can be an effective way of communicating about concerns and emotions.
Support groups - there are now many support groups for herpes sufferers. They can provide support and education and help people to feel less isolated.
Stress management - keeping a diary can help highlight patterns that surround herpes outbreaks. It is then possible to avoid or minimize these triggers in the future. Courses are available to learn stress management techniques that can then be applied to every day life.
Diet - the aim is to keep the body's immune system functioning well. A well balanced diet should include fruit and vegetables and limit the intake of sugar, caffeine and alcohol.
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| 0.953148 | 530 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2013 April 20
Explanation: As far as the eye could see, it was a dark night at Las Campanas Observatory in the southern Atacama desert of Chile. But near local midnight on April 11, this mosaic of 3 minute long exposures revealed a green, unusually intense, atmospheric airglow stretching over thin clouds. Unlike aurorae powered by collisions with energetic charged particles and seen at high latitudes, the airglow is due to chemiluminescence, the production of light in a chemical reaction, and found around the globe. The chemical energy is provided by the Sun's extreme ultraviolet radiation. Like aurorae, the greenish hue of this airglow does originate at altitudes of 100 kilometers or so dominated by emission from excited oxygen atoms. The gegenschein, sunlight reflected by dust along the solar system's ecliptic plane was still visible on that night, a faint bluish cloud just right of picture center. At the far right, the Milky Way seems to rise from the mountain top perch of the Magellan telescopes. Left are the OGLE project and du Pont telescope domes.
Authors & editors:
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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| 0.899086 | 305 | 3.53125 | 4 |
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News
The amount of CO2 at stake "equates to 34 extra coal-fired power stations"
The UK government wants the right to buy its way out of half its CO2 reduction targets, according to a leaked document.
It says EU nations should be allowed to trade away 50% of their emissions reductions - up from the 30% currently allowed by the European Commission.
Defra said the details need finalising but the deal would help clean energy projects in developing countries.
But environment groups say some of the schemes would have gone ahead anyway.
European nations are currently expected to make around 70% of their carbon reductions on home turf, leaving 30% available for trade.
Reducing that domestic obligation to 50% could allow an extra billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, according to WWF.
The dispute centres on the credibility of the system used for trading international carbon permits - the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) - arranged under the Kyoto Protocol.
It allows rich countries to offset some of their emissions reductions by purchasing carbon credits which help developing countries get clean technology.
Carbon trading is widely accepted in principle as it does not matter where in the world CO2 is cut because its warming potential is global.
In practice the CDM is under fire because some investors are obtaining credits for clean energy projects in countries like China and India that would have been built anyway, meaning that no CO2 is saved overall.
Various reports suggest that between 20% and 60% of CDM projects do not save additional CO2.
Even so, the leaked document (a so-called "non-paper", discussed between government departments but not yet stated policy) argues: "There are many good reasons why we should support increased access to project (CDM) credits.
"[It will] deliver substantial financial flows to developing countries and will also play a key role in any international deal.
Many projects funded by carbon trading "would go ahead anyway"
"Environmentally it does not matter where emissions reductions take place.
"[The CDM] provides member states with a cost-effective means to meet their obligations and is an important flexibility mechanism."
It admits: "The commitment from developed countries in making emissions reductions is a critical part of reaching an international deal," and says "the use of flexible mechanisms must be supplemental to domestic action".
But it maintains that a 50% share is consistent with this goal.
A spokeswoman for Defra said: "Everyone recognises that in order to achieve a global reduction in CO2 significant cuts in emissions will have to be made.
"It is clearly sensible to do this as cost effectively as possible whatever country these reductions are made in.
"The CDM helps to do this by encouraging clean technologies in the developing world by use of project credits."
She added the UK wanted to see a significant reduction in the number of emissions it produced but the EU was still finalising agreements around this.
Dr Keith Allott, head of WWF-UK's climate change programme, said: "This is an appalling proposal from the UK.
"Already the CO2 targets aren't nearly strict enough to avoid the risk of dangerous climate change as defined by scientists. This would weaken the effort even more.
"If governments and companies know they can trade away their responsibilities they will just take their foot off the pedal. We are claiming leadership… this hardly sounds like leadership does it?
"The difference between what the EU are proposing and the UK are proposing is equivalent to 34 extra coal-fired power stations in Europe."
Peter Ainsworth, Conservative environment spokesman said: "Deciding how much CO2 should be traded is not an exact science - it's a matter of judgement.
"But we feel that we should be making around 70% of our emissions cuts on home territory - if it drops to a half then we are really not sending a signal to the rest of the world that we are taking it seriously."
However Professor Philip Stott, a left-wing climate change sceptic, supported the UK government's stance in principle.
"If we could be sure the CDM was delivering genuine CO2 savings, we should be prepared to offset 100% of our emissions if we are concerned about the poor and climate change," he said.
"There is a need to provide finance to get the best technology to developing countries."
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For many people, taking medication is a regular part of their daily routine, and these medicines are relied upon to treat disease and improve health. Although medicines can make you feel better and help you get well, it's important to know that all medicines, both prescription and over-the-counter, have risks as well as benefits
The benefits of medicines are the helpful effects you get when you use them, such as lowering blood pressure, curing infection, or relieving pain. The risks of medicines are the chances that something unwanted or unexpected could happen to you when you use them. Risks could be less serious things, such as an upset stomach, or more serious things, such as liver damage. Here are some tips from the Food and Drug Administration and some of its public health partners to help you weigh the risks and benefits when you make decisions about the medicines you use.
When a medicine's benefits outweigh its known risks, the FDA considers it safe enough to approve. But before using any medicine--as with many things that you do every day--you should think through the benefits and the risks in order to make the best choice for you.
There are several types of risks from medicine use:
- The possibility of a harmful interaction between the medicine and a food, beverage, dietary supplement (including vitamins and herbals), or another medicine. Combinations of any of these products could increase the chance that there may be interactions.
- The chance that the medicine may not work as expected.
- The possibility that the medicine may cause additional problems.
For example, every time you get into a car, there are risks. You could have an accident, causing costly damage to your car, or injury to yourself or a loved one. But there are also benefits to riding in a car: You can travel farther and faster than walking, bring home more groceries from the store, and travel in cold or wet weather in greater comfort.
To obtain the benefits of riding in a car, you think through the risks. You consider the condition of your car and the road, for instance, before deciding to make that trip to the store.
The same is true before using any medicine. Every choice to take a medicine involves thinking through the helpful effects as well as the possible unwanted effects.
Here are some specific ways to lower the risks and obtain the full benefits of medicines:
Talk With Your Doctor, Pharmacist, or Other Health Care Professionals
- Keep an up-to-date, written list of all the medicines (prescription and over-the-counter) and dietary supplements, including vitamins and herbals, that you use--even those you only use occasionally.
- Share this list with all of your health care professionals.
- Tell them about any allergies or sensitivities that you may have.
- Tell them about anything that could affect your ability to take medicines, such as difficulty swallowing or remembering to take them.
- Tell them if you are or might become pregnant, or if you are nursing a baby.
- Always ask your health care professional questions about any concerns or thoughts that you may have.
Know Your Medicines--Prescription and Over-the-Counter
- the brand and generic names
- what they look like
- how to store them properly
- when, how, and how long to use them
- how and under what conditions you should stop using them
- what to do if you miss a dose
- what they are supposed to do and when to expect results
- side effects and interactions
- whether you need any tests or monitoring
- always ask for written information to take with you.
Read the Label and Follow Directions
- Make sure you understand the directions; ask if you have questions or concerns.
- Always double-check that you have the right medicine.
- Keep medicines in their original labeled containers, whenever possible.
- Never combine different medicines in the same bottle.
- Read and follow the directions on the label and the directions from your doctor, pharmacist, or other health care professional. If you stop the medicine or want to use the medicine differently than directed, consult with your health care professional.
- Ask whether there are interactions with any other medicines or dietary supplements (including vitamins or herbal supplements), beverages, or foods.
- Use the same pharmacy for all of your medicine needs, whenever possible.
- Before starting any new medicine or dietary supplement (including vitamins or herbal supplements), ask again whether there are possible interactions with what you are currently using.
Monitor Your Medicines' Effects--And the Effects of Other Products That You Use
- Ask whether there is anything you can do to minimize side effects, such as eating before you take a medicine to reduce stomach upset.
- Pay attention to how you are feeling; note any changes. Write down the changes so that you can remember to tell your doctor, pharmacist, or other health care professional.
- Know what to do if you experience side effects and when to notify your doctor.
- Know when you should notice an improvement and when to report back.
Weighing the Risks, Making the Choice
The benefit-risk decision is sometimes difficult to make. The best choice depends on your particular situation.
You must decide what risks you can and will accept in order to get the benefits you want. For example, if facing a life-threatening illness, you might choose to accept more risk in the hope of getting the benefits of a cure or living a longer life. On the other hand, if you are facing a minor illness, you might decide that you want to take very little risk. In many situations, the expert advice of your doctor, pharmacist, or other health care professionals can help you make the decision.
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Read transcripts of debates in both Houses
Produced by Commons Library, Lords Library and Parliamentary Office Science and Technology
Search for Members by name, postcode, constituency and party
Learn about their experience, knowledge and interests
Celebrating people who have made Parliament a positive, inclusive working environment
Four staff networks for people to discuss and consider issues.
Contact your MP or a Member of the House of Lords about an issue that matters to you
Find and register for Parliament's free events and training sessions
Take a tour of Parliament and enjoy a delicious afternoon tea by the River Thames
See some of the sights you’ll encounter on a tour of Parliament
Book a school visit, classroom workshop or teacher-training session
Access videos, worksheets, lesson plans and games
On 4 January 1642, King Charles I entered the House of Commons to arrest five Members of Parliament for high treason. Speaker Lenthall defied the King to uphold the privileges of Parliament. The King had to leave without arresting the Five Members. No monarch has entered the House of Commons since then.
Copyright Palace of Westminster Collection
Find out more about the Parliamentary Archives
Find out more about Speaker Lenthall and the Five Members
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Majlis Research Center reviewed guidelines and executive orders in America in a report.
According to the Public Relations Office, America Constitution and how to organize institutions, and pattern of division of competencies between them, government system of the country has placed among the presidential regimes, therefore, the presidency has been very extensive and by using various competencies, the president has become a powerful person in the administration of the Office of Federal High, the Office of Legal Studies said.
According to the report, at the top of Article (2) of its constitution which is devoted to describing the powers of the president, the expression has been used than the top of Article (1) of its constitution that Congress competencies are expressed; more scope of authority than the president will come to mind.
Thus, the president has a unique position in the legal and political system of America, has a dual role of head of state and head of a government. This feature makes this place despite the extensive powers, always about how to exercise this authority, theoretical discussions and practical challenges to be raised.
Generally, the president's powers come from four sources: the powers stipulated (in the constitution is included as chief executive and commander of the armed forces), implicit or implied authority (the powers are stipulated), inherent authority (neither explicit nor implicit has been in the constitution, but it is considered as an exclusive right of the national executive) and delegated powers (are granted to the president among the rules by the Congress).
On the president's carte blanche to issue executive orders and regulations, there are opinions that such powers are reserved with respect to the criteria, the report stated.
Accordingly, current theories regarding the powers of the president of America are on the basis that every law that the authority is delegated to an administrative authority, implicitly it also gives the authority to the president. Defenders of the executive branch state strongly centralist that all executive responsibilities and powers are entrusted to the president by the constitution, thus this authority has the right to review all executive actions and decisions.
In contrast, some other jurists believe that the president only has jurisdiction to regulate that the Congress legislation granted the necessary permits explicitly to him.
Accordingly, for executive orders and codes issued by the president, necessary legal criteria should be provided. (The text of the report is attached.)
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Discussion of all aspects of cellular structure, physiology and communication.
8 posts • Page 1 of 1
I need a further explanation about this, and also please correct me if I make a wrong statement here:
The biosynthesis of steroid hormone is started from transporting cholesterol (as lipid droplets) into inner part of mitochondria via StAR. Cholesterol then is converted into pregnenolone, which then move to SER to undergo further modification with some enzyme into appropriate hormone. This process needs SER <--> mitochondria transporatation, thus it is like "steroid volleyball" after the final modification in mitokondria. Then the hormone will be secreted from the cell with mechanism..... (?) I read that the mechanism is "endoplasmacrine" but some scientists doubt about this mechanism.
I am wondering about enzymes in mitochondria. How do these enzymes are produced? It is in the same way as enzymes production on SER, which is synthesized in "regular pathway" via nuclear mRNA translation or?
Thank you for your explanation.
I can't see the diagram you posted but hopefully it looks like the one below...
The first reaction in this diagram 'Cholesterol -> Pregnenolone' is controlled by the mitochondrial enzyme P450CSCC (CSCC stands for - 'cholesterol side chain clevage')... This is the important rate limiting step in the production of the steroid hormones produced in the adrenal medulla (aldosterone, cortisol, DHEA) and in the sex organs (testosterone, oestrogen)...
It is important to realise how strongly steroidogenesis is controlled by hormones but it is complicated... I have included a post from another forum where i have explained the basics of the biochemistry behind oestrogen production so it is easy to understand...
(look at the fourth post in the following link)...
hope that helps...
Thank you for your answer. I understand the serial reaction of steroidogenesis, but my question is rather for molecular approach instead of biochemistry. I know precursor, the intermediate hormones, the enzymes, but I wonder the mechanism within the cell, not the converting process.
I just wanted to answer my student's question about the comparison of the biosynthesis of steroid hormones and protein hormones. I try to explain in simple way, and this thread is about to summary the steroidogenesis process fromt he beginning until the final hormone is ready to secrete
Thank you once again
ok... you probably already know this... but anyway...
protein hormones are controlled by the rate of synthesis and the rate of secretion...
whereas steroid hormones are controlled only by the rate of synthesis within the cell... this is because they are lipid soluble and can diffuse freely through the cell membrane (which protein hormones cannot do as they are not lipid soluble)...
Thank you again
So far I summarize this way:
The biosynthesis of protein hormones are started from protein synthesis, which will generate preprohormone at the first time. Modification in Golgi's body will convert it into prohormone and post-translation will be the final modification before the hormone (active hormone) is ready to secrete out of the cell via excocytosis mechanism into circulation to reach their target.
The biosynthesis of steroid hormones are started from protein synthesis, but these proteine are enzymes which will be sent to mitochondria and SER for steroidogenesis.
Steroidogenesis is started when lipid droplets (ester cholesterol) are transported into mitochondria to undergo side-chain cleavage into pregnenolone. The next step will be called as "steroid volleyball" as steroids will move forward and backward between SER and mitochondria for the presence of key enzymes to finally generate certain steroid hormone. This hormone then will be secrete out of the cell into circulation via endoplasmocrine mechanism to reach their target.
I hope it is good enough
Hey, could I join your "Students Room" ? It looks nice!
Yeah, steroid production references is very limit according to my experience. If available, then it 's going to be so complicated. If not, then it is only part per part, which mostly in biochemical process. That's why I needed to read many books and journal and try to summarize in simpler way for students
8 posts • Page 1 of 1
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Air pollution pumped out by factories and power plants in Europe and North America has led to drier spells in the tropics, thousands of miles to the south. Scientists had long suspected this was the case and even had modelled the change in computer simulations, but now for the first time we have direct evidence – straight from a cave in Belize.
Most of us, when asked to think about climate change, think of global warming and the unequivocal rise in greenhouse gases. But greenhouse gases aren’t the only pollutants we produce which have the potential to disrupt the climate.
Atmospheric sulfate and nitrate aerosols, produced from burning fossil fuels, alter the climate both directly by reflecting solar radiation and indirectly by altering clouds. The impact of these aerosols is to offset the warming caused by greenhouse gases – where GHGs cause the Earth to retain heat, aerosols keep heat out in the first place.
However, as aerosols don’t stick around in the atmosphere for long, their effects are much stronger close to their source. It’s one reason why we see big regional differences in climate change. Indeed, observational and modelling studies provide considerable evidence that aerosols have lowered surface air temperatures in the northern hemisphere, offsetting greenhouse warming.
Understanding past climate
Characterising our influence on the climate is challenging for many reasons. Climate is a complex web of intricately bound variables, difficult to understand and even more difficult to predict. But there is one issue with climate science that complicates things more than any other: the lack of instrumental data.
Beyond the past 130 years, instrumental and observational data is sparse and uneven. It’s not very useful when looking to give context to our current climate debate. The study of climate history therefore relies on proxies to reconstruct the conditions at a given point.
These proxies are natural archives such as sediment cores, ice cores, tree rings and rocks – these record certain aspects of the climate in their physical characteristics. The width of tree rings, for instance, or the amount of carbon found inside air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice for thousands of years. By analysing these archives we can create climate records that extend far beyond the short era of thermometers and rain gauges.
In our research, published in Nature Geoscience, we present one such climate reconstruction produced from a stalagmite collected from a cave in Belize in Central America. Stalagmites (the ones that grow upwards from the ground) grow incrementally as saturated water, filtered through the rock above, drips into the cave and leaves behind what becomes new rock.
Every drop of water has a unique chemical signature that is largely controlled by prevailing climate conditions above the cave, meaning that stalagmites record climate changes as they grow. By analysing the geochemistry of these incremental growth layers in a 450 year-old stalagmite, we were able to construct a historical rainfall record for the region.
The impact of aerosols on tropical rainfall
Recently it has become increasingly clear that climate changes in one region can have an impact in a totally different latitude. The IPCC’s 2013 summary for policymakers IPCC 2013 concludes with confidence that man-made changes in the North Atlantic climate are linked to rainfall at lower-latitudes.
Precipitation in the tropics, including Belize, is governed by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) – a belt of monsoon rainfall encircling the Earth near the equator that migrates seasonally between the hemispheres. The relative temperature difference between the hemispheres plays a crucial role in controlling the position of the ITCZ and hence, rainfall distribution in the tropics.
What we found was a distinct drying trend in Belize since 1850 that coincides with a steady rise in industrial aerosol emissions in North America and Europe. This presents strong evidence that industrial sulfate emissions have shifted the position of the ITCZ through reflecting the Sun’s incoming radiation and therefore moderating warming in the northern hemisphere.
In other words, aerosol pollutants have changed the relative thermal contrast between the two hemispheres and subsequently led to the ITCZ moving southward. This means less rainfall for the northern tropics. The role of sulphate aerosols in repositioning the ITCZ was previously identified through computer modelling techniques, but until now no suitable climate record existed to support those ideas.
Our claims are backed up by the volcano record. Emissions from volcanoes are similar to those produced by burning fossils fuels – basically lots of sulphur – and we identified short-lived drier spells in the northern tropics following very large volcanic eruptions in the northern hemisphere, such as the Icelandic Laki eruption in 1783.
This provided evidence that any injection of sulphate aerosols into the upper atmosphere, both natural and man-made, can disrupt temperatures and rainfall. These volcanically forced dry periods essentially rule out the possibility that the climate shifts were caused by a previously unknown natural climate cycle or increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
Although warming due to man-made carbon dioxide emissions has long been at the centre of discussions regarding climate change, the shifting of rain belts has significant regional-scale effects. The tropics are heavily populated and extremely reliant on regular rainfall. Linking human-induced changes and natural changes from the past to understand where the climate currently stands, and where it might go in the future, will be as socially important as it is scientifically challenging.
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Urology nursing is a specialty type of nursing which covers the female and male urinary tract, bladder, kidneys, ureters, and the urethra. It can also involve the male and female reproductive systems, depending on the definition.
A fast growing job market, urology nursing deals with kidney stones, also called renal stones, that are essentially solid masses of substances from crystallized urine. This medical field also involves urinary tract infections, or UTIs, that happen in the kidneys (pyelonephritis), the bladder (cystitis), or the urethra (urethritis); overactive bladders caused by nerve damage, stroke, depression, or drug side affects; acute bacterial prostatitis, chronic bacterial prostatitis, and nonbacterial prostatitis, which occur when bacteria-infected urine flows back into the prostate, which can happen as a result of a neuromuscular problem or inflammation; and Conn’s Syndrome, which causes high blood pressure due to excess production of the hormone aldosterone.
Clients can require changes to be made rather quickly. On the job, a urology nurse would be expected to perform urological exams, diagnose and treat acute urological health problems, and performs evaluations and urodynamic studies, or urinary incontinence. Urology nursing also involves ordering, performing, and interpreting diagnostic studies and lab work; diagnosing, evaluating, and treating bladder dysfunction and incontinence; and prescribing medication and teaching patients to care for themselves properly.
A large part of urology nursing is providing preventative care and doing checkups and screenings for well-being, collaborating with physicians and other health professionals when necessary, and teaching patients how to care for themselves. Catheter care, nutrition, Kegel exercises, medications, intermittent catheterization, incontinence, impotence, and biofeedback are all involved in self-care education. In addition, it is important for urology nurses to promote patient health and wellness through good education and instruction, as well as to listen to the patients and their families’ needs or worries.
Want to become involved in urology nursing? You will need an advanced nursing degree, RN to BSN degree, or LPN to BSN degree. Or you can learn more about these programs from the University of Phoenix:
» Bachelor of Science in Nursing
» Master of Science in Nursing
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Autodesk 3ds Max/Terminology
Active Viewport - The viewport in which you are currently working. In the default settings, the active viewport will always be outlined in yellow.
Object - a 3-Dimensional object in your scene.
Primitive - a basic object that can be created from the Create Geometry panel in the Command Panel on the right side of the screen.
Shape - a 2-Dimensional object in your scene.
Transform - the changing in size, position, or rotation of an object or shape.
Gizmo - A visual aid that helps the user understand the transformations being applied to an object.
Polygon - A flat "plane" made up of three or more points.
Triangulation - The process of converting polygons with more than three points into groups of triangles for rendering purposes.
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Europe Gone Wild: Back to Nature on the Continent
Conservationists want to turn parts of Europe back into wilderness, teeming with wild horses, lynxes and native bison. But there are varying interpretations of what "wilderness" means and conflict over how much it should be managed.
The startled horses flinch when the gate of the corral opens in front of them. But with drivers approaching them from behind with waving arms, freedom seems to be the only choice left. After hesitating for a moment, the herd jumps through the gate and runs off into the distance to the applause of a crowd of onlookers. "Have a good life!" a woman shouts as the animals disappear.
Diego Benito's biggest hope is that the newcomers will quickly reproduce in his reserve. He wants to hear the sound of thundering hooves. "These Retuerta horses are the wildest ones we have left," he says. "They used to roam around Spain in large herds." There are barely 200 of the horses left today.
Benito, a compact gamekeeper with a stubbly beard, manages the Campanarios de Azaba Biological Reserve, the new home of the 24 Retuertas he has just released. The reserve consists of about 500 hectares (1,235 acres) of fenced-in, hilly terrain in western Spain, along the border with Portugal.
In the past, farmers drove their pigs into the oak groves to feed on acorns in the fall. But it's hardly worthwhile anymore, which is why the horses have now taken over the terrain, together with "rewilded" cattle and a wolf that occasionally turns up in the area. The animals can no longer count on human assistance. If they get sick, they die. If they can't find food, they starve to death. If they can't outrun the wolves, they are eaten.
The 'Rewilding Europe' Project
The project's goal is to recreate the kind of wilderness that has almost disappeared from Europe.
A group of scientists led by Dutch conservation expert Frans Schepers has launched a unique experiment centered on the return of the large grazing animals that populated the Continent long ago: wild horses, European bisons (wisents) and red deer, to be kept in check by lynxes, bears and wolves. The scientists expect the greatest possible diversity of species to develop around the spectacular mammals, including insects, vultures, toads and snakes -- all the kinds of animals that were once forced out of their habitats by human activity.
Operators of nature preserves and activists across Europe want to be involved. Six areas have already been selected. They include the Danube delta, the Carpathian Mountains in Romania and the Velebit mountain range in Croatia (see graphic). The aim is to allow nature to return to its wild state as much as possible in each of these areas.
The project is called "Rewilding Europe." A number of conservation organizations, including the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), are involved in the effort. About 3 million ($4.1 million) in start-up capital was raised through a lottery in the Netherlands.
"The Campanarios in western Iberia is the most advanced of our pilot projects," says Schepers. A small herd of black-and-brown cattle with archaic traits -- high shoulders and narrow heads -- are now grazing in the preserve. They bear a remote resemblance to the wild aurochs, the ancestor of almost all domestic cattle. The last of the aurochs, a species that once roamed throughout Europe, died in Poland in 1627. Efforts are now underway to "back-breed" modern-day cows to produce animals that resemble the original aurochs as closely as possible.
Along with the aurochs disappeared most of the large mammals (or so-called megafauna) that had been living wild in the Old World. It is time to bring them back, says Schepers.
'Let the Animals Decide'
It seems to be an opportune time, as some rural areas become increasingly depopulated. Large stretches of land are already virtually abandoned because they are too remote, the soil is poor or the terrain is too steep. "From our vacations, most of us know these villages in which only old people are living" says Schepers.
More than 120,000 square kilometers (46,300 square miles), an area almost as large as Greece, will likely be abandoned throughout Europe in the next few decades, estimates the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP). In many instances, cultivated landscapes can only be preserved when the last few remaining farmers are paid to keep the meadows mowed.
Large herbivores can do it for free. Schepers believes that their sheer voracity -- in combination with other forces of nature, such as fires, storms and bark beetles, provided they are allowed to proceed unchecked -- would prevent large areas from becoming scrubby and forested again. "We would then have a mosaic of open, park-like landscapes with diverse vegetation," he says.
But is this wilderness? "Of course," says Schepers. "The prevailing belief in Europe is that wilderness equals forest. That's nonsense. There also used to be steppes and tundra, flood plains and open grassland. And that was long before man cleared the forests." In many areas, animals might indeed have been responsible for clearing the land.
Take the wisent, for example, a relative of the American bison. It is considered a forest animal. Since early spring, a small herd has been roaming the coniferous forests of the Rothaar Mountains in the western German states of Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. But Schepers is convinced that the wisent is actually better suited to open landscapes, like the bison. "The forest just happened to be the last habitat we had left for the wisent," says Schepers. "Let the animals decide for themselves, and we'll see where they go."
The red deer, which prefers grassy steppes, is in a similar position. Only the constant pressure from hunters prevents the animals from venturing into the open.
Open nature sometimes feels virtually depopulated, says Swedish photographer Staffan Widstrand, a co-founder of the rewilding movement. Not much is happening in the landscape, and to Widstrand, it feels like an empty theater. "Scenery, lights, props, it's all there -- only the actors are missing," he says.
A Bonanza for Residents, Tourists and Hunters
The vision of the rewilding movement is to put the actors back on the stage. And when that happens, the hope is that paying audiences will return as well.
Perhaps the day will come when people no longer have to travel to the Serengeti to marvel at grazing herds of hoofed animals and hunting predators. Instead, they'll be able to see wisents in Croatia's Velebit mountains, for example, where the first of the bovines will be released into the wild next year.
If all goes well, even hunters will eventually have their day. There will certainly be protected, no-hunting zones in the core regions; but if the animals venture into the surrounding countryside, they will be doing so at their own risk. The sale of game could become a source of income for local residents.
Even in the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, residents are beginning to hope for safari tourists. Conservationists want to convert portions of the delta of the Oder River (or Odra River, in Polish) into reclaimed wilderness. The area has just acquired candidate status with Rewilding Europe. A biologically rich landscape extends around the mouth of the Oder, where it flows into the Baltic Sea, as well as parts of the island of Usedom and the Bay of Szczecin. There are already several conservation zones in the region.
"We are making good progress," says Ulrich Stöcker of the environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe, which proposed the project. "Even white-tailed eagles and gray seals are being spotted in the area again. And wisents are grazing over in Poland."
The animals could spread across the border into Germany in a few years, along with wild horses, red deer and elk. But Stöcker first wants to commission a feasibility study to estimate the potential revenues from visitors. This is the only way private landowners could be convinced to participate, he explains.
- Part 1: Back to Nature on the Continent
- Part 2: Choreography for Nature
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Deirdre Beddoe. Discovering Women's History: A Practical Guide to Researching the Lives of Women Since 1800. London and New York: Longman, 1998. x + 200 pp. $26.25 (paper), ISBN 978-0-582-31148-0.
Reviewed by Mary M. Flekke (Instructional Services Librarian, Roux Library, Florida Southern College, Lakeland)
Published on H-Oralhist (July, 1999)
Researchers will enjoy this third edition of Deirdre Beddoe's Discovering Women's History for the questions it leaves unanswered and the multitude of research topics still to be explored. I found this book enjoyable, highly readable, and frightening. By frightening, I mean the discoveries of how poorly women were regarded in the areas of education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this work, Beddoe provides some textual and descriptive material of the times, making this both an informational work and a teaching work. American readers will find some of the linguistic combinations interesting as British English differs slightly from the American form. The source materials used for her research are all materials from England as her topic is British women. In this third edition, Beddoe divides her work into eight chapters and an introduction. Two of the chapters discuss research and the presentation of the findings, while the other six chapters discuss actual aspects of women's history from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century.
In her introduction, Beddoe discusses the background of her previous two editions and changes made to this edition. Titled "...Why Should We Study Women's History," Beddoe's introduction explains why the subject is important. She writes, "We need to know our past to understand our present. The present is a product of the past: we are moulded and conditioned by a past of which we are alarmingly ignorant. We need to look backwards to seek the origin and development of many of the wrongs and inequalities which women suffer today.... By looking to an earlier stage of industrial society we can throw some light on why women's work has been evaluated as worth less than men's" (pp. 1-2). Exploring the past, according to Beddoe, sheds light on the present, and the nineteenth century was a time when the fortunes of women "yo-yoed" from high points to low points depending on what world events were doing. Wars, as they do in every part of the social stratum, proved beneficial to the general welfare of women. Women gained more responsibilities, more leeway in society, and more freedom to express themselves and their native intelligence.
Studying women's history is not always easy. Older texts very often pay lipservice to the stereotypes of women as housewife, although in many cases women of previous centuries had very different opportunities. Beddoe writes, "the domestic ideology was created in the early nineteenth century when middle-class women were pushed into the private sphere of the home and men went out into the public world" (p. 3). Sources she identifies later prove that this was not true for all women. These sources, however, are not always obvious or conventional. Beddoe cites several sources that the typical researcher may not think of using when looking for information on women. Some of these include novels, hymn books, criminal records, old wives tales, folk remedies, rituals and women's magazines. Other traditional sources are also discussed, such as parish registers, census returns and Parliamentary Papers.
Recent years have seen debates within the Women's Studies field. More frequently, the term "Gender Studies" is used as some 'non-feminists' seek to give equal weight to the study of masculinity and femininity. Beddoe says she prefers "a woman-centered history and this book has been written from that viewpoint" (p. 7). She likens the task of studying women's history to a "rescue mission" where the past must be unearthed and a permanent record made of the findings. Secondly, more books must be written to make people aware of this history, and thirdly we must continue to push for the recognition of women's history at all levels of the educational system (p. 7). Beddoe organized the book around topics she regards as essential to the reconstruction of women's past lives. The topics she chose were the images of woman; education; waged work; family life and home life, illegitimacy, birth control and sexuality; and political activity. The first chapter discusses doing a research project and writing a dissertation and the last chapter deals with how the researcher makes the findings available to a wider audience.
"Doing a research project: writing a dissertation" is the title of the first chapter. Here, Beddoe outlines the process of writing a research paper or dissertation from the selection of the topic, to the methods of researching and writing to actual paper. A wise comment she makes, which I see in daily life around the library, is to choose a topic that has researchable sources. She also suggests doing preliminary research to familiarize yourself with the topic. Suggestions include topics in which you are interested and enthusiastic about, and a manageable project--not too broad, but not too narrow either (p. 12).
Once you have chosen your topic, you should become aware of the different resources available to facilitate your research. These include numerous historical sources, both primary and secondary. After describing and defining primary and secondary sources, Beddoe goes on to describe find them--her favorite places for sources being libraries and records offices. (Since she is a British author, an American reader must make some translations to the proper 'office' match in the United States.) Once you have identified the library you want to use, Beddoe recommends that you become familiar with its catalogs and indexes. She also recommends bibliographies as good places to look for source material. Other sources she recommends include computerized literature searches, newspapers, inter-library loan, record offices, and oral interviews.
As research is begun, Beddoe recommends starting with secondary sources, noting that bibliographies attached to secondary sources often contain references to primary sources which should also be checked as soon as possible. Beddoe's whole book can be used as a guide to sources of women's history, and each chapter has lists of resources attached, both primary and secondary. As you begin your research, take notes. This useful for organization when you begin to write up your findings. (I found this portion of the chapter a little discomforting as she described paper and types of notebooks that American readers may not recognize, as they are specific to England.) In addition to organization, you should plan and define your objectives. Once you have your research, notes, and plan of attack, you can begin writing. This may take several drafts before it is completed to your satisfaction. She also discusses footnotes, the citing of sources, and the format of the dissertation.
Chapter Two, "The Changing Image," discusses stereotyped images of women from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. In her discussion on the images of women, Beddoe covers the spectrum from the perfect upper class Victorian lady to women of the lower classes. Marriage was the goal of women in this era, and training went almost exclusively towards that end. Young girls were taught to be submissive to their husbands by first being submissive to their brothers. In the upper classes, women maintained separate spheres so that the concept of being inferior to males was not quite so obvious (p. 24). Women's proper place was in the home (the attitudes toward women who worked is discussed in a later chapter). The upper class women were frequently pictured as being idle, despite being a mother several times over; they had servants to care for children and housekeeping. Lower class women did not have the opportunity to be idle. Children, housekeeping and husband took up the better part of a woman's day. The chapter on family life gives an excellent description of the poor woman's daily life (p. 138-39).
Medical views were also an interesting study in contrasts. Middle and upper class women were regarded as inherently sick if they tried to step beyond their prescribed roles, but working class women who ran high medical risks were expected to be strong and enduring (pp. 28-29). In the nineteenth century, a middle class began to become more prevalent. Literature reflects this with more heroines cast in male roles, reflecting the introduction of more women into the workforce in traditionally male jobs. The wars were responsible for this change, as the women were needed to replace men in industry. This, however, was short lived. As Beddoe writes, "The speed with which women had appeared in industry during the war was surpassed by the speed with which they vanished from it ... their jobs restored to men."
This chapter is an example of the study of the image of women. At the end of the chapter, Beddoe describes how it might have been researched. She lists sources and how to assess them. She offers sample questions that another researcher might take to branch off from this particular angle to another whole project. She carries this trait through each chapter. This book presents a myriad of possible research topics.
Chapter Three, "The Education Of Girls," was a truly frightening chapter. Before 1880, education in England was not compulsory. There was little formal education, and it was almost non-existent for girls. Many schools were run by charities or religious orders, although workhouses and factories sometimes had rudimentary school facilities. Compulsory education made life difficult at home, many of the lower classes being dependent on wages brought in by the entire family. Pulling children from the workforce reduced the family income. In the early days, topics included cookery and laundry. Domestic education was the primary curriculum for lower-and middle-class girls. Upper classes got a better and broader education, music was considered appropriate for girls, and some families were generous enough to allow daughters to sit in on the son's lessons. I was amazed in reading some of the curriculum that Beddoe cited in this chapter. Remembering back to the days of my own secondary schooling when home economics was still a significant course for girls, I can remember taking some of the instructions home and having my mother correct them, as that was not the way we did things at my house. I can imagine this happening to these girls, too! That could prove very distracting!
Beddoe makes use of some new sources in this chapter. She quotes from autobiographies, journals, and local school records. In the school records, she has found syllabi to illustrate the course of study that took place in most English towns during the late 1800s. The Housewifery syllabus on page 71 and 72 was incredible from the late twentieth century viewpoint. Lessons included the importance of cleanliness, combustion, kitchenwork, bedrooms, dusting, and sweeping the carpet (p. 71). It stretches the imagination to visualize spending time on such fussy details in a class. One thing not specified in the Housewifery syllabus was the length of time taken to teach this curriculum. On the next two pages the Laundry Work syllabus is given. Here it states that it is the syllabus for the first year's course and the syllabus for the second year's course (p. 73). If I had had to sit through this, I would have been bored, and I can quite imagine many girls probably were. Beddoe used some of her oral history interviews in this chapter, from which one derives a sense of dissatisfaction with the education. Not necessarily with the curriculum, though some of that comes through, but as is the case throughout humanity, teachers made value judgments on what the girls were capable of even with such a limited curriculum as they had. One girl was prohibited from making her mother an apron because her hands were too dirty.
Chapter Four, "Women's Waged Work," surveys the working life of women from the Industrial Revolution to just before World War II. Beddoe identifies two methods of approach to women in the labor force that she has found effective. First, she addresses "the idea and practice of the sexual division of labour." First, she says, we "should check if the same work was done by men. If not, why not?" She then concludes that the "sexual division of labour therefore split the working class along the lines of sex." Her second approach is to "note the way in which women were regarded as a cheap reserve pool of labour which could be brought in and out of the workforce to suit the requirements of capital and/or state" (p. 90).
As Beddoe points out, women have always been working--the family farm, housework, etc., kept women busy and provided them with a great variety of skills. Agriculture was always a great employer of women and still is if you look at migrant labor in the twentieth century. The Industrial Revolution, however, brought about a change in focus in women's labor. Now they had the opportunity to go outside the family establishment and earn "real" money. This, however, had mixed rewards. Those women who stayed home looked down on women who worked outside the home. This still happens today; the, however, the stigma attached certainly was different. During the Industrial Revolution, a single female working outside the family nest was considered an immoral flirt. Working while single hurt a woman's chances of getting married, as it was assumed if she was working she would make a potentially irresponsible wife and mother. Married women who worked outside the home too might not make responsible mothers. The Trades Union Congress declared in 1877, "that men's wives should be in their proper sphere at home, instead of being dragged into competition of livelihood with the great strong men of the world" (p. 95).
The First World War, on the other hand, saw women hired into traditionally men's jobs by the hundreds, which in turn lead to women joining trade unions. Some unions welcomed their female members, though many felt threatened by women and some kept women in a separate organization within the organization (p. 96). When the war ended, most of the jobs that women had taken over were given back to the men, creating massive unemployment statistics among women. Women who were content to return to the home did not file for unemployment, so the statistics available may be low, and overall, the inter-war years, while retrogressive in some respects, did show progress in some areas where women were able to retain the jobs they had gotten during the war. The interesting result of the lay-off of women after World War I was that when the men were called up for World War II, the women's response to job openings was poor. This may have been caused not only from having lost their jobs to men, but these women may also learned that some of the factory work could be dangerous; in addition, many women had been persuaded that their place was in the home throughout the almost twenty years between wars. By early 1941, the British government actually had to mobilize women to fight labour and production shortages. Some of the new sources that Beddoe used to supplement this chapter included records of government or local authority training centers, employment and trade union records, criminal records, commercial directories, and records of private business and labour history societies.
Chapter Five discussed "Women And Family Life." Beddoe sets this chapter up with a different structure from the previous ones. This chapter is not a study, but a practical guide to finding out about women's lives within the family. She listed her questions under the heading "Oral History" on pages 145-46. She then includes a annotated list of secondary sources on the nineteenth century, on the twentieth century, and on women writing and speaking about their own lives. The next section lists some examples of primary sources, consisting of surveys, household manuals/advice books, women's magazines, documentary and record sources, oral history, photographs, and museums.
Chapter Six, "Aspects Of Sexuality," I found somewhat disappointing after being accustomed to the more descriptive, researched technique Beddoe had utilized in the earlier chapters. This disappointment, as she acknowledges, may occur because these areas are "all to a certain extent open to investigation" (p. 150). In this chapter, she gives short narrative descriptions of illegitimacy, birth control, and lesbian existence, with a lengthier narrative dedicated to birth control. In listing the sources used for this research, she separates them into the above mentioned categories of sexuality and then into secondary and primary breakdowns.
For Chapter Seven, "Women And Politics," Beddoe again returns to her researched, narrative description of the topic. Here she concentrates mostly on the "local dimension of women's history ... not primarily with the remarkable women who made the great break-throughs in national politics by being elected as Mps and appointed as ministers" (p. 174). In this chapter, she discusses how women's involvement in politics has changed over the centuries as before the possibility of voting and actually serving in office. Women could still make their voices and opinions heard by their actions and activities, and she points out occasions where men listened to the voices of women in constructing their legislation. As with her previous chapters, Beddoe divides her sources into the secondary and primary categories. In this chapter, however, she lists some specific topics in the source listings. These include Chartism, anti-slavery movements, campaigns against the Contagious Diseases Acts, the late nineteenth century and the suffrage movement, the twentieth century, and biographies and autobiographies.
Chapter Eight, "Sharing Your Findings," ties the dissertation together. Here Beddoe shares some ideas of what to do with the material you have gathered, and here she lists some other ideas beyond simply writing a dissertation. These suggestions include the use of local radio--not only in presenting a program, but also to solicit materials--video, local history society journals, lectures, and other ideas such as calendars, history walks, and exhibitions. She ends the chapter suggesting that depositing research findings in a local library or historical society enhances their value to future researchers. Finally, Beddoe closes her book with an appendix of some useful addresses and an index. As we are so very deeply into the Internet age now, websites would have enhanced this section.
I found Beddoe's book easy to read, and I comprehend the points she was making in her lessons on how to research the topics presented. The audience for this book would be twofold. It could be used by college students doing research on women's issues, as there is enough textual material to provide background for actual research work as well as providing other sources for further study. It is also an excellent tool for getting ideas for other projects and for finding out how to go from "A to Z" in preparing a research paper or dissertation.
Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact [email protected].
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-oralhist.
Mary M. Flekke. Review of Beddoe, Deirdre, Discovering Women's History: A Practical Guide to Researching the Lives of Women Since 1800.
H-Oralhist, H-Net Reviews.
Copyright © 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at [email protected].
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Focus: Controlling Electrons Reaches a New Level
Semiconductor structures can guide electron motion in versatile ways, so researchers have begun using them to explore the electron’s wavelike, quantum-mechanical nature. But the task is complicated by the constant jostling electrons face in a solid. In Physical Review Letters, researchers describe a way to inject electrons individually with a high energy that makes them easy to distinguish from the others in the semiconductor. The team precisely timed the motion of the injected electrons across a micrometer-sized sample and found that most electrons made the trip without losing energy. If they can also avoid collisions that disrupt their quantum state, these electrons could provide new ways to test fundamental quantum behavior.
Experiments in the field of quantum optics have demonstrated a wide range of quantum behaviors for light. Lately, researchers have begun replicating some of these experiments using the wave nature of electrons in solids, for example, probing the details of the interference between a pair of electrons . Masaya Kataoka of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, UK, and his colleagues suspected that the experiments would be easier with electrons having energies far above that of thermally excited electrons. But “before we did these experiments, some people told me it’s impossible to detect this, because an electron quickly loses energy” as it travels through a material, says Kataoka. The energy loss was seen in earlier experiments done by others .
The NPL team adapted a so-called electron pump structure, developed for use as a current standard, which emits single electrons at a precisely defined rate. Built on a semiconductor surface, the pump includes a set of metal electrodes that surround a tiny circle of semiconductor material. Applying a large enough negative voltage to the electrodes confines electrons to the disk by providing an energy hill, or barrier, to their motion in every direction. This “quantum dot” can hold at most a few electrons, and periodically lowering the barrier on one side of the disk at a microwave frequency liberates one electron in each cycle, which is quickly replenished. By using a dot a few hundred nanometers across, the team generated electrons with thousands of times more energy than typical thermal electrons at the temperatures of their experiments (around kelvin).
Using another electrode micrometers away, the team produced a separate energy barrier that they also caused to oscillate in height. Each pumped electron that reached this distant barrier with enough energy to surmount it contributed a tiny pulse of charge to a detection circuit. The circuit registered a steady current showing the average number of electrons per second. The team measured this current using a range of amplitudes and relative timings for the two oscillating barriers.
Even though the system couldn’t detect single electrons directly, it gave information about single-electron effects. For example, the measured current showed which conditions allowed, during each cycle, a single electron to be released by the pump and then detected beyond the distant barrier. The team found that adding a -tesla magnetic field, which forced electrons to travel along the edge of the sample, allowed most electrons to retain virtually all of their energy during their trip to the distant barrier. But in a -tesla field, more than half of the electrons lost energy. “We don’t fully understand yet” why the strong field reduces the energy loss so much, says Kataoka.
The researchers went further, exploring the precise timing of the electron emission. By changing the relative timing of the oscillating barriers, they deduced that the moment of release from the pump was very well controlled, varying by no more than picoseconds from one cycle to the next. This was unprecedented time resolution for high-energy electrons. While the results don’t yet demonstrate long-lived quantum coherence for high-energy electrons, showing no loss of energy is an essential step toward that possibility.
Gwendal Fève of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, a member of the team that previously demonstrated interference between pairs of lower-energy electrons, was pleasantly surprised by how long the electrons retain their energy in the new devices. “Their system is quite interesting and very promising,” he says, and the higher energy could make new types of measurement possible.
Don Monroe is a freelance science writer in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
- E. Bocquillon, V. Freulon, J.- M. Berroir, P. Degiovanni, B. Placais, A. Cavanna, Y. Jin, and G. Feve, “Coherence and Indistinguishability of Single Electrons Emitted by Independent Sources,” Science 339, 1054 (2013)
- D. Taubert et al., “Relaxation of Hot Electrons in a Degenerate Two-Dimensional Electron System: Transition to One-Dimensional Scattering,” Phys. Rev. B 83, 235404 (2011)
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A FEW NAMES OF THE EARLY RESIDENTS
OF LITTLE NORTH FORK
By S. C. Turnbo
Little North Fork of White River has its source in Douglas County, Missouri and after flowing through the western part of Ozark County it enters Marion County, Ark. and empties into the river just above the little town of Oakland. Little North Fork is a beautiful water course. The ripling water of the creek and the numerous springs of water as found along this stream attracts a great deal of attention. The precipitous bluffs with over hanging Cliffs, deep gulches, and rough hollows form a variable scenery from head to mouth. The most important tributaries streams are Brattons Spring Creek, Upper Turkey, Little Creek and Barren Fork which flow In from the east. Pond Fork, Lower Turkey and Otter Creek come in on the west side among some of the noted hollows known to the old time hunters are the Bear, Livingston, Turkey and Wells hollows which come in on the east side and the Caleb, Peter Gave, Mahan, Pine Branch, and Cow Pen which empty into the creek from the west side. It is not accurately known at present who was the first settler but it is known that John Petty a very old man and John Petty John his son-in-law lived on Little North Fork as early as 1822. Paton Keesee located here in 1823. Let us take a view of the creek and refer to some of the early settlers along this stream. We are seated on the highest part of the bluff below the mouth of Brattons Spring Creek and just below the mouth of the hollow locally known as the Onyx Hollow which puts into the creek at the canoe landing. It is interesting to view the creek from the summit of this bluff and see the water as it flows along and hear it roar as it runs swiftly over the rough rocky shoal. From this shoal to the mouth of Brattons Spring Creek Little Fork reminds us of a beautiful river. Opposite this bluff on the west side of the creek is the farm which was settled by Peter Graham son of old Peter Graham, father-in-law of Paton Keesee. Many years afterward John Nave lived here. Mr Nave was a brother of Abe Nave who lived below here on the creek. These men and Jacob Nave were brothers. Just below this bluff on the east side of the creek is the old William Ford land some times called the Dan Burness Place. The first farm in the creek bottom on the west side above the mouth of Spring Creek was settled by Isaac Weaver. A number of years afterward Isaac Mahan located here and as we observe the hollow that bears his name we are reminded of this pioneer family. I am told that Jake Swinger was the first settler at the mouth of upper Turkey Creek and that Sam Grigsby settled the Tempy Hutchison place above the mouth of Pond Fork. Jim Lantz son of Moze Lantz informs me that his father settled the upper Phine Smith Place and cleared a small piece of land in the creek bottom and as he had no way to break the ground he dug holes in the rich loose soil with a hoe and planted corn and cultivated the crop with a hoe. Elijah Ford and Steve Graham are among the early settlers who lived on the lower Phine Smith Place. Tomps Pumphrey lived on the east side of the creek one mile above the mouth of Barren Fork as early as 1841. John Petty John was the first settler at the mouth of Brattons Spring Creek. Among other old timers who have lived on this farm is Sam Johnson father of Carroll Johnson the farmer and stock dealer who lives on Brattons Spring Creek. Jim Stanfield settled the Bob Gilliland Place and Herrod Halet bought the improvement from him. Pleas McCollough settled the farm at the mouth of Bear Hollow. It is said that Pond Fork was first occupied by Peter Marsh and Billy Cowan the latter of which was a famed bear hunter and lived near the big pond or lake which gave rise to the name of the creek. This fine lake of water is 4 miles above the mouth of the creek and is fed by a fine spring of water which flows out of the ground at the head of the lake. I was told by the early day residents that Sugar Jones built the first mill on Little North Fork which stood some 3 miles above where Jimmie Forest built his mill a few years afterward. Jones mill was a small affair and ground about 6 bushels of corn a day. Before Jones built this mill the people who lived in that locality patronized a small mill on Big North Fork at the mouth of Little Creek.
Springfield-Greene County Library
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Readings: The Rhetorical Arts and Political Persuasion, Mohist Thought, Mencius
On Thursday, we'll be moving on to a series of classes on Warring States thought. By far the greatest portion of our textual database for Warring States China is composed of works of thinkers of the "Hundred Schools," and consequently, all studies of Warring States China lay great emphasis on intellectual history.
We'll begin with an overview of the Hundred Schools (we won't actually study 100; we'll look at five). As I'll describe, the reason that intellectual pursuits became so popular during this period was because there grew up a "market" for it -- a market almost as lively as the market for military prowess. Sellers on this market were men who were known as "wandering persuaders": people who hoped to sell their wares -- in the form of ethical, political, or naturalistic doctrines -- at the courts of rulers who were looking for an edge in the brutal competition of the times. Demonstration of one's ability to offer new ideas -- or in many cases simply to offer old ideas in glib ways -- could earn a persuader court rank and salary. This was the goal of many of many people remembered historically as "philosophical" types.
The first reading focuses on a more prosaic type of court figure, who was a variant on the persuader model, and in a sense basic to it -- the clever court advisor. These were men who gained stature at court not through their doctrines, but purely through fine rhetorical arts, put to use in the context of day to day decision making. These non-philosophical persuaders were sometimes hereditary courtiers, but increasingly, they came from the ranks of independent shi who studied how to achieve rhetorical skill and put it to use. Their primary "textbook," the Intrigues of the Warring States, survives, and we can see in the tales preserved in this training manual the tools these men used to make their way up in the court world of the Warring States.
The other two readings will introduce you to a new philosophical school - Mohism, the first response to Confucianism - and the first defender of Confucius's ideas against Mohist attack: the fourth century thinker Mencius.
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Its Not Hard to be Green at School
Back in the pioneer days, schools were built for the sole purpose of providing a gathering place for children to learn. They were originally constructed of mud or wood, depending on what was available in the surrounding area. This was eco-friendliness at its peak. Over time, school buildings have evolved as construction technology, education, and teaching principles have advanced. Schools (and other buildings) are now built out of steel, brick, drywall, and glass, often with very little thought to the sustainability of the environment. This can lead to diminished air and water quality. We’re now starting to understand that this can have a deleterious impact on our children’s health. This is an issue educators need to start focusing on.
Here’s one way to look at it. Parents do their best to protect their children from all sorts of dangers. They teach them how to cross the street safely so they don’t get hurt; they teach them to brush their teeth after every meal so they don’t get cavities or gum disease; they teach them not to talk to strangers. But every day, these same parents send their children off to a school that may be less than optimal when it comes to environmental consciousness.
Here are some statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency regarding asthma and lead poisoning and their effects on children:
In 2006, 9.9 million children under 18 years of age were reported to have ever been diagnosed with asthma; 6.8 million children had an asthmatic episode in the last 12 months.
Asthma is the third ranking cause of non-injury related hospitalization among children less than 15 years of age.
In 2002, children 5–17 years old missed 14.7 million school days due to asthma.
A blood lead level of 10 µg/dL is considered elevated. However, there is no safe level of lead in the blood of children.
Today, elevated blood lead levels in children are due mostly to ingestion of contaminated dust, paint and soil.
Childhood lead poisoning reduces IQ, which can never be regained. Recent studies suggest that children with blood lead levels well below the federal standard can suffer from diminished IQ and affects on behavior. Other studies suggest that children exposed to lead may be at risk of developing Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Of course, all this can’t be blamed on the buildings that children live, play, and work in. But indoor environment can play a large part in children’s health and welfare. The air that children breathe and the surfaces they come in contact with play a role in how healthy children are on a daily basis.
So what can school administrators do to help protect the children that sit within their school walls all day? Rebuilding the school in an eco-friendly fashion probably isn’t an option. But one step they can take is to purchase school equipment (student desks, chairs, etc.) from environmentally friendly manufacturers. These manufacturers and resellers, such as Hertz Furniture, use ecologically conscious practices and materials when building their school furniture. This means they’re easier on the environment during the manufacturing process, and there’s also less impact on the children who use the finished product. Since there’s less likelihood of toxic substances being found in the furniture, children are less likely to absorb chemicals through their skin.
Hertz Furniture’s Design Center services can help educators select age-appropriate furniture for the classroom that is also environmentally friendly. Hertz Furniture’s free Design Center service can help educators decide how to make the best use of classroom space and much more. Hertz Furniture is always glad to help and will respond promptly to design inquiries and any questions about classroom furniture and design. Becoming environmentally friendly benefits everyone in the school environment — students, teachers, and administrators alike. It may even have an impact on the parents of the children if they see their children’s health improve as a result.
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RE: SUMMER TRAINING REPORT Held At BSNL
||Summer Training at BSNL
1BSNL.doc (Size: 281 KB / Downloads: 274)
From the ancient days it has been deepest human desire to stay closed with those they need. Many different ways have been evolved and implemented to fulfill this; Telephony is also such a mechanism that uses Telephone, electronic equipment that converts sound into electrical signals that can be transmitted over distances and then converts received signals back into sounds.
Electronic exchanges play major role in this system. It’s a workplace that serves telecommunication facilities where lines from telephones can be connected together to permit communication. The switching center that houses the terminating and switching equipment is called TELEPHONE EXCHANGE. Following are the types of exchanges
Digital switching has become a synonym for time division multiplex. In digital switching system, digital signals are switched in two nodes, time switching and space switching. Time switching basically involves rearrangement of channel sequence in the same PCM from whereas space switching involves interconnection of same channels of a different PCM high way. In a practical digital switching both time and space switching stage is employed to increase the traffic handling capacity of the switch at minimum cost. Among the various possible combinations TST structure is most commonly used.
Synchronization of various exchange clocks in a digital network is essential to provide required services. Causing a slip due to mismatch between the clocks will result in multination of information and description of services. Hence, slip has to be controlled using plesiochronous and synchronous approaches.
Often the message signal is not suitable for transmission over the medium in its original forms. Therefore, the message signal is located in a carrier wave, which is more suited for transmission over the medium. This process is called modulation of the carrier wave. At the receiving end station the message signal received back from the incoming modulated carrier wave by a process is called demodulation which is inverse of modulation.
Modulation enables multiple message signals to be simultaneously transmitted over the same medium without interfering each other. Transmission of multiple message signals simultaneously over a medium is called multiplexing.
Modulation is essentially a process of relocation of a message signal in a carrier wave, which is more suitable for transmission for transmission over the medium than the message signal itself.
Three types of modulation can occur-
1. Amplitude modulation
2. Frequency modulation
3. Pulse modulation
One of the primary requirements of any computer system is that service will be available to the subscriber at any time. In the vast majority of exchanges the electrical energy required for signaling, switching, speed transmission mains. The exchange power system is designed to provide continuous and uninterrupted telephone service even when the public electric fails. We can divide power plant in three major blocks such as
• FLOAT RECTIFIER
• BATTERY CHARGER
• SWITCHING CUBICAL
A microprocessor is a complex electronic processor on a single silicon chip (Large-scale integrated circuit). It is capable of performing arithmetic and logical functions under the control of program.
Functional units of microprocessor-
1. Arithmetic and logic unit
2. Registers (Temporary memory)
3. Timing and control unit
Various switching peripherals are connected to central processor by means of a common bus system. A bus is a group of wires on which data and command pulses are transmitted between the various sub units of a switching processor and switching peripherals. The device to be activated is addressed by sending its address on address bus. The common bus system avoids costly interconnection among various devices (Fig-6).
I.S.D.N (Integrated service digital network)-
Presently, there is a multiplicity of services such as telephoning, telex, data cable television etc. that are provided by separate dedicated network for each of them. These non-integrated services require separate switching system. Special subscribers access plants, individual trunk networks and separate operations and maintenance staff. These services are costly to the subscriber as well as to department. In I.S.D.N, these services are provided by one integrated network, which can be accessed by different customer premises equipment.
In I.S.D.N, subscriber loop from the local exchange will be terminated at the network terminal (N.T). From N.T the signal will be distributed to the information sockets. These information sockets will be distributed in the premises just like power sockets are distributed for providing on the information sockets, different terminals for voice and nonvoice services can be connected.
These are entirely computerized and electronic devices, which work on store programme control. Electronic logic component can do ten thousand times operation during signal in the comparison of electromechanical exchange.
In an electronic exchange a single control device simultaneously process a number of calls on time-sharing basis. Such centralization is more economical, but it is disadvantageous in making switching system more vulnerable to system failure. This, however, can be overcome a standby control devices.
These electronic exchanges have powerful processing unit. Part of control equipment capacity utilize for function other than for processing. There are two types of electronic exchange.
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When we talk about baby sign language, it is often in light of our pre-verbal child who is hard at work learning to communicate basic needs. We mostly focus our teaching and learning on signs that empower like food or objects that are meaningful to our baby. As our babies grow, in particular when they are approaching the “terrible twos” we may want to shift focus and expand their signing vocabulary in a way that facilitates and encourages emotional connections with those around them.
Emotional connections for babies and toddlers can be achieved when our babies have words or signs that allow them to convey how they feel, as well as signs that equip them to serve, care and encourage others.
Let’s take a look at ten signs that can help your toddler better connect with caregivers, family members, educators and peers:
Teaching our toddler to sign afraid will allow him to quickly seek help, comfort and refuge in moments of high stress.
Signing: Afraid starts with your hands by your sides. Then you bring your hands up in front of your body, palms facing inward and fingers spread. The sign looks a lot like you just got a big fright.
You can find the free printable flash card for the sign Afraid here.
Teaching your baby signs that can facilitate effective social interactions often leads to a child that is welcome in a variety of social settings. The natural drive of a little one is generally aimed at survival making the sign take turns something that we want to teach later rather than earlier.
Signing: To sign take turns your dominant hand forms the letter L with the thumb up and fingers stretched. You start the motion close to your chest and move your hand toward the other party and back to you as if in pointing whose turn it is.
You can find the free printable flash card for the sign Take Turns here.
The sign for listen works both ways. It allows your toddler to ask for your attention and invites him to focus on others when applicable. For example, you can encourage your toddler to listen to a friend while it is their turn to speak.
Signing: Point at your ear with your index finger. Alternatively, you can cup your hand to your ear as if you are straining to hear.
You can find the free printable flash card for the sign Listen here.
This is a sign you may want to introduce only if your child displays aggressive behaviors. By having a code by which you can encourage good behavior without embarrassing your child you give him or her an advantage and the opportunity to quickly correct their behavior and move forward with social interactions in a positive note.
Signing: To sign don’t hit you will punch your index of the non-dominant hand with your dominant fist while moving your head side to side communicating a negation.
You can review a video of the sign for don’t hit here.
Showing our babies how to communicate a sense of repentance for something that may have offended or caused pain to a fellow human is essential when building empathy. Because this is a complex concept to grasp we teach it by example and repetition. We express how sorry we are when we realize we have wronged our baby or another person.
Signing: To sign sorry, make your hand into a fist and rub it in a circular motion across your chest. It is like you are rubbing around your heart because you are truly sorry.
You can find the printable flash card for the sign Sorry here.
Now that you have learned the basics let’s add these other emotional and relational signs to our signing repertoire:
Are you ready to get started? Why not buy the Ultra Baby Sign Language Kit. The kit includes 12 excellent resources that will take your baby from birth until preschool as you explore together the joys of communication.
Our Most Complete Kit. The Ultra Baby Sign Language Kit is our most comprehensive kit and includes everything you need to teach your baby to sign. The kit includes:
• Baby Signing Time! DVDs Vol. 1 – 4 (4 DVDs & 4 CDs) – baby learns new signs while enjoying Rachel Coleman’s award-winning songs. DVDs and bonus CDs are included for fun at home and on the run.
• Baby Signing Time! Board Books Vol. 1 – 4 – enjoy the benefits of reading plus signing while keeping baby entertained.
• BSL Guide Book – learn to sign faster and have more fun. The book begins with a Quick Start Guide that will teach you your first signs and have you ready to sign in 30 minutes. As your baby progresses, you can delve into more advanced topics like combining signs to make phrases, using props, and transitioning from signing to speaking.
• Signing Dictionary – contains over 600 signs including the most common words, the alphabet, and numbers. The dictionary helps you expand your child’s vocabulary and has the breadth of coverage that lets you follow your child’s interests. Each sign is illustrated with two diagrams, showing you the starting position, the ending position, and intermediate motion.
• Flash Cards – 52 sturdy board (4×6 inches) flash cards, covering a variety of basic signs. The flash cards allow you to teach words such as animal names, that Baby is not exposed to in everyday life. The face of each flash card shows the word and image for the child. The back of each flash card shows how the sign is performed, a convenient reminder for the adult.
• Wall Chart – the 24′ x 36′ wall chart includes 17 basic signs, and is a great resource for caregivers. The Baby Sign Language Wall Chart covers basic signs, like eat, drink, and sleep. Hang the poster in Baby’s Nursery to help babysitters, or other occasional caregivers learn and decode the most commonly used baby signs.
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| Jebediah Springfield|
|Alias(es)||Hans Sprungfeld (presumed real name)|
|Relatives|| Father: Ned Springfield|
Mother: Olive Springfield
Siblings: 16 unnamed
Children: Obadiah and Zechariah Springfield and an unnamed daughter
Great Grandson: Jebediah Springfield IV
|First Appearance||"The Telltale Head"|
|Voiced By||Harry Shearer|
- “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man!”
- ―Jebediah Springfield's famous speech
Hans Sprungfeld (born 1774), also known as Jebediah Obadiah Zachariah Jedediah Springfield was the purported historical founder of the town of Springfield.
According to "Hewn from Courage: The History of Springfield", Jebediah Springfield was born in Axhandle, Virginia in 1774, the twelfth of seventeen children. His father Ned Springfield was a farmer who introduced yellow Eurasian late-summer squash to Eastern Virginia. While yellow Eurasian late-summer squash no longer grows in the part of the country, the yellow Eurasian late-summer squash beetle, one of nature's hungriest pests, is still around to remind us of Mr. Springfield's foresight. Little is known of Jebediah's mother Olive Springfield, except that she was very pretty and very busy. Young Jebediah, like most children who grow up to be great heroes, was a hard-working student who always treated his elders with much respect. He did his homework by candlelight and never "imitated bodily noises in class or taped naughty pictures to the classroom screen". Young Jebediah had one dream: To go west and explore the great American frontier.
At age 13, Jebediah had to leave school, which made him very sad. Searching for calling in life, he tried to help his father on the farm with his twelve brothers, but found that he was allergic to soil. Jebediah then went to work in a shop that printed fishing almanacs. He later wrote his own pamphlets, such as "The Curative Powers of Cigar Smoke" and "How to Write Pamphlets for Fun and Profit," but in the end, he could not ignore his passion for the frontier.
Jebediah Springfield led a band of wagons from Maryland and headed westward with his partner Shelbyville Manhattan on a quest to find "New Sodom" after misinterpreting a passage of the Bible. They later parted over political differences; Manhattan wanted to found a town where people could marry their own cousins, while Springfield wanted a town devoted to chastity, abstinence, and a flavorless mush he called "root-marm". Manhattan went on to found the rival town of Shelbyville.
Despite Springfield's hero status in modern-day Springfield many of his famed deeds have come into question under historical examination. On an expedition to Springfield's historic "Fort Springfield", Bart uncovered inconsistencies in the Jebediah legend, discovering that he accomplished multiple heroic feats on the same day in different and far apart locations.
The Controversial TruthEdit
Lisa later proved that "Jebediah Springfield" was in fact a bloodthirsty pirate and enemy of George Washington named Hans Sprungfeld, who had changed his name in 1795 to hide his identity. He wrote his confession on a scrap of paper that formed the "missing piece" of the famously incomplete portrait of George Washington, which he procured when he stepped on the original painting while it was still wet. However, upon seeing the town pride Springfield has for their founder and history, Lisa decided to keep the discovery to herself.
A distinguishing characteristic of Sprungfeld was his prosthetic silver tongue, which was built to replace his real tongue which was bitten off by a Turkish pirate during a grog house fight. According to The Simpsons Guide to Springfield rumors state that the silver tongue is currently in the possession of Mayor Quimby, who uses it as a paperweight.
Springfield is said to have dramatically killed a bear with his bare hands, though revisionist historians have determined the bear in fact probably killed him. A statue depicting Springfield's victory stands in the center of the Springfield town square, in front of the city hall. His secret will contains a confession that he was suffering from then fatal diphtheria and according to Lisa Simpson's research, he died of syphilis. The will also reveals that the untameable buffalo he was believed to have tamed was already tame and that he merely shot it. According to Bart, he may have been shot by Indians after the townspeople traded guns for corn but the Indians shot them and took the corn.
Springfield had many famous quotations, such as "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man", and was well known for his figurative and literal silver tongue. He also wears a coonskin cap.
The Springfield Historical Society, headed by Hollis Hurlbut, is devoted to the study of the town's history, specially Jebediah's. Hurlbut, who is aware of Springfield's true background, keeps the truth hidden.
The Springfield Marathon commemorates an occasion on which he ran across six states in order to avoid his creditors.
The Springfield's monument also contains the Jebediah's bear.
The statue was once beheaded with a hacksaw by Bart, who thought that it would make him more popular. In reality, the town became depressed and angry, leaving Bart to endure “The Tell-Tale Heart”-style guilt before he returned the head to its rightful place. It appears that while the head is back in its rightful place it has never been properly re-attached, as it frequently falls off.
- Episode – "The Telltale Head"
- Episode – "Whacking Day"
- Episode – "Lemon of Troy"
- Episode – "Lisa the Iconoclast"
- Episode – "Brick Like Me" (Statue)
- Episode – "The Kids Are All Fight" (Statue)
- Video game – The Simpsons: Tapped Out (Statue)
- ↑ Simpsons Illustrated #2
- ↑ Lisa the Iconoclast
- ↑ Wall or Nothing
- ↑ Lisa the Iconoclast
- ↑ The Telltale Head
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The History of Ancient Europe 1500 BC - 1000 BC (pt 4/8)
Major population movements in Europe have caused widespread upheaval, and the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations have vanished
Map of Europe 1000 BC
Farming settlements in western Europe, at around 1000 bc, are becoming more stable and substantial, a trend probably associated with the development of field systems around the villages and the more efficient use of land that this implied. In eastern Europe, the number of fortified settlements continues to increase.
The trend towards fortified settlements in eastern Europe was linked to a major change at this time, which was the spread of a new type of burial, beginning in the east and spreading into central and even western Europe. Cremation became the usual form of burial ritual, with the ashes placed in urns. The many urns, sometimes hundreds, were placed together in what archaeologists have called “urn fields”, so this practice marks the “Urnfield” culture.
Typical burial of Cremation Urn
With a few spectacular exceptions, most such burials were unpretentious, giving the impression of equality – at least in death. The common occurrence of bird motifs in urn decoration suggests that this development might have been linked to the spread of some religious movement or idea.
Elites there certainly were, however. Urnfield bronze workers were skilled at producing elaborately ornamented sheet metal helmets and breastplates – prestige items presumably used for display rather than battle, for which they were too flimsy. They also produced superbly designed slashing swords, for real war.
In southwest Europe and the Mediterranean, the first literate European civilizations, those of Crete, Greece and the Aegean, flourished and then vanished. This catastrophe happened just after 1200 BC, and was part of a general pattern of disasters involving the entire Middle East, where all the great Bronze Age civilizations experienced major set backs.
One ingredient in this general catastrophe is the depredations of a people who are known to history as the “Sea Peoples.” These seem to have been a collection of different groups from Europe as far west as Sardinia, and from the coasts and islands of the Aegean Sea, who, banding together, raided along the coasts of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt.
Whether these peoples were a cause or a consequence of the fall of Mycenae and other civilizations is a matter for debate, as is the extent to which the general destruction was the result of population movements within Europe itself. At the same time as the Sea Peoples were ravishing the eastern Mediterranean, however, another European people were invading Asia Minor. This was the Phrygians. It seems highly likely that some demographic movement was causing peoples on the periphery of Europe to spill out eastwards.
History Maps of Ancient Europe:
The History of Ancient Europe:
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In which Scrabble dictionary does TERCENTENARY exist?
Definitions of TERCENTENARY in dictionaries:
- noun -
the 300th anniversary (or the celebration of it)
Of or relating to a span of 300 years or to a 300th anniversary.
There are 12 letters in TERCENTENARY:
A C E E E N N R R T T Y
All anagrams that could be made from letters of word TERCENTENARY plus a
Scrabble words that can be created with letters from word TERCENTENARY
12 letter words
10 letter words
9 letter words
8 letter words
7 letter words
6 letter words
5 letter words
4 letter words
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2 letter words
More about "TERCENTENARY"
Images for TERCENTENARYLoading...
SCRABBLE is the registered trademark of Hasbro and J.W. Spear & Sons Limited. Our scrabble word finder and scrabble cheat word builder is not associated with the Scrabble brand - we merely provide help for players of the official Scrabble game. All intellectual property rights to the game are owned by respective owners in the U.S.A and Canada and the rest of the world. Anagrammer.com is not affiliated with Scrabble. This site is an educational tool and resource for Scrabble & Words With Friends players.
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| 0.823053 | 295 | 2.546875 | 3 |
|Madagascar Table of Contents
The Betsimisaraka constitute the second largest (14.9 percent) group of Madagascar's population and clearly are the most numerous on the east coast. They are divided into three subgroups: the northern Betsimisaraka, the Betanimena, and the southern Betsimisaraka. Their territory extends along the coast in a narrow band from the Bemarivo River in the north to the Mananjary River in the south, a distance of some 640 kilometers. The Betsimisaraka, whose name means "numerous and inseparable," have traditionally been traders, seafarers, and fishers, as well as cultivators of the tropical lowland areas. They trace their origins to the confederacy established by Ratsimilaho, allegedly the son of a British pirate and a Malagasy princess, who unified several small coastal states in the eighteenth century. The confederation continued after Ratsimilaho died in 1751, but it was much weakened by internal conflict and external pressure. The Betsimisaraka territory has included the important port city of Toamasina, as well as Fenerive and Maroansetra at the head of the Baie d'Antongil.
South of the Betsimisaraka are ethnic groups who trace their origins to Islamic traders of mixed Arab, African, and MalayoIndonesian origin who settled on the coasts after the fourteenth century, and are known as Antalaotra ("people of the sea"). The Antambahoaka, whose name is translated as "the people," make up 0.4 percent of the population and live around the Mananjary River just south of the Betsimisaraka territory. They claim as their ancestor Raminia, a king who came from Mecca around the early fourteenth century, and are part of a larger group known as the Zafi-Raminia, or "descendants of Raminia;" some of this group migrated from the Mananjary region to become rulers of peoples to the south. Some scholars have speculated that the Zafi-Raminia may have formed part of the ruling class of the Merina, who came to dominate Madagascar in the nineteenth century. Their power and prestige derived from their willingness to use their knowledge of astrology, medicine, and divination to serve the courts of kings throughout Madagascar.
Another people descended from the Antalaotra, the Antaimoro ("people of the shore") constitute 3.4 percent of the population and also live south of the Betsimisaraka. The Antaimoro were apparently the last significant arrivals, appearing around the end of the fifteenth century, possibly from the Arabian Peninsula with a sojourn in Ethiopia or Somalia, just before the coming of the Europeans in the sixteenth century. They are the only Malagasy people before the nineteenth century to possess a system of writing, based on Arabic script. Their books, the sorabe (from the Arabic sura, meaning "writing," and the Malagasy be, meaning "big" or "great"), which were inscribed in ink on special paper made from beaten wood bark, dealt with astrology, divination, medicine, and historical chronicles. Like the Antambahoaka, the Antaimoro are noted throughout Madagascar for their knowledge of the supernatural and medicine.
Among a number of other groups around Farafangana, at the southern end of the Canal des Pangalanes, the most important are the Antaifasy ("people of the sands"), who constitute 1.2 percent of the population. To the south, the Antaisaka (5.3 percent of the population) are found in large numbers around the alluvial valley of the Mananara River. The Antanosy ("people of the island"), who live in the extreme southeastern part of the island around Faradofay, make up 2.3 percent of the population.
The peoples of the eastern escarpment separating the east coast from the central highlands are the Sihanaka ("people of the lake"), who represent 2.4 percent of the population; the Bezanozano (0.8 percent), living south of the Sihanaka; and the Tanala (3.8 percent). The Sihanaka live around Lake Alaotra and practice wet-rice cultivation in a manner similar to that of the Merina. The Bezanozano ("many little braids," referring to their hair style), the Tanala ("people of the forest"), and the inland Betsimisaraka practice slash-and-burn agriculture in the forests, cultivating dry rice, corn, yams, and other crops. Although the Merina conquered the Sihanaka, the Bezanozano, and the inland Betsimisaraka in the early nineteenth century, the southern Tanala remained independent up to the French occupation.
More about the Population of Madagascar.
Source: U.S. Library of Congress
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To satisfy their need for nitrogen, most plants rely on nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form plants can use. Other sources are decomposing organic matter (thanks mostly to bacteria) and even lightning, which can fix nitrogen. Carnivorous plants, such as the Venus flytrap, snare nitrogen-rich insects. Now researchers report on another strategy: enlisting a fungal friend.
Metarhizium, a globally abundant soil fungus, is a widespread insect pathogen and killer that also can be found residing in a mutualistic fashion, as an “endophyte,” inside the roots of plant hosts. Scott W. Behie of Brock University in Ontario, Canada, and two colleagues tested Metarhizium’s potential to purvey insect-derived nitrogen to plant hosts.
The team first injected larvae of the waxmoth Galleria mellonella, a soil-borne insect, with 15N—a nitrogen isotope scarce in nature and commonly used as a tracer. They wanted to see how much insect-derived nitrogen ended up in the leaves of two plant species: Phaseolus vulgaris, the quick-growing haricot bean, and Panicum virgatum, a slower-growing perennial bunchgrass. The researchers sterilized and germinated seeds from both plants, then planted seedlings in containers with sterile soil. In some of the containers they placed live waxmoth larvae, either infected with Metarhizium spores, infected with Aspergillus flavus—another fungal insect pathogen, but not an endophytic one—or uninfected. A fine mesh that only fungal threads could penetrate separated the larvae from plant roots.
The infected larvae quickly died. After two weeks, most of the nitrogen in bean and bunchgrass leaves had come from Metarhizium-infected insects, significantly more than in plants exposed to A. flavus infected larvae, uninfected larvae, or to no larvae at all. By week four, insect-nitrogen levels fell further in the fast-metabolizing beans but increased in bunchgrass, both still well ahead of the non-Metarhizium preparations. (Science)
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A growing trend for some individuals is to enhance their cognitive capabilities through prescription drugs meant for patients with ADD. These individuals use these medications despite having no diagnosed disorder.
Neuroenhancement is the artificial increase of mental performance using medication. It is also referred to as brain doping. The individual enhances his concentration, alertness, and overall behavior.
Drinking coffee or taking in caffeine may be considered as a practice of neuroenhancement. But caffeine is considered both as a drug and a food additive. It is legal and unregulated in nearly all parts of the world whereas ADD drugs require a prescription.
This practice is more similar to performance enhancing drugs in sports than for recreational use. Questions whether this practice is ethical in the light of academic and professional environments.
Although this practice is not widespread (It is estimated that 1% to 11% of university students take these drugs for cognitive enhancement), there is a danger that this practice may become prevalent.
Doctors advised not to prescribe ADD drugs to healthy people
Physicians in Canada should consider refusing to prescribe cognitive enhancement medications — also used to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD) — to healthy patients, states an analysis article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Lack of evidence for benefits and possibility of harm, limited health care resources and professional integrity of physicians are reasons why this use is not acceptable.
Prescription stimulants such as methylphenidate and dextroamphetamine are often used by people for "cognitive enhancement" to increase focus, concentration and memory. Because these drugs are available in Canada by prescription only, people must request them from their doctors.
"Physicians are important stakeholders in this debate, given the risks and regulations of prescription drugs and the potential for requests from patients for cognitive enhancers," writes Dr. Eric Racine, Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal and Université de Montréal, with coauthors.
Video: Ethics of Neuroenhancement
People take prescription stimulants to perform better in school or at work. Prevalence rates of cognitive enhancer use by university students ranges from 1% to 11% in some studies. Risks to taking stimulants include cardiovascular harm, dependence and psychosis. Current evidence has not shown that the desired benefits of enhanced mental performance are achieved with these substances.
"With uncertain benefits and clear harms, it is difficult to support the notion that physicians should prescribe a medication to a healthy individual for enhancement purposes," adds Dr. Racine with Cynthia Forlini, two coauthors of the paper.
Because physicians in Canada provide prescriptions through a publicly funded health care system with expanding demands for care, prescribing cognitive enhancers may not be an appropriate use of resources.
"Given the current state of limited evidence on medical, scientific, social and ethical aspects of cognitive enhancement, we call for greater attention to its appropriateness within existing Canadian health care systems," the authors conclude.
Canadian Medical Association Journal
Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM)
Université de Montréal
Coffee Improves Brain Performance In Implicit Recognition of Positive Words and Emotions
Scent of Rosemary Enhances and Improves Brain's Cognitive Performance
Cocoa and Cocoa Products Rich in Flavanols Enhance Brain Functions
Making The Brain Sharper and Overcoming Attentional Blink
Decaffeinated Coffee Improves Brain Metabolism in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes
How Our Brains Keep Us Focused
Cognitive Training May Lead to Neural and Behavioral Improvements in Patients with Schizophrenia
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) As An Effective Prevention in the Development of Psychotic Symptoms And Schizophrenia
Patients with Multiple Sclerosis Benefit with Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy for Improved Brain Performance
Group Settings Can Diminish Expressions of Intelligence, Especially Among Women
Continuous Sleep Favorable In Long Term Memory Consolidation and Enhancement
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After defeating the Rebel skirmishers at Tunnel Hill, Army of the Cumberland Commander George Thomas [US] decided to probe Rocky Face. He felt "Buzzard's Roost" was too heavily fortified so he sent troops under "Fighting Joe" Hooker [US] to Dug Gap, 2.5 miles south of Mill Creek. On the afternoon of May 8, 1864, Major General John W. Geary [US] ordered troops under his command to advance and attack a well entrenched Confederate line behind a stone wall.
The Rebels, under the command of Lieutenant General William J. Hardee [CS] outnumbered at times by ten to one, had spent 5 months preparing for the attack. Not only had the wall been constructed, but a number of large boulders had been propped up at the top of the gap. As Geary's men advanced the Confederate defenders released the boulders, killing many soldiers and demoralizing the rest. A second attack at the same spot later in the day was repulsed when the Rebels were reinforced by General Hiram Granbury's infantry brigade.
The park contains over 1200 feet of the original stone wall the Confederates built between November, 1863 and May, 1864 in a 2.5 acre park. Adventurous souls may decide to venture further up the mountain from the park and see the Rebel entrenchments that line the crest of Rocky Face.
Other Attractions in Dalton
Relief Map at Dalton
Crown Gardens & Archives
Dalton W&A Depot
Dalton Cemetery (West Hill)
Joseph E. Johnston Statue
Allatoona Pass Battlefield
Fort McAllister State Park
Point Park, Lookout Mountain
Kettle Creek battlefield
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park
Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park
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More Good News for Chocolate… Or Not?
We’ve all heard about the benefits of consuming chocolate, but did you know that it also protects skin against UV light? Take a look at this 2009 study from the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology which claims just that. The catch? The chocolate needs to be rich in flavanols—the antioxidants responsible for most of the benefits associated with chocolate. No problem, right? We’ve all learned that dark chocolate is richer in this good stuff and have trained our taste buds accordingly, relishing even a super dark—and admit it, bitter—85% cocoa.
But rewind for a second: This study says that even dark chocolate loses a lot of its antioxidant power through manufacturing processes. In fact, to test this UV-fighting theory the researchers pitted a regular dark chocolate against a specially formulated one with higher flavanols and only the latter proved to be effective. So how does this translate for all the other benefits of dark chocolate? Has the coverage of these studies overlooked this key point? Most importantly, is there any way to guarantee that the dark chocolate we’re eating is as flavanol-rich as the stuff they use for the science? Stay tuned, folks—we’re going to get to the bottom of this one.
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Increasing tobacco taxes is a WIN-WIN-WIN solution for governments – a health win that reduces smoking and saves lives; a budget win that raises revenue and reduces health care costs; and a political win that is popular with the public.
In 2009, Congress and President Obama increased the federal cigarette tax by 62 cents, along with increases in other tobacco taxes. The increases were part of legislation expanding coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
The federal cigarette tax increased to $1.01 per pack on April 1, 2009. In large measure because of federal and state cigarette tax increases, cigarette sales declined by 8.3 percent in 2009, one of the largest declines in years.
The federal government can achieve additional health and revenue benefits by further increasing tobacco taxes and working toward tax equity for all tobacco products. This discourages all tobacco use and closes loopholes that manufacturers now use to inaccurately fit their products into lower-tax categories.
The benefits of tobacco tax increases are significant:
Tobacco tax increases are one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking and other tobacco use, especially among kids. The evidence is clear: The more cigarettes cost, the less people smoke, especially kids.
Governments that significantly increase tobacco taxes enjoy substantial increases in revenue, even while reducing smoking and other tobacco use. Higher tobacco taxes also save money by reducing tobacco-related health care costs, including Medicaid expenses.
National and state polls consistently have found overwhelming public support for tobacco tax increases. Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike want elected officials to increase tobacco taxes to help prevent kids from smoking.
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Definitions for gerbera
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word gerbera
Gerbera, genus Gerbera(noun)
genus of South African or Asiatic herbs: African daisies
A daisy of the genus Gerbera.
Gerbera L. is a genus of ornamental plants from the sunflower family. It was named in honour of the German botanist and naturalist Traugott Gerber who travelled extensively in Russia and was a friend of Carolus Linnaeus. It has approximately 30 species in the wild, extending to South America, Africa and tropical Asia. The first scientific description of a Gerbera was made by J.D. Hooker in Curtis's Botanical Magazine in 1889 when he described Gerbera jamesonii, a South African species also known as Transvaal daisy or Barberton Daisy. Gerbera is also commonly known as the African Daisy. Gerbera species bear a large capitulum with striking, two-lipped ray florets in yellow, orange, white, pink or red colours. The capitulum, which has the appearance of a single flower, is actually composed of hundreds of individual flowers. The morphology of the flowers varies depending on their position in the capitulum. The flower heads can be as small as 7 cm in diameter or up to 12 cm. Gerbera is very popular and widely used as a decorative garden plant or as cut flowers. The domesticated cultivars are mostly a result of a cross between Gerbera jamesonii and another South African species Gerbera viridifolia. The cross is known as Gerbera hybrida. Thousands of cultivars exist. They vary greatly in shape and size. Colours include white, yellow, orange, red, and pink. The centre of the flower is sometimes black. Often the same flower can have petals of several different colours.
The numerical value of gerbera in Chaldean Numerology is: 2
The numerical value of gerbera in Pythagorean Numerology is: 2
Images & Illustrations of gerbera
Translations for gerbera
From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary
Get even more translations for gerbera »
Find a translation for the gerbera definition in other languages:
Select another language:
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Ethelfleda married the lord of Mercia when she was 15 years old. The marriage was both a reward for Mercia's aid to King Alfred in driving the Danes out of Wessex, and a way of diplomatically maintaining Wessex's dominance over Mercia. Alfred awarded his son-in-law the title Earl of Mercia.
After the Earl's death, Ethelfleda ruled Mercia for seven years. When she died, Mercia became part of the Kingdom of Wessex.
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| 0.969199 | 106 | 3 | 3 |
2 Answers | Add Yours
In chapter 26, when Scout tries to talk to Jem about Miss Gates she mentions the courthouse. Jem grabs Scout and tells her never to mention that courthouse to him again. Jem is still very upset about what happened to Tom Robinson. He believed that the jury would find Tom innocent because Atticus proved that he did not rape Mayella. Jem's innocent outlook on life was stolen from him that day and he has yet to deal with it emotionally. Atticus tells Scout, "don't let Jem get you down."
"Atticus said that Jem was trying hard to forget something, but what he was really doing was storing it away for a while, until enough time passed. Then he would be able to think about it and sort things out. When he was able to think about it, Jem would be himself again."
Attitus was trying to tell Scout to just give Jem time to grow up a little and come to terms with the fact that things are not always fair and that society doesn't always do what is right.
Scout is starting the third grade. She and Jem still go by the Radley place, but she realizes that it no longer holds the same kind of fear that it once did. The trial has ended and Tom Robinson was convicted. The two children are still trying to come to terms with what happened at the trial.
When Scout's teacher, Miss. Gates, starts talking to the class about Hitler, she tells the class about the horrible things he is doing. She goes on to say how horrible it was what Hitler was doing. Scout has a hard time with what Miss. Gates is saying. She thinks she is being a hypocrite. After the trial she heard Miss. Gates saying that it was about time someone did something about about the blacks in town and someone needed to teach them a lesson. Scout tries to ask Jem about this, but Jem explodes at Scout and tells her not to mention the trial to him again. She asks Atticus why Jem is acting this way, and Atticus explains the Scout that Jem is still upset with the outcome of the trial. He just needs time to come to terms with what happened at the trial.
We’ve answered 327,708 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question
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Known as the Primer Libertador de America or “first liberator of the Americas,” Gaspar Yanga led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful slave uprisings and would go on to establish one of the Americas earliest free black settlements.
Rumored to be of royal lineage from West Africa, Yanga was an enslaved worker in the sugarcane plantations of Veracruz, Mexico. In 1570 he, along with a group of followers, escaped, fled to the mountainous regions near Córdoba, and established a settlement of former slaves or palenque. They remained there virtually unmolested by Spanish authorities for nearly 40 years. Taking the role of spiritual and military leader, he structured the agricultural community in an ordered capacity, allowing its growth and occupation of various locations.
During that time, Yanga and his band, also known as cimarrónes, were implicated in the disruption and looting of trade goods along the Camino Real (Royal Road) between Veracruz and Mexico City. They were also held responsible for attacking nearby haciendas and kidnapping indigenous women. Perceived as dangerous to the colonial system of slavery through their daring actions against royal commerce and authority, New Spain’s viceroy called for the annihilation of Yanga's palenque. Destroying the community and its leader would send a message to other would-be rebellious slaves that Spain’s authority over them was absolute.
In 1609, Spanish authorities sent a well-armed militia to defeat Yanga and his palenque but were defeated. Yanga’s surprise victory over the Spanish heightened the confidence of his warriors and the frustration in Mexico City.
After defeating other Spanish forces sent again the palenque, Yanga offered to make peace but with eleven conditions, the most important being recognition of the freedom of all of the palenque’s residents prior to 1608, acknowledgment of the settlement as a legal entity which Yanga and his descendants would govern, and the prohibition of any Spanish in the community. Yanga, in turn, promised to serve and pay tribute to the Spanish crown. After years of negotiations, in 1618, the town of San Lorenzo de Los Negros was officially recognized by Spanish authorities as a free black settlement. It would later be referred to as Yanga, named after its founder.
Jane G. Landers, “Cimarrón and Citizen: African Ethnicity, Corporate Identity, and the Evolution of Free Black Towns in the Spanish Circum-Caribbean,” in Jane Lander and Barry Robinson, eds., Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006); Charles Henry Rowell, “El Primer Libertador de las Americas,” Callaloo 31:1 (Winter 2008).
University of Washington, Seattle
BlackPast.org is an independent non-profit corporation 501(c)(3). It has no affiliation with the University of Washington. BlackPast.org is supported in part by a grant from Humanities Washington, a state-wide non-profit organization supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the state of Washington, and contributions from individuals and foundations.
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Building Nature's Safety Net 2011: The State of Protected Areas for Australia’s Ecosystems and Wildlife
This report details major conservation initiatives that have occurred since the last report, in which data was current to 2006, and highlights emerging issues.
A major enhancement on previous reports is the inclusion of ecosystem and threatened species gap analyses, and the reporting on Australia's protected area systems on both land and sea.
We define a minimum standard for an adequate, representative, and comprehensive reserve system by sampling ecosystem and species level diversity.
Using the latest protected area and national species and ecosystem spatial data, we quantify the gaps: those areas needing to move from the current reserve system to one which meets the minimum standard.
We also use data provided by various parks agencies, from responses to a questionnaire (Appendix) or as published by the agencies, to detail financial investments in protected areas, and estimate the investment levels needed to fill the documented gaps.
We also identify critical policy changes needed to more effectively fill the identified gaps.
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An Ugly Reminder of the Danger of Infectious Diseases
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Infectious disease control remains one of the most challenging issues we face – in veterinary
medicine and in human medicine. These days, most of us are aware of the threat that
Avian Influenza H5N1 poses to both animal and human health. Many also recall the
2001 outbreak of Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) that devastated Great Britain.
Improved vaccines and diagnostic tests have enabled us to make a great deal of progress in
infectious disease control over the past several decades. But today, infectious diseases
remain a major threat to public health and agricultural productivity.
Witness what we have encountered at our
Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg,
Virginia, where we have sustained a two to four week quarantine imposed by the Virginia
State Veterinarian’s Office as a result of an outbreak of Equine Herpes Virus -1.
Though it presents no public health threat, this extremely infectious agent is very
dangerous to horses.
The quarantine that is required in order to deal with this problem is costly and
it temporarily negates our ability to provide services to other horses that
require urgent healthcare.
I would like to publicly acknowledge the excellent job that everyone at the
Equine Medical Center is doing to deal with and control this situation.
Our Equine Medical Center staff and leadership team have worked closely with
state regulatory officials, private practitioners, clients, horse owners, members
of the media and many others throughout their response. The emergency management and
communication protocols that have been put in place are superlative and are responsible
for the steady progress we are making in dealing with this medical crisis.
This episode illuminates the importance of greater scientific investment in infectious
disease research, to prevent and control outbreaks, and it speaks of the importance of our developing translational
research and medicine plans.
For a three-week period that will run from February 26 through March 18, the
Virginia Tech home-page will host a
on the VMRCVM’s emerging translational medicine program.
Please find a moment to look it over if you get a chance to do so.
Gerhardt G. Schurig
America’s growing obesity problem has alarmed physicians and public health officials, and veterinarians
have recently focused their attention on fat dogs and cats. Now, a team of researchers in the
Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine
(VMRCVM) and the College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences (CALS) at Virginia Tech
has determined that horses are also facing serious health risks because of obesity.
VMRCVM Researchers Lead Pioneering Study in Equine Obesity
Fifty-one percent of the horses evaluated during the pioneering investigation were determined to be
overweight or obese – and subject to serious health problems like laminitis and hyperinsulinemia.
And just like people, it appears as though the culprits are over-eating and lack of exercise.
“This study documented that this is an extremely important problem in horses that has been under-reported,” said
Dr. Craig Thatcher, a professor in the VMRCVM’s Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences
diplomate in the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (ACVN).
Thatcher and his colleagues believe the study results suggest that horse-owners should change
some of the ways in which they care for their horses – and hinted that horses could emerge as an
important model for studying the health implications of human obesity.
“Obesity, over the past decade, has become a major health concern in horses,” said
Dr. Scott Pleasant,
an associate professor in DLACS and diplomate in the American College of Veterinary Surgeons
“This is primarily because of its association with problems such as insulin resistance,
oxidative stress and inflammation, and laminitis.”
In fact, it was a spike in pasture-associated laminitis cases that led Dr. Pleasant to grow
curious and seek the collaboration of Dr. Thatcher, an internationally renowned veterinary
nutritionist, on the innovative research project. Dr. Ray Geor, the Paul Mellon Distinguished
Professor of Agriculture in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of
the Middleburg Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Middleburg, Va., and
Dr. Francois Elvinger, an epidemiologist and associate professor in DLACS, were also
enlisted as co-investigators.
“Laminitis is a failure of the connective tissue bond between the horse’s hoof and the bone
within the hoof,” explains Dr. Pleasant, noting the highly publicized struggle that the racehorse
Barbaro had with the disorder as a result of his catastrophic injury at the 2006 Preakness.
“When that bond fails, and the hoof and bone start to full apart, it is extremely painful to the
horse,” he continued. “Laminitis is one of the most devastating and debilitating problems that
we see with the horse.”
Funded by the Virginia Horse Industry Board,
the study also suggested that overweight horses can suffer from insulin and sugar imbalances,
chronic inflammation, and oxidative stress, a malady that occurs as a result of changes
to metabolic processes that alter the delicate balances between the
destruction and creation of new cells in the body.
“Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of free radicals and reactive oxygen
species and the body’s anti-oxidant defense mechanisms, and that imbalance is in favor of the oxidants,”
said Thatcher. “Those free radicals and reactive oxidant species can affect macromolecules in
the body such as lipids, DNA and proteins, ultimately causing cell death or changing the
functionality of these macro-molecules.”
Other problems caused by equine obesity are heat stress, increased bone, tendon,
and joint injuries, and reduced performance levels.
After surveying the academic literature the researchers discovered that only one documented
study on equine obesity existed prior to this research, according to Thatcher. It was an owner-reported
survey done in 1998 by the National Animal Health Monitoring System
(NAHMS) through the United States
Department of Agriculture. This study reported the prevalence of overweight or obese horses to be 5 percent.
However, based on the horses seen routinely in clinical practice at VMRCVM, the research team hypothesized
the prevalence of overweight and obese horses was much higher than the reported 5 percent.
“We thought it was at a level of at least 15 percent,” said Dr. Thatcher.
The research team designed a prospective study and conducted it over the course of 60 days from
June 19, 2006 through August 17, 2006. They studied 300 horses, ranging from 4 to 20 years old
from 114 farms, chosen randomly from over 1,000 horses in VMRCVM’s Equine Field Service horse
The horses were studied between 6 a.m. and 12 noon, prior to any grain or concentrate consumption,
which can alter glucose and insulin levels.
Two independent body-conditioning scores, which assess the amount of fat cover of the horses,
were assigned to each animal. The scores range from 1 to 9 and a score of 8 or 9 signifies obesity.
Morphometric measurements were also taken to allow the research team to calculate body weight and
body mass index (BMI). These measurements include girth circumference, neck circumference, body length, and height.
Each horse was checked for signs of laminitis and blood was drawn to assess glucose and insulin
levels as well as other hormones, cytokines, and oxidative biomarkers. A questionnaire was also
completed by each horse’s owner to gather background information on breed, gender, health history,
feed, and exercise. Ponies, minis, donkeys, draft breeds, and their crosses were excluded from
the study, as were pregnant and lactating mares, and horses undergoing treatment for medical problems.
While laboratory testing and data analysis are still underway, the research team has already
made some alarming discoveries.
Fifty-one percent of the horses in the study were found to be overweight and nineteen percent
were found to be obese. Eighteen percent of the overweight horses and thirty-two percent of
obese horses were hyperinsulinemic, findings which support the researchers’ hypothesis that
the rate of overweight and obese horses is greater than the 5 percent figure reported in
the 1998 NAHMS study.
The study also suggests that equine obesity may result from natural grazing behavior instead of
the over use of grains and other feed supplements, which defies conventional thinking on equine
weight matters. The majority of horses examined in the study were fed primarily pasture and hay
with very little grain and concentrate.
Instead of overfeeding of grain and concentrates, the evidence indicates that improved forage and
lack of exercise are the two most common contributing factors in equine obesity. Thatcher believes
this may result from the fact that many pasture forages have been fortified with the goal of
improving weight gain and productivity of cattle and other food animals, with little thought
given to how these forages might affect horses, which often share the same pastures. In addition,
the majority of the horses studied were under-exercised. They were left on pastures to eat, but did
not have an actual exercise regimen.
Horses today are managed much differently from their evolutionary roots, indicated Dr. Pleasant.
“The horse evolved as a free-roaming grazer on sparse pasture types,” he said. Later the horse
served primarily as a work animal, serving as a source of transportation and draft power.
Today, most horses serve as companions and light performance animals, he said.
“We can see with increased nutrition and lack of exercise how these animals could drift
toward being overweight,” he said.
This research project remains underway, and has laid the groundwork for a series of provocative
new studies. The researchers are now focusing more specifically on the role of hormone levels,
oxidative stress, inflammatory biomarkers, and antioxidant mechanisms. However, the preliminary
data clearly demonstrates that this research has important implications for both equine and human health.
For example, the knowledge gained concerning the correlation between fortified forage and lack of
exercise and obesity in the horse can be immediately utilized by veterinary clinicians and owners
who can now consider altering their existing feeding and management programs.
Human health may also substantially benefit from this study, according to Dr. Thatcher, because
humans suffering from obesity experience chronic inflammation. If obese horses are also found to
suffer from chronic inflammation, the possibility would then exist for the horse to serve as an
animal model for the study of obesity in people for the very first time.
State officials have imposed a quarantine of the
Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center’s facilities
effective immediately due to the suspected infection of the neurologic form of equine herpesvirus
(EHV-1) in three hospitalized horses. No additional patients will be admitted to the hospital
until further notice. Clients who may have questions or concerns regarding their horse should
call the hospital’s main telephone line at (703) 771-6800. Hospital officials expect the
quarantine to last anywhere from 14 to 28 days.
State-Imposed Quarantine Implemented at Equine Medical Center Due to Suspected Cases of Equine Herpesvirus (EHV-1)
EHV-1, one of several strains of the equine herpesvirus, is a highly contagious disease that, although
not transmissible to humans, can cause respiratory signs, abortion, peri-natal infection,
encephalitis, and other complications in horses. It is spread from infected horses, which shed
the virus through nasal fluids and bodily secretions, by both aerosol transmission and by direct
contact with horses affected with the virus. Symptoms include fever, coughing, nasal discharge,
loss of balance, urinary retention and recumbency.
“Based on the clinical signs and one positive test from the first horse with neurologic signs,
we are treating this as an infection with EHV-1. We are taking extraordinary precautions and
following the most stringent procedures possible in order to protect the horses in our care as
well as the general equine population,” said
Dr. Nat White, Jean Ellen Shehan Professor and
Director of the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center. “The health and safety of our
patients is our first priority.”
According to White, a horse that was brought to the hospital on Wednesday, February 7,
to be treated for an unrelated emergency subsequently developed a fever and signs of
nervous disease. The horse was immediately isolated in the hospital’s Biosafety Level 2
isolation unit. Initial PCR testing revealed that the horse was positive for the EHV-1 virus.
“Though this test can have false positive results, we are treating this as a true infection,” said White.
In addition, hospital officials elected to impose a voluntary quarantine of patients in the area
of the hospital where a risk of exposure was possible. These horses were promptly separated
from the rest of the hospital’s equine population in designated isolation barns.
As of the morning of Tuesday, February 20, two additional horses being treated at the center for
unrelated problems developed fever and neurological symptoms leading state officials to deem
necessary an immediate quarantine of all hospital facilities.
“The center has always followed strict biosafety procedures governing patient care, movement
in and out of the isolation unit, and cleaning of stalls between each horse occupancy in order
to prevent the spread of infectious diseases,” said
Dr. Martin Furr, Adelaide C. Riggs Chair in
Equine Medicine at the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center. “However, this quarantine,
which is the first that we’ve had since the center was opened in 1984, has been implemented
to ensure that there is no chance of spreading the virus.”
EHV-1 is a reportable disease and the state veterinarians of Virginia and Maryland were notified
on Monday, February 19. The mandate to quarantine the facilities was issued by Virginia State
Veterinarian’s Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, February 20. Referring veterinarians and
owners of all horses that may have been exposed to the disease have also been informed.
“I would like to emphasize that though these are not confirmed cases of EHV-1 by virus isolation
or serology, we are implementing appropriate measures to prevent the spread of any contagions,”
said White. “We are taking this situation very seriously and will do whatever is necessary to
safeguard the well-being of our patients.”
Virginia Tech’s Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center is a Leesburg-based full-service equine
hospital that is owned by Virginia Tech and operated as one of three campuses that comprise the
Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.
For additional information concerning EHV-1, please see the
Equine Herpesvirus Fact Sheet.
For the 16th consecutive year, "Careers in Veterinary Medicine," a 4-H series
that provides a glimpse of the modern veterinary profession, is being presented on
the VMRCVM’s Virginia Tech campus. The series began on February 6 and will continue until March 20.
Careers in Veterinary Medicine Program Presented at VMRCVM
Sponsored by Seven Seas Veterinary Services, the VMRCVM, the Wildlife Center of Virginia and the Montgomery
County 4-H Extension Office, the course is being held on Monday evenings from 7-8 p.m.
All classes, with the exception of one, will be held in the VMRCVM's Classroom 102, which is
located across from the Veterinary Medicine Library. Attendees will enter via the Veterinary
Teaching Hospital entrance and proceed to the left down the hall to the classroom. The class on
February 26, Aquatic Veterinary Medicine for Fish and Horseshoe Crabs, will be held at the
Aquatic Lab on Prices Fork Road in Blacksburg.
The program, which has been organized by Dr. Keath Marx (VMRCVM, '89), owner of Seven Seas
Veterinary Services, provides registrants with an opportunity to learn about a variety of
topics in the profession and culminates with a guided tour of the veterinary college complex
at Virginia Tech. The first session, held February 5, was an introduction to the series by
Dr. Marx and was attended by 38 4-H members.
"Veterinary medicine is playing an ever-growing role in the world we live in," said Dr. Marx,
who has led the course for the past 16 years. "I think it's important that we help children
learn as much as they can about this profession as they begin thinking about what they want
to do with the rest of their lives."
Pre-registration is required and class size is limited to 40 children. Adult escorts or
sponsors are invited if space is available at each of the events. Registrants need not
be current members of 4-H.
The remaining scheduled topics and speakers include:
For more information on the programs or on how to register, contact Michelle Adcock at
[email protected] or call 540-382-5790.
- February 26 - “Aquatic Veterinary Medicine for Fish and Horseshoe Crabs,"
Dr. Stephen A Smith,
professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology
VMRCVM. (this class to be held at the Aquatic Lab at Price's Fork Research Center)
- March 5- “Veterinary Anatomy” –
Dr. Larry Freeman,
DVM, MS, Anatomy, Associate Professor, DBSP, VMRCVM.
- March 12 - "Veterinary Radiology and Ultrasound” –
Dr. Chris Ober,
DVM, Resident and Dr. Sarah Davies, BVSc, Resident, Radiology, Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences
- March 19 - Tour of Veterinary Hospital and College, Ted Smusz, Communications, VMRCVM.
Work on the construction of a new Biosafety Level 3 containment (BSL-3) Laboratory located on
the VMRCVM’s Maryland Campus at the University of Maryland at College Park’s
Gudelsky Veterinary Center has been completed.
University of Maryland-College Park President Mote Visits New Gudelsky Center BSL-3 Lab
Dr. Dan Mote, president of the University
of Maryland-College Park (UMCP), recently visited
and toured the facility and had a lunch meeting with the faculty.
President Mote was extremely positive about his tour of the facility and the work being
done there, according to Dr. Siba Samal, associate dean of VMRCVM’s UMCP Campus,
“We were very honored by his visit and happy to see Dr. Mote so interested in the
Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine and our faculty’s research,”
said Samal. “It means a lot to have the University President show such an interest
in our department, faculty, and work.”
The designation of BSL-3 is given only to laboratories that meet very strict United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards for handling
infectious agents that pose serious or potentially lethal diseases as a result of inhalation.
VMRCVM researchers at College Park are investigating Avian Influenza (H5N1) and Newcastle Disease,
two of three animal diseases designated as priorities by the USDA. H5N1 is a virus that typically
affects birds, but can be deadly if transmitted to humans. Newcastle Disease is the leading cause
of illness and death among domesticated poultry. The UMCP team is not only researching a
vaccination for Newcastle Disease, but also studying how the disease can be safely used in
vaccines for humans.
The new lab is an enhanced BSL-3 facility. This means there are features of BSL-4 containment,
the highest designation a facility can receive, incorporated into the lab’s design. Some of these
features include high efficiency air filters (HEPA) that filter exhaust air before it is
discharged into the atmosphere, powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs) worn by researchers
at all times, and complete waste sterilization prior to removal from the facility.
The lab also features an independent ventilation system with directional inward flow.
Air flows from areas of lowest risk to areas of highest risk, protecting workers in
other parts of the building.
The VMRCVM has expanded the range
of non-invasive procedures available in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital with
the acquisition of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) unit.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Installed in VMRCVM
Unlike conventional x-rays and computed tomography (CT) which use ionizing radiation to create
diagnostic images, MRI uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves to create detailed images of
internal structures, according to veterinary radiologist
Dr. Jeryl Jones,
an associate professor in the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences.
MRI is considered the most sensitive diagnostic imaging test for brain and spinal cord diseases
since it can detect extremely subtle abnormalities.
"We are very happy and excited to now have an in-house MRI scanner in the VMRCVM,” said Dr. Jones,
who is board-certified by the American College of Veterinary Radiology. “This advanced imaging
technology further increases our diagnostic capabilities and allows us to continue to provide
outstanding care in a timely manner to our clients and patients. It is also a valuable teaching tool
that will help us better serve the needs of our students, interns, and residents."
When placed in a MRI unit, the hydrogen atoms within tissues align with a strong magnetic field
generated by the instrument, according to Dr. Jones. Radio waves pulsed into the field then
stimulate the hydrogen atoms to release energy, which is transmitted to a computer for analysis,
she explains. Since the signals of abnormal tissues are different from those received from normal
tissues, they will show up as either very white or very dark areas in the computer image display.
VMRCVM’s new unit was installed in late December 2006. The first patient scan was performed in
early January and around twenty scans have been performed since then, according to Dr. Jones.
Brain masses and spinal cord compression are the most common diagnoses made by the MRI unit.
These conditions are most commonly treated through surgery or, in the case of tumors, radiation
While currently used primarily for the diagnosis and treatment of injuries and diseases
of the spinal cord and brain, Dr. Jones predicts the unit will also likely be used to
diagnose canine knee joint problems in the future.
The new unit is being leased with a current contract of three years. Leasing high-technology
imaging equipment as opposed to purchasing allows lower up-front costs and more frequent
upgrades, according to Dr. Jones. This benefits the patient, client, and clinician because
it helps the VTH keep fees as low as possible while offering modern diagnostic and therapeutic
Before the installation of the new MRI unit, VMRCVM clinicians had to send patients to
alternative veterinary MRI facilities, such as those in Vienna, Virginia and Raleigh, North
Carolina, both owned by pet food giant IAMS®.
Dr. Ashish Ranjan, a Ph.D. candidate in the
VMRCVM’s Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences
recently received first place for his research poster during the two-day
Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Via Research Recognition Day.
VMRCVM Student Receives First Place Award at Research Recognition Day
The focus of the competition was nanomedicine research and its application. The competition
was divided into biomedical sciences and clinical sciences. Ranjan won in the biomedical
sciences category for his poster entitled “Targeted Delivery of Antimicrobials Using
Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes to Control Intracellular Bacterial Infections.”
Intracellular bacterial pathogens, such as Salmonella, have typically been able to evade
rapid destruction from a patient’s phagocytes or “killing cells,” a situation which often results in
the need for long-term antimicrobial or antibiotic therapy. Prolonged drug therapy increases
the chances of the pathogens becoming drug resistant, which is a rapidly growing global health
concern, explains Ranjan.
However, the utilization of functionalized carbon nanotubes –long,
thin cylinders of carbon-- to deliver antimicrobial therapy may decrease the amount of time
a patient is on medication and decrease the required dosage size, thereby reducing the
risks of pathogens becoming drug resistant. Dr. Ranjan and his fellow researchers are
currently working towards standardizing this novel technique of antimicrobial therapy delivery in
an effort to optimize the success of its approach.
The awards were presented by Sir Harold Kroto, Ph.D. and 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner in
chemistry, who also served as keynote speaker for the event. According to Ranjan,
Dr. Kroto made the award even more meaningful. “I have been awarded a number of
first prize awards in my academic career, but this award was very satisfying since
I received it from a Nobel Prize winner,” said Ranjan. “In addition, my research was
based to some extent on the properties of the nanoparticle which Dr. Kroto discovered.”
Ranjan was joined in this project by
Dr. Ramanathan Kasimanickam, assistant professor, DLACS;
Nammalwar Sriranganathan, professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology
Dr. Gary Pickrell, assistant professor, Materials Science and Engineering
(MSE), College of Engineering; and Navin Manjooran, a graduate student from MSE.
Ranjan received his B.V.Sc. in 2005 from Madras Veterinary College in India. He currently
serves as the president of the Biomedical and Veterinary Science Graduate Student Association
and as the social director of the Council of International Students Organization.
Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) are retroviruses
responsible for two of the most important infectious diseases affecting cats worldwide.
Management of Retrovirus-Positive Cats Seminar Presented at College Park
A recent seminar on the management of retrovirus-positive cats presented by the VMRCVM’s
at the University of Maryland at College Park and IDEXX Laboratories shared
current information on this important topic in veterinary medicine for dozens of private
The seminar featured Dr. Susan Little, a feline practitioner who is a diplomate in the
American Board of Veterinary Practitioners (Feline). In feline practice since 1990, she
is part owner of two feline specialty practices in Ottawa, Canada, president of the Winn
Feline Foundation, on the editorial advisory committee of Pets Magazine and is a consultant
for the Veterinary Information Network.
This seminar included current information on the treatment and prevention of disease transmission.
Topics ranged from general background information on feline retrovirus to more specific
strategies for the clinical management of retrovirus-infected cats.
The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP)
recommends the retrovirus status of all cats should be determined,
and has published guidelines for testing and management.
The seminar was organized by Dr. Katherine Feldman, an assistant director of the VMRCVM’s
Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine
in conjunction with IDEXX Laboraories.
Two continuing education credits were awarded to those attending the seminar.
Lynn Young, Director of Alumni and Student Affairs at the
VMRCVM, was recently awarded the
Friend of the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association
(VVMA) at the annual Virginia Veterinary Conference
recently held in Roanoke.
Lynn Young Named Friend of the VVMA
This award is given to an individual who is a non-veterinarian and who has made outstanding
contributions to the profession of veterinary medicine in Virginia. According to Dr. Bill Tyrrell,
a veterinary cardiologist with Chesapeake Veterinary Cardiology and graduate of VMRCVM, Lynn
exemplifies these criteria.
“Although this is her job, Lynn goes way above the call of duty. She has tirelessly moved the
VMRCVM Alumni Society from its fledgling state to an alumni group that is vibrant, proactive,
and growing,” wrote Dr. Tyrrell in his letter nominating Young for the award. “Lynn has become
the recognized face at all events and someone that all of our alumni can turn to.”
Lynn received her B.S. in business education in 1989 and her M.A. in student personnel services
in 1995 from Virginia Tech. Before assuming her current position in 2004, she was the assistant
director of alumni relations for Tech’s Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences,
Natural Resources, and Veterinary Medicine.
The Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine will host
“Goat Day: Topics in Herd Health,” on the
VMRCVM campus at Virginia Tech on
March 3, 2007 from 8:30am until 4:00pm.
Goat Day to be Held at VMRCVM
Goat Day is designed to offer some of the most up to date information to help farmers
and animal owners manage their herds and make their goats happier, healthier, and more productive.
The day will feature a symposium with some of the most renowned speakers in the Commonwealth of
Virginia as well as Dr. Steve Hart from Langston University’s E (Kika) de la Graze
Institute for Goat Research.
In addition to the symposium, classes will be offered throughout the day on special topics ranging
from goat nutrition to mastitis. Rick Odom, VA Animal ID Program Coordinator, will also be on hand
to answer questions about premise and animal ID in Virginia.
Pre-registration for Goat Day is strongly encouraged and is $15.00 which includes all classes and lunch.
There will also be a FAMACHA course offered during the day which requires pre-registration
and an additional fee of $13.00.
Goat Day is sponsored by the VMRCVM, Virginia Cooperative Extension, the
Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services,
the Virginia State Dairy Goat Association,
Virginia Tech Department of Dairy Science,
For more information please contact Anne Cinsavich, L.V.T. at (540) 231-5261 or
Senator William A. Truban, of Woodstock, Va., a veterinarian, long-time friend of the
VMRCVM, and a legislator who was
credited with helping gain Virginia General Assembly support and funding for the
creation of the college, passed away on February 3.
VMRCVM Pioneer Senator Bill Truban Passes Away
“Senator Truban played a historic role in our founding and early years of development,” said
VMRCVM Dean Gerhardt Schurig.
“The VMRCVM and all that it is doing for the people and animals of
the region is a part of the legacy of great public service that he leaves.”
Senator Truban served in the General Assembly from 1970 through 1992. A Republican, he served as
the Senate Minority Floor leader in the Democrat-dominated General Assembly. He played a pivotal
role in securing the initial state appropriations that provided start-up funding for the VMRCVM.
He also served on the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission, and was an early champion of what
is now known as the state’s “Rainy Day Fund.” Finally passed after Senator Truban’s retirement,
The 1993 Virginia Revenue Stabilization Fund establishes cash reserves to help the Commonwealth
navigate economic downturns.
Born in 1924, Senator Truban earned three Bronze Stars while serving in World War II in the
Burma theatre as part of the United States Army Air Corps.
After earning his VMD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, he opened the
Shenandoah Animal Hospital in Woodstock, which has operated continuously since 1953.
David S. Kronfeld, professor emeritus of animal and poultry sciences, died Sunday,
Dec. 17, 2006. Kronfeld was born Nov. 5, 1928 in Auckland, New Zealand.
David S. Kronfeld
Kronfeld joined the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences as the Paul Mellon Distinguished
Professor of Agriculture in 1988. He was charged with the development
of a new pasture-based equine nutrition research program at the Middleburg Agricultural
Research and Extension Center (MARE
Dr. Kronfeld also held a professorial appointment in the VMRCVM’s Department
of Large Animal Clinical Sciences. Over the course of his 53-year academic career,
Dr. Kronfeld served as a teacher and researcher at four universities.
He published more than 700 papers with 188 co-authors, including 248 refereed papers and 56 book
chapters. He received numerous national and international honors and awards, including an honoris
causa master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania for excellence in teaching and the 2006
Alumni Award for Excellence in Graduate Academic Advising at Virginia Tech.
He played an early role in the development of clinical specialties in veterinary medicine, and he
was a founding diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, the American
College of Veterinary Nutrition, and the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists.
He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Queensland and a
Ph.D. in comparative physiology from University of California Berkeley and a Doctorate of Science
from the University of Queensland.
The David Kronfeld Endowment for Graduate Student Support has been established to help support
graduate student education at the MARE Center. Funds from this endowment may be used to provide
financial assistance for a graduate student when other means are not available or to help defray
unexpected research project expenses for several graduate students.
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The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com.
Almost all experienced genealogists have used the census records to find ancestors. However, how many of us have used the Census Mortality Schedules? In fact, I have to wonder how many of us even know what the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules are? And why would we find them to be valuable?
In 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900, the U.S. census enumerators were required to collect all the normal census information plus even more: information about all persons dying within the 12 months preceding the census taking. These lists are known as the “Mortality Schedules.”
Mortality data can prove very useful in your research. For instance, for several years I suspected that a man found in the Massachusetts census records was my great-great-grandfather. I hadn’t found proof but the circumstantial evidence was almost overwhelming: he had the correct name, lived in the same area that my later, proven ancestors lived, he had the correct number of children as mentioned in a family history book, and more. In fact, I really wanted to prove my descent from this Revolutionary War soldier who spent the winter at Valley Forge in the Continental Army under the command of George Washington. (Most Revolutionary soldiers served in the militia, not in the Continental Army.) I searched hard for the proof.
The Revolutionary War veteran was found in every U.S. census from 1790 through 1840, all the years that only listed the Head of Household. He was there every year, living in the same town, living with numerous children in the early 1800s and then, as the years went by, with fewer and fewer children. While he was listed from 1790 through 1840, he was missing in the 1850 and later census records. Unfortunately, the 1850 census was the first U.S. census to list all household members. For several years, I went looking elsewhere for information about him.
One day, early in my genealogy “career,” I discovered the Mortality Schedule for 1850. I looked and, sure enough, the man I had been looking for was listed as having passed away in 1849. That explained why he was not listed in the 1850 and later census records. Even more interesting was the information provided: name, sex, age, color, widowed or not, place of birth, month of death, occupation, and cause of death.
The 1850 Mortality Schedule proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man was NOT my ancestor. The place of birth was not what I had expected. Armed with the date of death, I was then able to find an obituary elsewhere for this man that documented his war record and listed the family members who survived him. This was definitely not my man.
Was this a success story? I would say, “Yes.” Disproving information is as valuable or sometimes even more valuable than proving it. If nothing else, disproving the theory freed my research efforts to look elsewhere. I was no longer “barking up the wrong tree.”
Mortality Schedules are not available for all states and years. The 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses contained questions regarding those who died in the twelve months prior to the enumeration. The answers were compiled in separate “Mortality Schedules” that typically are kept separate from the census returns. The Mortality Schedules list persons who died between 1 June and 31 May of the year prior to the census.
Enumerators were asked to record a lot of information about individuals who died in the year previous to the census. The 1850 schedule, for example, includes information about individuals who died between 1 June 1849 and 31 May 1850. In 1850 and 1860, entries included the name of the deceased, their age at death, sex, color, status (free or slave), marital status (married or widowed), place of birth (state, territory or county), the month of death, occupation, disease or cause of death, and the number of days the individual was ill. In 1870, a new question asked if the father and/or mother were of foreign birth, but no longer included how many days the individual was ill. The 1880 census added categories for the place of birth of the deceased’s mother and father, how long the deceased had been a resident of the county, where the disease was contracted if not at the place of death, and the name of the attending physician. In both 1870 and 1880, a family number is included which ties the entry back to a specific entry in the population enumeration (and vice versa).
The 1850 and 1860 Mortality Schedules may be the only records available listing a slave ancestor. However, slave deaths apparently were underreported; many who are known to have died within the timeframe covered were never recorded in the Mortality Schedules.
The 1890 Mortality Schedules were recorded but were later destroyed in the same fire that destroyed the rest of the census records. In 1900, a Mortality Schedule was compiled, statistics were collected, and then original records were later deliberately destroyed by order of an act of Congress. Some years later, a copy of the 1900 Mortality Schedule for Minnesota was discovered at the Minnesota Historical Society and subsequently was published. This is the only known surviving 1900 mortality schedule for any state.
Here is a list of states that have some census mortality schedules available for various years from 1850-1885 -- not all states are covered for all years. You’ll need to check the microfilm catalog to see which years are covered:
Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida (1885 State Census only/not all counties included), Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico (1885 Territorial Census only), North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont (1870 only), Virginia, and Washington.
Most of the Mortality Schedules are available on microfilm. The microfilms are available through the LDS Family History Centers. Ancestry.com and FamilySearch have both placed many of the Mortality Schedules online, but not all. Some online transcriptions do not include all data found on the original mortality schedule images. If you find a record online, you should ALWAYS order the microfilm image of the original record to obtain all the information available.
Over the years, various local and state genealogy societies have published indexes to many of the mortality schedules, with some of these indexes available on CD-ROM. Similarly, county indexes and transcriptions may also be available, mostly published only on paper.
It is important to remember that the information is available only for the year immediately preceding the census, and even then, the information was probably under-reported. One estimate claims that 20 to 40 percent of deaths were not included. However, no one can verify that estimate. Of course, if your ancestor died in the nine years preceding each Mortality Schedule, he or she will never be listed.
One advantage of Mortality Records is that they normally list the cause of death. Of course, you will find the usual causes associated with old age but many records will list the cause of death as murdered, struck by a train, gas explosion (houses were often illuminated by gas lights), and similar causes of premature deaths. In such cases, a trip to to view local newspaper obituaries often provides additional clues about the death as well as lists of surviving relatives.
Mortality Schedules can be important to your research. As in my earlier example, the Mortality Schedules can provide detailed information about individuals who were deceased at the time of a normal census. For slave ancestors, Mortality Schedules may be the only record still available for many individuals.
Many states did not compile death records until the late 1800s or early 1900s. In those cases, Mortality Schedules may be the only record that documents a death date and provides any supporting information.
Mortality Schedules are valuable records for genealogists, records that are often overlooked.
Mortality Schedules may be found on FamilySearch.org and on Ancestry.com. If you do not have an Ancestry.com user name and password, visit a local library that subscribes to the service.
Even more complete Mortality Schedule records are available on microfilm. To find these records, do a place search for the state you are looking for in the Family History Library Catalog at http://www.FamilySearch.org, click on LIBRARY and then on LIBRARY CATALOG. Click on the state’s name and look for the census topics. Then click on the census year you need and then on the “Federal mortality census schedules” listings. You may also find these records listed under the “vital records” topic in the Family History Library Catalog for a specific state.
Have you checked the Mortality Schedules?
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The summary would be that there is a larger variety of flour (measured by gluten content) in the US than in Europe.
SAJ14SAJ described the gluten categories of American flour, although exact figures for the category limits are hard to pin down. Peter Reinhart says
cake flour has 6 to 7 percent gluten, pastry flour has 7.5 to 9.5 percent gluten, all-purpose flour has 9.5 to 11.5 percent gluten, and high-gluten flour has 13.5 to (rare but possible) 16 percent gluten.
(From The bread baker's apprentice, section Types of flour). I measure exactly my gluten percentages and can confirm that these are good for recipes of the respective categories.
These flours are all made from the same flour grade, with about 50% of the grain removed and only the soft center used for fine bread. The difference comes from the grain type used, hard spring wheat (high in gluten) or soft winter wheat (low in gluten). In Europe, where only soft winter wheat is grown, all the flour is in the 9-11% range. But mills will sometimes enrich certain types of flour with added gluten, or by blending with imported flour, or by milling more of the bran (wholer flour always has more protein) in order to make some specialized high-gluten flours, e.g. Italian pizza flour. These flours are, aside from whole wheat flour, not widely available to home bakers.
I can well imagine that a European trying to bake a European recipe with American bread flour will get bad results. But if they get the AP flour, there will be no problem in the gluten.
There are many other properties of flour which differ, beyond the gluten content. But recipes are never so sensitive to them that they'd fail. If you can't tell the difference between two brands of flour in your home country, then you won't be able to tell the difference between flour with the same gluten content from the other continent either, if both are unbleached and of the same grade (= amount of bran included and particle size).
All in all, this claim sounds like an unfounded emotionally-loaded attack. It is possible that the person who made it indeed failed because of gluten content, because they didn't know that they should be buying AP and not bread flour. Or that it failed for another reason and they were looking for a scapegoat, and garbled some half-remembered knowledge (by the way, while the American wheat is genetically different, the gluten level difference was achieved centuries ago by selective breeding) to excuse their failure.
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Slide 1: Presentation 3.2 Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Quality and Safety
Maintenance and Enhancement during
the Post-harvest Chain Section III Slide 2: Presentation 3.2 but, the quality of a product
is maintained and enhanced during
its harvest and post-harvest management. quality products are produced
in the fields! Slide 3: Presentation 3.2 Product quality at harvesting Slide 4: Presentation 3.2 Product quality after improper mechanical grading process. Slide 5: Presentation 3.2 Now it is waste...how many opportunities
have been lost! Slide 6: Presentation 3.2 Product quality maintenance (reduce loses)
Generate product added value
Generate market opportunities Principles of postharvest management of FFV Slide 7: Presentation 3.2 Product loses.
(Quality decay/physical loses).
High costs and low profits.
Loss of market opportunities.
Low competitiveness. Inappropriate post-harvest handling Slide 8: Presentation 3.2 Key processes during the
post-harvest- life :
Maturity process. Fruits and vegetables as PERISHABLE products Slide 9: Presentation 3.2 Factors affecting the respiration rate of FFV: Internal:
Type of tissue or organ: Leaves > fruits> roots.
Product size: bigger size< respiration rate.
Stages of development: young leaves >respiration. In fruits will depend on their classification as climacteric or non-climacteric. Slide 10: Presentation 3.2 Respiración Climatérica : Respiración Climatérica time Respiration (mg CO2/Kg./Hr) 180
0 Cherimoya Mango Tomate Prickly pear Slide 12: Strawberry Grape Cherry Lemon Time 30
0 Respiration (mg CO2/Kg./Hr) Slide 13: CLIMACTERIC
Pineapple Slide 14: Respiration
Very High Rep. Rhythm .
5 - 10 mg
10 - 20 mg
20 - 40 mg
40 - 60 mg PRODUCT
Sugar beet, garlic, onion,
cucumber, mango, tomato.
spinach, parsley, sweet
Corn. Slide 15: PERISHABILITY
Very low POTENTIAL LIFE
< 2 weeks
2 - 4 weeks
4 - 8 weeks
8 - 16 weeks
> 16 weeks PRODUCTS
nuts, dried fruits. Slide 16: Presentation 3.2 Factors affecting the respiration rates: External:
mechanical damage and product’s sanitary condition.
atmosphere composition (< Oxygen and CO2< respiration; > ethylene > respiration).
physical barriers (waxes, plastic films, etc.) Slide 17: the temperature - affects the degree of response/
severity of mechanical damage.
Compromise natural barriers -increasing
water loses and pathogenic infections. Impact Respiration Time Ethylene Mechanical damage during
the postharvest chain Slide 18: Presentation 3.2 Slide 19: Presentation 3.2 Slide 20: At temperatures above the optimum, the rate of deterioration increases 2 to 3 fold for every 10ºC rise in temperature.
High temperature-increases the transpiration rate. Respiratory rhythm Time 10ºC 20ºC 30ºC Slide 21: Presentation 3.2 Loss of water, as vapor, from the product’s area exposed to the air, throughout the cuticle, lenticels, stomas, etc. It depends on:
species and variety.
type of tissue.
integrity and sanitary product condition. Slide 22: Presentation 3.2 External factors:
Relative Humidity (<RH> transpiration).
Temperature (> temperature> transpiration)
Air movement (increase the transpiration rate).
Altitude (higher altitude< transpiration).
Physical barriers (avoid air contact with the product-reduce transpiration rate). Slide 23: Presentation 3.2 Ethylene production Climacteric fruits are sensitive to ethylene-produce larger quantities of ethylene in association with their ripening- (auto catalysis).
No climacteric fruits produce very small quantities of ethylene. At high concentration produce degreening and increase the metabolism.
Leafy vegetables are highly sensitive to Ethylene (withering and yellowing ) Slide 24: Presentation 3.2 Ripening Process Physiological process that occur at the cellular level. After finishing the anabolic process, a series of catalytic reactions start –degradation of: chlorophyll, aromas, organelles and finally causing cellular collapse/death. Post-harvest technology: to delay
as long as possible, the tissue
disintegration/senescence phase Slide 25: STRAWBERRY –EXTERNAL COLOUR CHANGES. Slide 26: MANGO-INTERNAL COLOUR CHANGES Slide 27: Loss of chlorophyll (undesirable in veg.)
Production of carotenoids and antocianines.
Starches conversion into sugars.
Changes in organic acids, proteins and fats.
Reduction in tannins and fungistatic compounds. Slide 28: Unripe Ripened Interior 100% 0% Exterior 100% 0% Natural fungistatic compounds. Slide 29: Presentation 3.2 Quality maintenance Post-harvest Avoid the negative effect of external factors To reduce and delay the action of the internal factors that are responsible for product deterioration Slide 30: Presentation 3.2 Temperature control.
Product protection from sun heat (full sunlight) after harvesting.
Pre-cooling treatments to remove field heat.
Maintaining the cold chain. Reducing product respiration rates Slide 31: Presentation 3.2 Key factor affecting product deterioration rate.
is the most effective tool for extending the shelf life of fresh horticultural commodities.
Key effect on spores germination and pathogenic growth. Slide 32: Presentation 3.2 Slide 33: Presentation 3.2 Temperatures above or below the
optimal range, can cause product
deterioration due to:
Heat injury. TºC Slide 34: Presentation 3.2 Freezing point of perishable commodities is relatively high (ranging from -0.3 ºC y -0.5 º C).
Freezing produces an immediate collapse of tissues and total loss of cellular integrity.
A result of inadequate design of refrigerator or failure of thermostats. Freezing: Slide 35: Presentation 3.2 Chilling Injury:
Some commodities (mainly tropical and sub-
tropical) respond unfavorably to storage at
low temperatures well above their freezing
points, temperatures called the chilling
threshold temperature or lowest safe
temperature. Slide 36: Presentation 3.2 Chilling injury. Slide 37: Presentation 3.2 Heat injury:
Direct sources of heat can rapidly heat
tissues to above the thermal death point of
their cells, leading to localized bleaching or
necrosis or general collapse. Slide 38: Presentation 3.2 Objective: to remove the field heat.
Movement of the caloric energy from the product to the cooling substance. Cooling Slide 39: Presentation 3.2 Cooling methods Slide 40: Presentation 3.2 Commercial cooling reaches up to 7/8 the final temperature.
First hours are crucial.
Additive effect of low temperatures. Time Temp. Cooling speed Slide 41: Presentation 3.2 Storage and refrigerated transport well designed and adequately equipped.
with adequate and well-positioned doors for loading and unloading.
allow effective distribution of refrigerated air.
allow monitoring and temperature control. Cooling rooms and refrigerated vehicles…. Slide 42: Presentation 3.2 Slide 43: Presentation 3.2 Slide 44: Presentation 3.2 refrigerated coils surfaces designed to adequately minimize differences between the coil and air temperatures.
proper air spaces between pallets and room walls to ensure proper air circulation.
monitoring temperature (product rather than air temperature). Storage and refrigerated transport Slide 45: Presentation 3.2 transit vehicles must be cooled before loading the commodity.
when mixing several products: product’s ethylene and chilling injury sensibility must be considered.
appropriate packing (air circulation and reducing mechanical damage) Storage and refrigerated transport Slide 46: Presentation 3.2 Slide 47: Presentation 3.2 Relative humidity management.
Is the moisture content (as water vapor) of the
atmosphere, expressed as a percentage of the amount of
moisture that can be retained by the atmosphere at a
given temperature and pressure without condensation.
RH can influence water loss, decay development,
incidence of physiological disorders, and uniformity of
fruit ripening. reducing
transpiration rates Slide 48: Presentation 3.2 Fruits: 85-95% of RH.
Dry products: onion and pumpkin. 70-75% de RH.
Root vegetables: carrot, radish. 95-100% RH. RH ranges Slide 49: Presentation 3.2 reducing transpiration rates Adding moisture (sprays, steam)
Regulating air movement and ventilation in relation to the produce load in the cold storage room.
Maintaining temperature of the refrigeration coils within about 1ºC of the air temperature.
Providing moisture barriers that insulate walls of storage room and transit vehicles.
Adding polyethylene liners in containers and using perforated polymeric films for packaging. Slide 50: Presentation 3.2 Curing.
Waxes and others surface coatings .
Polymeric films for packing.
Avoiding physical injuries.
Adding water to those commodities that tolerate misting with water. reducing transpiration rates Slide 51: Air in the internal
Cavity Wax layer restricts
the gases interchange. waxing fruits Slide 52: Presentation 3.2 Wetting floors in storage rooms.
Adding crushed ice in shipping containers.
Sprinkling produce with sanitized, clean water during retail marketing of the product. reducing
transpiration rates Slide 53: Presentation 3.2 avoiding sources of ethylene close to the product storage areas.
applications of 1-Methylcyclopropene (1-MCP)- ethylene action inhibitor, commercially approved on July 2002 in apples, apricots, avocados, kiwifruit, mangoes, nectarine, papayas, peaches, pears, persimmons, plums, and tomatoes. Ethylene Reducing
ethylene damage Slide 54: Presentation 3.2 Air ventilation of storage rooms.
Avoid mixing ethylene sensitive products with those non sensitive to ethylene, during storage and transport. Reducing
ethylene damage Slide 55: Presentation 3.2 Curing.
Heat treatments i.e.. dipping mangoes, 5 minutes to 50ºC water to reduce anthracnose development).
Post-harvest pesticides (i.e.. imazalil, thiabendazole).
Biological control agents, (i.e.. Bio-save-pseudomonas syringae y Aspire-Candida oleophila) in citrus fruits.
Growth Regulators as Gibberellic acid to delay senescence in citrus fruits.
15-20% of CO2 in the air or 5% O2 in strawberries, pomegranates, figs, etc.
SO2 fumigation (100 ppm/1 hour) in grapes. Senescence delaying senescence… Slide 56: Presentation 3.2 Irradiation.
Chemical: methyl bromide, phosphine, hydrogen cyanide)
Cold treatments (Low temperatures)
Combination of the previous. Insects Treatments for insect control Slide 57: Presentation 3.2 Irradiation.
Dose varies in accordance with the species and its stage of development.
Doses of 250 Gy has been approved for: lychees, mangoes and papayas in USA for control of fruit fly.
At doses above 250 Gy and up to1000 Gy some commodities could present damages.
. Insects Treatments for insect control ... Slide 58: Presentation 3.2 manipulation of the environment
around the produce Modified and controlled atmosphere storage Slide 59: Presentation 3.2 Manipulation of the environment
around the produce Slide 60: Modify the concentration of gases in the produce packing.
Reduce respiration rate.
Reduce ethylene action.
Delay ripening & senescence.
Increase product’s shelf life. O2 CO2 O2 CO2 21% O2 0.035% CO2 Modified atmosphere
(MAP) Slide 61: 21% Oxigene
0.35% CO2 2% O2
1% CO2 Filters Cold room
0ºC Apples, as any living entities..breath Controlled Atmosphere (CA) Slide 62: Presentation 3.2 Innovations:
Creation of nitrogen-on demand, using systems of Membrane systems or sieve beds.
Use of low oxygen concentrations (0.7 a 1.5%) and monitoring of such concentrations.
Ethylene free CA.
Dynamic atmospheres- O2 y CO2 are modified through monitoring of produce quality attributes such as: ethanol concentration and chlorophyll fluorescence. Manipulation of the environment
around the produce Slide 63: Presentation 3.2 Banana can be harvested at a later stage.
In avocados CA allows the use of lower temperatures than the conventional ones and reduces chilling injury.
In combination with temperature control, CA is used as quarantine treatment for the control of several insects. CA during product transport Slide 64: Presentation 3.2 Use of MAP during packing is highly increasing.
Usually designed to maintain 2% - 5% of O2 and 8% - 12% of CO2, extend shelf life of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. Modified atmospheres Slide 65: Presentation 3.2 Slide 66: Plastic or cardboard
box Polymeric film-
perforated one Apples treated
with TBZ Storage temperature-0.5oC Storage protocol Slide 67: Presentation 3.2 CA is used for transporting and storage of apples, pears, less used in kiwifruits, avocados, nuts, dry fruits and persimmon.
MA- for long distance transport is used in mangoes, apples, bananas, avocados, plums ,strawberries, blackberries, peaches, figs, nectarines. Commercial use Slide 68: Presentation 3.2 Genetic factors, production of hybrids and varieties
High contents of carotenes and Vitamin A (tomatoes, onions and carrots).
Long post-harvest life (tomatoes and onions).
High content of sugars (melon).
High content of ascorbic acid (pineapple).
In the future…Biotechnology will perhaps allow the introduction of resistance to physiological disorders and/or pathogens associated to quality decay. Preharvest factors affecting the quality
of fresh fruits and vegetables. Slide 69: Presentation 3.2 Climatic conditions:
Temperature and light intensity can influence the content of ascorbic acid, carotenes, riboflavin, thiamine and flavonoids.
Rainfall affects the water supply and the susceptibility of plant organs to mechanical damage and decay. Preharvest factors affecting the quality
of fresh fruits and vegetables. Slide 70: Presentation 3.2 Cultural practices:
Nutritional conditions: Calcium related with long post-harvest life; high Nitrogen related with shorter post-harvest life due to high susceptibility to mechanical damage, physiological disorders and decay.
Several physiological disorders are associated with nutritional deficiencies.
Water stress (from severe to moderate) is related with irregular ripening, reduced fruit size, increase Total Solid Soluble contents and acidity.
Water excess increases the susceptibility to physical damage in some products. Preharvest factors affecting the quality
of fresh fruits and vegetables. Slide 71: Presentation 3.2 Primary damages…perceptible, what is easily identified by the consumer.
Biological: pest and diseases.
Chemical: visible external contamination with pesticides and chemical products; toxics and unpleasant flavors produced by pathogens, etc.
Mechanical: injures, cuts, bruises, grazes, drops, scrapings, shatters during harvesting, etc.
Physical: heating, freeze, freezing, water loss. • Physiological: sprouting, rooting, senescence, and changes caused by transpiration and respiration. Hazards associatted with produce quality Slide 72: Presentation 3.2 inappropriate process of drying.• inappropriate Infrastructure for produce packaging and storage.
• improper transport conditions.• lack of planning (i.e.. harvesting). • delays, improper conditions during distribution and marketing. Causes....factors favoring quality decay. Primary damages are the result of inappropriate
technologies and handling during the post-harvest chain: Slide 73: Presentation 3.2 during periods of oversupply-poor handling increase.
poor or inappropriate harvesting techniques.
poor produce handling.
damages originated during handling and transport.
delays during the distribution process.
loses of weight and water. Causes....factors favoring quality decay. Slide 74: Presentation 3.2 Post-harvest procedures Other treatments Pre-cooling Drying Selection,
cleaning and disinfection Reception Grading Packing and packaging Storage Transport Harvesting Slide 75: Presentation 3.2 inappropriate maturity at harvest (over ripening increases sensitivity to quality decay ; immature fruits market rejection).
inappropriate harvest technique (mechanical damages-physical injuries).
climatic conditions at harvesting (free water, exposition of product to direct sun light )
harvesting wet products (increase sensitivity to quality decay)
inappropriate harvesting recipes/containers ( physical injuries). Harvesting Associated hazards Slide 76: Presentation 3.2 Recommendations training personnel on optimum maturity indices.
Application of appropriate maturity indices based on: external quality color, consistence, phenological stage, etc.
Harvesting time: early in the morning or late in the afternoon in order to minimize the sun effect.
Optimizing harvesting recipes/containers (size, materials, height, number of produce layers, conditions, etc. )
protection of product of direct sun intensity. Slide 77: Presentation 3.2 uncovered areas (direct exposition of products to sun light and adverse climatic conditions)
inappropriate handling of the product during loading and unloading.
inappropriate product heaping (mechanical damages).
delays in the operations (if conditions are inappropriate they can generate increasing product temperature and quality decay)
lack of planning during harvesting (increase delays in the operations).
no methods applied to remove field heat or use of inappropriate ones. Produce reception Associated hazards Slide 78: Presentation 3.2 Slide 79: Presentation 3.2 Possible Hazards associated Pre-cooling Slide 80: Presentation 3.2 Objective: Removing impurities from the product. Slide 81: Presentation 3.2 Possible Hazards associated Slide 82: Presentation 3.2 Associated Hazards Grading Slide 84: Presentation 3.2 Associated Hazards Slide 85: Presentation 3.2 Packing and packaging Associated Hazards Slide 86: Presentation 3.2 Storage Inappropriate design of cooling rooms.
Poor or lack of equipment maintenance and cleaning programmes.
Lack of control of temperature and Relative Humidity conditions.
Lack of control on personnel entrance to the cooling rooms.
Poor or lack of cooling rooms cleaning programmes.
Inappropriate distribution/location of the product inside the cooling room (reducing air circulation). Associated Hazards: mechanical, physical, biological damages. Slide 87: Presentation 3.2 Transport Bad conditions of the vehicles tents/covers.
Poor cushioning systems of the vehicles.
Inappropriate systems of loading and unloading.
Uncovered vehicles, expose the product to the negative effect of the environmental conditions.
poor control of temperature and relative humidity in the refrigerated transport systems.
Inappropriate systems of packing (p.e. in bulk). Slide 88: Presentation 3.2 Slide 89: Presentation 3.2 Slide 90: Presentation 3.2 Efficiency of the loading and unloading systems Slide 91: Presentation 3.2 Other Post-harvest treatments Improper handling during treatment application.
Inappropriate application of the treatments (p.e. temperatures above or below the optimum recommended).
Improper RH conditions.
Poor equipment maintenance and cleaning.
Doses above the recommended ones (i.e.. irradiation dosages). Slide 92: Presentation 3.2 Final Considerations the selection of “the best technologies” to be applied, among a range of available post-harvest technologies, should take into account: the product characteristics, the market distance and requirements, and the social and economical conditions of the actors involved. Slide 93: Presentation 3.2 Cold chain Temporal
storage Transport To protect the product from direct sun light.
Quick transport to the packaging. Minimize delays before pre-cooling.
Uniform product’s cooling. Store the product at optimum temperature
Practice first in first out rotation.
Ship to market as soon as possible. Use refrigerated loading area.
Cool truck before loading.
Load pallets towards the center of the truck.
Avoid delays during transport.
Monitor product temperature during transport. Slide 94: Presentation 3.2 There is not a direct relation between a given post-harvest technology efficiency and its cost. Expensive equipment does not always imply high efficiency, and even the best equipment, without proper management may have little utility and poor results. Effective training and supervision of personnel must be an integral part of quality and safety assurance programs. Final Considerations Slide 95: Presentation 3.2 Proper product handling during the post-harvest Chain
relies in understanding the factors that affect the quality
and safety of the product, and the different mechanisms to
minimize their impact. Simple handling practices can have
important impact on product quality and safety
Proper harvesting time, avoid direct sun light,
proper handling, proper ventilation, etc. Final Considerations Slide 96: Presentation 3.2 Product quality maintenance and enhancing implies:
To identify the problems (main causes) and their magnitude (quality and physical loses). Also to identify the opportunities associated to the post-harvest technologies.
Search the available solutions to the problems identified, or mechanisms to take advantage of the opportunities. (training, application of available technologies, adjustment and validation of technologies if needed, practical research if need).
To evaluate the impact of small changes during the post-harvest chain.
To train the personnel involved in implementing the changes.
To identify the problems needing practical research in order to identify possible solutions. Final considerations Slide 97: Presentation 3.2 Photographic Material :
Archives FAO. FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS (FAO) Food Quality and Standards Service (ESNS)
Food and Nutrition Division
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome, Italy.
Tel.: +39 06 57053308
Fax.: +39 06 570 54593/53152
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George Will's column in Sunday's Washington Post argues that there is solid grounding for denying birthright citizenship to children born in the United States of illegal immigrants.
Here's what the relevant clause of the 14th amendment says:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (my emphasis)
Will believes that birthright citizenship is based on a simple misunderstanding of the relevant clause of 14th amendment (one which, apparently, no one has caught these past 144 years):
What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868? The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.
If those who wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment had imagined laws restricting immigration -- and had anticipated huge waves of illegal immigration -- is it reasonable to presume they would have wanted to provide the reward of citizenship to the children of the violators of those laws? Surely not.
Will cannot imagine that the absence of any laws restricting immigration at the time must mean what Will thinks it means, that had they known about things like the potentially disruptive effects of mass immigration, there's no way they would have allowed such chaos to have ensued. But recall that enormous waves of Irish immigrants had already been arriving by the 1840s, a development that sparked intense opposition, the rise of anti-immigrant parties, pervasive and ugly anti-Irish sentiment and, of course, deep social unrest, including the draft riots during the civil war. In other words, Congress wrote the 14th amendment as they did notwithstanding a profound and immediate experience with the disruptive effects of large-scale (and, according to Will) un-regulated immigration. In light of these facts and contrary to Will, perhaps it was the case that, in 1866, a (large) majority of Congress believed that part of what it meant to be a free country was that people could freely decide to live here, subject to the appropriate laws and regulations once they did arrive. And that it wrote and ratified the birthright clause of the 14th amendment fully mindful of the consequences of large-scale immigration of often despised peoples.
But since Will has now introduced the crystal-ball method of constitutional interpretation, I think one can reasonably argue that the second amendment cannot mean what people like Will and the NRA think it means. After all, is it reasonable to assume that, had the framers known in 1791 about assault rifles, cop killer bullets and other modern weaponry, not to mention the ease of acquiring and stockpiling arsenals in private homes that would have dwarfed the arsenals extant in state militias at the time of the second amendment's ratification, they would ever have consented to such obvious insanity? Surely not.
Will's arguments also expose a central fallacy of reigning right-wing constitutional orthodoxy - that the concepts of strict construction and original intent constitute twin pillars of that orthodoxy's supposed fealty to timeless verities. In fact, Will's analysis shows that the two can fundamentally contradict one another. Will is trying his damndest to glean the original intent of the birthright clause as he sees it (nevermind that, in part, he's doing so by insisting that divining the future is now a valid basis for constitutional interpretation). But he cannot escape the inescapable - the language of the 14th amendment could not possibly be more plain. On strict construction grounds, Will's dealing a losing hand.
Not that he doesn't try. Will argues that:
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 begins with language from which the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause is derived: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States."
What is the implication of this language, which Will has determined should be considered to be the language of the 14th amendment itself, even though it isn't?
The explicit exclusion of Indians from birthright citizenship was not repeated in the 14th Amendment because it was considered unnecessary. Although Indians were at least partially subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they owed allegiance to their tribes, not the United States. This reasoning -- divided allegiance -- applies equally to exclude the children of resident aliens, legal as well as illegal, from birthright citizenship. (my emphasis).
If it is true that the premise of the birthright clause is undivided allegiance, then there is a category of people whose off-spring are, arguably, less entitled to citizenship than those of illegal immigrants. That, of course, would be the category of dual citizens. One could reasonably argue that, whatever their formal legal status, illegal immigrants have made a risky choice to go all-in on living in America. But can one really say that about dual citizens, who have made a clear decision not to have undivided loyalties, at least legally speaking?
If it is true that the clear though unstated premise of the birthright clause of the 14th amendment is that one must have undivided allegiance to the United States in order for one's off-spring to be citizens of the United States, dual citizens' children do not qualify.
Lest anyone misunderstand me, I am not actually arguing that children born in the United States to parents with dual citizenship should be denied birthright citizenship. Only that Will's logic would seem to compel that.
But we all know that Will doesn't really care about divided loyalties and dual citizens. Will finally gets to the crux of the matter in his final paragraph:
Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to mothers who are here illegally.
Beneath the veneer of the legal sophistry that pervades his column is a simple and ugly truth: maybe Will just doesn't like the specter of all those dirty illegals in Los Angeles having babies who then get to be citizens. If stopping those babies from growing up to have the same legal rights and privileges as Will and his off-spring requires him to contort his supposed constitutional principles, then so be it.
Jonathan Weiler's second book, "Authoritarianism and Polarization in Contemporary American Politics," co-authored with Marc Hetherington, was published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press. He blogs about politics and sports at www.jonathanweiler.com.
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Ethernet IEEE 802.3 tutorial
- an overview or tutorial of Ethernet, IEEE802.3 used widely for local area network, LAN applications.
Ethernet, defined under IEEE 802.3, is one of today's most widely used data communications standards, and it finds its major use in Local Area Network (LAN) applications. With versions including 10Base-T, 100Base-T and now Gigabit Ethernet, it offers a wide variety of choices of speeds and capability. Ethernet is also cheap and easy to install. Additionally Ethernet, IEEE 802.3 offers a considerable degree of flexibility in terms of the network topologies that are allowed. Furthermore as it is in widespread use in LANs, it has been developed into a robust system that meets the needs to wide number of networking requirements.
Ethernet, IEEE 802.3 history
The Ethernet standard was first developed by the Xerox Corporation as an experimental coaxial cable based system in the 1970s. Using a Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Detect (CSMA/CD) protocol to allow multiple users it was intended for use with LANs that were likely to experience sporadic use with occasional heavy use.
The success of the original Ethernet project lead to a joint development of a 10 Mbps standard in 1980. This time three companies were involved: Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel and Xerox. The Ethernet Version 1 specification that arose from this development formed the basis for the first IEEE 802.3 standard that was approved in 1983, and finally published as an official standard in 1985. Since these first standards were written and approved, a number of revisions have been undertaken to update the Ethernet standard and keep it in line with the latest technologies that are becoming available.
Ethernet network elements
The Ethernet IEEE 802.3 LAN can be considered to consist of two main elements:
- Interconnecting media: The media through which the signals propagate is of great importance within the Ethernet network system. It governs the majority of the properties that determine the speed at which the data may be transmitted. There are a number of options that may be used:
- Coaxial cable: This was one of the first types of interconnecting media to be used for Ethernet. Typically the characteristic impedance was around 110 ohms and therefore the cables normally used for radio frequency applications were not applicable.
- Twisted Pair Cables Type types of twisted pair may be used: Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) or a Shielded Twisted Pair (STP). Generally the shielded types are better as they limit stray pickup more and therefore data errors are reduced.
- Fibre optic cable: Fibre optic cable is being used increasingly as it provides very high immunity to pickup and radiation as well as allowing very high data rates to be communicated.
- Network nodes The network nodes are the points to and from which the communication takes place. The network nodes also fall into categories:
- Data Terminal Equipment - DTE: These devices are either the source or destination of the data being sent. Devices such as PCs, file servers, print servers and the like fall into this category.
- Data Communications Equipment - DCE: Devices that fall into this category receive and forward the data frames across the network, and they may often be referred to as 'Intermediate Network Devices' or Intermediate Nodes. They include items such as repeaters, routers, switches or even modems and other communications interface units.
Ethernet network topologies
There are several network topologies that can be used for Ethernet communications. The actual form used will depend upon the requirements.
- Point to point: This is the simplest configuration as only two network units are used. It may be a DTE to DTE, DTE to DCE, or even a DCE to DCE. In this simple structure the cable is known as the network link. Links of this nature are used to transport data from one place to another and where it is convenient to use Ethernet as the transport mechanism.
- Coaxial bus: This type of Ethernet network is rarely used these days. The systems used a coaxial cable where the network units were located along the length of the cable. The segment lengths were limited to a maximum of 500 metres, and it was possible to place up to 1024 DTEs along its length. Although this form of network topology is not installed these days, a very few legacy systems might just still be in use.
- Star network: This type of Ethernet network has been the dominant topology since the early 1990s. It consists of a central network unit, which may be what is termed a multi-port repeater or hub, or a network switch. All the connections to other nodes radiate out from this and are point to point links.
Despite the fact that Ethernet has been in use for many years, it is still a growing standard and it is likely to be used for many years to come. During its life, the speed of Ethernet systems has been increased, and now new optical fibre based Ethernet systems are being introduced. As the Ethernet standard is being kept up to date, the standard is likely to remain in use for many years to come.
By Ian Poole
. . . . | Next >
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The fight to make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a holiday took 32 years, a lot of campaigning, and guest appearances including Stevie Wonder, Ted Kennedy, and the National Football League.
Officially, Dr. King’s birthday was approved as a federal holiday in 1983. He was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta. But the King holiday is marked on the third Monday in January.
By 2000, all 50 states recognized the King birthday as a government holiday.
The King Center in Atlanta has a detailed chronology of how the efforts, starting shortly after Dr. King’s death in 1968, paid off in the long run. It wasn’t an easy task for holiday supporters, who had to push hard in Congress to get the federal holiday created.
A second battle took place to get individual states to also recognize the holiday, with often emotional disagreements in two states.
Today, the King holiday serves multiple purposes: It honors the total legacy of Dr. King; focuses on the issue of civil rights; highlights the use of nonviolence to promote change; and calls people into public service.
The struggle to get the holiday recognized reflects all these topics, along with some interesting twists and turns along the way.
Representative John Conyers introduced the first motion to make Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday in 1968, just four days after Dr. King’s assassination in Memphis. It took another 11 years to the federal holiday to come up for a vote on the House of Representative’s floor in 1979.
The bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass, but it fell five votes short with a 252-133 count, despite a strong organizational effort from the King Center, and support from Congress members and President Jimmy Carter.
The holiday’s supporters regrouped and intensified their efforts. Musician Stevie Wonder helped in 1981 by releasing the song “Happy Birthday” to promote the holiday. (He would later sing it at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial dedication in 2011).)
The King Center kept up its efforts. It organized a march on Washington that included an estimated 500,000 people. Coretta Scott King, along with Wonder, presented a petition signed by 6 million people to House leader Tip O’Neill.
The House took up the bill in 1983 and it passed by 53 votes. Democrats O’Neill and Jim Wright, along with Republicans Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich, gave speeches supporting the King holiday.
But getting the bill passed in the Senate would be contentious. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina openly opposed it. At first, Helms introduced a filibuster, and then he presented a 400-page file that accused Dr. King of being a communist.
Senator Ted Kennedy criticized Helms and Senator Daniel Moynihan called the document “filth” and threw it on the Senate floor.
Despite Helms, the bill passed the Senate by 12 votes–even South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond voted in favor of the King holiday.
President Ronald Reagan signed the bill in November 1983. The first federal King holiday was celebrated in 1986.
It took longer for the 50 states to adopt the holiday. By 1986, 17 states had already adopted it. But there was strong resistance in Arizona to passing a state holiday.
The fight between state legislators came to a head when the King holiday was put up for an Arizona voter referendum in November 1990.
At that point, entertainers had started boycotting the state in protest, and the National Football League threatened to move the 1993 Super Bowl from Tempe if the holiday was defeated at the polls.
The King holiday lost in a two-part voter referendum and the NFL made good on its threat, taking the Super Bowl to Southern California and costing the state an estimated $500 million in revenue.
Arizona voters approved the King holiday two years later.
There was also a fight in South Carolina over the holiday. It was one of the last states to approve a paid King holiday for state employees in 2000.
The state’s governor had tried to link the holiday to a commitment to allow the state house to fly the Confederate battle flag. Instead, he signed a bill that approved the King holiday along with a Confederate Memorial Day celebrated in May.
More Resources on Dr. King
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(478 total words in this text)
III. The goddess Isis is said by some authors to be
the daughter 1 of Hermes, 2 and by others of Prometheus, both of them famous for their philosophic turn of mind. The latter is supposed to have first taught mankind wisdom and foresight, as the former is reputed to have invented letters and music.
They likewise call the former of the two Muses at Hermopolis 3 Isis as well as Dikaiosune, 4 she being none other, it is said, than Wisdom pointing out the knowledge of divine truths to her votaries, the true Hierophori and Hierostoli. Now, by the former of these are meant such who carry about them looked up in their souls, as in a chest, the sacred doctrine concerning the gods, purified from all such superfluities as superstition may have added thereto. And the holy apparel with which the Hierostoli adorn the statues of these deities, which is partly of a dark and gloomy and partly of a more bright and shining colour, seems aptly
enough to represent the notions which this doctrine teaches us to entertain of the divine nature itself, partly clear and partly obscure. And inasmuch as the devotees of Isis after their decease are wrapped up in these sacred vestments, is not this intended to signify that this holy doctrine still abides with them, and that this alone accompanies them in another life? For as 'tis not the length of the beard or the coarseness of the habit which makes a philosopher, so neither will these frequent shavings, or the mere wearing of a linen vestment, constitute a votary of Isis. He alone is a true servant or follower of this goddess who, after he has heard, and has been made acquainted in a proper manner with the history of the actions of these gods, searches into the hidden truths which lie concealed under them, and examines the whole by the dictates of reason and philosophy.
200:1 In Egyptian, TEBH.
201:1 According to the Egyptian Heliopolitan doctrine, Isis was the daughter of Keb, the Earth-god, and Nut, the Sky-goddess; she was the wife of Osiris, mother of Horus, and sister of Set and Nephthys.
201:2 The Egyptian. TEHUTI, or Thoth, who invented letters, mathematics, &c. He was the "heart of Ra," the scribe of the gods, and he uttered the words which created the world; he composed the "words of power," or magical formulae which were beneficial for the dead, and the religious works which were used by souls in their journey from this world to the next.
201:3 The Hermopolis here referred to is the city of Khemenu in Upper Egypt, wherein was the great sanctuary of Thoth.
201:4 i.e., Righteousness, or Justice. The goddess referred to is probably Maat.
[ Back to Legends of the Gods | Sections Index ]
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Osteoarthritis of the knee is common, affecting almost a tenth of the population aged over 55. The role of acupuncture in osteoarthritis remains controversial and few studies comparing acupuncture and drug treatment have been conducted.
A total of 88 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee were randomly divided into two groups, one receiving acupuncture plus diclofenac (an anti-inflammatory drug) and the other dummy (placebo) acupuncture plus diclofenac. Treatment lasted 12 weeks and levels of pain, stiffness, and physical function were monitored using recognised scales.
The acupuncture group had a greater reduction in pain and stiffness, improved physical functioning and quality of life than the placebo group.
Although the 12-week monitoring period may be insufficient to evaluate the effects of treatment in the medium term, acupuncture as a complementary therapy to drug treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee is more effective than drug treatment alone, say the authors.
Future research should extend the observation period after treatment in order to evaluate the duration of the improvement obtained and to establish treatment protocols, they conclude.
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A recorder is a musical instrument about a foot long played by blowing through a whistle-like mouthpiece known as a fipple, and placing fingers on holes to stop air from coming out.
Baroque and Renaissance music written "for flute" would have been played on a recorder. The modern "flute" (transverse flute)— these days made of silver, held sideways, and played by blowing across it— was not developed until the late 17th, early 18th centuries.
The recorder and the modern flute are members of the woodwind family. Other woodwinds, like the clarinet, saxophone, and oboe, have reeds, which gives them a kind of sharp and buzzy sound. The recorder and flute are reedless, and have a very sweet, pure sound.
Recorders are used in music education, because it is easy for beginners to play recognizable tunes on them. The use of recorders in education was popularized in the United States in the 1950s by the Trapp Family Singers, the family depicted in The Sound of Music. "Song flutes," "flutophones," and "tonettes" are really just slightly modified recorders.
The familiar small recorder is actually only one member of the recorder family: the soprano recorder. Increasingly larger and lower-pitched members of the family include the alto, tenor, and bass recorders.
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The 60,000 delegates to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg this September will produce the same volume of greenhouse gases through air flights, ground transport and hotel pollution as would half a million ordinary Africans in a year.
The British company Future Forests, which has been asked to devise a way of offsetting the emissions, estimates that the summit, which is to concentrate on alleviating the environmental problems of the world's poorest people, will produce nearly 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide.
This is the amount produced annually by 44,000 Britons or 450,000 Africans.
The summit's South African organisers aim to raise £3.5 million to offset this pollution through energy-saving school programmes, solar power schemes and bio-gas plants.
The savings, based on a scheme that offset the emissions from the Salt Lake City winter Olympics, will be audited by an American company, Carbon Neutral Network. Jonathan Shopley, chief executive of Future Forests, said he was optimistic of receiving sufficient funding for the scheme from companies and individuals.
Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, left for Bali yesterday with her husband Leo for the final preparatory conference before the Johannesburg summit.
This week's talks on drawing up a plan of action to present to Tony Blair and other world leaders at the summit have already run into trouble.
British officials said at the weekend that America was opposing plans to halve the number of people - 2.4 billion, two fifths of the world's population - who have no sanitation.
European and developing nations want the world's leaders to agree to meet this target by 2015.
Opec countries are opposing plans to halve the number of people, currently two billion, without any source of energy using renewable means.
America, Canada, Japan and Australia are opposing EU proposals to make energy consumption more environment-friendly.
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In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."
[Collected via e-mail, November 2002]
At local taverns, pubs and bars, people drank from pint and quart-sized containers. A bar maid's job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in "pints" and who was drinking in "quarts." Hence, the term "mind your p's and q's."
Origins: This expression, an admonishment to mind one's manners, has been with us for centuries. While variants ("to be on one's p's and q's") have been spotted as far back as 1602, the first print sighting of the saying we now know about minding these two letters dates to 1756: "Mind your P's and your Q's and always travel in the Autumn."
Theories for the phrase's origins are numerous, with these four as the primary contenders:
- Children learning to write were reminded by their teachers to be wary of inadvertently reversing lowercase p's into q's, and vice versa.
- Back in the days when type was set by hand, printers could easily mistake lowercase p's for q's, hence the caution to be careful to not make that error.
- A tally of pints and quarts consumed was maintained on a chalkboard near the bar for each pub patron running a tab. Drinkers were advised to keep an eye on the count, lest the barkeep sneak a few extra marks onto it, thereby inflating the bill. Or, tipplers were to watch the count so as to not lose a sense of when it was time to call it a night and go home to their wives. Or, those working in the pub were admonished to be careful in marking the board lest they otherwise render the running tally inaccurate.
- That the p's and q's of the finger-wagging were "pleases" and "thank yous," thus the saying had started out with the same meaning it now carries: "Mind your manners."
It's true children of an age when they're learning to write often reverse letters and thus could benefit from a gentle reminder or three to keep an eye out for special pitfalls. However, there is only one true pair of mirror image letters in the Roman alphabet that could trip kids up, and it's not 'p' and 'q,' but rather 'b' and 'd.' In terms of how it's taught to kids who are learning to make their letters, lowercase 'q' has a little upturned tail at the base of its descender, as this chart shows. While people may omit that little tail in their handwriting as they get older, at the point in their lives where orthography is taught to them, it's part of the written representation of the letter. If "mind your p's and q's" had as its origin an instruction to children to be mindful of the trap laid by two fully reversible letters, it
Type was laid backwards into composing sticks, so there was always a risk of p's and q's being mistaken for one another, especially in fonts lacking a tail on lowercase 'q.' However, while it's easy to visually confuse the type for a lowercase 'p' with a 'q,' the bins they're stored in are far harder to mix up. Q is a underutilized letter in the English alphabet, so printers needed far fewer of them than they did of most every other letter; consequently, the "q" bin tended to be a fair bit smaller than the "p" bin, thus printers in the process of setting type were unlikely to confuse these two letters.
Granted, while the dissimilarly-sized bins would have cut down p/q confusion during typesetting, they wouldn't have helped when the type was broken down into individual letters after the print run and tossed back into their respective
At the time the saying became part of the English lexicon, beer wasn't vended in pubs by the pint or quart. Instead, it was drawn from kegs, with patrons charged by the glass or tankard. Vendors therefore would not have utilized chalked tote boards scrawled with p's for "pints" and q's for "quarts" in an effort to keep track of who owed for what.
Yet the chalked tote board theory fails on something even simpler than that: A quart is equal to two pints. Even if there ever had been a barkeep daft enough or advanced enough to be selling beer by these particular volumetric measures, his apocryphal chalkboard would have been festooned either with endless rows of lowercase p's or with groupings of the common stick-and-slash notation (see graphic), with one mark representing a pint and two a quart.
If "mind your p's and q's" began its linguistic life as a cutesy attempt to imprint the basic niceties of ponying up with a "please" or a "thank you" at socially appropriate moments, the saying would have been rendered as "mind your p's and t's" ("thanks"), or "p's and u's" (phonetic representation of "you"), or "p's and y's" (alphabetic representation of "you").
Clearly then, each of the four major contenders has flaws. In addition to those four, there are a handful of lesser theories, each more contrived and artificial-sounding than the previous:
- "Mind your p's and q's" came out of the business world, with p's and q's serving as short forms for 'prices' and 'quality.'
- Uneducated ancient Romans tended to unwittingly substitute /p/ for "qu" /kw/ in their speech, thus the admonishment to monitor their pronunciation lest they be thought rubes.
- Students attempting to master both Latin and Ancient Greek were often left confused by the vagaries of such cognates as pente and quintus, hence the reminder to learn them well.
- In days when seamen styled their hair into long pigtails dipped in tar, the dictum was a prompt to not let their tarred hair (queues) soil their navy pea-jackets (peas).
- Dancing masters at the French court would caution newcomers to mind their "pieds and queues" (feet and huge powdered wigs) when curtseying. Alternatively, "pieds and queues" were said to be two dance figures (choreographed dances) that had to be accurately performed.
However, if a hobbyist's (rather than a etymologist's) opinion can be entertained for a moment, it's possible a 1612 print sighting yields part of the solution: "Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew."
The context in which that line appears makes it clear that "Pee and Kew" is understood by the book's audience to mean "of the highest quality." Throughout the saying's various surfacings across the centuries, twin themes of quality and good behavior emerge. If "p's and q's" began its linguistic life as a colloquial term for "of marked superiority," the saying could have over time transferred from a statement about the sterling nature of a physical item (such as a quart of booze) to a statement about behavioral traits the very best people should strive to cultivate, then into an admonition to be mindful of one's comportment when in the society of others.
As to how "p's and q's" came to mean "the really best stuff," that can only be guessed at. Perhaps it came from a play then wildly popular but which has since been lost to us.
There are no frustrated schoolchildren, bedeviled printer's devils, or chalked-up walls in British pubs in such an answer, but there might be at least a glimmer of the term's true origin.
Barbara "origin of the specious" Mikkelson
Sightings: In an episode of the television series The Sopranos ("Mergers & Acquisitions," original air date
Last updated: 13 June 2010
Funk, Charles Earle. 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Superstitions. New York: Galahad Books, 1993. ISBN 0-88365-845-3 (pp. 199-200). Hendrickson, Robert. Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins. New York: Facts on File, 1997. ISBN 0-86237-122-7 (p. 453). Rawson, Hugh. Devious Derivations. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1994. ISBN 0-517-88128-4 (p. 139-141). The Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-861258-3.
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The Royal Scots are Scotland's oldest infantry regiment, with a tradition that stretches back to 1633. This first concise history of the regiment is based largely on the recollections of several generations of Royal Scots - men like Private McBane, who carried his three-year-old son into battle at Malplaquet, and Private Begbie, the youngest soldier to serve in the First World War. These first-hand accounts take the reader through the great wars of the eighteenth century, when Britain was a rising global power, through the setbacks and the triumphs of the Napoleonic Wars and on to the glorious years of the nineteenth century.
The two world wars of the twentieth century saw the Royals expand in size, and there are full accounts of its meritorious service on all the main battle fronts. More recently, the regiment has been involved in operations in the Balkans and Iraq.
In 2006, in one of the most radical changes in the country's defence policy, the Royal Scots will be amalgamated into the new Royal Regiment of Scotland. Royal Scots is, therefore, a timely celebration of the British Army's most venerable regiment, right of the line and second to none.
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| 0.944383 | 241 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Elementary Music Units
Improvisation is an important element in elementary music and is prominently mentioned in the National Standards in Music. Current approaches to elementary music, particularly Orff-Schulwerk, provide the experiences and techniques to guide students though the creative process. The emphasis on creativity and improvisation found in the Orff approach has direct parallels to jazz improvisation. Both emphasize beat awareness, movement, rhythmic and melodic improvisation, simple forms, and both are based in the oral tradition. This integrated program is designed to lead both teachers and students through a set of activities culminating in experiences in jazz improvisation.
Farandole Listening Unit
This listening unit is based on Bizet's Farandole, a terrific tune for teaching form and texture. The unit includes multi-age lesson plans, chants, listening charts, and assessment tools.
Music Bingo Template
Music Bingo drill developed for EDSE 4254. The existing template, appropriate fro greades 3-6, drills notes names in treble clef, recorder notes C, B, A, G, simple rhythmic examples, music symbols, and note values. Included in the template are cards for Bingo callers, Bingo graphics (for creating your own cards), and 13 Bingo cards.
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South African rhino poaching statistics for 2014 prove that we have lost 1 215 rhinos – in only one year! After years of calm Namibia's latest rhino poaching statistics paints a grim picture of a country known for its massive conservation efforts. At the current rate rhinos in Southern Africa may be extinct within a few years.
This prolific slaughter can only be stopped by the collective efforts of caring individuals and supporters who are determined to make a meaningful change.
The Rhino Ride is a project aimed at creating awareness and sustainable support in the fight against rhino poaching. This unique project offers a platform for diverse partners in tourism and business to get involved and actively contribute towards the greater goal of eradicating rhino poaching.
For the 2015/16 year The Rhino Ride project will be supporting rhino conservation foundations in both South Africa and Namibia. Our choice in South Africa is Chipembere Rhino Foundation and in Namibia The Next Generation Conservation Trust. These were chosen based on their credibility and transparent fund application.
Without practical knowledge we cannot be the heroes we dream to be, but we can inspire change by using our circle of influence. Take this journey with us so we can help the real heroes on the ground to safeguard our rhinos for our future generations.
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| 0.924642 | 254 | 2.546875 | 3 |
On May 21, 1875, Governor John Jacob and several other state officials left Charleston for Wheeling, aboard the steamer Emma Graham, after a legislative act temporarily moving the state capital to Wheeling became law.
State Capital Relocated to Wheeling
Supreme Court Case on the Removal of State Capital to Wheeling
Wheeling Intelligencer Article on the Removal of State Capital to Wheeling
On This Day in West Virginia History: May
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Lee Tune 301-405-4679
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – University of Maryland researchers have created a novel technique for nanoscale imaging that may lay the foundation for a new generation of microscopes, other optical devices and sensors, and even ultra-compact electronics.
In a study published in the Feb. 5, 2013 issue of the journal Nature Communications, the UMD research team describes a novel technique for imaging far below the diffraction limit by using a particle that is much smaller than the wavelength of light as an optical probe. The particle is manipulated with high precision using an inexpensive microfluidic device. The breakthrough has enabled the researchers to capture nanoscale measurements with a spatial accuracy of 12 nanometers.
Finding ways to see, position, measure, and accurately manipulate nanoscale objects has been an ongoing challenge for researchers seeking to develop the next generation of ultra-compact electronics, sensors and optical devices. Even the most advanced conventional microscopes are limited by diffraction of the shortest wavelength of visible light, about 400 nanometers, rendering them unable to produce images or measurements of objects that are significantly smaller than this threshold.
Researchers have been trying to solve this problem by using "reporting probes." A near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM), for example, is equipped with a probe attached to a fine mechanical tip that can scan a nanoscale object and create an image based on the electromagnetic field it generates. But NSOMs are complex, delicate and expensive pieces of equipment, and the presence of the tip disturbs the interaction between the probe and the sample, distorting the image.
Quantum Dots: Nanoscopic Spotlights in a Microscopic River
Quantum dots are tiny particles of matter with unique properties, including the ability to emit light at very specific wavelengths. A single quantum dot is a 3–6 nanometer-sized, semiconducting particle. One nanometer is 1 billion times smaller than a meter, so a quantum do is only about 25 times larger than diameter of a single atom.
At room temperature, quantum dots can emit single photons of light that can be tuned to a desired wavelength. This makes them ideal probes for examining nanostructures smaller than the visible light threshold. Positioned close to a nanoscale object, the quantum dot becomes a sort of spotlight that amplifies what the microscope alone cannot see. However, such positioning is hard to do because it is difficult to capture and scan a single quantum dot over another nanoscale object.
The UMD team's solution lies in a microfluidic device that manipulates and positions quantum dots using precision flow control. A computer algorithm analyzes the dots dispersed inside, selecting one to be the reporting probe. As the microfluidic device creates a fluid flow, the targeted dot begins to move. An image-guided feedback process continually tracks the dot's location and adjusts the flow accordingly. For example, if the dot is observed to be to the northwest of its desired location, a southeast flow is created to move it into place.
"In other particle manipulation techniques—for example laser tweezers—the force applied to a particle scales with its volume," explains co-author Benjamin Shapiro, an associate professor in the Fischell department of bioengineering and the Institute for Systems Research. "But the viscous forces that the fluid flow applies scale with the diameter of the particle. At the nanoscale, fluid flow has a greater effect on the particle than competing techniques, allowing us to move, guide and immobilize the quantum dot more easily and accurately."
This technique gives researchers the ability to manipulate a single dot precisely, guiding it quickly to desired locations, and holding it in each position with nanometer accuracy so it can be used to scan objects. The dot's response to each scanned object is measured, providing information about the object's electromagnetic fields with nanoscale resolution. Since nothing mechanical touches the quantum dot or affects its interaction with the objects it scans, the images produced are distortion-free, clean and sharp.
A Superior, Less Expensive Technique
In addition to its technical superiority, the new nanoscale manipulation system is far less expensive than near-field scanning optical microscopy, which requires equipment that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"The new technique is more versatile, easier to implement, and more accurate by an order of magnitude than conventional near-field scanning optical microscopy," says Shapiro's colleague, Associate Professor Edo Waks, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics. "Basically, we can take a microscope, add a disposable microfluidic device, and beat the capabilities of an NSOM at a fraction of the cost and complexity.
"An undergraduate could build the basic two-channel microfluidic device used in the process, using standard soft-fabrication techniques, in less than an hour for under $50," he adds.
The UMD team is hoping to package all of the necessary system components into an inexpensive add-on product for microscopes.
In addition to Shapiro and Waks, research team members and co-authors are: Professor John Fourkas (department of chemistry and biochemistry and Institute for Physical Science and Technology), Ph.D. students Chad Ropp (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Zachary Cummins (Bioengineering), and alumnus Sanghee Nah (Ph.D., '12, chemistry).
Support for the Research
Support for this research has been provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The project evolved from early research supported by Shapiro's 2004 National Science Foundation grant.
This video is an actual measurement of a single quantum dot (asterisk denotes the position of the dot) as it is manipulated by microfluidic flow control in the region around the midpoint of a silver nanowire (axis denoted with the dashed line):
For More Information: "Nanoscale imaging and spontaneous emission control with a single nano-positioned quantum dot," Nature Communications, DOI 10.1038/ncomms2477, published online February 5, 2013.
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Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a condition that results in damage to the lungs and airways, making them rigid and inflexible, and rendering it difficult for you to breathe comfortably. While there is no cure for COPD, many treatments can help ease the symptoms and slow the progression of the illness.
People with COPD may take some oral medications like antibiotics to fight an infection, but the majority of COPD medications work better when they are inhaled directly into the lungs through an inhaler or a nebulizer.
An inhaler is a handheld disc or tube attached to a mouthpiece. There are two basic types of inhalers,- metered dose inhalers and dry powder inhalers. A nebulizer is a piece of electronic or battery-operated equipment that transforms a liquid solution or suspension into aerosol form that can be inhaled through a mouthpiece.
Metered Dose Inhaler
Metered dose inhalers are commonly used to administer medications like albuterol, fluticasone/salmeterol combinations (Advair), and albuterol/ipratropium combinations (Combivent).
A metered dose inhaler consists of a metal tube containing the medication, a substance that acts as a propellant to help the medication reach deep into the lungs, and a measuring valve. The tube is encased in plastic and attached to a plastic mouthpiece.
While this may all sound complicated, metered dose inhalers can usually be carried comfortably in a purse or in the pocket of a jacket.
To use a metered dose inhaler, take a deep breath in and release all the air from your lungs. Then tilt your head back a little, take the mouthpiece between your lips, and inhale as you push the button to release the medication.
Pros: A metered dose inhaler is portable and can be used to deliver several doses of medication quickly in the event of a COPD flare-up.
Cons: Coordination is required to time your breathing to the release of the medicine in your lungs. Because it contains aerosol that is under high pressure, the inhaler is flammable and should not be used around open flames.
Dry Powder Inhaler
Some of the names you may hear associated with dry powder inhalers include Symbicort (a budesonide/formoterol fumarate dehydrate combination) and Spiriva (tiotropium).
A dry powder inhaler usually comes in the shape of a disc. It has particles of medication enclosed in capsule. When the capsule is penetrated, the particles are released and then inhaled into the airways and lungs. A dry powder inhaler does not have any mechanism that propels the particles towards the lungs. The person using the inhaler must have the strength and lung capacity to inhale deeply to get the full benefit of the medication.
For that reason, dry powder inhalers are rarely given to patients experiencing an exacerbation, or a flare-up, or respiratory symptoms. They also have limited use later on in the disease process when inhaling deeply becomes difficult or impossible for the patient.
Pros: Like the metered dose inhaler, the dry powder inhaler is small enough to fit into small purses and pockets.
Cons: The dry powder inhaler is not helpful if symptoms suddenly become worse. Also, some users complain that if the disc gets wet or is taken outside in humid weather, the particles may clump together so that they cannot be inhaled.
A nebulizer is a device powered by batteries or electricity that changes solutions or suspensions (fluids) into aerosols that can be inhaled into the lungs and deposited along the lower airways. A nebulizer may be used either with a mouthpiece or a mask. The machine creates the small aerosol particles permitting the medications to reach deep into the lungs and airways.
Many kinds of medications can be given through a nebulizer including bronchodilators to open the airways, corticosteroids to reduce inflammation in the airways from pollutants or infection, antibiotics to treat upper respiratory infections, and medications to thin out mucus so that you can easily cough it up and get rid of it. People who are in the very late stages of COPD sometimes nebulize an opioid like morphine sulphate (Roxanol) to ease the frightening sensation of “air hunger” or not being able to catch your breath.
Pros: Nebulizers are a good alternative for people who are too ill to manage inhalers. They can also be used to deliver large doses of medication quickly. Since nebulized medications can be delivered via a mask placed over the nose and mouth, nebulizers require no coordination.
Cons: Nebulizers are not huge pieces of equipment, but they are not exactly easily portable, either. Taking them along on an outing requires some planning. Receiving treatment from a nebulizer takes longer than receiving a treatment from an inhaler. Finally, because of the equipment involved, nebulizers may carry a larger upfront expense than do inhalers. If you are on hospice or eligible for Medicare Part B, most of this expense should be covered. If you have private insurance, check with your insurance company to see if they will help you purchase any of the equipment.
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Color photographs and video are likely to be the media used in creating images of future wars. But conflicts of the past have engaged artists in many media, and here we present memorable examples spanning more than 4,000 years. The people doing the recollecting are six distinguished members of the Chicago museum community. We asked them to select a work from their institution's permanent collection that treats some aspect of strife. They were not urged to deliberate. Instead, we hoped works would immediately suggest themselves, as indeed they did. Some of the reasons why are included in the texts written by each participant, which we present in edited versions. Notice that the cost and consequences of war receive as much attention as conflict. Artists and those who work with art are not, after all, politicians.
"Bloody Sunday, One Minute before British Paratroop Fires," 1972, photograph by Gilles Peress (detail).
The tension in this image of violence in Northern Ireland is increased both by the fact that the witness -- the man and the camera giving us our point of view -- has turned his back on the source of danger. In addition, the central figure is reminiscent of the figure in Goya's painting of French soldiers about to execute civilians, "The Third of May, 1808." The title of this photograph leaves no doubt that the situation is grave and that lives are in danger. Because our trust in photography can be so great on the one hand, and so easily corrupted on the other, our knowledge that Peress risked his life to communicate the truth and true madness of this conflict to us makes this picture unforgettable.
-- Rod Slemmons, director, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago
"Survivor," pastel by Richard Yohnka.
This large captivating pastel conveys the emotions of a soldier who has survived a war. At first glance the eyes express a combination of anger, pain and regret; however, if one looks closer, an overwhelming feeling of sorrow and desperation dominates the face. In the artist's words, he chose to draw "a depersonalized soldier, the solider within, who has suppressed the emotion of the community of war." The high contrast of the foreground and background dramatizes the severity of his experiences. He said he gave an "interpretation of the moment in the Vietnam War that dealt with the remoteness, transcendence and finality of life." The work released years of pent-up survivor guilt and the feeling of "a soldier dehumanized by war."
-- Pim Yotti, curator, National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum
"Furlough's End," 1943, painting by Samuel Greenburg.
Many items in the collections of the Chicago Historical Society speak to the issue of war. My favorite is a wonderfully evocative painting. To me it captures much about what war means to the soldier. While there are many images that explicitly convey horrors of the battlefield, Greenburg reminds us through a simple embrace, that war is about loss, hope for a future not promised, and the fragility of love and family. I find this painting so haunting because of the embrace. It almost seems as if the soldier is holding on tightly to his past as he faces a dangerous and uncertain tomorrow. I also love this image because it was painted by an art teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. While it may not be the most sophisticated of works, it is ripe with emotion, capturing poignantly how national events and decisions alter our lives.
-- Lonnie Bunch, president, Chicago Historical Society
"Siege and Sack of a City," from Orlando Furioso (Venice, 1542) by Ludovico Ariosto (detail).
Ostensibly Ariosto's epic, a Renaissance masterpiece, is about love, chivalry and honor. The combatants also represent virtues and vices and express a long tradition of hatred and distrust between East and West. But the poem's relentless series of battles (one-on-one and between vast armies) have always impressed me in another way, especially when the book is read along with these colorful illustrations. To me they are evidence that we sometimes go to war "just because" -- just for the heck of it.
-- Paul F. Gehl, custodian, John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing, Newberry Library
Mesopotamian cylinder seal, circa 2330-2150 B.C., stone.
The object is a cylinder seal from Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia) dating to the Akkadian period. It shows six gods engaged in combat before the seated water god Ea. Ea holds a vessel from which flow streams of water inhabited by fish. Immediately in front of him, a standing god grabs the beard of a second god who falls on a mountain. The second pair of combatants grab one another's horned crowns and appear to brandish maces. On the far right, a standing deity stabs his foe, who has fallen to his knees, with a long spear. I chose this object because I am amazed that the ancient seal-cutter was able to execute this elaborate scene in such detail and to convey a sense of action on a stone cylinder that is only 11/4 inches tall.
-- Karen Wilson, director, Oriental Institute Museum
"August 9, 1945, having nobody to help her this girl died in the Enko River," drawing by Masato Yamashita (detail).
On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima, Japan. Within a year, 140,000 people were dead. The "Unforgettable Fire" collection began in 1974 when the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) televised a picture drawn by a 77-year-old survivor who said he wanted to record a memory "which he could not erase." The NHK announcer suggested that anyone who experienced the bombing should draw pictures and send them in. The NHK was inundated with drawings. In 1982 the original collection was exhibited at The Peace Museum; today we house the first set of 24 reproductions. The images give an inkling of the immense store of memories that can never be forgotten. Four images are currently on display in our exhibition "Artifacts of Vigilance."
-- Rebecca Williams, director, The Peace Museum
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There's more than meets the human ear when the black-capped chickadee lets its flock mates know a predator is lurking about by giving out its familiar "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call.
The small songbirds, which are common throughout much of North America, use that signature call in a wide variety of social interactions including warning of predators. And it turns out that those alarms are far more subtle and information-packed than scientists previously imagined.
Writing in the current issue of the journal Science, researchers report that chickadees use one of the most sophisticated signaling systems discovered among animals. The calls warn other chickadees not only if a predator is moving rapidly, but also transmit information on the degree of threat posed by stationary predators of different sizes.
Chris Templeton, a biology doctoral student at the University of Washington and lead author of the study, said chickadees produce two very different alarm signals in response to predators. When they see flying raptors - birds of prey such as hawks, owls and falcons - they produce a soft, high-pitched "seet" call. But when they see a stationary or perched predator, the birds use a loud, wide spectrum chick-a-dee-dee-dee alarm to recruit other chickadees, as well as other bird species, to harass or mob the predator. Spectrographic analysis of more than 5,000 recorded chickadee mobbing alarm calls made under semi-natural conditions showed that the acoustic features of the calls varied with the size of the predator. And when the recordings were played back to the birds through speakers, their mobbing behavior was related to the size and threat presented by the potential predator.
Templeton said chickadees can alter their mobbing calls in a number of ways, most of which humans can not hear. Most typically they change the dee dee dee not at the end of the call, sometimes adding five, 10 or 15 dees.
"You would certainly might notice a change in the number of dee notes in their call if a neighbor's cats was around harassing them. With something really dangerous, such as a pygmy-owl perched near some chickadees in our aviary, we heard as many as 23 added dees," he said.
The research was triggered when Templeton noticed the chickadees responding differently to a variety of predators inside an aviary. So the researchers set up an outdoor experiment in a semi-natural aviary with 15 different live perched or leashed predators.
Thirteen of these were raptors. Two were mammals, a domestic cat and a ferret, which resembles weasels that prey on small birds.
The birds of prey ranged in size from large owls, such as the great gray owl and great horned owl that usually feed on small mammals, to the small pygmy-owl and the American kestrel that hunt small mammals and birds. The smaller raptors represent a greater threat to the agile chickadees than the larger ones because they are more maneuverable in flight and can readily catch small birds.
"That's why a pygmy-owl is more dangerous to a chickadee than a great horned owl that has a large hooked beak and big talons. A great horned owl going after a chickadee would be like a Hummer trying to outmaneuver and catch a Porsche, "Templeton said.
The chickadees also were exposed to a perched bobwhite quail, a non-predatory species, as a control animal, and did not react to it.
He noted that the chickadees are assessing risk on the basis of body size, but since they don't react to the bobwhite quail, they also seem to be assessing individual species.
In the future, Templeton would like to examine the chickadee's "seet" calls to see if they change in response to different raptors flying above them. If they do, this would be even more impressive since the birds would have such a brief glimpse as a predator flew by.
Co-authors of the paper are Erick Greene, associate professor in the division of biological sciences at the University of Montana, and Kate Davis, executive director of Raptors of the Rockies, a raptor education and Rehabilitation facility in Florence, Mont. Templeton led the research while he was a master's degree student at Montana.
A high-resolution image of a chickadee and sound files of its calls are available by e-mailing [email protected].
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To nurture the development of responsible, creative, critical thinkers who apply knowledge, ethics, compassion, and leadership in making informed choices for a healthy future.
To connect youth with real world challenges, to help them understand the relevance of personal, intellectual, and professional growth, and to inspire them to develop their individual gifts and collaborative strengths.
Our Educational Model: Core Values and Outcomes
Science, Technology, Research, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STREAM) are woven together through interdisciplinary instruction and experiential learning with an emphasis on innovation, application, field research, and community connections. Our curriculum and assessment are guided by our core values, which determine our intended outcomes. Faculty members are expected to role model our core values, and as such, our intended outcomes not only apply to students, but to faculty as well.
Our Core values are divided into three strands:
- Academic/Intellectual Growth
- Social Assets for Living
- Community Stewardship
- Intellectual Growth: Our staff of highly skilled, caring, and supportive adults will teach students how to think, rather than what to think. Rigorous coursework prepares them for employment in a wide range of fields, including natural and physical sciences, computer science, communications, education, agriculture, energy, and visual and performance arts.
- Research: Our interdisciplinary approach incorporates fieldwork, scientific method, career mentorship, and the purposeful and appropriate use of technology. Students learn to plan and perform research, and to interpret and apply results.
- Cultural Literacy: Our students expand their cultural literacy through foreign language investigation, international exchange, music, fine arts, culinary arts, participation in Alaska Native arts and cultural activities, and seminars with guest experts.
- Purposeful Use of Technology: Our big-picture vision for our school facility includes renewable energy production, innovative wastewater treatment, non-combustive heat production, agricultural systems, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, and mobile computing networks. These integrated elements will not only reduce long-term costs and minimize our ecologic impact, but will serve as a laboratory for interdisciplinary student learning.
- Skillful Communication: Our students develop the writing, speaking, and presentation skills necessary to communicate effectively and gain confidence to express their views while respecting the views of others.
- Responsible/Dependable Reputation: Our students become well-informed, engaged citizens who recognize the costs and benefits of choices, and who demonstrate personal and collective responsibility to local and global communities. Students learn to be dependable, respectful, and considerate to both themselves and others, making them valuable members of the school and community.
- Socio-Emotional Health: Our program emphasizes the benefits of physical fitness, emotional resiliency, and self-esteem, as well as the interconnectedness of these skills. To facilitate the development of these interwoven skills, ARLA’s advisory structure helps build meaningful, dependable, and trustworthy teacher-student and student-student partnerships through which a student can engage support. Education requirements are fulfilled though courses such as martial arts, archery, skiing, and outdoor recreation.
- Relationships: Reduced class size, student-teacher advisory time, and ongoing professional development contribute to more effective instruction and stronger connections between staff and students for a healthy and supportive school environment. Teambuilding, or improving how we work together, becomes a natural part of what we do. Project-based instruction further allows students to learn how to establish and maintain healthy social and professional relationships. Performing meaningful work in our community, students realize purpose in themselves, their peers, and their school.
- Sustainability: Sustainability and stewardship guide all aspects of our school. Students learn to consider the short- and long-term consequences of their actions, both individually and collectively.
- Healthy Living: Our students develop a direct connection to the foods they eat through participation in organic food production, harvesting, processing, storage, and distribution.
- Community Sharing: We see our school as a gathering place for the community, for the sharing of resources, the celebration of student learning, and for the exchange of ideas.Students will develop projects and assignments that serve a broad audience, capitalizing on mentoring, interning, and apprenticeship opportunities with community partners.
We have filed Articles of Incorporation with the State of Alaska, and our Entity number is 10022417 . You can view our legal documents directly with the State, at their incorporations website at http://commerce.alaska.gov/CBP/Main/CBPLSearch.aspx?mode=Corp or simply click here and then enter our Entity number.
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Structural Biochemistry/Organic Chemistry/Method of Fischer Esterification
In a Fischer esterification reaction, a carboxylic acid is exposed to an alcohol and an acid catalyst which results in the production of an ester and water as products. Because the reaction is reversible, the equilibrium can be determined by thermodynamics and there are procedures that can be taken to maximize the yield of the ester. The over reaction is given below:
Procedures to maximize the ester include either the removal of water or the excess addition of the reactants. Both of these procedures take advantage of an idea known as Le Chatelier’s Principle and drive the reaction to favor the formation of the ester. When done in a laboratory setting, dry glassware should be used along with excess carboxylic acid. If the glassware is not dry, it may cause the reaction to drive towards the carboxylic acid and away from the ester. The mechanism of the reaction is given to the right:
Methods of Isolation
Reflux through a Condenser
Isolation and purification of the ester is achieved by bringing the reaction to a state of reflux. Because most organic reactions do not readily occur at room temperature, the reaction requires a period of heating and this is why refluxing is needed. Heating the reaction in an open container can result in loss of solvent while heating the reaction in a closed container is dangerous because the closed container can explode. Refluxing is a process that allows for extended heating periods without the loss of any reagents. This is achieved by a continual condensation of the vapor back to a liquid.
When connecting the condenser to the water outlet, it should be made sure that water is coming in from the bottom inlet and leaving the condenser from the top outlet or else the condenser will not be effective. When using magnetic stirring plates, a magnetic spin vane should be added to the vial/container to mix the solution. A state of reflux can be identified if there is condensation building up on the vial or container being heated. Sometimes refluxing can be done under anhydrous conditions where the reflux condenser can be equipped with a drying tube of, for example, calcium chloride. In an esterification reaction, it is essential to use a drying tube because one of the byproducts is water. According to Le'Chatellier's principles, if water is added to the ester after during the reaction, it will drive the reaction in the backwards direction towards the reagents. An anhydrous packed drying tube is used to keep the atmospheric moisture out of the reaction vessel in order to ensure maximum yield.
After a sufficient period of reflux, the ester can be prepared for purification. In order to purify/isolate the ester and obtain a maximum yield, the organic layer containing the ester product must be washed with a base such aqueous 10% sodium carbonate, MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) as well as methylene chloride and the MTBE-methylene chloride solvent mixture is to be completely evaporated out. Since the organic layer was produced from an acidic solution, washing it with basic sodium carbonate forms salts and alkaline materials that can be washed out with the aqueous phase. Also, the sodium carbonate will prevent the organic layer from dissolving into the aqueous layer and allow for better separation of the layers.
Further purification can be achieved through the use of a chromatography column. The column can be made with a dry filter Pasteur pipette filled with a cotton plug, an adsorbent (silica gel), and a mixture compounds such as sea sand. Following elution of the ester product from the chromatography column with methylene chloride, the MTBE-methylene chloride solvent needs to be completely evaporated from the ester. If it is not entirely evaporated, it will negatively affect the purification of the ester. The percent yield of the reaction is only accurate when there is 100% conversion of the starting reactants to the products. If the evaporation is not complete, there will be more product than expected because there will still be some excess methylene chloride and the percent yield will be higher than it should be. Also, because the product will still have traces of the MTBE-methylene chloride solvent, the ester will not be pure and this will result in a impure product. This can affect, for example, the boiling-point of the ester if its physical properties were to be measured. The presence of impurities in the pure liquid decreases the vapor pressure and results in a boiling point higher than that of a pure compound. This can cause confusion in trying to identify the ester. Also, characterization by, for example, IR spectroscopy might show inaccurate functional groups because the ester is not completely pure.
Methods of Characterization and Identification
Ultramicro Boiling-point Determination
Ultramicro boiling-point is a method to determine the boiling point of a liquid and is similar to that of melting point determination. This method utilizes a melting-point capillary tube filled with the liquid that is to be observed and an inverted glass bell. The tube is heated in a Mel-Temp instrument and the boiling-point is determined by observing escaping vapor bubbles until the vapor pressure of the sample is equal to the atmospheric pressure. Smaller TLC capillary tubes can be used to get the liquid into the melting-point capillary tubes. The liquid that is to be observed must be at the bottom of the tube. In order to observe the boiling point, "glass bells" are inserted into the tube with the open end facing downwards. The bells can be made by heating TLC capillary tubes in half with, for example, a Bunsen burner and making sure that one end is open and the other closed. Air should be trapped inside the bell and the temperature can be increased until there is a steady stream of bubble exiting the bell. Eventually, all of the air that was initially inside the bell will be replaced by the vapors of the ester being observed and the bubbles will begin exiting much faster. When they exit at rate that is impossible to count, the heat should be turned off and when the last bubble exits the glass bell, the boiling point has been reached.
At this point, the vapor pressure of the sample is equal to the atmospheric pressure. Samples can be heated more than once to confirm boiling points but they are usually not as accurate as the first one.
An IR spectrum of the product can be obtained through a capillary film technique. A liquid sample is placed between two salt plates and run through a spectrometer to obtain a spectrum. The spectrum can reveal certain functional groups with varying intensity peaks and can be used to identify unknown products. The IR results can also be an indication of the reactions progress. If the IR of the product ester still contains an alcohol group stretch in the product, it can mean that the reaction has not gone to completion yet or that the ester was not properly purified.The plates can be made of NaCl or KBr and should not come into contact with water because that can dissolve the plates and destroy them. The plates are made of NaCl or KBr because they are held together by ionic interactions and won't interfere with the IR that only measures the covalent interactions. Capillary tubes can be used to drop small amounts of the liquid that is to be analyzed on one of the plates. The other plate is placed on top and should be used to try and spread the liquid to cover the entire plate. The plates are put into Infrared Spectrometers and a spectrum can be obtained by running the sample. Plates should always be cleaned with Kimwipe and washed with methylene chloride after each use. The IR spectrum to the right is an example of one corresponding to a carboxylate ester.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
Although IR spectroscopy is a great way to help unravel the structure of a molecule, another technique called NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) has further progressed the simplicity of deciphering the structure of a studied molecule. NMR, in similar ways to infrared spectroscopy, is also a characterization technique however instead of the use of infrared light, the sample is instead immersed in a magnetic field and hit with radio waves. These radio waves then encourage the nuclei of the molecule to resonate. This resonation is interpreted by a Fourier Transform algorithm which then determines the molecules surroundings, such as the structure. It should be noted that NMR works in the fashion of determining the orientation of how molecules are put together by flip motions caused by varying frequencies. The positively charged nucleus found in each element is a moving charge that creates a magnetic moment. When there is no magnetic field present or being administered to the atom, the microscopic magnets that orient the spin of the nucleus are aligned randomly. However when places in a homogeneous magnetic field, as one would do during NMR, the magnetic moments line up with the administered magnetic field. The motion caused by this alignment, the thermal motion for specifics, creates a torque which makes the magnetic moment "wobble". It is this wobble motion, or resonance, at different frequencies that can help one understand how the molecule is put together.
Mohrig, Jerry R., Christina Noring Hammond, and Paul F. Schatz. Techniques in Organic Chemistry. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2010. Print.
Images: Wiki-Media Commons
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| 0.927946 | 1,967 | 3.796875 | 4 |
Audio Signal Processing Using Graphics Processing Units
Although the special purpose graphics processing unit (GPU) found in many personal computers was designed to accelerate complex visual displays, the GPU can also be used for audio signal processing. Several case studies illustrate the use of the GPU in audio applications. For example with additive synthesis, 2 million sine waves were computed in real time, which is about a thousandfold better than a CPU implementation. FFTs and filters also were faster when using a GPU.
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This paper costs $33 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers.
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| 0.94268 | 175 | 2.875 | 3 |
When a Perl script is run from the command line, the shell invokes the Perl interpreter via the #!/bin/perl directive, which is the first line of the script (sometimes referred to as the shebang line). In scripts running under mod_cgi, you may use Perl switches as described in the perlrun manpage, such as -w, -T, or -d. Under the Apache::Registry handlers family, all switches except -w are ignored (and use of the -T switch triggers a warning). The support for -w was added for backward compatibility with mod_cgi.
Most command-line switches have special Perl variable equivalents that allow them to be set/unset in code. Consult the perlvar manpage for more details.
mod_perl provides its own equivalents to -w and -T in the form of configuration directives, as we'll discuss presently.
Finally, if you still need to set additional Perl startup flags, such as -d and -D, you can use the PERL5OPT environment variable. Switches in this variable are treated as if they were on every Perl command line. According to the perlrun manpage, only the -[DIMUdmw] switches are allowed.
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| 0.928706 | 258 | 2.71875 | 3 |
- Download PDF
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I think that a variety of emotions could be ascribed to the brave individuals who initiated and saw through the Montgomery Bus Boycott. On one hand, I would say that anxiety would have had to be a feeling experienced at the time. The very idea of standing on this threshold of what was to be done, the magnitude of it, and the massive repercussions it was to cause had a galvanizing effect, but some anxiousness must have been present. When Rosa Parks fails to surrender her seat, she is resolute, but there must have been a small amount of anxiety knowing what was to come. Certainly, Dr. King, in his first major and national role as a figure for Civil Rights, must have experienced some level of anxiety with knowing the success of the movement was going to be credited to him or its failures would be laid at his doorstep. I would think that some level of anxiety would also be associated with the many who supported the Boycott, the first one of its kind of such a massive and powerful scale. The idea of people of color rising in opposition was something of fundamental anxiety. After decades of second class treatment under segregation laws, any group of human beings who are seeking to redress such socially and institutionally embedded wrongs would experience anxiety. It is here were I think that some experience of the feeling of anxiety would play a major role in the emotional construction of those involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/summarize-thoughts-feelings-individuals-event-321594
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| 0.988734 | 318 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Published: Jan 1995
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|PDF (144K)||8||$25|| ADD TO CART|
|Complete Source PDF (7.1M)||329||$104|| ADD TO CART|
The oxidation of pyrite in marine clays exposed to a subaerial environment was confirmed and was determined to be well correlated with decreased adsorption of zinc by the clays. The production of sulfuric acid and iron oxide by this oxidation and the accompanying decrease in pH was demonstrated based on an investigation of the chemistry of the marine clay profile and laboratory incubation tests for remoulded clay samples. Both pH decrease and the production of iron oxides reduced the zinc adsorption capability of the clays. This suggests that the zinc adsorbed by the marine clays would be released into the pore water due to exposure of the sediment surface to the atmosphere.
marine clays, pyrite oxidation, iron oxide, heavy metal adsorption, zinc
Associate professor, Kyushu University, Fukuoka-shi,
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| 0.911628 | 231 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Nuclear Technology / Volume 151 / Number 2 / August 2005 / Pages 159-167
Technical Paper / Advances in Nuclear Fuel Management - Use of Alternate Fuels in Light Water Reactors
The civil and military utilization of nuclear power results in continuously increasing stockpiles of spent fuel and separated plutonium. Since fast breeder reactors are at present not available, the majority of spent fuel discharged from commercial nuclear reactors is intended for direct final disposal or designated for interim storage. An effective form of intermediate plutonium storage is recycling in thermal reactors. Recycling of the recovered plutonium in commercial light water reactors (LWRs) is currently practiced in Belgium, France, Germany, and Switzerland. The number of mixed-oxide (MOX) assemblies reloaded each year in a large variety of reactors demonstrates that plutonium recycling in LWRs has reached industrial maturity. The status of experience gained today at Framatome ANP confirms the reliability of the design codes and the suitability of fuel assembly and core designs. The validation database for increasing exposures of MOX fuel is being continuously expanded. This provides the basis for further extending the discharge exposures of MOX assemblies and for licensing the use of higher plutonium concentrations. Options to support the weapons plutonium reduction programs and for the development of advanced MOX assembly designs are investigated.
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http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nt/a_3640
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| 0.912429 | 260 | 2.75 | 3 |
HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS
During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the “priest’s holes” in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of Stuart.
In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down in 1761), there was a large concealed chamber provided with a fireplace and a bed, which could only be entered by removing the sheets of lead forming the roofing. Beneath was a trap-door opening to a precipitous flight of narrow steps in the thickness of a wall. This led to a secret chamber, that had an inner hiding-place at the back of a sliding panel. A witness in a trial succeeding “the ’45” declared to having seen a large quantity of arms there in readiness for the insurrection.
The last days of the notorious Lord Lovat are associated with some of the old houses in the north. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire, and Netherwhitton, in Northumberland, claim the honour of hiding this double-faced traitor prior to his arrest. At the former is a small chamber near the roof, and in the latter is a hiding-place measuring eight feet by three and ten feet high. Nor must be forgotten the tradition of Mistress Beatrice Cope, behind the walls of whose bedroom Lovat (so goes the story) was concealed, and the fugitive, being asthmatical, would have revealed his whereabouts to the soldiers in search of him, had not Mistress Cope herself kept up a persistent and violent fit of coughing to drown the noise.
A secret room in the old Tudor house Ty Mawr, Monmouthshire, is associated with the Jacobite risings. It is at the back of “the parlour” fireplace, and is entered through a square stone slab at the foot of the staircase. The chamber is provided with a small fireplace, the flue of which is connected with the ordinary chimney, so as to conceal the smoke. The same sort of thing may be seen at Bisham Abbey, Berks.
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http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/13918/49.html
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| 0.95486 | 490 | 3.140625 | 3 |
|Egil Lien, PhD|
Scientists at UMass Medical School are studying an old-world disease to gather new insights into the human innate immune system. Using the bubonic plague as a model system, researchers have pinpointed a gene critical to detecting and responding to the bacteria. The work, described in the journal Immunity, suggests that activation of the NLRP12 gene could be a therapeutic target to stimulate the innate immune system against other pathogens.
Efficient evasion of the innate immune system is a key evolutionary component of the virulence of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague. Those same factors that contribute to Y. pestis’s deadly history, though, make it a unique model for understanding how the innate immune system protects us from bacterial infection.
“The plague bacteria has developed several different ways to minimize activation of the immune system, preventing the host from mounting a robust defense to its presence,” said Egil Lien, PhD, associate professor of medicine and microbiology & physiological systems. “Because Y. pestis is so incredibly efficient at turning off the innate immune system, it provides an excellent means for evaluating the relative importance of those components and the protection they provide against bacterial infection when we turn them back on.”
In the study, Dr. Lien, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences doctoral student Greg Vladimer and colleagues pinpointed a gene, NLRP12, responsible for detecting and responding to plague bacteria. This is the first clear role described for NLRP12 in infection resistance. The NLR family, of which NLRP12 is part, has more than 20 members that function as part of a multi-protein complex called inflammasomes that are responsible for creating some key mature inflammatory cytokines. It is these inflammatory cytokines—in the case of Y. pestis it’s interleukin-18—that the innate immune system uses to fight off bacteria. Until now, the function NLRP12 plays in this process waspoorly understood and its role in promoting resistance to infection unclear.
“We know that interleukin-18 (IL-18) is an essential part of a host’s defense against this pathogen and that its absence is correlated to mortality rates for some attenuated plague strains,” said Lien. “What was unclear was how IL-18 was being turned off.”
The Immunity study shows that NLRP12 deficient hosts had higher mortality rates and bacterial loads after being infected with Y. pestis strains. These hosts also showed lower amounts of interleukin-18, which is essential for fighting off the bacteria.
“This suggests that NLRP12 plays an important role in sensing and responding to the Y. pestis bacteria,” said Lien. “The inability of the NLRP12 to detect the pathogen appears to create a downstream cascade that results in less inflammosome complexes and fewer mature IL-18 proteins being made to fight off the bacteria, which ultimately contributes to Y. pestis’s virulence.”
Though NLRP12 plays a key role in detecting Y. pestis bacteria, its role in recognizing other bacterial pathogens is less clear. NLRP12-deficient hosts infected with the Salmonella bacteria, for instance, were still able to fight off infection, unlike their Y. pestis-infected counterparts. It’s likely that other NLRs work in collaboration to recognize and respond to pathogens.
Still, the emerging role of infammasomes as key players in host defenses during infection makes them desirable targets for therapeutic intervention and drug development, said Lien, while mutations to several NLRs genes has been linked to inflammatory diseases.
“Given the importance of NLRP12, it is possible that it also plays an important role in resisting infections caused by other human pathogens,” said Lien. “While more research needs to be done to further explore the NLR role in host defense, this study points to them as an exciting and important potential therapeutic target.”
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| 0.94037 | 840 | 3.046875 | 3 |
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have found evidence of a previously-unknown settlement below York Minster, dating back more than 1,000 years.
Experts working at the Minster say the finds – including a ninth-century coin – help to plug a gap in York’s known history, between the departure of the Romans in the fifth century and the arrivals of the Normans in 1066.
The period is referred to as the Dark Ages due to the lack of knowledge about the time, and although Viking finds have increased awareness of York history from 866 onwards, broader understanding is scarce.
Now, a team from York Archaeological Trust working in a pit below the Minster say they have made priceless finds, including evidence of a local mint.
Read the rest of this article...
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| 0.957753 | 160 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Accessibility is defined as the matching of delivery of information and services with users’ individual needs and preferences in terms of intellectual and sensory engagement with resources containing that information or service, and their control of it. Accessibility is satisfied when there is a match regardless of culture, language or disabilities.
Why should you care about accessibility?
Since the online environment is an extension of the physical one, there is nothing more effective than a metaphor with the offline world to understand how crucial accessibility online can be for your business.
Imagine you are running a flower shop; the business is going pretty well, the shop is in a very good and central location, easily accessible from the main street. A lot of people visit it every day, attracted by the colourful window display with fresh flowers, the enticing aroma and your brilliant customer service. Inside the shop, flowers are tidily organised and labels with names and a clear description are provided. You tend to stay in the shop, ready to help your customers.
Now, think about the same flower shop, but imagine that in front of the main door there is a big step that prevents access for some of your customers. There’s no window to showcase your flowers and you turn off the light to save money. In the shop, no labels or descriptions are provided and flowers are randomly arranged. Moreover, you tend to stay in the back of the shop so your customers struggle to find you if they need help with something.
That’s exactly what happens when your website is not accessible.
The context in the UK
What are the benefits of having an accessible website?
Web accessibility protects your website against demographic changes and opens your business to everyone with an internet connection.
Which guidelines do you need to follow for developing an accessible website?
WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) defined in 2008 is an internationally adopted technical standard; the guidelines explain how to solve many of the problems that your users with disabilities face on the web. Although, WCAG 2.0 is not an all-inclusive list of issues that users with disabilities might face, they are internationally recognised standards.
WCAG 2.0 has 12 guidelines that are organised under 4 principles:
WCAG 2.0 are organised into three levels of conformance:
- Level A – the most basic web accessibility features
- Level AA – deals with the biggest and most common barriers for disabled users
- Level AAA – the highest (and most complex) level of web accessibility
Starting with Level A is a great way to make progress and begin helping out your users. Level AA is the standard many governments are using as this level targets the most common and most problematic issues for web users.
How can you test if your website is accessible?
In the WCAG 2.0 a list of universal guidelines are presented, but what we clearly know is that it can be difficult to universally define the usability of a website. A website or an interface that is usable for one person, might not be for someone else.
Some websites were found to perform extremely well in usability evaluations with disabled people, yet did not meet certain WCAG lines.
A holistic approach to accessibility is necessary to develop an accessible website. Experts claim that ‘the key measure of a digital system is whether it fits it’s context of use: whether the people for whom it is designed can use it with acceptable levels of usability, for the tasks that they need to do, in the social setting in which these tasks take place, using the technologies they have available.’
User requirements can be grouped into several categories, including:
The abilities (and disabilities) of the target users including perceptual, cognitive, motor, and linguistic abilities.
The tasks that need to be supported, group, social and cultural dynamics, communication patterns, environmental factors, and so on.
Such as availability of hardware and software and the availability of plug-ins.
For example, task success rates, task-completion times, satisfaction ratings, and quality of task output (e.g. comprehension outcomes in an e-learning environment).
These requirements have a cultural context in which they have to be considered in order to be meaningful. The holistic approach to accessibility is based on social inclusion rather than on the principle of universal accessibility.
A user-centred accessibility approach will entail both evaluating your website with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines and testing the usability directly with disabled users. This approach emphasises the importance of the user and on satisfying his/her requirements.
In times of increasing complexity and reliance on technology, it is important to ensure that what is being gained is increased quality of life and that “by designing with the disabled in mind, we can create products that are better for everyone.” Inclusive Design
Need help or advice?
If you’re curious about any of the above and how ux can help you to create a more successful product, contact our experts for free, friendly, no-ties advice.
Other posts you may find interesting:
Sloan, D., Heath, A., Hamilton, F., Kelly, B., Petrie, H., & Phipps, L. (2006, May). Contextual web accessibility-maximizing the benefit of accessibility guidelines. In Proceedings of the 2006 international cross-disciplinary workshop on Web accessibility (W4A): Building the mobile web: rediscovering accessibility? (pp. 121-131)
Ford M. & Nevile L, 2004, “Issues enabling support for Multi-locational Accessibility“, IDABC: Cross-border E-Government Services for Administrations, Businesses and Citizens Conference’, Brussels, February 2005.
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| 0.920723 | 1,170 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Striking by Night
Enemy ground radio and radar interception units detected the approach of a bomber force and mobilised fighters across France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Germany. The fighters were directed towards the bombers until they could pick them up on their own airborne radar or by sight. Radar-equipped twin-engine fighters could intercept the bombers along their route. Once over the target, other free-ranging fighters (often single-engined ones, such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109) would join in. The Germans called these tactics Zahme Sau (tame boar) and Wilde Sau (wild boar) respectively.
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https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/striking/weapons/radar.asp
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| 0.965546 | 130 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Jet stream shift 'may change weather'
Research suggests the jet stream in the upper atmosphere which helps determine the weather over Northern Europe and North America may be changing.
The study shows the so-called jet stream has increasingly taken a longer, meandering path, possibly as a result of the recent warming of the Arctic, the BBC reports.
Scientists say the new has resulted in weather patterns remaining the same for more prolonged periods.
The work was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago.
The meandering jet stream has accounted for the recent stormy weather over the UK and the bitter winter storm in the US Mid-West remaining longer than it otherwise would have.
The jet stream is a high-speed air current in the atmosphere fuelled partly by the temperature differential between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes.
If the differential is large, the jet stream speeds up and ploughs through obstacles such as areas of high pressure that might be in its way. But if the temperature differential reduces because of a warming Arctic, the jet stream weakens and meanders every time it comes across an obstacle.
This results in weather patterns tending to becoming stuck over areas for weeks on end, and drives cold weather further south and warm weather further north.
Examples of the latter are Alaska and parts of Scandinavia, which have had exceptionally warm conditions this winter.
Professor Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University in New Jersey said it was too soon to tell whether recent patterns are due to natural variations or the result of man-made climate change.
She said the Arctic had been warming rapidly only for the past 15 years, so it is hard to get a clear signal from data over such a short time. "But as we have more data I do think we will start to see the influence of climate change," Prof Francis said.
Next story in World: US to appoint envoy to 'last frontier'
Copyright © 2014, Radio New Zealand
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| 0.952308 | 405 | 4.09375 | 4 |
A new scientific study released by the independent Science Advisory Board to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports restoring longstanding Clean Water Act protections to streams, wetlands, and other water bodies left vulnerable by Bush-era guidance. The report underscores the need to protect all waters of the United States from pollution and permanent filling.
During the Bush administration, many of our vital waters were left without clear enforceable protections that had existed for 40 years under the federal Clean Water Act – including streams and wetlands that feed drinking water supplies of nearly 117 million Americans.
Today, the EPA released a scientific study confirming that all streams, and all wetlands adjacent to streams, are critical waters of the United States. The study adds to urgent calls for the EPA to clarify that these waters fall under the scope of Clean Water Act protection.
The EPA also announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers submitted a proposed rulemaking clarifying the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review—an important step in finalizing a rule to protect our nation’s water bodies.
The following is a statement from Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen:
“The science today demonstrates the need for a greater national commitment to clean water. The science is extensive, but the concept is basic: Water flows and we all live downstream. If we want to have clean drinking water for our families and swimmable, fishable waterways in our communities, we need to protect all waters regardless of size and regardless of location.
“Our clean water safeguards should conform to what science has long told us: all waters—from the smallest stream and wetlands to the Great Lakes—are critical components of a clean and healthy water supply and ecosystems. We should ensure that the promise of the Clean Water Act is realized and protect all waters. Unfortunately, many of our nation’s critical waters have been left vulnerable to toxic dumping and pollution; almost half of our nation’s waters still fail to meet basic standards. These waters supply drinking water to 117 million Americans. Restoring and ensuring longstanding Clean Water Act Protections for all waters would give these many families and communities the assurance they need that their drinking water is worth protecting.
“We hope the Obama administration heeds this important science and moves forward with commonsense clean water policies to restore protections to our nation’s streams, brooks, rivers, lakes, and wetlands—large and small, and we look forward to swift action by a new leadership team at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as they review the proposed rule on protected waters of the United States. It has been disappointing to witness glaciers melting at a faster pace than it takes important rules to move through the OMB review process.”
Raviya Ismail, Earthjustice, (202) 745-5221
Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.
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| 0.931807 | 648 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Narcissus were well known in ancient civilisation, both medicinally and botanically, but formally described by Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum (1753). The genus is generally considered to have about ten sections with approximately 50 species. The number of species has varied, depending on how they are classified, due to similarity between species and hybridisation.
Felicia amelloides, the blue marguerite or blue daisy, is a species of flowering plant of the family Asteraceae, native to South Africa. F. amelloides is synonymous with, and formerly known as, F. aethiopica, Aster amelloides, Aster capensis, and Aster coelestis.
F. amelloides is an evergreen shrublet usually 30–60 cm tall by 50 cm wide, but sometimes up to 1 m tall, with densely branched and frequently dark red stems, and rough, hairy, ovate green leaves. Striking blue composite flowers with prominent yellow centres, about 30 mm in diameter, and borne on naked stalks up to 180 mm long.
This species is much cultivated, and in the temperate world is usually grown as a half-hardy annual in pots, window-boxes, hanging baskets, and other summer bedding schemes for parks and gardens. Drought- and wind-resistant, it requires a sheltered aspect in full sun, and does not tolerate frost.
Join me for Floral Friday Fotos by linking your flower photos below, and please leave a comment once you have done so. I love hearing from you!
****If you take part in the meme, please show an active link back to this site on your own blog post!****
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Research on flies and insects is buzzing
As many of the basic processes in flies are seen in humans – and flies are remarkably resistant to infections – their study and that of other insects has the potential for enormous societal and commercial benefit
IN 2008, US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin famously stuck it to science when she was giving out about “earmark” funding from Congress for basic research: “Sometimes these dollars, they go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.”
But despite Ms Palins misgivings, flies can be important lab models.
Like Drosophila melanogaster, a tiny fly that has made a big contribution to our understanding of genetics and how tissues develop – many of the basic processes in flies are also seen in humans.
And if scrutinising insects still sounds like something that should be banished to the farthest corner of campus, how about this: asking the question “why do insects not get sick?” burst open our understanding of the human immune system, an area that has the potential for enormous societal and commercial benefit.
Earlier this month, immunologist and 2011 Nobel Laureate Prof Jules Hoffmann was in Dublin for Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2012, and he spoke about making that basic discovery through experiments that involved grasshoppers and flies.
“Insects are remarkably resistant to infections and we wanted to look at mechanisms that account for resistance,” he told a symposium at the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute. “We did not think of any application, it was a blissful time, you had the curiosity and you did your work.”
It eventually led Hoffmann and colleagues to discover a process in the immune system involving proteins called Tolls. That revolutionised our understanding of not only how insects ward off disease but also how the Toll system is involved in human defences.
And while that basic understanding of the immune system is important in its own right, it is also starting to generate more commercial and clinical potential, explains Luke O’Neill, professor of biochemistry at Trinity College Dublin and academic director of the TBSI.
“We are going from fundamental discoveries in the fly towards new medicines,” he says. “There are multibillion markets for vaccine adjuvants that act via the Toll pathways, and there’s also the prospect of new treatments for many diseases.”
O’Neill and colleagues at Trinity were funded by Science Foundation Ireland in the early 2000s to look at Tolls, and that led to the foundation of Opsona Therapeutics, which is developing molecules to block the receptors for Tolls and affect the immune system in a targeted way.
The company has so far raised a total of $45 million to date and is on the road to raising another $43 million, according to O’Neill.
Ultimately he sees controlling Tolls as an approach in tackling auto-immune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis), cancer and possibly even malaria. And this month Opsona starts phase two clinical trials of a Toll-blocking compound that seeks to help overcome rejection after kidney transplants.
“Opsona would never have gotten off the ground without Hoffmann’s discovery,” says O’Neill.
Another area in biomedicine where fundamental discoveries have opened the way to applications include cholesterol – working out its biochemistry in the body led to the development of blockbuster statins, explains O’Neill.
And in particle physics, work at CERN led to the world wide web and has had applications in medical imaging technology and even cancer treatment.
Of course we can cite examples where fundamental research led to a specific commercial or societal outcome, but it’s difficult to predict in advance when that’s going to happen, admits O’Neill. “The essence of basic frontier research is that you don’t know what way it is going to go. But if we don’t fund it, where are the breakthroughs going to come from?” he asks. “There’s a huge unmet need in cancers and pathologies like Alzheimer’s and the only way to make progress is to understand the disease at a fundamental level. That involves basic research.”
While O’Neill is an advocate of fundamental research, which can provide the meat for innovation and which also trains scientists who may then move to industry, he points out there’s still the need for more applied science too.
“Let’s say we do make a fundamental discovery and we don’t commercialise and someone else does, that would be terrible,” he says.“It’s like in football – you would be stupid to have a whole load of backs on your team, you need wingers and forwards as well.”
Prof Peter Doherty, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996 for his work on the immune response, was also in Dublin for ESOF. He sees the value of fundamental research and the challenges.
“There’s no easy path,” he says. “You have to try and facilitate things so that discoveries can be turned into products and something of value. On the other hand, it’s very hard to legislate for it and you have got to be prepared to spend the money on the basic science. And you have got to back your best people.”
Doherty, who is based at the University of Melbourne and the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, says governments can play a role in helping to build scientific centres that mix disciplines in research. “You need to bring a lot of people together who are doing different things but have some sort of commonality and interest,” he says. “If you don’t have good institutions you can’t have good science.”
And he cautions not to get out of the traps too early on commercialisation when translating discoveries from the lab to the clinic. “You have to do the basic science, you have to do the hard yard.”
We are going from fundamental discoveries in the fly towards new medicines
You have to try and facilitate things so that discoveries can be turned into products and something of value
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SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Despite its circulation since 2009, immunity to the flu strain A(H1N1)2009 is not sufficiently high and many people remain susceptible, U.S. researchers say.
U.S. influenza activity is surging and there are reports of critical illness and death in young and middle-aged adults, Dr. Timothy M. Uyeki of San Francisco General Hospital wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The predominant virus so far this season is influenza A(H1N1) 2009, the cause of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
The spread of influenza A(H1N1) 2009 virus suggests that to date, surveillance data provide no evidence of significant antigenic drift in the circulating virus strains, so susceptibility could be due to the presence of a substantial number of previously uninfected and unvaccinated people or waning immunity from prior infection.
Although previously healthy people can have severe illness, certain groups -- including children age 2 and younger; the elderly; pregnant women; people with certain chronic conditions such as pulmonary, cardiac, renal, hepatic, metabolic, hematologic, neurologic, or neuromuscular conditions; immunosuppression; or morbid obesity; nursing home residents American Indians and Alaska Natives -- are at increased risk for complications.
The effectiveness of influenza vaccine varies depending on several factors, including the recipient's age and immune response and the match between circulating virus strains and vaccine strains, Uyeki said.
Influenza vaccine has been moderately effective in recent years, though less so among the elderly, and some vaccinated people may still develop influenza, he said.
Circulating influenza A(H1N1) 2009 virus strains are well matched to date by H1N1 strains in all available vaccines this season, and unvaccinated people should be vaccinated as soon as possible, Uyeki advised.
Annual influenza vaccination is recommended for everyone 6 months of age or older in the United States.
Resistance of influenza A(H1N1) 2009 viruses to the antiviral treatment oseltamivir is documented, but surveillance indicates the prevalence of oseltamivir-resistant influenza viruses is low to date.
For severely ill patients with influenza who have strongly suspected or documented oseltamivir resistance or malabsorption, or gastrointestinal bleeding, intravenous zanamivir -- an investigational drug -- can be considered. It is available through enrollment in a clinical trial, Uyeki said.
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Mon Oct 17th, 2005 at 09:05:00 AM EST
Generally speaking, freight trains are the more economic the more freight you can stuff on a single train. The limits to push are:
- train length (must bee less than length of stations/sidings)
- loading gauge (= height & width, must fit beside/under buildings/tunnels/trees/overpasses)
- axleload (=weight supported by a single wheelset, rail and trackbed must survive it)
Pushing the limits leads to some strange solutions – below two that I expect to look rather strange for people on the respective other side of the pond:
|Double-stack container train (USA) ||Bogie of a low-floor RoLa train with four mini-wheels (Europe)|
Previous Monday Train Bloggings:
- (Premiere/ modern Austrian trains & locos)
- Fast Steam
...are the ones who can really exploit all three possibilities. In 2001, a record test train of almost 100,000 tons (in it 82,262 tons iron ore) ran on BHP Billiton's Pilbara line in Australia. The eight 6000-HP locomotives pulled 682 cars – 7.4 km in length! But even regular trains are up to half that long. For comparison with the next two: axleload is now up to 40 t.
US railroads, with not much to limit their size, and a network of long lines relatively simple to upgrade, also grew rather big. But, while high axleloads (30–35 metric tons) would make stuffing two containers upon each other only logical, doing so in practice was a formidable challenge even in the USA (it started only in 1977).
The center of gravity had to be lowered somehow (wind is a danger), and even with low-floor cars, the double-stack loading gauge, a metre higher than normal, forced some tunnel/overpass rebuilding – in Europe, they'd tear down overhead wires1...
On our continent, a network too complex and with lots of stations won't allow an increase of train length. Dense buildup, historical buildings and 'well-built' old railroads mean loading gauge can't be increased. Unless a lot of track is replaced, raising axleload won't be practical either – so just on mainlines, it took half a century to go from 15–20 tons to today's 20–25 tons.
But, some tricks can still be made. Two decades ago, to transport the biggest (=highest) lorries, engineers designed special low-floor-throughout RoLa2 cars: with wheels a third of a normal freight car's in diameter, and four-five wheelsets on a bogie instead of two (so that axles don't break).
(I note that where I work, my collagues once had to investigate these cars – they proved that their derailment conditions are completely different from normal wagons, f.e. speeding across switches decreases the risk!)
- Double-stack loading gauge is 20'2" (6.15 m) high; in Europe, caternary is ideally 6 m above rails, in tunnels it can be as low as 5 m.↑
- This semi-official term is the abbrevation of their funny German name: Rollende Landstra▀e = rolling country road.↑
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A Lesson in Humanity
The Special Olympics is an anomaly in the world of sports. The sports world is a world that bequeaths instant millions and celebrity status on our most publicized athletes. The Special Olympics are somehow something so much more.
St. Camillus, with its recent fund-raising success and the help of our community, is hoping to send representatives to the Special Olympics in Dublin 2002. This is a great accomplishment of compassion. Then again, the Special Olympics have always been about great accomplishments in human compassion.
The Special Olympics began in the sixties as the brain-child of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Ms. Shriver noticed that people with mental retardation were in fact more capable of athletic under-takings than what was commonly believed at the time. Using the day camp she ran for people with mental retardation as a springboard, she was able to increase both awareness and participation in her events. Her hard work paid off. In 1968, the first ever Special Olympic Games were held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.
Now the Special Olympics Program is established in all fifty states and most U.S. holding (e.g. the Virgin Islands, Guam, etc.). There are nearly 25,000 communities (such as ours) involved in the program and this number continues to grow. Also, starting in 1987, the Unified Sports Program has started integrating their Special Olympic athletes with more mainstream athletes in similar age and skill categories.
Internationally, the Special Olympics Program has taken off and continues to grow rapidly. There are nearly 150 countries with Special Olympics Programs around the world.
It’s not an "every-four-years" thing, either. Internationally, it has now become a year-round event, with physical training and competition in a wide variety of sports.
The Special Olympics is very unique in its results. While the positive results in sports are usually just by-products, in the case of the Special Olympics, they are the goal. Sports have been shown to have such positive effects on the mentally handicapped as the development of social skills, an increase in self-confidence, an improvement in motor-skills and general mental and physical fitness. All these results give the Special Olympics a truly "special" significance.
Quietly, with little fanfare and a lot of care and devotion, the Special Olympics Program continues to change the lives of thousands of mentally handicapped athletes and their families. The spirit of the entire event is best exemplified in the Special Olympics Oath. "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."
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Nations and resources - June 7
Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Water shortages ‘could plunge the world into conflict’
Ben Marlow, the Times
WATER could be the cause of large armed conflicts in the next 20 to 30 years if governments do not take immediate action to manage the world’s water resources more efficiently, an expert has warned.
Wars over oil have been fought for decades, but water could be the next source of conflict unless governments deal with access to the commodity that some commentators now call “liquid gold”.
Fears are mounting that the cost of water will rocket as the global economy wakes up to the strains being placed on supplies in some parts of the world.
“Water is a precious resource that we take for granted,” said Ben Braga, vice-president of the World Water Council. “Governments need to wake up and adopt policies towards efficient water use.” Water wars are likely in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country, said Braga.
The flashpoints could be some of the world’s biggest rivers, such as the Amazon, Nile, Zambezi or Tigris.
The total volume of the Earth’s water is about 200m cubic metres, or 200m tonnes, per person.
Only 1% of fresh water is usable and more than one billion people lack access to reliable, safe drinking water. About 2.6 billion people do not have lavatories or other forms of sanitation. Some experts predict that by 2015 two-thirds of the world’s people will live in water-stressed countries.
Agriculture absorbs about 70% of water. As developing economies move towards a more western diet, even more strain will be put on the supply.
“The lack of access to basic levels of water and sanitation is primarily due to exclusion and neglect of the poor, not lack of sufficient water resources or lack of technical solutions. The problem is not of quantity, more of management,” said Braga...
(6 June 2010)
Government review to examine threat of world resources shortage
Juliette Jowitt, The Guardian
Ministers have ordered a review of looming global shortages of resources, from fish and timber to water and precious metals, amid mounting concern that the problem could hit every sector of the economy.
The study has been commissioned following sharp rises in many commodity prices on the world markets and recent riots in some countries over food shortages.
There is also evidence that some nations are stockpiling important materials, buying up key producers and land and restricting exports in an attempt to protect their own businesses from increasingly fierce global competition.
Several research projects have also warned of a pending crisis in natural resources, such as water and wildlife, which have suffered dramatic losses due to over-use, pollution, habitat loss, and, increasingly, changes caused by global warming.
Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientist for the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs, the leading department in the initiative, said every sector of the British economy was directly or indirectly vulnerable to future shortages.
These could be caused either by resources running out or becoming harder to access because of geopolitical factors from war to tighter environmental regulation on resources such as timber and palm oil – the latter being found in an estimated one in 10 products, from chocolate to cosmetics, sold in Britain.
"One of the roles of government is to provide information ... come up with a shared vision of moving forward and working with the private sector so we have competitiveness, a viable economy moving forward," Watson said.
AEA, the consultancy commissioned to carry out the study, said resources at risk included timber, water, fish, precious metals and minerals such as phosphorus, which is widely used in fertiliser.
One area of particular concern is "rare earth elements", important for defence and many green technologies from low-energy lightbulbs to wind turbines, as well as industries as varied as electronics and lasers, film and lighting, aircraft engines, nuclear reactors, and pain-relieving drugs, Phil Dolley, AEA's resource efficiency director, said...
(31 May 2010)
Phosphorus and the Oxygen Connection
Melinda Burns, Miller-McCune
As recently reported by Miller-McCune, scientists believe the world may be approaching “peak phosphorus.” Supplies of phosphate rock, a key source of phosphorus for fertilizers, may start to decline in 20 years, they say, triggering famine and food shortages.
Now, beyond food, phosphorus is getting credit for the very air we breathe. New research from the Carnegie Institution for Science suggests that hundreds of millions of years ago, phosphorus may have jump-started the modern-day atmosphere, paving the way for the evolution of complex life forms and even turning the sky blue.
Biochemist Dominic Papineau studied the phosphate deposits that formed during a critical interval in the history of the Earth, from 2.5 billion years ago to about 540 million years ago. During this period, levels of oxygen in the atmosphere increased in two phases, from trace amounts to near-present levels, giving rise to a spectacular explosion in the diversity of life forms, including sponges and hard-shelled marine organisms.
“Phosphate rocks formed only sporadically during geologic history,” Papineau was quoted in a release announcing his paper, “and it’s striking that their occurrences coincided with major global biogeochemical changes as well as significant leaps in biological evolution.”
Over geologic timescales of tens of millions to a few hundreds of millions of years, he said, supercontinents broke up and glaciers melted, increasing the weathering of the Earth’s crust and washing large quantities of phosphorus into the oceans...
(24 May 2010)
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| 0.946068 | 1,273 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Obesity is a term used to describe somebody who is overweight with a high degree of body fat. There are different levels of obesity; a person with a BMI between 30 and 40 would be considered to be ‘obese’, whilst a person with a BMI over 40 would be considered ‘morbidly obese’ or ‘very obese’.
Being obese increases a person’s risk of developing a number of serious and potentially life-threatening diseases, such as:
- type 2 diabetes;
- heart disease;
- some types of cancer (e.g. breast cancer and colon cancer);
People who are obese (particularly those who are very obese) may well also experience issues that reduce their quality of life and make their everyday lives more difficult (e.g. difficulty moving around, knee problems from carrying too much weight, bowel and stomach problems, fatigue, impaired psychological health, etc.).
Under the Equality Act 2010, which aims to provide a single set of rules that cover all kinds of discrimination, people are classed as having disabilities if they have physical or mental impairments that have substantial and adverse long-term effects on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. So, using this definition, would people count as disabled if their obesity were affecting their day-to-day activities?
In itself, obesity does not count as a disability, although being obese (particularly being very obese) will increase the likelihood of a person suffering from related issues that might fall within the definition of obesity in legislation. In fact, a recent tribunal case concluded that a worker with a BMI of 48.5 and a number of health conditions relating to his weight (e.g. gout; sleep apnoea; knee, joint and back pain) was disabled, and it upheld his claim for harassment related to disability. So, employers need to consider whether their employees have an impairment that is making their everyday lives difficult for them, and whether the negative impact of the impairment(s) have been ‘substantial and long-term’ (i.e. 12 months, or more).
If you’re interested in finding out more about the Equality Act 2010, see the guide on our advice hub. Or, if you’re interested in other topics relating to the relationship between health and work, why not browse through the Fit for Work website to find relevant guides and blogs?
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| 0.965438 | 498 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Analytical Activities, Exercises and Games
Participatory Epidemiology and Womens Farming Activities
One of the most common epidemiological applications of PRA methodology is to gain a rapid overview of the range a communitys animal health problems and a measure of the importance that people place on each of them. This is achieved by directly asking livestock owners what animal health problems are occurring or have occurred in their livestock. They usually respond by naming a number of disease syndromes in their own language. The epidemiologist or appraisal team will ask the respondents to describe each syndrome individually and build a definition of each term. Once the description has been received, clarifying questions can be asked. After a number of interviews have been completed, consensus definitions of important animal health syndromes will have been determined. This is a relatively straightforward process, but the actual execution requires good interpersonal skills and an open mind. Further, the quality of results can be greatly affected by interviewing method and enhanced by utilisation of a few analytical exercises or activities.
This section will summarise the basic tools of participatory rural appraisal and suggest methods for their application to the completion of baseline studies of community animal health. A number of detailed documents and training courses are available on PRA and RRA in general (McCracken, 1988; IIED, 1994; Waters-Bayer and Bayer, 1994 and Narayan, 1996). The reader is encouraged to consult such texts for further information. The techniques that directly relate to animal health and have been tested in the field in epidemiological exercises will be discussed here. Many more techniques or variations of techniques exist and the potential for creative experimentation is only limited by the time and interest of PRA practitioners.
The main techniques used are interviewing, checklists, key informants, probing, triangulation, transects, mapping, diagramming, time lines, ranking or proportional piling and progeny history. In PRA, questionnaire forms are not used. Checklists are used to remind the appraisal team of subjects and activities that should be covered in the appraisal. Checklists are used at different levels and can be written or mental. At the level of the overall appraisal, a checklist of items and activities to be covered during the course of the appraisal, but not necessarily with all respondents, should be prepared. Interview checklists are also used to assure that no important topics are overlooked during the SSI. These are discussed in the section on interviewing. Finally, mental checklists can be developed for analytical exercises such as mapping or ranking exercises.
In order to begin, the epidemiologist should identify the area and the communities with which he/she will be working and obtain background information including secondary literature on the communities of interest. Topographical maps are useful. An overview of the communitys structure with special reference to traditional decision-making and leadership roles is also very useful.
Participatory rural appraisals are usually conducted through translators in the language of the local community. This is true even where a strong national language is in place. Existing veterinary knowledge and local veterinary terminology are part of local culture and strongly linked to language. Working in a second language can only reduce the quality of information obtained. Selection of translators is an important consideration. The translator should not introduce personal bias, have respect for local people and provide as literal a translation as possible with minimal summing-up. Sometimes the points glossed over by the translator are the most important. The translator does not have to have previous animal health experience and indeed, translators with animal health experience are often those most prone to introduce bias into the translation.
The appraisal team for an epidemiological study consists of at least a translator and an epidemiologist. It is useful to have one or two other experts present however the size of the team should not overwhelm the respondents. Participatory rural appraisal is very much an exercise in listening. Having more than one expert present will enrich the process by bringing multiple perceptions. A sociologist, economist, additional veterinary scientists with other specialisation and entomologists are some of the possibilities that could be incorporated in animal health related PRA. The appraisal team should appoint a moderator to lead interviews, discussions and activities. If the appraisal team reaches a size of 4 persons or more, it is usually best to divide the team up into smaller groups. Each group can carry out independent interviews and exercises. The group members should be frequently reassorted to assure a good exchange of perspectives. It is best if all members of the team have read the secondary sources and if everyone including the translator have had PRA training.
It is often useful to begin by interviewing a few key informants. Key informants are individuals who have had previous experience with the communities to be interviewed or are community leaders of one type or another. Key informants can include traditional leaders, religious leaders, traditional healers, community animal health workers, local officials, veterinary staff, and development workers. Key informants can help identify important clusters of livestock owners, entry points, community institutions and decision-making mechanisms. At the same time, care must be exercised concerning key informants. Local political or administrative issues as well as personal bias can influence the response of traditional leaders, local authorities and other key informants. For this reason, it is best to interview several key informants with different backgrounds and always be prepared to reinterpret the results of initial interviews in light of later findings.
Part of getting started is to make a preliminary identification of your entry point or target interview groups in the field. The appraisal team will probably want to modify these initial hypotheses based on experience in the field, but a starting point is needed. All communities are unique, however there is usually some form of small unit structure responsible for ownership and management of the livestock who actually live in the field close to the livestock. There is often one elder or group of elders who are the nominal decision-maker. Be aware that these decision-makers rarely act without consultation with the broader membership of the community. This decision-making body, the elder and his advisors, is empowered to speak in a responsible manner for the immediate community. Their statements are usually thoughtful and prudent as they speak for the community and must maintain credibility with their constituents. These decision-making groupings make excellent interview groups.
There are many variations and exceptions in community structure. The only rule that can be stated is that the decision-making structure of the community is determined by tradition. To obtain high quality data, the appraisal team must recognise and respect traditional roles. Be sure not to overlook the role of women. Women are often the primary keepers of young stock and small stock. They can also be cattle owners in their own right. In fact, some societies are matrilineal and elder women are the heads of household.
For some communities, customary gifts such as tobacco or kat are desirable. These gifts are of minimal value in most cases but demonstrate respect or friendship and can be a great icebreaker. Often times, local preferences are quite specific and it is best to obtain stocks in local market towns to be sure that the right gift is offered.
On the logistic side, the team should carry along a basic epidemiological field kit (Annex 1) and camping equipment. The freedom to stay close by or in the community will enhance the depth of the appraisal.
Time and Place
Interviewing is a specialised skill that improves with practice. Although just about any one can collect useful information through an interview, the amount and reliability of information obtained can be greatly improved with experience. There are many subtle lessons to be learnt about:
· Who to interviewThe following sub-sections will give some hints on how to handle these issues.
· How large a group to interview
· Where to interview
· How to order questions
· How to phrase questions
· How to listen
· What to observe for during an interview
In PRA, an interview questionnaire is not used. Instead, the study team prepares a checklist of important points and exercises to be covered. This allows the interview to be flexible and permits the respondents to express their thoughts in their own words within their own conceptual frameworks. An example of a checklist for a PRA to identify and prioritise animal health problems in community is presented in Box 1. This example is only meant to provide a starting point. The reader is encouraged to adapt the checklist to local needs and personal preferences. The checklist serves to provide overall direction and assure that no major points are missed in the interview. The checklist also allows time for the respondents to digress into areas of special interest to them and for the appraisal team to investigate specific themes raised by the respondents. These digressions are often real gold mines of information that would have been missed in a rigorously structured interview.
Box 1: Sample PRA Checklist for the Identification
1. Introduce the appraisal team
The site and time of interviews is important to their success. Unfortunately, the appraisal team does not always have control over this aspect, but every effort should be made to arrange a quiet and comfortable location. Frequently, respondents will be located at the market or well, while in the midst of pressing activities. Normally, these occasions are appropriate for only a few short questions and it is better to try to arrange an appointment in a less disturbed area. Ideally, the interview team and respondents should feel relaxed and on equal footing with each other. Traditional community meeting sites make good group interview sites. Although community centres and training centres may make acceptable interview sites, avoid official offices or the appearance of an official enquiry.
With pastoral societies, dawn and dusk are frequently the best time to find cattle owners at their camps, but may not be the best time to interview. Always ask if it is a convenient time, and if not when you could meet.
Interviews should be planned to last about an hour. If the interview last longer, participants will begin to loss interest and the quality of information will decline. Learn to watch for signs of fatigue and boredom. Fidgeting and side conversation are a sign that either the interview needs to be enlivened by a shift to topics of greater interest to the respondents or that it is time to wrap up and ask any key questions that may remain.
The first step in any interview is introductions. The study team should introduce themselves and ask the participant(s) to introduce themselves. Your introduction should be accurate but should not act to bias the response of the participants. If you place emphasis on a particular subject (i.e. poultry or CBPP) in your introduction, the respondents will frequently put undue emphasis on these topics in their replies. Normally, the study teams should record the names and community memberships of the respondents. At this point, the interviewers should also try to identify if the respondents are suitable participants for the appraisal at hand. For example, if you are investigating camel disease and the particular livestock owners you have contacted do not own camels, they may not be appropriate respondents for your study.
The appraisal team must be careful not to raise community expectations concerning future projects or services. Even if the appraisal is a preparatory study for future activities at the community level, the interview team should avoid making promises. Sometimes this is very difficult. Remote communities rarely receive visitors and the PRA by its very occurrence raises expectations. Even the most off hand suggestions can be taken as promises. The introduction is a good opportunity to diffuse some of these automatic expectations by stating that the appraisal is only a study and that the members of the appraisal team are not the decision-makers regarding future programmes.
It is essential to the reliability of the information collected that questions are open-ended and do not restrict or direct the respondent to a particular response or type of response. A close-ended question limits the respondent to a set of pre-set responses which the researcher has defined. A close-ended question assumes that the researcher knew all the possible relevant responses before the question was asked. Thus, the aspect of discovery is not present. In an animal health appraisal, it is often best to begin with a open question such as What animal health problems are you experiencing?
A good question does not make assumptions. For example, if the respondents have described a current disease problem that is consistent with sheep pox and you wish to know when previous outbreaks have occurred. You might wish to ask:
When was the last time this disease occurred?However, it would be better to ask:
Have you seen this disease before?The first question assumes that the disease has occurred before and communicates the assumption to the respondent. The respondent may state a year for the sake of being polite or out of fear of appearing uninformed. The second question allows the respondent greater freedom to state what he/she confidently knows.
Questions should be ordered so that the interview progresses from general themes to specifics. As much as possible, the respondents should determine the direction of the interview. As a result, the majority of questions cannot be pre-planned. They must be designed on the spot in light of the information already presented and the moderator must be able to think on his feet. In most communities, there will be continuity between interviews due to the commonality of problems in an immediate area and the appraisal team will have the opportunity to revisit subjects with various groups of respondents. As interviews are limited in duration to about one hour this is a blessing. The appraisal team will have repeated opportunities to probe different aspects of a subject with different groups of respondents.
The fact that most questions cannot be pre-planned does not mean that a limited number of key questions cannot be worked into the interview. For example, the appraisal team may have a special interest in unravelling the local epidemiology of CBPP and wish to ask when the last occurrence of CBPP was in every interview. This can be done, but very careful attention must be paid to when the question is asked in the flow of the interview to avoid leading the discussion. If the disease is endemic, the participants will probably raise the subject of CBPP and the appraisal team can safely ask their standard question. If the participants never introduce CBPP, the CBPP question can be asked at the end of the interview. However, the appraisal team should note that the community did not introduce the subject and that this probably reflects that CBPP is not a local priority.
Quantitative questions such as mortality rates, herd size, etc. do not receive very accurate responses. It is usually best to avoid such types of questions. In the authors experience, herders do know exactly how many animals they own; it is their main form of wealth. However, as in most societies, it is impolite to directly inquire about wealth in quantitative terms. If people do respond, a poor man may exaggerate and a rich man may depreciate his holdings. McCauley among others (1983a) apparently collected accurate herd sizes for the calculation of mortality rates by triangulating three pieces of information:
· Owner informationPerry among others, (1984) reported obtaining relatively accurate estimates of herd size and structure for the calculation of mortality rates in a questionnaire survey. The paper stressed the importance of using local languages, extensive introductions of the survey and leaving the question of herd size until last when the respondents were most confident. While implementing a participatory rinderpest vaccination programme with cost recovery in Chad, the author obtained exact data on herd structure from Arab pastoralists for the calculation of vaccination fees. This exchange of information (and money) was an extremely confidential matter for the herders. The reader is advised that the collection of data on herd structure by direct quantitative questioning in single visit appraisals or surveys is very difficult and fraught with bias. Specific techniques may work for specific societies, but investigators should be very circumspect and critical of the data obtained. Some very useful and broadly tested qualitative techniques for studying wealth and mortality rates are discussed below.
· Direct observation of the herd
· Information from neighbours about the subjects livestock holdings
There is a widely used PRA methods for studying wealth, which is referred to as wealth ranking. This technique will provide relative indicators of wealth, but usually not quantitative data. It is normally utilised to identify different wealth groups within the community so that the needs and priorities of each group can be identified as well as to assure that the poorest strata of the community are well represented in the study.
The estimation of mortality due to major diseases that does not require the respondent to quantify holdings or loses can be achieved using progeny history analysis. This PRA tool relies on the herders in-depth knowledge of individual animals and allows the investigator to collect detailed data for the calculation of rates. Please refer to the section on progeny history for information about quantifying mortality.
During SSI it is very important to observe as well as listen. Are the respondents relaxed and confident? Is there eye contact. What types of body language are being expressed. Are some topics sensitive? Is everyone participating? Who is not participating? Are some people comfortable and others not? What are the differences in appearance between those participating and those who are not? Is gender, wealth or age the issue (dont ask, observe)? Follow-up interviews can be arranged with non-participating participants in groupings were they may feel more comfortable.
In general, livestock owners enjoy talking about their livestock. Participatory epidemiology is about letting people share their knowledge and learning from them. Listen, be patient, and open-minded.
In participatory rural appraisal, the term probing means to ask detailed questions on a specific subject raised by the respondents. Probing is both a data gathering and data quality control technique. Probing can be used to verify the internal consistency of information or simply to gather more detailed information on a particular subject. In the case of participatory epidemiology, probing is often used to expand on the description of a particular disease entity volunteered by a respondent. For example, respondents might describe a disease that causes sudden death in livestock without rigour mortis. The appraisal team could inquire if the disease can affect man and if so what does the disease look like in man. A positive response with a characteristic description of anthrax abscesses will confirm this description as anthrax.
Verifying internal consistency of information is an important means of data quality control in PRA. Probing helps to establish the plausibility of statements made by the participants through expanding on the detail and background of the issue. This does not mean that trick questions or attempts to lead the participants into self-contradiction should be made. The process of PRA is founded on enlightened respect for individual opinions and observations. One respectfully evaluates the quality and merit of all statements from all individuals.
Multiple Methods and Multiple Informants
Key Biological Sampling
Triangulation refers to the process in navigation where one can locate his position by compass readings on two known points, such as two mountain peaks. In PRA, triangulation refers to a process of cross-checking of reports or data provided by various independent respondents or methods. By comparing reports and results of exercises, the appraisal team can arrive at a consensus view where all or the majority of respondents agree. Triangulation of internally consistent accounts provides a simple, yet powerful, method of quality control in the analysis of the results of participatory epidemiology.
It is also possible to probe a later group of respondents about information provided in a previous interview. This is one method for confirming information, however care must be exercised to avoid leading respondents.
For subjects which the appraisal team is concerned may be eliciting a positive bias out of politeness or a desire to please, one technique which the author has employed was to shift the phrasing of questions from a neutral to a negative sense to see if respondents felt strongly enough to offer a contradictory reply. If the respondents agree with the tone of the question, the response is not really significant as the question is leading. However, if the respondent contradict the tone of the question, the response suggests the view is strongly held.
As an example, interviews in Chad were indicating that rinderpest was the disease of greatest concern to Arab pastoralists despite it absence for more than 14 years from Chad. The appraisal team was concerned that the respondents were over emphasising rinderpest in neutral questioning in light of the activities of the Pan African Rinderpest Campaign (publicity bias). In later interviews, probing questions were phrased as Since rinderpest hasnt occurred in over 14 years, lets talk about some real disease problems. Now, whats the most important disease of cattle? The most common response to such questioning was along the lines that the team didnt understand, rinderpest was a catastrophic disease and the disease most feared by the community. Thus, it was confirmed that the respondents genuinely ranked rinderpest first.
One final method of triangulation in participatory epidemiology is the use of biological testing. The diagnosis and reports of respondents can often be supported or confirmed by collection and testing of a few key samples. The use of laboratory support is not essential in most qualitative studies, but it is a valid and highly effective technique. If timely laboratory support with appropriate tests is available, it should be utilised. However, in participatory epidemiology, the biological sampling and testing issues should not be allowed to drive the intelligence gathering process. This would lead to a loss of the flexible and holistic approach that underlies of the unique value of qualitative intelligence gathering.
Sample collections such as representative internal and external parasites (ticks, biting flies, etc.), blood smears and faecal samples are encouraged. Macroparasites can be identified using keys in the field or at leisure in the office. Always inquire as to the local name of the parasite. Specimens can be shown to participants in later interviews to cross-check terminology. This information is useful in construction of lexicons of local disease terminology. If more advanced laboratory support is available, samples for serology, microbiological or histopathological examination can also be collected. A basic epidemiological field kit with sample collection materials is described in Annex 1.
The purpose of clinical exams, parasite identification, sample collection and laboratory testing is to contribute to the triangulation process. As the number of diagnostic samples that can be collected in regard to a particular clinical syndrome during a general epidemiological appraisal is usually limited, the results cannot be used to confirm or refute the communitys existing veterinary knowledge. Laboratory data is just one more factor to be compared and contrasted with other methods of enquiry. If desired, a topical study can be carried out which specifically compares narrow components of existing veterinary knowledge with Western veterinary science. As an example, the results of a study on livestock owners ability to diagnose schistosomiasis were reported by McCauley among others (1983b). They found that Sudanese livestock owners near Kosti were sufficiently adept in the recognition of schistosomiasis (gorag) for this information to be used as the basis for a mortality assessment.
Clinical and Post Mortem Examination
In PRA, transects refers to the process of getting out and walking a straight line (or as straight as possible) right through the community. In the case of a village, the transect should begin at the limit of the village lands and walk straight forward, only deviating their path when a physical obstruction (or cultural taboo) prevents direct passage to the opposite side. The transect should not coincide with the main road. The idea is to directly observe production systems and community life, not just on the main street, but in the side street, back yards and a forgotten corner or two. The appraisal team should be accompanied by community members and can stop and ask questions of other residents as the need arises.
In the case of pastoral camps, it is often worth while to talk a walk for a few kilometres from the car and observe the quality of grazing and the other uses the pastoralists may be making of the bush. It is also a good opportunity to observe soils, vector habitats and the prevalence of toxic plants.
In agriculturally-oriented PRA, transects are usually sketched in the profile form to illustrate relief features, land use, soil types, etc. Notes are made directly below the profile as to problems and opportunities related to different zones. In livestock or urban PRA, sketching may not be necessary - but the observational walk is definitely worth the trouble. Narayan (1996) refers to these as walking surveys. Transects may seem trite, but with modern time constraints field teams often drive in on the paved road and drive out after asking some questions. A wealth of information is available to a relaxed observer that takes the time to look around.
In participatory epidemiology, clinical examination of representative cases is an important part of the triangulation process. An opportune time for conducting exams is usually directly after the semi-structured interview. Often the appraisal team will be asked to look at some sick animals during the interview and this can be deferred until after the interview is completed. The livestock owners can be asked to give their diagnosis for the cases presented, if they have arrived at one. If they have not made a diagnosis or are not sure, do not press them to make a diagnosis. The information would not be significant. The fact that they have not made a diagnosis is the significant observation. They can be asked why they find the case confusing or have not reached a diagnosis. This may reveal factors used in the traditional diagnostic process. If they have made a diagnosis, ask them for the basis of the diagnosis.
The clinical exam should be conducted using routine procedures. The animals history should be taken and the herd should be examined or walked. Always use appropriate precaution. Local breeds can be unusually nervous or aggressive. Be sure to consider the risk of zoonotic disease. Rabies is common in many traditional systems. Avoid oral exams in cases of apparent choke or excess salivation prior to ruling out rabies.
Occasionally, extremely ill or recently dead animals will be encountered with a history of interest. If possible, these should be autopsied. On the basis of history and superficial examination of the carcass, anthrax should be ruled out before beginning autopsy. During autopsy, livestock owners can be asked to identify the various organs and describe their function, etc. They can also be asked to describe the lesions encountered. This provides information as to the type of lesions they recognise and the terminology they use to describe lesions.
At times, ill animals of special epidemiological interest may be encountered which the owner does not wish to sacrifice. The team can negotiate to purchase the animal or the right to sacrifice, autopsy and sample the carcass from the owner. Invest time in the negotiation and avoid paying more than real market values. Paying exorbitant prices creates unrealistic expectations of future benefits from development activities.
Avoid distribution of free medicine as this perpetuates the psychology of dependence and creates false expectations. It is better to sell or trade, even if the trade is for something you dont want or need. The author has traded medicines for permission to conduct an autopsy in a non-moribund animal, but would definitely avoid trading medicines to collect clinical samples such as blood or ocular swabs.
Clinical and post mortem examinations are the appropriate time for biological sample collection. Sample collection was discussed in detail in the section on triangulation. Photographs of clinically ill animals highlighting specific symptoms or lesions as well as post mortem photographs of characteristic lesions are additional methods to document information that should be utilised.
Ranking, Scoring and Proportional Piling
Progeny History Analysis
Mapping is one of the most useful tools of participatory epidemiology. The participants (the respondents together with the appraisal team) sketch a map of useful resources, grazing movements, trade movements, livestock density, community boundaries, vector prone areas and disease prone areas (anthrax areas, swamps, etc.). The possibilities are only limited by the imagination of the participants. As with other activites, it is useful to prepare a mental checklist of items to be probed during the mapping exercise. Respondents should not only be asked to illustrate locations on the map, but to provide underlying reasons for movements and resource use.
The map can be sketched on a large sheet of paper stuck to the wall, however in a pastoral setting a clean area of sand, a stick, and a few objects such as stones suffice for materials. The appraisal team can later transfer the information in the map to their notebooks.
The blank sheet of paper or sand can be rather intimidating, The mapping process often starts by the facilitator marking a landmark that the respondents have mentioned and then asking the respondents to indicate where another feature should be placed relative to the first landmark. In this fashion, step by step, a very detailed map of the area can be built up.
Do not be surprised if the respondents spontaneously start to draw a map or diagram in the sand to illustrate some point. Take advantage of their initiative and ask them to add information. The result can be very informative.
A variety of different diagramming exercises are possible. In discussing community or clan structures, tree diagrams are often useful. Another technique frequently employed is Venn diagrams. Overlapping circles of various sizes are used to indicate the relative importance of different issues. The degree of overlapping (or non-overlap) indicates the inter-relatedness of items. For example, the relative availability of animal health services can be illustrated in a Venn diagram with the public services, private veterinarians, CAHWs, drug shops, traders, projects, etc. each represented by a circle. These types of diagrams can provide useful information on the availability or importance of resources, areas of conflict and resource gaps.
Many animal health problems and issues are seasonal and can be analysed through the use of calendars. To construct a seasonal calendar, first determine what type of calendar is used in the local culture (lunar, Julian, Gregorian, etc). Then ask the participants to name the months in order. A line can be drawn on the ground and divided into months. The appraisal team can work with the participants to display different types of information. For example, the participants can be asked to indicate the relative rainfall during different months be laying sticks of appropriate lengths vertically across the time line. Alternatively, the participants can be asked to divide the line into different seasons while discussing major issues for each season. Finally, if a list of seasonal disease problems has already been generated, participants can be asked to indicate the relative significance of the problems using ranking tools at different points along the line. During calendar construction, participants will often mention key risk factors such as humidity, vector populations, grazing conditions, water scarcity, etc. Thus, not only do calendars provide information on seasonality; they are useful tools for identifying predisposing factors.
Communities often name years by major events. In cattle dependent cultures, it is not unusual to encounter year names such as the year of cattle death or the year of rinderpest. In appraisals, it is of value to reconstruct the annual calendar using the traditional names. Besides providing information in itself, the calendar will provide a useful reference for verify the year of reports made by the community. Information on other major events, such as droughts and famines or political events should be collected. Drought and famines are stresses in themselves and can have important impact on infectious disease events. Also, famines and political events can lead to large movements of population or even isolate communities.
Many diseases of interest occur as epidemics at finite time points or endemic disease may flare up. The interviewer can note the years of major epidemics for various diseases on an annual time line. Time lines for disease are location specific. In a large community, an epidemic may take several years to progress through the population. For diseases of interest, the composite data from the entire appraisal can be displayed both temporally and spatially in maps.
Once the respondents and the appraisal team have constructed a list of animal health problems for a particular species, many methods are possible to have the community place them in order of priority. The simplest and fastest method is for the facilitator to recite the list of problems and then to ask the participants which is the most important, second most important, etc. There are more accurate and precise methods.
A semi-quantitative method for determining community priorities is proportional piling. Circles can be drawn on the ground or pictures can be drawn on cards, which represent the problems mentioned. The respondents are then asked to pile pebbles or beans in proportion to the importance of the problem. A fixed number of beans (50 or 100) can be used to make the technique more reproducible. The appraisal team then counts the number of beans placed on the symbol for each problem. These techniques are more quantitative than simple ranking because it allows great graduation of emphasis. In some cases, a very significant problem may receive almost all the beans. The second most important may receive only two or three. This type of drastic difference in importance would not be evident in a simple ranking exercise.
The instructions as to the ranking criteria are very important. By careful explaining the criteria, very subtle types of information can be brought out. Below are some examples of ranking exercises that might be useful:
1. Please indicate the relative importance of the four species of livestock your family keeps (cattle, sheep, goats and chickens) in terms of food production.Please note that the first two exercises examine different types of values or importance that the livestock owners place on the different species. The third question asks the group to look at the overall socio-economic importance of four cattle diseases that were described. By discussing the different types of values before starting the piling, the quality of the response is improved. Thus, by varying the exercises in subtle ways and making different combinations of exercises, different types of information can be brought-out in a semi-quantitative manner.
2. Please indicate the relative importance of the four species of livestock your family keeps in terms of cash income.
3. Please indicate the relative importance of the four diseases of cattle you have mentioned (i.e. RP, FMD, CBPP and ECF) in terms of the overall well-being of your family (overall well-being includes food, cash, traction, manure, social value, among other values).
One other variable in ranking and piling exercises is the respondents themselves - are they a group of relatively wealthy men with many cattle or camels or perhaps poorer families who rely on small stock. For an interesting learning experience conduct livestock species proportional piling exercises 1 and 2 with groups of men, and repeat the exercise with their wives. The results are sure to be very different. This reflects the different uses men and women make of resources and their relative responsibilities in the family.
Livestock in traditional societies have very complex values and they have different values for different members of the community. This implies that the cost or relative importance of disease is also a complex issue. Although ranking exercises cannot put absolute financial values on losses, they can quickly and cheaply point out which diseases are the most important, to whom, and why.
Pairwise ranking is a technique to establish priorities where the respondents are presented with two disease syndromes at a time and asked to specify which is the more important. The pairwise ranking is repeated until all possible two-way combinations are exhausted. The respondents can also be asked the reason for the relative ranking of each pair. A method for livestock disease scoring has been described by Catley and Mohamed (1996) that combines elements of pairwise ranking, identification of importance indicators and proportional piling.
As was mentioned earlier, traditional livestock owners are not very accurate in estimating mortality. They do, however, have an excellent knowledge of each of their animals over a period of several generations. Normally, each animal in a cattle or camel herd has a name and the owner can state his pedigree. Progeny history analysis asks the livestock owner to describe all the progeny of a number of grand-dams of the herd (Iles, 1994). The herder selects a grand-dam and lists its entire male and female offspring. For the female offspring, he describes all of their offspring until he arrives to the present living animals in the herd. For each of the offspring, the farmers describes whether it has left the herd and why, if it has died and from what, or if it is still present in the herd.
The complete data allows the appraisal team to calculate statistics such as herd off-take rate, abortion rate, herd mortality rates for various diseases. The technique of progeny history analysis is moderately time consuming, however it is a very powerful technique. If it were utilised more widely, better estimates of the impact of many tropical animal diseases would be available. The only generally applicable alternative, in the authors opinion, is high cost animal health monitoring schemes with sentinel herds, etc. Unfortunately, the observations are confined to the years of actual operation of the monitoring schemes, and due to high costs; the life of such schemes is usually limited to the length of donor support. Progeny history analysis, although not able to collect all the morbidity data possible in a monitoring scheme, can give accurate estimates of mortality that span up to a decade or more.
The reader should note that in progeny history analysis, the researcher is acquiring the raw qualitative data, rather than requesting the respondent to quantify information on the spot as in most structured questionnaires. The direct questionnaire approach, in absence of sophisticated herd record systems, asks the respondent to recall the incidents, categorise them by time and identity, and sum them - all in a few moments. The progeny history approach in traditional systems where individual animals retain their identity is inherently less error prone. It provides a systematic and relaxed framework to assist respondents in recall and does not require them to process information in unfamiliar or novel ways.
An outline of progeny history collection is presented in Annex 2.
The members of the appraisal team should each have notebooks and take copious notes. When translators are used, there are usually sufficient pauses for note taking and question formulation. The respondents can be asked if they mind note taking during introductions. It should be stressed that the notes are informal and to assist the appraisal team in learning from respondents. If particular information is considered sensitive it may be better not to take notes during the interview, but do so immediately after the interview.
Some appraisal teams elect to have one individual conduct questioning and exercises while a second takes notes. This can be a very useful approach during analytically exercises and activities where more demands are placed on the lead facilitator. Also, designating a recorder can avoid long pauses after a diagramming exercise while maps or sketches are carefully reproduced in notebooks.
Tape recorders can be used to record interviews and cameras to photograph sketches on natural surfaces, environmental conditions as well as symptoms and lesions of representative cases of disease. Neither should replace note taking. Bear in mind that to transcribe from tapes takes at least as long as the interviews. Their best use is to confirm information that may be unclear from the notes or when a statement is eloquent enough to merit a direct quotation. Caution should be exercised with tape recorders and cameras because both can be a distraction, stifle openness or even be offensive. Always ask permission, and remember that, for good reason, in many societies it is illegal to make recordings without the respondents awareness.
Quantitative or Statistical Analysis
The flexibility of participatory appraisal allows practitioners to review and analyse data on the spot and make changes to the appraisal checklist. The appraisal team is encouraged to discuss observations as the need or interest arises. Every few days, the team should review the progress of the appraisal in a systematic manner and assess if the right types of questions and exercises are being carried out. Perhaps new elements of the community or a new class of key informants have come to light and need to be worked into the interview schedule. Alternatively, a new item for probing or ranking exercises has become a burning issue.
It is the spirit of participatory appraisal that analysis is continuous. Hypotheses are continuously refined and focused. The process might be compared to a continuous cycle of the weighing and comparison of factors. Some factors or disease determinants are gradually pushed to the periphery while others are brought into sharper focus at the centre of the enquiry.
The appraisal team can discuss preliminary findings and hypotheses with community members and key informants. These should be advanced as neutral observations with requests for the respondents views. This has been referred to as participatory checking by Pretty (1994). Care must be taken not to lead respondents towards endorsement of preferred views. If the team is concerned regarding politeness bias, try presenting the hypothesis in a negative sense. As an example, Somebody told us ..., but how can that be true? If the responses contradict the tone of the question, good support for the hypothesis has been indicated. This subject was also discussed above under probing.
Pay close attention to the factors the respondents introduce in considering the findings and hypothesis. This data is more important to the analysis than simple concurrence or disagreement. These factors may suggest new avenues for enquiry and offer further means of triangulation.
A good setting for action oriented analysis of study findings is a community workshop. These can be formally scheduled with invitations, etc. or more ad hoc. Scheduled workshops usually raise community expectations for action and should probably only be undertaken when the epidemiological appraisal is a design step for a concrete project. At these workshops, study findings are usually presented in a participatory manner, and the participants debate, and hopefully concur, on a final interpretation of findings. The outcome of the workshop is a set of agreed points for action, which specify the duties and responsibilities of all parties involved. This process has been termed community dialogue leading to a community contract (Leyland, personal communication).
As has been mentioned, data collected through the use of key questions can be categorised, tabulated and processed quantitatively. Data from proportional piling exercises can be combined provided the same question and items to be ranked were used across a number of exercises. Narayan (1996) has described a process called content analysis. In content analysis, the responses are reviewed to establish a number of mutually-exclusive coding categories. Once the categories are designed, all the responses are categorised and counted. This type of analysis permits quantitative statements to be made about the results but in the absence of random sampling, statistical tests cannot be meaningfully applied.
In theory, if one wanted to, one could conduct participatory semi-structured interviews and analytical exercises on a randomised sample of respondents and analyse the results using any of a number of statistical techniques for the analysis of qualitative data. However, this would not be PRA since statistical concerns would be selecting the respondents and the concept of key informants and triangulation would no longer apply. Flexibility and much of the potential to discover new ideas, perspectives and insights would be lost in the interests of statistical significance. The process would be longer and less comprehensive than true PRA as the same key questions and exercises would have to be repeated with a significant number of respondents. This is a problem since PRA generally utilises the skills of expert teams rather than enumerators. Either experts would be tied up replicating similar interviews and exercises or the process would be implemented by enumerators. If enumerators were used, direct communication between experts and participants would be lost and the quality of the semi-structured interviews would probably decline as well.
Thus, undue emphasis on quantitative analysis as part of a qualitative enquiry such as a PRA would sacrifice the strengths of the method. Most of instances where quantitative analysis would be of benefit are in the more focused topical PRA rather than during exploratory or general animal health inquiries. If extensive quantitative data are considered necessary, the author would recommend that a quantitative survey be carried out using questions and testing hypothesis derived from the results of a participatory appraisal.
The role of women in agriculture
Working with women livestock owners - the rationale
Understanding womens farming
In many cultures, household tasks are separated according to gender, i.e. there is a division of labour between men and women. Often, men dominate, particularly in agricultural communities; women are relegated to what are seen as inferior roles and their work thus becomes invisible.
In reality, of course, the work that women do is not any less important than what men do, and what they do is often undervalued (Beneria, L. 1982). Generally, in traditional communities, women play what is known as a triple role (Moser, 1989):
* Reproductive/family support role - generally household work, childbearing, child rearing, water and fuel collection, food preparation, etc.In many societies, tasks associated with the reproductive role can be particularly burdensome and may include various types of farming. In some instances, men and women may share activities in the same farming enterprise, whereas in others, the enterprises in which men and women engage are separated along gender lines. Womens agriculture usually involves subsistence agriculture aimed at feeding the family (Agarwal, 1989). It has been said that in fact, women produce the bulk of the worlds food.
* Productive role - work for which remuneration is possible, or which has exchange value - e.g. produce bartered or sold, employment in some form of labour market.
* Social role - some women work for their social group, often campaigning for better services, rights to land, etc. This work is voluntary, whereas men are often paid for their political leadership roles.
When it comes to livestock farming activities, women are generally responsible for livestock kept closer to the home (eg. dairy cows and goats) or for smaller livestock species such as chickens, ducks and small ruminants. (Anon, World Bank, 2000a) As mentioned earlier, home consumption is the primary objective for womens livestock keeping and women are thus key livestock keepers and animal product processors. Because of the invisiblity of womens work and the undervaluation of what they do, their livestock keeping activities are still largely outside official extension and animal health systems (Anon, World Bank, 2000b). The dynamics and particularly the epidemiological profiles of the farming systems in which they operate are usually poorly understood.
Unless women are fully involved in the appraisal process, valuable information on the farming systems in which they operate will be missed. Interviewing men about womens livestock will seldom yield useful results; using men to talk with women is just as likely to be unsuccessful. Women have intimate knowledge of their animals, their productivity, the management techniques used, and the diseases which afflict them. In order to fully understand these things, women must be included in the data gathering process and their knowledge properly respected.
Animal health monitoring and delivery systems in most countries tend to be male-dominated, thus contributing to the exclusion of womens livestock from organised animal health activities. Participatory appraisal techniques provide the ideal means of gaining a deeper understanding of the dynamics of womens farming activities, and particularly of the diseases affecting their livestock.
It is probably generally true to say that an interview conducted by a male animal health worker with a male household head will yield little information of any value on livestock farmed by women members of the household. This implies that when it comes to an examination of animals kept by women, a re-orientation of the modus operandi is needed in order to collect reliable and meaningful data.
When interviewing women, the following guidelines (Papanek, H, 1979; Anon, World Bank, 2000b) should apply:
· Use women interviewersThe various appraisal techniques described elsewhere in this manual may be used with women farmers provided that the above guidelines are observed as far as possible. Although male household heads might not have all of the information needed, getting their viewpoint is useful and is a necessary complement in the triangulation process.
It is advisable that women should interview women. In many societies, it is forbidden for women to speak with strange men, and even when this is not so, there will be a natural reticence for women to speak to male interviewers about their affairs. Research teams working with women should themselves be composed mainly of women. The interviewers should have some knowledge of animal health; women farmers will share more with people who show familiarity with animal agriculture. It would also be helpful for interviewers to be familiar with local terminology for diseases and farming activities, and should, where possible, speak the local dialect.
· Obtain mens support
Getting the support of male household heads in strongly male-dominated societies is essential to the success of any participatory process. This is especially so in communities where women do not normally communicate with outsiders.
· Interview timing
Given that women often spend long hours working - tending children, household, cooking, fields and livestock - it is necessary that interviews be timed such that these activities are not disturbed. Women are often expected by their families to complete certain tasks each day.
· Interviewers should match respondents in terms of cultural background and ethnicity
Not only will interviewees feel more comfortable with persons with whom they can identify culturally, but the interviewers will have a readier appreciation for, and empathy with, what they are hearing and seeing. This in not to say that women of other backgrounds may not be included; but the research spokesperson should share the same cultural background as the women being interviewed.
· Interviewers to be of similar age, marital status and child-rearing experience to those being interviewed
In many communities, women will more naturally communicate with those who they perceive has having a similar status to their own.
· Conduct a substantial number of interviews away from men, particularly from male household heads
Often, rural women will be reluctant to discuss what they see as their private affairs in the presence of men. In fact, it is often wise to opt for as much privacy as possible. By the same token, it is important to conduct mixed interviews and observe the change in dynamics.
When talking of household heads, female-headed households are
common in some societies, and women household heads often have more autonomy
than women who are subservient to male household heads. Their approach to
livestock may thus be different from that of other women, and information
gleaned from them may be of special interest.
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Storage of UNOPENED insulin:
Insulin is very sensitive to sunlight, indoor lights, and to extremely hot or cold temperature.
Insulin is not OK to use if exposed to very hot or cold weather. The three drug manufacturers of insulin in the United States say UNOPENED insulin is best stored inside the fridge [2° to 8°Celcius (36° to 46°Fahrenheit)]. UNOPENED insulin stored in the refrigerator is good until the expiration date printed on the insulin box. The expiration date will usually be 1 year from the date of purchase but you have to check the box to find out.
Storage of OPENED insulin:
Once open there are different storage needs for insulin. What does OPEN mean? This does NOT mean removed from the box. OPEN means the insulin cap is removed and the rubber stopper was punctured.
Vials and pens have different needs for storage. These differences can lead to confusion. Therefore, it is very important for you to become familiar with the recommendations for the insulin product that you use.
What is an OPEN vial?
Vial: Once the vial is punctured, it is OPEN. Once you stick a needle in the vial, it is OPEN. OPEN vials can be stored in the fridge or at CONTROLLED room temperature. Regardless of where it is stored, OPEN insulin will only last 28 days before it must be thrown in the trash. Insulin kept in the fridge should be removed and allowed to reach room temperature before injection.
PEN: Once used for the first time, insulin pens should not be stored in the fridge. Instead, they should be stored at CONTROLLED room temperature. The number of days you can use the pen will depend on which pen you use. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist. Pens last 7-28 days if stored at CONTROLLED room temperature. The number of days depends on which pen you use.
7 IMPORTANT Storage tips for all insulin:
- Do not keep in hot places. Do not leave insulin in a hot closed car. Heat makes insulin break down and will not work well to lower your blood sugar.
- Do not keep in freezing places. Never store in a freezer. If insulin is frozen, do not use. You will not be able to inject the insulin if it is frozen. Do not use even after thawing. Freezing temperature will break down the insulin and then it will not work well to lower your blood sugar. Throw frozen insulin in the garbage.
- Do not leave in sunlight. Light can make insulin break down and then it will not work well to lower your blood sugar.
- Never use insulin if expired. The expiration date will be stamped on the vial or pen. Remember if not in the fridge, the date on the vial or pen does not apply. You must throw away after 28 days since outside the fridge.
- Write the date on the insulin vial on the day you open it or start keeping it outside the fridge. This will help you remember when to stop using it. Throw the insulin away 28 days after opened or since kept out of the fridge.
- Inspect your insulin before each use. Look for changes in color or clarity. Look for clumps, solid white particles or crystals in the bottle or pen. Insulin that is clear should always be clear and never look cloudy.
- Be aware of unusual or weird smells. Insulin should not have an odor or bad smell. If you can smell an odor do not use the insulin.
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| 0.900024 | 734 | 2.671875 | 3 |
|The most common benign tumors in both cats and dogs are inflammatory polyps, papillomas, basal cell tumors, and
ceruminous gland adenomas (tumors of glands producing earwax).
How common are ear tumors in cats and dogs?
The average age for the development of benign ear tumors is 7 years for cats and 9 years for dogs. The average age for
the development of malignant ear tumors is 11 years for both cats and dogs. The cocker spaniel appears to be at higher
risk for both benign and malignant tumors which may be related to their elevated risk of chronic ear inflammations.
Ceruminous gland cyst (cyst of earwax producing glan) is a common tumor-like lesion that occurs in cats which appear as
purple or black masses containing an oily black fluid. They can be often multiple and be mistaken for melanomas of basal
cell carcinomas. The most common malignant ear tumor in dogs is called ceruminous gland adenocarcinoma, followed by
squamous cell carcinoma and carcinoma of unknown origin. Other types of ear tumors have been reported but these occur
at much lower frequency.
What are the symptoms of ear tumors in cats and dogs?
The most common observed symptom of ear tumors is the presence of a mass, discharge, odor, itchiness, and local pain.
Neurological signs are observed in approximately 10% of dogs with malignant tumors and 25% of cats with either benign or
malignant tumors. Benign tumors are typically raised masses which are rarely ulcerated in contrast to malignant tumors
which are more likely to be ulcerated and bleeding.
How is the diagnosis made?
Every skin tumor should be first examined for size, location, ulceration and whether it is freely movable or fixed to
underlying. However, in order to determine the exact nature of the mass, either cytologic or histopathologic analysis of the
mass should be done in order to design an appropriate treatment strategy and predict the pet's prognosis. The commonly
used diagnostic procedures for skin tumors are fine-needle aspiration cytology and tissue biopsy. Cytology is an important
tool that can help the veterinarian distinguish a tumor from inflammatory lesions and to evaluate whether the present mass
spread to the lymph nodes but only histopathoogic examination of the tumor can definitively establish the tumor's type,
grade (level of aggressiveness), what treatment is most appropriate and prognosis about future behavior. The biopsy
technique used will largely depend on the tumor's size and location. Small masses are usually completely excised and sent
to the pathology lab to confirm that the surrounding healthy tissues that were excised along with the tumor do not contain
any cancer cells (indicating successful tumor removal). If the tumor is larger, a small sample is removed for analysis and
depending on the results, appropriate treatment is chosen. Depending on the tumor type and its known level of
aggressiveness, additional diagnostic tests can include blood tests to assess the overall health of the pet, chest X-rays to
check for lung metastasis, and abdominal ultrasound to check for metastasis to other internal organs (eg liver, spleen).
Advanced imaging such as CT (computed tomography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) can be very useful in
evaluating the extent of the pet's disease but, unfortunately, are not readily available in every area.
Does cancer cause pain in pets?
Pain is common in pets with cancer, with some tumors causing more pain than others. In addition to pain caused by the
actual tumors, pets will also experience pain associated with cancer treatments such as surgery, radiation therapy or
chemotherapy. Untreated pain decreases the pet's quality of life, and prolongs recovery from the illness, treatment or
injury. It is, therefore, essential that veterinary teams that are taking care of pets with cancer should also play a vital role in
educating pet owners about recognizing and managing pain in their pets. The best way to manage cancer pain in pets is to
prevent it, a term referred to as preemptive pain management. This strategy anticipates pain ahead of time and
administers pain medication before the pet actually experiences pain, thus ensuring the pet's maximum comfort.
To learn more about which tumors are likely to cause a lot of pain, how to recognize pain in pets with cancer and what
cancer pain management options are available for your pet, please visit the Cancer Pain Management section.
How important is nutritional support for pets with cancer?
Cancer cachexia (a term referring to progressive severe weight loss) is frequently observed in pets with cancer. Pets with
cancer lose weight partly because of lack of appetite and partly because of cancer-induced altered metabolism. Some of
the causes for decreased appetite are related to the cancer itself (for example, tumors may physically interfere with food
chewing, swallowing, and digestion process) and some may be related to the side effects of cancer treatment (for example,
some chemotherapy drugs cause nausea and vomiting, and radiation therapy can cause mouth inflammation).
Proper nutrition while undergoing cancer treatment is essential to maintain your pet's strength, improve survival times,
quality of life and maximize response to therapy. Adequate nutritional support was shown to decrease the duration of
hospitalization, reduce post-surgery complications and enhance the healing process. Additionally, pets with cancer need to
be fed diets specifically designed to provide maximum benefit and nutritional support for the patient. To learn more, please
visit the Cancer Nutrition section.
What are the treatment options for ear tumors in cats and dogs?
Ear tumors are almost exclusively treated by surgical removal. (For a review of ear surgery, its benefits and potential
complications, please click here). Most benign ear tumors are easily surgically removed but more aggressive tumor types
typically require more aggressive surgery to control the tumor and improve survival. Dogs whose invasive ear tumors were
treated by aggressive surgery had a median survival of 36 months compared to 9 months in those treated with
conservative surgery. Radiation therapy is a viable alternative to surgery or can be used in addition to surgery when the
entire ear tumor could not be surgically removed. One study showed that the 1-year median survival for dogs and cats
treated by radiation therapy after incomplete surgery for ceruminous gland adenocarcinoma was 56%. Photodynamic
therapy has been suggested as an additional treatment but no available data exist to support its benefit. The use of
chemotherapy has not been evaluated in ear tumors in cats and dogs.
How do I find a qualified veterinary oncologist?
To locate a qualified veterinary oncologist in your area who can discuss with you appropriate cancer treatment plan for
your pet's cancer condition, please visit the "Locate a veterinary oncologist" section.
Are there any clinical trials investigating new treatments for ear tumors in dogs or cats?
There are no available clinical trials investigating new treatments specifically for ear tumors in pets, but there are several
clinical trials available for cats and dogs with any tumor type for which your pet may qualify. To learn more these trials
(which are partially or fully funded by the institutions), please visit the Dog Clinical Trials (any tumor type) or Cat Clinical
Trials (any tumor type) section.
To learn more about veterinary clinical trials in general, please visit the Pet Clinical Trials section.
What is the prognosis for cats and dogs with ear tumors?
Malignant ear tumors are less aggressive in dogs than in cats. Available data suggest that most dogs live longer than 2
years after initial diagnosis whereas the median survival time for cats is only 1 year. Ear tumors are typically only locally
invasive and rarely metastasize (spread) to other organs in the pet's body. Approximately 10% of dogs and 5-15% of cats
have shown tumor's spread to regional lymph nodes or the lungs. Cats with squamous cell carcinoma of the ear canal
rather than the ear tip are more likely to experience neurological signs, indicative of the tumor's invasive behavior and
worse prognosis. In case of cat ceruminous gland adenocarcinoma, the estimated 1 year survival is 75% following
aggressive treatment compared to 33% following more conservative surgery.
Additional online resources about skin cancer in pets
|Ear Canal Tumors in Cats and Dogs
|PET CANCER CENTER
Comprehensive guide to cancer diagnosis and treatment in cats and dogs
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| 0.928454 | 1,767 | 2.6875 | 3 |
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