text
stringlengths 199
648k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| dump
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 14
419
| file_path
stringlengths 139
140
| language
stringclasses 1
value | language_score
float64 0.65
1
| token_count
int64 50
235k
| score
float64 2.52
5.34
| int_score
int64 3
5
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Here, on a concrete base on a rock outcropping, sits Jones' latest homemade seismometer inside its sealed plastic pressure case.
Technically, Jones has built a broadband, vertical-sensing seismometer, the same kind used by institutional monitoring stations around the world. Practically, the toaster-sized instrument is the latest fruit of an interest that has brought this NASA electrical engineer from curious hobbyist in 1994 to "advanced amateur" status.
From Huntsville, Jones has monitored earthquakes ranging from the 9.1 to 9.3 magnitude 2004 Indian Ocean tremor, one of the most powerful ever recorded, to the magnitude 2.9 quake in Walker County on Thursday. "We have 2s and 3s all the time," Jones said of north Alabama. "Everybody does."
The idea of solid ground is a story we tell ourselves, Jones said. Truthfully, the Earth's surface is a web of giant plates in constant motion, seeming stable only to humans who can't feel them move except in the most extreme cases.
"The earth is always moving," he said. "The planet is like a bell. It's ringing all the time."
Friction sticks the floating plates together when they touch, and they stay stuck until, as Jones explains on his website, alabamaquake.com, "the stress buildup on the locked edges overcomes the friction."
What happens then?
"The sudden shift or breaking of the rock and the release of stored energy creates waves that travel concentrically outward through the earth's rocky crust."
That's what we call an earthquake, and seismic graphs of quakes near and far are on the website.
When a quake will happen can't be predicted, but where it will happen is better understood. Earthquakes are relatively rare in our region, except for the New Madrid Fault area near the border of Tennessee and Missouri, but they are more common where major geological features meet. That includes California, which sits on a plate between an ocean and mountain chain.
The energy from an earthquake moves through the body of the earth and along its surface in waves. "It's the surface waves that do the damage," Jones explained.
Body waves are called compressional or P waves. P means "primary." P waves compress and expand objects in the path they are traveling.
Shear waves are secondary waves called S waves. They shake the ground up and down.
Following after both P and S waves are surface waves.
On a seismometer graph, the distance between the P and S waves tells a trained observer how far the earthquake was from the monitoring station.
Jones was attracted to the study of earthquakes for two main reasons. It fascinated him that "something on the other side of the world would make the needle move" in Huntsville, and "the big surprise that I could build an instrument that would (capture) it."
His early seismometers were fairly simple, but the current one is so sensitive that it can capture, on a "quiet" day, up and down earth movement in the hundreds of nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. By comparison, a human hair is 60,000 nanometers thick, Jones said.
"The instrument ... is so sensitive that I normally operate it under a light-tight cover that also provides thermal insulation," Jones said in a follow-up email, "because even the beam of a flashlight shown on it from several feet away can significantly disturb its operation ."
"It's an interesting hobby," Jones said, and he's trying to pass it on. Jones has a presentation for middle school students that he calls Earthquake 101. It explains earthquakes and monitoring them in simple words and graphics.
"I want to educate the kids," Jones said. They can learn about electronics, mathematics and physics in an understandable way. "If I can help get a kid interested in science, that would be good."
|
<urn:uuid:a47cc020-cdb8-4b7d-96f4-741d7b4c0ef9>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/01/huntsville_man_tracks_worlds_e.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.963169 | 806 | 3.25 | 3 |
New biography of Robert E. Lee shows a cruel White supremacist behind the heroic myth
Robert E. Lee, America's Greatest Monster.
Lee married into ownership of nearly 200 slaves at Arlington and adjoining properties. Pryor forthrightly confronts this side of Lee’s life; he disliked slavery and found it a burden, but he was no "good" master, communicated badly with his slaves, and considered them naturally indolent and incapable of freedom. He confronted an "epidemic of runaways" (264) in the late 1850s and oversaw one brutal beating of a returned fugitive, including brine sewn into the wounds. Modern day Lee lovers will cringe at some of Pryor’s conclusions, rooted in strong evidence: Lee broke up families and "denied the slaves’ humanity" (275).
. . .
|
<urn:uuid:004c1cd5-cbbf-4f6b-9317-322aca1f6dae>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.poormojo.org/pmjadaily/archives/041104.php
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00032-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.946 | 171 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Q: I heard you talking to a radio caller about a huge spider in Florida. When I lived there, people would let very large spiders live in their houses because they helped control insects. They called them “housekeeper” spiders.
A: I had never heard of housekeeper spiders but when I used your clue to look them up, I wondered why they aren’t called “guard dog” spiders. Also known as huntsman spider, ^Heteropoda venatoria^ is HUGE! The leg span of females can be as wide as five inches. Thankfully, it is not poisonous, but its mouth is large enough to inflict a painful bite. It is a tropical spider so you won’t be seeing any of them around your house in Atlanta. Although I could use some help picking up after myself, a housekeeper with eight legs might be more than my family could tolerate.
|
<urn:uuid:60af628f-d2a5-4d14-b7a8-08c970dbd5ba>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.walterreeves.com/gardening-q-and-a/spiders-identification/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.984368 | 187 | 2.625 | 3 |
For Immediate Release, March 20, 2012
Contact: Mollie Matteson, (802) 318-1487
Two of Nation's Most Treasured National Parks -- Acadia and Great Smoky Mountains --
Stricken by Bat-killing Epidemic
GATLINBURG, Tenn.— The National Park Service announced today that white-nose syndrome, an emergent infectious disease that has killed nearly 7 million bats in North America, has been confirmed in two of its most popular units: Acadia National Park in Maine and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina. Together these two parks host more than 11 million visitors each year who come, among other reasons, to view the diverse wildlife and natural beauty of some of America’s most intact natural landscapes. White-nose syndrome has previously been documented at other Park Service units, including Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in New Jersey, in 2009, and Russell Cave National Monument in Alabama, where the disease was confirmed just last week.
“Discovery of white-nose syndrome at two of our leading national parks is particularly troubling because of the vital role these parks play in safeguarding wildlife and plant populations,” said Mollie Matteson, a bat specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
These latest announcements serve as further evidence that the bat illness, first documented in bats in upstate New York in 2006, is not slowing its lethal assault on bats throughout the eastern United States. In some places where the disease takes hold, it has a 100 percent mortality rate.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also announced today that white-nose syndrome has been found in five new counties in Indiana, where the malady was first discovered last year, and two new counties in Pennsylvania, where bat colonies across the state have been devastated after the syndrome was initially found there in the winter of 2008-2009.
Earlier this winter, federal officials estimated that nearly 7 million bats have died so far from the fast-spreading fungal disease. White-nose syndrome is now confirmed in 17 states and suspected in another three; it is also confirmed in four Canadian provinces.
“This disease is filling in the map like a horrible paint-by-numbers project,” said Matteson. “The rapid spread of white-nose syndrome in Indiana is especially troubling, because that state hosts the majority of hibernating Indiana bats in the country.”
The Indiana bat is a federally listed endangered species, and has declined by 70 percent in the northeastern portion of its range. White-nose syndrome first arrived in the Midwest last winter, and has been showing up in numerous new counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana this year.
Six species of bat have been lethally affected by white-nose syndrome to date. Another three species, including the federally endangered gray bat, have been documented with the white-nose fungus on them. Biologists are deeply concerned that the bat disease may soon show up in the American West; the fungus was found on a nonsymptomatic bat in a cave in western Oklahoma in 2010. Scientists have determined that the disease is caused by a previously unknown fungus, likely introduced by cave visitors from Europe. In Europe the fungus has been discovered on bats in several countries, but it appears to do little to no harm to them.
“Left unchecked, this disease could wipe out several species of bats,” said Matteson. “This would not only be a tragedy for those species but would have ripple effects on us — because we depend on the insect-control services bats provide by eating thousands of tons of insects every year, including those that attack farmers’ crops.”
For more information, visit SaveOurBats.org.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 350,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
|
<urn:uuid:2d584770-a916-4d13-a022-f9f5b726b187>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/white-nose-syndrome-03-20-2012.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.960492 | 810 | 2.84375 | 3 |
In addition to Child Abuse Prevention Month, April is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “The goal of SAAM is to raise public awareness about sexual violence and to educate communities and individuals on how to prevent sexual violence.”
- Research suggests that sexual and domestic violence can be prevented by increasing the factors that protect people from developing violent behaviors. Healthy sexual education is very important. This pamphlet from the Massachusetts Sexual Violence Prevention Team offers tips on how to discuss healthy relationships with your loved ones. You can also download the entire Massachusetts Sexual Violence Prevention Plan.
- Massachusetts is committed to preventing sexual assault and providing resources to its victims. Explore this list of sexual and domestic violence programs and services offered by the state. Additional local and national organizations are listed here.
- For counseling services, support groups, and advocacy services, please call the nearest rape crisis center. Each center is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
In April 2012, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services published a blog post on increasing the dialogue on sexual assault awareness and prevention. It is as relevant today as it was a year ago and well worth a read. Together we can work to prevent sexual violence.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual assault or domestic violence, help is available. Call the SafeLink Hotline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at (877) 785-2020 for support.
Celebrate Independence Day in Massachusetts posted on Jun 23
As the state where the Boston Tea Party, Battle of Bunker Hill, and first shots of the American Revolution happened, Massachusetts is a special place to celebrate the 4th of July. Whether you’re looking for a free event for the family or a way to give back to America’s …Continue Reading Celebrate Independence Day in Massachusetts
Clean Beaches Week: 6 Ways to Protect the Massachusetts Coast posted on Jun 21
Did you know that the Massachusetts coastline is long enough to run from Boston to Miami on Interstate 95? Learn how you can help preserve more than 1,500 miles of the Commonwealth’s coast during Clean Beaches Week, July 1–7. Read these helpful tips from the Office …Continue Reading Clean Beaches Week: 6 Ways to Protect the Massachusetts Coast
The 100 Deadliest Days: Help Teen Drivers Stay Safe this Summer posted on Jun 17
This is a guest blog post from the Highway Safety Division (HSD) of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS). Summer is here. For many in Massachusetts, it’s time for beaches, barbecues, and fun. But for teen drivers, summer is also known as the 100 Deadliest …Continue Reading The 100 Deadliest Days: Help Teen Drivers Stay Safe this Summer
|
<urn:uuid:9c241764-756e-42c5-ac88-9ce290b91fae>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://blog.mass.gov/blog/current-affairs/sexual-assault-awareness-month-april/comment-page-1/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.925883 | 574 | 2.640625 | 3 |
The Sanity of George III
- Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer
Oxford, 445 pp, £17.99, September 1994, ISBN 0 19 508847 6
The American Revolution is not what it used to be. In the 19th century, it was a revered and present memory. Until the Second World War, it was still a proud and familiar subject, taught piously in every American school. Gradually, the distance in time and the change of population have eroded it in the national ethos. The Civil War has captured the country’s main historical attention, possibly because it evokes one of the most anguished social problems in the United States today. The Revolution does not have the same link with the present; the British, after all, are now America’s friends and allies, not its hated oppressors.
The Revolution has thus become the property of historians rather than of the population at large. One of these academic devotees is David Hackett Fischer, the author of Albion’s Seed, a major and much-admired work dealing with the different British cultural streams that went into early American development. A professor at Brandeis University near Boston, he lives in the town of Wayland, which used to be called Sudbury, a few miles from Boston. How it has changed tells much about the declining fortunes of the American Revolution. Few of its inhabitants, he tells us, come from Yankee stock. Most of its church-going population are Roman Catholics, as is true of New England as a whole. There is still an old highway between Wayland and Boston, but it now has a synagogue on one side and a mosque on the other.
Nevertheless, Professor Fischer loyally insists that Wayland, né Sudbury, has not changed all that much. As proof, he cites its adherence to an old tradition. On every 19th of April, the date of Paul Revere’s ride, the town’s great bell rings out and ‘the people of the town awaken suddenly in their beds, and listen, and remember.’ The bell was made by Paul Revere, and what they allegedly remember is the horseman who came riding into town that day in 1775 to spread the alarm of the British military action which resulted in the first battles of the American Revolution. Whatever the Catholics, Jews and Muslims may remember of a time when there were no Catholics, Jews and Muslims in Wayland, they have no excuse now – thanks to Professor Fischer – for not being able to find out all about Paul Revere and how the Revolution began.
Some books promise more than they deliver: Paul Revere’s Ride promises less. The famous ride is only a minor part of the book, which is a basic work about the outbreak of the Revolution at Lexington and Concord. The British commander-in chief, General Thomas Gage, gets as much attention as Paul Revere. There have been many versions of the battles at Lexington and Concord, but all of them have been superseded by Fischer, who has made it unnecessary to produce another one.
Among other things, he has cleansed the story of its myths, legends and old wives’ – and, even more, husbands’ – tales that proliferated in the 19th century. One myth is that Revere was the only one to spread the word that the British Regulars were coming out of Boston to attack innocent colonists. A main purpose of the book is to show that Paul Revere’s ride was part of a much larger movement against the British. Another myth is that the militiamen fought spontaneously as isolated individuals. In fact, they gathered in previously arranged military units and, as long as they were able to, followed the orders of their elected commanders. The colonists had prepared actively for months past for an armed struggle and were fired up for action.
The full text of this book review is only available to subscribers of the London Review of Books.
|
<urn:uuid:60722560-ec7b-4f47-a907-1430c47ff01d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v17/n03/theodore-draper/the-sanity-of-george-iii
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.975489 | 821 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Recent attention to education in the United States represents the merger of concern about efficiency of the educational system and concern about the distribution of educational services, particularly along racial and ethnic lines. However, there is very little guidance on how to satisfy any efficiency or distributional goals through public policy because extremely little is known about the relationship between inputs -- particularly inputs available for public policy -- and outputs of the educational process. Educational research has been slow in providing definitive answers to public policy questions for several understandable reasons: the subject of the educational process is extremely complex, especially as regards the physiological and psychological aspects; any theoretical development of a learning theory amenable to analysis for policy purposes is absent; and the required data traditionally have not been collected. previous analyses have yielded some suggestive beginnings, and have provided insights into how the analysis should proceed. This analysis represents a next step of statistical inquiry into the educational process from a public policy point of view. Three fundamental policy questions are addressed: (1) do teachers count? (2) are schools operated efficiently now? (3) what characteristics of teachers and classrooms are important? Past studies have given ambiguous answers to these questions, largely due to inadequate data. Specifically, no data set which supplies accurate historical information on educational inputs at an individual level has been available. This study attempts to provide more conclusive answers by remedying the most glaring data problems for a set of students (third graders) in one school district.
|
<urn:uuid:df2827f2-4afb-43fb-9f95-76c166772f7a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/teacher-characteristics-and-gains-student-achievement-estimation-using-micro-data
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.953279 | 287 | 2.625 | 3 |
Cosmic dust is everywhere in our universe. If we could be able to gather all the material between the sun and the planet Jupiter we could create a satellite that is 25 kilometres (15 miles) across. Earth gets hit every single day with between five and 300 tonnes of dust and meteorites, which move into the middle of our atmosphere.
These particles enter Earth at a very high speed, depending on their orbit: 38,000 to 248,000 kilometres per hour (23,612 miles per hour to 154,100 miles per hour). During this process, the particles reach high temperatures of approximately 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit). When they reach this temperature they melt and evaporate – some particles can be as large as two millimetres in diameter (creating a visible meteors) or a fraction of it.
John Plane, University of Leeds professor and head of the Cosmic Dust in the Terrestrial Atmosphere (CODITA) project, received a €2.5 million grant from the European Research Council to research this theory over the next five years. It will consist of 21 international scientists; 11 from Leeds and another 10 from across the globe.
Are these particles contributing to the change in weather conditions? This new research program has been established to find how much dust that enters our planet can affect the layers of our atmosphere.
“If the dust input is around 200 tons per day, then the particles are being transported down through the middle atmosphere considerably faster than generally believed,” said Plane in a media release
. “We will need to revise substantially our understanding of how dust evolves in the solar system and is transported from the middle atmosphere to the surface.
He added the dust metals can affect ozone chemistry in the stratosphere. Cosmic dust can also fertilize the ocean with iron, “which has potential climate feedbacks because marine phytoplankton emit climate-related gases.”
“Cosmic dust is associated with the formation of 'noctilucent' clouds -- the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere. The dust particles provide a surface for the cloud's ice crystals to form. These clouds develop during summer in the Polar Regions and they appear to be an indicator of climate change.”
The purpose of CODITA is to solve all these “conundrums.” Plane presented CODITA at the National Astronomy Meeting
on Mar. 30 in Manchester, England.
|
<urn:uuid:ae9144c3-0d75-48e8-973b-df6fa206dc39>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/322466
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.915034 | 506 | 4.21875 | 4 |
More Than You Ever Wanted to Know
Presenting a New York Times Correction - the Unabridged Version.
"An article on Thursday about the arraignment of three men in the shooting of two New York police officers, one of whom died, misstated the schedule set by a judge for a trial in the case. The trial is expected to begin by February, not by 'Feb. 30.' The error occurred when an editor saw the symbol '- 30 -' typed at the bottom of the reporter's article and combined it with the last word, 'February.' It is actually a notation that journalists have used through the years to denote the end of an article. Although many no longer use it or even know what it means, some journalists continue to debate its origin. A popular theory is that it was a sign-off code developed by telegraph operators. Another tale is that reporters began signing their articles with '30' to demand a living wage of $30 per week. Most dictionaries still include the symbol in the definition of thirty, noting that it means 'conclusion' or 'end of a news story.'"
|
<urn:uuid:ed8c6a72-fa2a-421e-95be-35b44e84fa97>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.mrc.org/articles/more-you-ever-wanted-know
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00117-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.961413 | 228 | 2.796875 | 3 |
The book is called “The World Without Us“ and it posits what would happen if humans suddenly vanished from the planet (raptured away, a la “Left Behind,” for example, kidnapped by aliens or wiped out by a human-specific virus.)
For example, two days after the last spaceship left (we can wish), New York’s subways would be flooded as the pumps that normally keep them dry failed.
Here’s a video showing how your house would be overrun by critters as the infrastructure slowly crumbled.
Go here to see what traces of mankind would linger and which would disappear over time. For example, head and body lice are so adapted to the human form that, without us, they’d go extinct. And without our warm and cozy homes, NYC cockroaches would also die out completely after only a winter or two.
Don’t miss a single opportunity to waste time. Subscribe for e-mail notifications (bottom of the left column), or to the RSS feed (top of the right) and we’ll alert you every time we post.
|
<urn:uuid:3308ea60-4a3c-4c42-ba2b-1d59cefb087d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://blog.mysanantonio.com/timewasters/2007/08/hey-whered-everybody-go/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.953613 | 235 | 2.59375 | 3 |
A recent article by David Eagleman’s in Discover magazine gives a fascinating insight into neuroscience by discussing the 10 major challenges faced by those attempting to unravel the mysteries of the brain. The list is:
1. How is information coded in neural activity?
2. How are memories stored and retrieved?
3. What does the baseline activity in the brain represent?
4. How do brains simulate the future?
5. What are emotions?
6. What is intelligence?
7. How is time represented in the brain?
8. Why do brains sleep and dream?
9. How do the specialized systems of the brain integrate with one another?
10. What is consciousness?
Reading this list is fascinating, not least because Eagleman’s list describes issues which are both conceptual and empirical.
Mind Hacks suggested that:
…brain research relies as much on conceptual developments as laboratory work is one reason why philosophers are so important to cognitive science…
For those of us working in HR and organisational psychology our challenge is to equip ourselves and our clients with what Robyn McMaster calls
…practical brain based tactics that optimize satisfaction and output at work…
|
<urn:uuid:b2d83138-b348-47f5-af7b-a26a49b5a7e2>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.mcarthursrant.com/2007/08/10-unsolved-mysteries-of-brain.html?showComment=1187521500000
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.923445 | 242 | 2.703125 | 3 |
There are over 360 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. For years scientists have speculated
that clues to the Earth’s past climate may be locked in lake sediments and that unique
forms of life may have adapted to these extraordinary habitats.The only way to find
out is to explore ....
The collection and analysis of water samples will help determine the presence, origin,
evolution and maintenance of life in an Antarctic subglacial lake. This will answer
the big question about whether, and in what form, microbial life exists in Lake Ellsworth.
Lake-floor sediments from hold clues about the past environment and glacial history
of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Analysis will determine the date of the last decay
of the ice sheet - critical for assessing the present-day stability and the likely
consequences for future sea-level rise
|
<urn:uuid:420b4310-1a3a-4308-82fa-9ef809a8971c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.ellsworth.org.uk/science.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.838794 | 175 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Federal Report Provides Statistics on Child and Family Issues
July 12, 2011
The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics has released "America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well Being, 2011" (NCJ 235151). The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is one of the 22 Federal agencies that constitute the Forum.
Since 1997, the Forum has published this annual report, which provides detailed information on the welfare of children and families. This year's report provides detailed statistics about youth's family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. Findings from the 2011 report suggest that fewer 12th graders engaged in binge drinking, more 8th graders reported using drugs, and fewer teens died from injuries.
Read more findings in the full report, available online.
To read the full report, visit http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/index.asp.
Print copies can be ordered online from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/shoppingcart/ShopCart.aspx?item=NCJ%20235151&repro=0.
Return to Archives
|
<urn:uuid:6b819dd7-f5ce-4f80-9483-b401eed66ad1>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.ojjdp.gov/enews/11juvjust/110712_2.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00009-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.894363 | 253 | 2.625 | 3 |
Click on image to enlarge.
Release Date: September 10, 2015
This 220-mile (350-kilometer) wide view of Pluto from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft illustrates the incredible diversity of surface reflectivities and geological landforms on the dwarf planet. The image includes dark, ancient heavily cratered terrain; bright, smooth geologically young terrain; assembled masses of mountains; and an enigmatic field of dark, aligned ridges that resemble dunes; its origin is under debate. The smallest visible features are 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) in size. This image was taken as New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers).
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
|
<urn:uuid:cb731ce1-956f-4072-a283-617444519631>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Multimedia/Science-Photos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=279
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.897274 | 162 | 3.5 | 4 |
Using Adventure and the Internet for Environmental and Global Education TALK
Jon Bowermaster, National Geographic, United States
For the past 20 years National Geographic writer, filmmaker and adventurer Jon Bowermaster has been using the media - books, films, magazine stories and now the Internet - to bring the world along as he explores the remote corners of the world. He and his team have reported (always interactively via the Internet!) from Antarctica, Vietnam, the Aleutian Island, French Polynesia, Gabon, Tasmania and more. The interesting thing for Bowermaster has been to watch, during the past decade, as technology - both camera-wise and web-wise - has made leaps and bounds even while he is still out there using the same form of transport, sea kayaks. Using these many years of adventure, this talk is packed with photos, videos, and stories that extend Web-based learning well beyond any classroom to stimulate thinking about what is possible for environmental and global education online. For the past decade he has focused on the health of the world's ocean and the lives of people who live and depend on it; his daily blog - NOTES FROM SEA LEVEL, www.jonbowermaster.com - gives a sea-level look at how they are doing.
Bowermaster, J. (2009). Using Adventure and the Internet for Environmental and Global Education. Presented at E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning 2009.
© 2009 AACE
|
<urn:uuid:0490522a-1df3-4039-b92b-6785e9548e17>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.editlib.org/view/33054
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.939349 | 301 | 2.578125 | 3 |
10 Things Disappearing from Elementary Schools
Modern technology has changed the American classroom in many ways, as have parental attitudes. Here are some elementary school essentials that are either long gone or starting to disappear from the classroom.
The first classroom blackboard was reportedly installed at West Point in 1801. As the railroads spread across the U.S., so did chalkboards, as slate was now easily hauled long-distance from mines in Vermont, Maine, and Pennsylvania. By the 1960s, though, blackboards began to go green—literally. Steel plates coated with porcelain enamel replaced the traditional slate boards; the green was easier on the eyes and chalk erased more completely off of the paint. In the 1990s, though, whiteboards began creeping into classrooms. Turns out that even “dustless” chalk annoyed kids with allergies and got into the nooks and crannies of the computers that were beginning to become classroom fixtures.
There are many reasons why some schools are eliminating or shortening recess: students need every available moment for academics in order to prepare for standardized tests, too much liability lest a child gets injured, not enough budget to hire sufficient playground supervision, etc. Some schools that do still have recess have banned dodgeball or games like tag. Other schools have Recess Coaches who provide structured play and conflict resolution (Rock-Paper-Scissors rather than Pink Bellies) on the playground.
3. Cursive Penmanship
Who could have predicted that one day cursive handwriting would become a hot-button issue along the lines of school prayer and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance? But thanks to computers and texting and all that fancy technology, script handwriting is slowly going the way of the abacus. Many educators believe that legible printing and good typing skills are all today’s students need to learn to succeed in the world, and cursive is a non-essential skill. I recall feeling quite grown-up when I started learning cursive in the second grade—I could now read all that “secret” stuff my mom and other adults were writing down!
4. Wall-Mounted Hand Crank Pencil Sharpeners
Maybe teachers were made of sturdier stuff Back in the Day, or maybe they just had a stock of Valium in the teacher’s lounge…how else did they survive without the “Classroom-Friendly Pencil Sharpeners” that are all the rage? Some are electric, some are manual, but they are quiet and many have a pop-out feature to prevent over-sharpening. Sure, these old-style sharpeners were awkward for southpaws to use, but to take away the fun of grinding a pencil down to a stub just for the heck of it? Sheesh.
Many school supply lists today require glue sticks, not the good ol’ white paste in a jar with an applicator that smelled so minty good it always inspired at least one kid to eat the stuff.
6. Film Projectors
The really fancy models came with a playback device that “beeped” when it was time to advance the filmstrip to the next frame. And it always seemed to take forever to get the picture just right on the screen (propping it up on one book, then two…then focusing…). But we didn’t mind the delay—it was just that much more time that we didn’t have to spend actually studying or paying attention.
7. 16mm Movie Projectors
The A/V captain had to turn the volume up to 11 most of the time, due to the poor sound quality of the ancient films and the clack-clack-clack noise of the sprocket holes moving through the machinery. Sometimes a series of holes were broken and the film would get “stuck” or skip. The projectionist knew then to stick a pencil in the lower loop and pull it just so to get the classic Coronet or Jiminy Cricket “I’m No Fool” educational short back on track.
8. Pencil Sharpeners with Exposed Razors
You probably don’t see many pencil cases with built-in times table cheat sheets any more, and even pocket pencil sharpeners have undergone a transformation in recent years. The models sold for student use are much more safety-oriented, with the blade concealed in a plastic cup or enclosure of some sort. In fact, in 2008 police were summoned to a school in Hilton Head, South Carolina, when a student was “caught” possessing a small razor blade. The police report stated that the “weapon” was obviously from a pocket pencil sharpener that had broken (the kid had the broken plastic pieces, too), but the school was obliged to call the law due to their “zero tolerance for weapons” policy.
9. Cigar Boxes
Even back in the 1960s, you could buy “school boxes” that were the same size and had the same hinged lid as a cigar box, but they had cutesy pictures of the alphabet and school supplies painted on them. And they cost money. So when kids brought home that list of necessary school supplies every year, many parents went to the local drugstore and got an empty cigar box for free. There was something rather soothing about opening that box up during the day to retrieve a pencil or ruler and getting a quick whiff of rich tobacco aroma. By the end of the year, of course, ol’ King Edward had an eye patch and warts drawn all over his face. Thanks to the decline of smoking in the U.S. and the idea of a tobacco product being near a first grader’s desk, most students bring those store-bought boxes to class these days.
10. Mimeographed Sheets
Sometimes called “dittos” and technically referred to as a spirit duplicator, they reproduced multiple copies of an original document in dark purple ink for the teacher to pass out. But the most important thing about a ditto sheet was the aroma—a fresh one smelled heavenly. It was pretty much a reflex—as soon as you were handed a freshly mimeographed paper, you lifted it up to your face and inhaled that delicious, indescribable fragrance.
|
<urn:uuid:ba3e8ad9-ecf8-4994-a94a-2acac940a27d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://mentalfloss.com/article/53144/10-things-disappearing-elementary-schools
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.97272 | 1,308 | 2.640625 | 3 |
It shows up on Google Maps, coastal databases, and marine charts, but when scientists from the University of Sydney went to visit Sandy Island, it was no where to be found. Did the island, supposedly located between Australia and New Caledonia, suddenly disappear like a confusing LOST plot twist?
Unfortunately no, that wasn't the case. Instead, the scientists had simply undiscovered the island.
They first became suspicious of its existence when they arrived at the proper coordinates only to discover a vast blue ocean and a water depth of over 4,500 feet. Had the island disappeared due to erosion, there would still have been a large chunk of land mass beneath the waves. And how exactly Sandy Island made its way onto maps and charts as far back as 2000 is currently a mystery that the team from the University of Sydney is now trying to solve.
Was it simply human error? It's certainly been known to happen. Google Maps pulls its data from a variety of public and commercial sources, and unlike its fleet of Street View vehicles, it doesn't have a flotilla of boats scouring the planet's oceans for technical accuracy. So while the island still shows up in Google's database, don't expect it to be there much longer now that it's been proven to be fake. [BBC]
|
<urn:uuid:f7441654-3295-4353-aebb-4cbeda992b3a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://gizmodo.com/5962800/how-did-this-tiny-south-pacific-island-disappear-hint-it-never-really-existed/all
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.975766 | 264 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Safeguarding the memory of the Slave Route
Revitalizing sites linked to the slave trade and slavery as a means of keeping the memory of those terrible events alive has become a key objective in the countries and regions whose history is marked by this chapter of human history. An international seminar will bring site managers, academics, political leaders, education experts and tourism authorities together in Brasilia from 20-23 August to explore new ways of achieving this goal.
Participants will also establish the first-ever international network of sites and itineraries linked to the slave trade, slavery and resistance, and abolition, with a view to nominating certain routes for inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Successful management and development projects at important sites in countries such as Brazil, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Spain, Portugal, France, Cuba, Peru, Barbados, Benin, Cap Verde, Uruguay, Panama, Mexico, Mozambique, Ecuador, Haiti, the United States and Canada will be presented and reviewed as possible models for others. Of particular interest will be projects underway at the historic Valongo Quay complex in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo’s Quilombola Circuit (Brazil), The Slave Route ( Benin) the Cape Coast Chateau (Ghana), the Liverpool museum(U.K), the Indian Ocean Itinerary of Memory (Mauritius, Madagascar, Mozambique, Island of Reunion), The Route of Abolitions (France), the Afro-Canadian Experience (Canada), the Island of Goree (Senegal), the City of Lagos (Portugal).
To build on the expertise of site managers and tourism professionals, the participants will also work on a guide and a series of training modules, and launch the development of education materials for a broader public.
Organized by the Palmarès Fundaçao Cultural, a Brazilian cultural foundation, and UNESCO ‘s Slave Route Project, the seminar is scheduled to be opened by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil and honororary president of the Lula Institute, together with Aloizio Mercadante, the Brazilian Minister of Education and Ana de Hollanda, the Brazilian minister of culture.
The seminar is one of the events marking the commemoration on 23 August, of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and of its Abolition, and part of the lead up to the United Nations Decade for People of African Ascent (2013-2022).
Media Contact in Brasilia
Ana Lucia Guimaraes
Tel: +55 61 21063536
<- Back to: All news
|
<urn:uuid:65780093-30a5-4547-9b7f-c9ecc6b11850>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/single-view/news/safeguarding_the_memory_of_the_slave_route/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.894212 | 550 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Dunkirk, city (1990 pop. 13,989), Chautauqua co., SW N.Y., on Lake Erie; founded c.1800, inc. as a city 1880. It is a port of entry and trades extensively with other Great Lakes' ports. Dunkirk, located in the grape belt, produces wines and other grape products. The city also manufactures steel, food products, and clothing. In 1946, Dunkirk developed a program to help Dunkirk, France (for which it was named), recover from World War II. Other U.S. cities followed Dunkirk's example and established a program, called the One World Plan, to aid war-damaged European cities.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
|
<urn:uuid:258647a1-efc5-42fb-945a-bfaf6908d226>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/us/dunkirk-city-united-states.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.940527 | 164 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Vienna - A joint division of FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been recognized for moving quickly and effectively to help nations prepare for the potentially pandemic strain of avian influenza known as H7N9.
Since the virus was first found in China in March 2013, more than 190 human cases have been confirmed, with 52 of those infected dying.
With concern growing that the disease could spread during the upcoming flu season, the Joint FAO-IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture moved quickly to transfer appropriate diagnostic technologies and to organize training for key officials in 35 nations on how to diagnose, trace, monitor and control the new virus.
Veterinary experts from countries in Southeast and South Asia and from a number of international organizations and development partners participated. The goal was to improve early detection and reaction capabilities in those countries and to prepare them for H7N9 infections and similar influenza threats in the future.
Recognizing its swift and efficient response, the IAEA recently gave the Division its Superior Achievement Award for exceptional efforts to prepare nations for H7N9.
“H7N9 is no longer (only) a country problem,” said Bhutan’s Principal Livestock Health Officer Jambay Dorjee who attended the training. “We need a common understanding of this problem at a regional level.” Dorjee said FAO had provided countries from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation with a much-needed coordination platform as well as the possibility to source funding through donor agencies.
FAO is also to begin implementing projects to increase preparedness for and response to H7N9 in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia.
The recognition came as the Joint FAO-IAEA Division celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding in 1964. Focused on finding peaceful uses for atomic energy in agriculture, the Division has been previously described as “one of the best examples of inter-agency cooperation in the United Nations family”.
It has achieved several other major successes in agriculture including: millions of hectares of higher-yielding and disease resistant crops gained through radiation-induced mutations; and the improvement of livestock and agricultural systems through the eradication of insect pests such as the tsetse fly and the fruit fly using the sterile insect technique (SIT).
|
<urn:uuid:86375f40-e7d2-4e03-8252-be520d18f83c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.fao.org/ag/portal/age/age-news/detail-ar/ar/c/212692/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00120-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94953 | 515 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Biology Branches Of Biology
A selection of articles related to biology branches of biology.
Original articles from our library related to the Biology Branches Of Biology. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on Biology Branches Of Biology.
- King James Bible: Exodus, Chapter 25
- Chapter 25 25:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 25:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. 25:3 And this is the offering which ye shall take of...
Old Testament >> Exodus
- King James Bible: Exodus, Chapter 37
- Chapter 37 37:1 And Bezaleel made the ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half was the length of it, and a cubit and a half the breadth of it, and a cubit and a half the height of it: 37:2 And he overlaid it with pure gold within and without, and made a...
Old Testament >> Exodus
- King James Bible: Romans, Chapter 11
- Chapter 11 11:1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 11:2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he...
New Testament >> Epistle to the Romans
- People of the Book: Fighting the Holy War
- At the heart of most of the world's great religions, there is a sacred text. This is usually a compilation of the words of the enlightened founder of the path or the interpretations of the life and teachings of this founder. Within this text is contained the...
Religion & Philosophy >> Religions
- Discovery and Development of Reiki
- "The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of wellbeing becomes." The Dalai Lama The traditional story of the discovery of Reiki is as historically correct as the biblical report of the life of Jesus - it is molded and...
Body Mysteries >> Reiki
- The Manifestation of Intent for Personal and Mutual Benefit (GM6)
- There is an ultimate destination in the study of all subjects, from spirituality, philosophy, theology, biology and sociology, to the occult. This foundational science of all sciences, upon which all others are based, is known as consciousness . The study...
Mind >> World Mind
- King James Bible: Genesis, Chapter 40
- Chapter 40 40:1 And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the king of Egypt. 40:2 And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the...
Old Testament >> Genesis
Biology Branches Of Biology is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Biology Branches Of Biology books and related discussion.
Suggested News Resources
- Thousands of crows nest in Waterville
- But then there's also a cacophony of cawing and frequently the clatter of hundreds of sets of wings settling into branches, and those exposed to it may feel as though they've been dropped into a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's movie “The Birds.
- Visiting pastor describes his years in Africa
- A group of angry monkeys began throwing sticks and branches at them from the tree tops. One of his friends was struck in the head and passed out for a short time.
- 'Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life,' by Edward O. Wilson
- Edward O. Wilson, the prolific Harvard professor emeritus, has made a career of elevating biology to the realm of public discourse. ...
- Arseniy Yatsenyuk: 'We need political and economic stability' to change Ukraine
- These schools will be provided with free Internet, in such schools there will be new, well equipped classrooms for physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology. Each 'hub' ... A branch means a primary school, i.
Great care has been taken to prepare the information on this page. Elements of the content come from factual and lexical knowledge databases, realmagick.com library and third-party sources. We appreciate your suggestions and comments on further improvements of the site.
Biology Branches Of Biology Topics
Related searchesbrilliant scarlet 4r
shrimp paste belacan
kittitas county washington geography
meaning of dreams about pepper
list of advertising slogans perfume
|
<urn:uuid:d3a29639-625e-4093-8c4f-a744c505973f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.realmagick.com/biology-branches-of-biology/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.91762 | 975 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The Holly King / Santa Claus / Reindeer / Wreaths / Mistletoe / Lights
THE HOLLY KING
From the Celtic tradition, we get a pair of ancient pagan images who fight for supremacy at Yule. The Holly King and the Oak King are probably constructs of the Druids to whom these two trees were highly sacred. The Oak King (king of the waxing year) kills the Holly King (king of the waning year) at Yule. The Oak King then reigns until Midsummer when the two battle again, this time with the Holly King as the victor. The Holly King, who has evolved into the present day Santa Claus, wears red, dons a sprig of holly in his hat, and drives a team of eight (total number of solar sabbats) deer, an animal sacred to the Celtic Gods. Holly and mistletoe are traditional to the season through commemoration of the battle. The holly was hung in honor of the Holly King; the mistletoe (which grows high in the branches of oak trees) in honor of the Oak King.
The Oak King and Holly King are mortal enemies at Midsummer and Yule, but they are two sides of a whole, and neither could exist without the other.
Today's Santa is a folk figure with multicultural roots. He embodies characteristics of Saturn (Roman agricultural god), Cronos (Greek god, also known as Father Time), the Holly King (Celtic god of the dying year), Father Ice/Grandfather Frost (Russian winter god), Odin/Wotan (Scandinavian/Teutonic All-Father who rides the sky on an eight-legged horse), Frey (Norse fertility god), the Tomte (a Norse Land Spirit known for giving gifts to children at this time of year), and Thor (Norse sky god who rides the sky in a chariot drawn by goats). Julbock or Julbukk, the Yule goat, from Sweden and Norway, had his beginnings as carrier for the god Thor. Now he carries the Yule elf when he makes his rounds to deliver presents and receive his offering of porridge.
When Early Christians co-opted the Yule holiday, they replaced the ancient Holly King with religious figures like St. Nicholas, who was said to live in Myra (Turkey) in about 300 A.D. Born an only child of a wealthy family, he was orphaned at an early age when both parents died of the plague. He grew up in a monastery and at the age of 17 became one of the youngest priests ever. Many stories are told of his generosity as he gave his wealth away in the form of gifts to those in need, especially children. Legends tell of him either dropping bags of gold down chimneys or throwing the bags through the windows where they landed in the stockings hung from the fireplace to dry. Some years later Nicholas became a bishop--hence the bishop's hat or miter, long flowing gown, white beard and red cape.
When the Reformation took place, the new Protestants no longer desired St. Nicholas as their gift-giver as he was too closely tied to the Catholic Church. Therefore, each country or region developed their own gift-giver. In France he was known as Pare Noel. In England he was Father Christmas (always depicted with sprigs of holly, ivy, or mistletoe). Germany knew him as Weihnachtsmann (Christmas man). When the communists took over in Russia and outlawed Christianity, the Russians began to call him Grandfather Frost, who wore blue instead of the traditional red. To the Dutch, he was Sinterklaas (which eventually was mispronounced in America and became Santa Claus). La Befana, a kindly witch, rides a broomstick down the chimney to deliver toys into the stockings of Italian children. These Santas were arrayed in every color of the rainbow--sometimes even in black. But they all had long white beards and carried gifts for the children.
All of these Santas, however, never stray far from his earliest beginnings
as god of the waning year. As witches, we reclaim Santa's Pagan heritage.
Santa's reindeer most probably evolved from Herne, the Celtic Horned God. Eight reindeer pull Santa's sleigh, representative of the eight solar sabbats. In British lore, the stag is one of the five oldest and wisest animals in the world, embodying dignity, power and integrity. From their late Autumn dramatic rutting displays, stags represented strength, sexuality and fertility. As evidenced by multiple prehistoric excavations of stag antler ritual costumes, the wearing of stag antlers in folk dance recreated the sacred male shaman figure called Lord of the Wild Hunt, Cernunnos, or Herne the Hunter, among others--he who travels between worlds, escorting animal spirits to the afterlife and sparking wisdom and fertility in this world. Likewise, the stag's branching antlers echo the growth of vegetation. In America, the stag represents male ideals: the ability to "walk one's talk," and powerfully, peacefully blend stewardship and care of the tribe with sexual and spiritual integrity.
In Northern European myth, the Mother Goddess lives in a cave, gives birth to the sun child, and can shape shift into a white hind, or doe. Therefore, the white hind was magical, to be protected and never hunted. In myth, graceful running women of the forest--who were actually magical white hinds--brought instant old age or death to hunters who chased them.
To the Celts, all deer were especially symbolic of nurturing, gentle
and loving femaleness. White deer hide was used to make tribal women's clothing.
White deer called "faery cattle" were commonly believed to offer
milk to fairies. In Britain amongst the Druids, some men experienced life-transforming
epiphanies from spiritual visions or visitations by white hinds, balancing
and healing their inner feminine energy. In Europe white hinds truly exist,
and are many shades of warm white cream-colors, with pale lashes--otherworldly
in their peaceful and modest behavior. To many Native American tribes, deer
are models of the graceful and patient mother who exhibits unconditional
love and healthy, integrated female energy.
The Wheel of the Year is often symbolized by the wreath. Its circle has
no beginning and no end, illustrating that everything in its time comes
back to its point of origin and travels onward, over and over again. Scandinavians
began the tradition of hanging the wreath at Yule, the beginning of their
new year, to commemorate new beginnings in the cycle of life. Today in rural
Germany, a giant wreath, known as St. Catherine's Wheel, is a holdover from
another pagan custom which involved sympathetic magick to lure the sun's
warmth back to the earth. A giant four-spoked wheel with an effigy of a
person bound to it, is lighted on fire and rolled down a hill. (The effigy
probably hearkens back to a time when human sacrifices were made in plea
to the sun.) In some traditions, Yule was a more important holiday for honoring
the Sun God than Midsummer. In Winter, Mother Earth was cold and barren
without the fertilizing power of Father Sun.
Mistletoe was also known as the golden bough and was held sacred by both the Celtic Druids and the Norse. Mistletoe was used by the Druid priesthood in a very special ceremony held around this time...five days after the New Moon following winter solstice, to be precise. The Druid priests would cut mistletoe from a holy oak tree with a golden sickle. The branches had to be caught before they touched the ground.
Celts believed this parasitic plant held the soul of the host tree. The priest then divided the branches into many sprigs and distributed them to the people, who hung them over doorways as protection against thunder, lightning and other evils. The folklore, and the magical powers of this plant, blossomed over the centuries A sprig placed in a baby's cradle would protect the child from faeries. Giving a sprig to the first cow calving after New Year would protect the entire herd. Now for the kissing part. Although many sources say that kissing under the mistletoe is a purely English custom, there's another, more charming explanation for its origin that extends back into Norse mythology. It's the story of a loving, if overprotective, mother.
The Norse god Balder was the best loved of all the gods. His mother was Frigga, goddess of love and beauty. She loved her son so much that she wanted to make sure no harm would come to him. So she went through the world, securing promises from everything that sprang from the four elements--fire, water, air, and earth--that they would not harm her beloved Balder.
Leave it to Loki, a sly, trickster spirit, to find the loophole. The loophole was mistletoe. He made an arrow from its wood. To make the prank even nastier, he took the arrow to Hoder, Balder's brother, who was blind. Guiding Holder's hand, Loki directed the arrow at Balder's heart, and he fell dead.
Frigga's tears became the mistletoe's white berries. In the version of the story with a happy ending, Balder is restored to life, and Frigga is so grateful that she reverses the reputation of the offending plant--making it a symbol of love and promising to bestow a kiss upon anyone who passes under it.
Balder is sometimes seen as the sacrificed and resurrected god, who is
restored to his people after the Battle of Ragnarok.
Winter was a time of death and stagnation in the eyes of early humans. The earth was barren and unproductive, shelter was drafty, disease was common, and food was scarce. Little wonder they did all in their power to assure the Sun's return each year. During the festivals of the waning year, fire became a form of sympathetic magick to entice the Sun back to the earth. Bonfires were lit; Flaming wheels rolled down hillsides; Burning candles were placed in windows. Candles were later placed in the boughs of evergreen trees, later evolving into lights on our holiday trees.
Honor the new solar year with light. Do a Solstice Eve ritual in which
you meditate in darkness and then welcome the birth of the sun by lighting
candles and singing chants and Pagan carols. If you have an indoor fireplace
or an outdoor fire circle, burn an oak log as a Yule log and save a bit
to start next year's fire. Decorate the inside and/or outside of your home
with electric colored lights. Because of the popularity of five pointed
stars as holiday symbols, this is a good time to display a pentagram of
blue or white lights.
|
<urn:uuid:90cc63fe-8148-4f6c-bcc1-7449ecac5c8c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.earthwitchery.com/santa.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00043-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.966161 | 2,304 | 3.0625 | 3 |
|You might also like:||Dinosaur Genus List - Z||Scipionyx samniticus||Monoclonius||Protarchaeopteryx||Microvenator||Today's featured page: Migrating Animal Printouts|
Dinosaur and Paleontology Dictionary
Anatomy: These animals were protected by a shell (usually spiral-coiled) that contained many air filled chambers, called phragmocones; the animal lived only in the outer chamber. The opening of the shell is called the aperture. The walls of each chamber are called septa; these walls were penetrated by a ventral tubelike structure called a siphuncle that probably regulated the air pressure, allowing the ammonite to float.
Size: Ammonites ranged in size from under an inch to about 9 feet (3 m) in diameter.
When Ammonites Lived: Ammonites appeared during the Devonian and went extinct during the K-T extinction, 65 million years ago. The closest living relative of the ammonite is the chambered nautilus.
Why Are They Called Ammonites?: Ammonites were named for Amun (also spelled Ammon), an ancient Egyptian god who is pictured as having ram's horns behind each ear (which look like ammonites).
Index Fossils: Ammonite fossils are found in great quantities and are used as an index fossil. Index fossils are commonly found fossils that are limited in time span. They help in dating other fossils.
Ammonites were common during the Mesozoic Era, but are not found after the Cretaceous period (when they went extinct). This knowledge (and knowledge of when particular species of ammonites lived) helps date rarer fossils of unknown age. For example, if a new fossil is found in the same rock layer as an ammonite that is known to have lived only during the Cretaceous period, the new fossil can likely be dated to that same period.
(and Other Prehistoric Creatures)
For brief dinosaur fact sheets, click here.
Over 35,000 Web Pages
Sample Pages for Prospective Subscribers, or click below
Overview of Site|
Enchanted Learning Home
Monthly Activity Calendar
Books to Print
Parts of Speech
The Test of Time
TapQuiz Maps - free iPhone Geography Game
Biology Label Printouts
Physical Sciences: K-12
Art and Artists
Label Me! Printouts
|Search the Enchanted Learning website for:|
|
<urn:uuid:170ea7a0-23eb-4255-a2f9-91a791077982>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/glossary/Ammonite.shtml
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.887389 | 518 | 3.875 | 4 |
Editor’s note: after nearly 3 years of NCBI ROFL, we’ve decided to change things up a bit by beginning our posts with a few explanatory remarks. We hope that this isn’t off-putting to our loyal readers, and that it will make our posts more accessible to non-scientists. Enjoy!
Knowing how long it takes poop to travel through someone’s intestines can help doctors diagnose a number of health problems. But how can doctors tell what this “transit time” is? The scientists in this study investigated that question by having volunteers eat visible pellets and measuring how long it took them to come back out (perhaps you have conducted a similar observational study after eating corn). They then determined which characteristics of the poop correlated with “transit time”. Apparently, poop texture (“stool form”) is better than the weight (“output”) or frequency at predicting how long it’s been inside you.
Stool form scale as a useful guide to intestinal transit time.
“BACKGROUND: Stool form scales are a simple method of assessing intestinal transit rate but are not widely used in clinical practice or research, possibly because of the lack of evidence that they are responsive to changes in transit time. We set out to assess the responsiveness of the Bristol stool form scale to change in transit time. METHODS:Sixty-six volunteers had their whole-gut transit time (WGTT) measured with radiopaque marker pellets and their stools weighed, and they kept a diary of their stool form on a 7-point scale and of their defecatory frequency. WGTT was then altered with senna and loperamide, and the measurements were repeated. RESULTS:The base-line WGTT measurements correlated with defecatory frequency (r = 0.35, P = 0.005) and with stool output (r = -0.41, P = 0.001) but best with stool form (r = -0.54, P < 0.001). When the volunteers took senna (n = 44), the WGTT decreased, whereas defecatory frequency, stool form score, and stool output increased (all, P < 0.001). With loperamide (n = 43) all measurements changed in the opposite direction. Change in WGTT from base line correlated with change in defecatory frequency (r = 0.41, P < 0.001) and with change in stool output (n = -0.54, P < 0.001) but best with change in stool form (r = -0.65, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS:This study has shown that a stool form scale can be used to monitor change in intestinal function. Such scales have utility in both clinical practice and research.”
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: FECOM: a new artificial stool for evaluating defecation.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: On brassieres and poop.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: How to make pooping babies more appealing.
NCBI ROFL. Real articles. Funny subjects.
Read our FAQ!
|
<urn:uuid:d37f5d9f-3c93-44e7-9930-27c851be2a0d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2013/02/25/ncbi-rofl-what-your-poop-looks-like-can-tell-you-how-long-its-been-inside/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.935328 | 672 | 2.875 | 3 |
Well done, you're with us still! This part shall concentrate on JN-25, which was the code
system used by the Japanese to transmit the final instructions for the attack on Pearl
Harbor. The issue for your consideration is "what was the state of
knowledge of this code amongst the various Allies prior to 7 December 1941?"
When you finish reading this, you might change your mind about the history of WW2.
But don't jump too
we'll then re-examine these revisionist views, and
come around full circle.
The story so far:...)
CRYPTOGRAPHY - ONE STORY IS GOOD
UNTIL ANOTHER IS REVEALED (cont'd)
Paul F. Whitman
Even prior to the opening of hostilities,
the Corregidor unit had, together with the Singapore unit, commenced the
attack and breakdown of JN25. This most widely distributed and extensively
used of Japan's cryptosystems, in which about half of her naval messages
were transmitted, comprised a code with five digit code numbers to which
were added a key of other numbers to complicate the system. The Navy called
it the "five numeral system, " or more formally,
JN25b - the JN for "Japanese Navy," the 25 an identifying number,
the b for the second (and current) edition. It had made the difficult
initial entries, and was in the best position to make new assumptions or
confirm or disprove old ones, intercepting messages that the others might
not have picked up.
phrase "even prior to the opening of hostilities" is a curious one.
How much prior? And did Corregidor (the US) necessarily know what Singapore
(the British) knew? And when they knew it? Who knew about the Japanese Fleet
Codes first, and did they later profess not to have known it?
April 1943, Adolph A. Berle Jr. of the State Department wrote a secret
letter to John G. Winant, the American ambassador in London, concerning a
planned visit by code breaking expert Colonel Alfred McCormack to GCCS
(Government Code & Cipher School), warning: "A feeling has grown up in
certain circles that while there is full interchange on our side, certain
information has not been forthcoming from the British side."
was alluding to the manner in which the US had been open concerning it's
code-breaking successes, going so far in January 1941 as to supply the
British with two Purple machines, along with a treasure trove of other code
breaking secrets. Included in the handover were two sets of JN-25
fleet codes with current keys (additive tables) and techniques of solution
produced by OP-20-G since the initial breakthrough in October 1940.
In return, the British Foreign Office had, during 1941, vetoed
the handing over of a captured Enigma cryptograph, as had been
promised, because it was against British policy to share its code-breaking
secrets with a neutral. The Americans had been justifiably furious at this
blatant double-cross, particularly the US Navy which had earmarked those
very machines to go to Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor. They had also
earmarked the JN-25 codebooks to Hypo and Station Cast (Cavite). In so
doing, the British had not only pretended to be unaware of the Japanese
Fleet Code, they feigned knowledge that the US had solved it, and that they
had no use for it in London.
fact (was) that
after January 1941
getting from GCCS
and FECB [Far East
Combined Bureau -
Colombo & Singapore]
decrypts of Purple
Tokyo and Washington
and Berlin as fast
as, and probably
So? The British were reading
messages before the
US entered the war.
Bearing in mind that
GCCS had 300 people
working solely on
OP-20-G had to split
its far smaller
staff between the
monthly roster of
traffic and the navy
signals, it is not
surprising that the
United States took a
year longer than the
British to break
are JN-25 decrypts
1942 which were read
immediately and were
all complete and
thus show that even
five weeks into the
Pacific War, the
British had easily
mastered JN-25. But
how long had the U.S.
been working on the
particularly significant (about the gift in January 1941) is that if the
U.S. Navy was able to give GCCS reconstructed JN-25 codebooks, even though
incomplete, in January 1941, with current additive tables, and to show them
how to continue to break the system, then OP-20-G had made remarkably quick
progress breaking the code from their first decrypt only three months
earlier. Furthermore, OP-20-G had obviously been reading some JN-25
intercepts during the previous months, and so one would expect to find these
today in the archives along with the Purple diplomatic decrypts for the same
period. But they are not there.
April-May 1941, the Americans severely restricted the distribution of their
Purple decrypts as the result of their decoding a message from Tokyo to
Washington on 5 May 1941 warning: "According to a fairly reliable source
of information it appears almost certain the United States government is
reading your code messages." As a direct consequence, Admiral
Husband E. Kimmel (C-in-C Pacific Fleet) and Lieutenant General Walker C.
Short (Commanding General U.S. Army, in Hawaii) were removed from the
distribution list of Magic decrypts. Extraordinary as it may seem, even
President Roosevelt was removed from the Magic List, and thereafter he was
given suitably paraphrased summaries by the State Department.
Roosevelt didn't get back on the list until 12 November 1941. But this is
digression. When did the U.S. begin to decrypt JN-25? Why, in 1979, when
President Carter authorized the NSA to release a mass of Japanese
intercepts, was not a single JN-25 decrypt that had been read prior to 7
December 1941 released? Because OP-20-G were preoccupied with the
Japanese diplomatic codes and not the Japanese Navy's operational codes, and
none of the latter were ever decrypted? That's the official view.
The alternative answer comes from "Betrayal at Pearl Harbor" by James
Rusbridger and Eric Nave, published by Summit Books 1991, who quote from
A Brief History of Communications Intelligence in the United States,
written by Safford in 1952 and released into their National Archives in
June 1939 the Japanese Navy introduced a new type of numerical code
referred to by Navy COMINT personnel as [censored] the Operations Code.
[The next two lines are totally censored.] Mrs. Driscoll and Mr. Cutter
spearheaded the attack and we were soon [censored] reconstructing the
Recovery of the [censored] keys, [the word missing here is
probably additive] however, involved much more labour and required many
more crypto-personnel than the earlier transposition keys. Main work of
solution was undertaken at Washington [OP-20-G].
December 1940 we were working on two systems of keys with this book; the
"old" keys for code recovery and the "new" keys for current information
[five lines completely censored].
inference from the need for more personnel appears to be that the code was
more tedious than hard to crack. The Safford report continues:
December 1941 the system [JN-25] became unreadable...this could have
been a tip-off as to coming hostilities but it could have also been a
mere routine change of system. After all, the code had been in use for
2½ years. Two weeks later Corregidor [Station Cast] flashed the good
news that the same old code was still in use but that new keys were
being used with its was the third or fourth set of keys used with this
There's a caveat here. We will later hear from Duane Whitlock, who
from November 1940 through March 16, 1942 was a radioman first class doing decryption and
preparing intelligence reports based on Japanese traffic analysis for the U.S. Navy at
Cavite and Corregidor. Rusbridger and Nave then comment...
passage is particularly interesting for several reasons. First, Safford is mistaken that
the date when the key changes were made was 1 December, when in fact the change was
made on 4 December. second, he confirms that JN-25 was broken soon after its
introduction and was read throughout the two-and-a-half-year period to late 1941. And
third, that the basic code remained unchanged and only the additive tables (or keys)
They then cite a still censored
message from Station Cast (Corregidor) on 15 December 1941 which reads:
"Com 16 to OPNAV info CINCAF. TOP SECRET - 151250. Two
intercepts in [censored] plain code [December] 6 and 13 followed within a few hours by
enciphered versions confirmed indicator [censored] already recovered by mathematical
elimination code remains unchanged (.) Will send recoveries this system if you desire work
on current period."
If Station Cast's
code breakers knew
that JN-25 remained unchanged then it must mean that they were reading it during the
previous six month period, from 1 June 1941 through 4 December 1941.
In a memorandum Safford wrote on 17
May 1945 he stated:
Com 16 [Station Cast in Corregidor]
intercepts were considered most reliable ..not only because of better radio interception,
but because Com 16 was currently reading messages in the Japanese Fleet Cryptographic
System (5-number code or JN-25 and was exchanging technical information and translations
with the British at Singapore [FECB].
Rusbridger and Nave then make the
conclusion, (against opposition from other writers):
Taken together, these... accounts of
U.S. Navy Code breaking show beyond doubt that between 1 June 1939 and 7 December 1941 some
JN-25 messages were definitely decoded by the U.S. Navy. But not a single pre-Pearl
Harbor JN-25 intercept or decrypt can be found in any American archive. Every single scrap
of evidence relating to JN-25 between June 1939 through late November 1941 has vanished
from US records.
is allowed to appear for posterity in the National Archives, Rusbridger and Nave
say, are a few pre-Pearl Harbor JN-25 decrypts which were said to have been decoded
in late 1945 and 1946. By early 1942, it is openly acknowledged in the public record
that JN-25 was being read quite freely. It is impossible to believe that this could have
happened other than by a deliberate policy, beginning in the immediate aftermath of the
war to conceal or destroy all the evidence relating to the reading, before hostilities, of
this code. The U.S. Navy refused to allow discussion of JN-25 at any of the seven
inquiries into the attack on Pearl Harbor. This is not because of some
governmental embarrassment at admitting that it had read another government's secrets
during peacetime, as the United States has admitted reading pre-war Japanese
Diplomatic Codes (Purple).
answer is very simply that the JN-25 messages contained the final operational details of
the Pearl Harbor attack, whereas the Purple intercepts did not. It is therefore a
legitimate conclusion that:
(a) Churchill deliberately
withheld from the Americans vital intelligence about the Japanese Task Force derived from
reading the Japanese naval code JN-25;
(b) that Churchill rightly
believed that if he told Roosevelt what he knew about the Japanese Task Force that FDR
would - as a totally honorable President - immediately warn his commanders. As a
probable consequence, the British would then have had to face the Japanese invasion in
(c) OP-20-G's first-hand
knowledge derived from JN-25 could only have been denied the President by a very
senior naval officer;
(d) persons within the
U.S. Navy, knowing that the missing material contained information that is highly
sensitive and embarrassing, acted in concert to conceal the existence of pre-Pearl Harbor
JN-25 decrypts from all inquiries, and from history itself - just as had happened
with the missing Winds message.
(e) even today fifty years
later, persons within the U.S. Armed Forces and the NSA, still censor any original
historic material relating to the subject.
This is not some casual cover-up but a
carefully pre-meditated policy of deceit of the greatest magnitude that can only have
originated from the highest authority to deliberately frustrate the truth being told.
Rusbridger and Nave then state:
They then go on to suggest that Roosevelt was kept in the dark over
JN-25 matters, (he wasn't told about Purple until 4 months after it was broken, and was
denied access to it from May to November 1941 because of an alleged leak) and that the
most likely candidate behind this massive cover-up was .................
(To find that answer, go buy the book!)
If you're still with us, the next link will take you to the most recent
book on the subject of JN-25, Marching Orders by Bruce Lee (which,
incidentally, is a recommended read.) His opening salvo on Rusbridger &
Nave is one of the best in the business...
"Now it's harder to put a
stop to a headline-making, money-machine conspiracy theory than it is to kill a
rattlesnake with a short-handled hoe. But
this writer has done
© 1999 Paul
|
<urn:uuid:ec6408f9-e0c4-460b-b280-719634cd9f45>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://corregidor.org/crypto/chs_crypto1/jn25.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.962145 | 3,013 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Friday, March 23, 2001
News headlines this month have focused on the U.S. Navy's
investigation into the death of nine people in the Feb. 9 collision between an
American nuclear sub and a Japanese fishing vessel off Hawaii.
And yesterday authorities announced they had found evidence of
nine more people killed in another February submarine disaster. But the
parallels end there. This disaster happened in the Atlantic Ocean and it took
place a little earlier...136 years earlier.
On Feb. 17, 1864, the confederate submarine H.L. Hunley became the
first submersible to sink an enemy ship when it rammed an explosive spar through
the hull of the USS Housatonic, one of the fleet of Union ships blockading the
Charleston, SC harbor (see Design News, www.manufacturing.net/magazine/dn/archives/2000/dn1120.00/new.html#12).
But after watching the 1,240-ton Housatonic (www.history.navy.mil/branches/org12-6e.htm)
burn and sink, the 7.5-ton Hunley signaled it would return to base, then
It was found in 1995, lying under 28 ft of water in Charleston
harbor. And in August, 2000, engineers lifted the 40-ft boat onto a barge. The
operation demanded extensive finite element analysis, performed with ANSYS
version 5.6 (www.ansys.com), and required
that divers fill the hull with a bouyant foam called Froth Pak, from Flexible
Products Inc. (www.flexibleproducts.com).
Now, finally, the Hunley (www.history.navy.mil/branches/org12-3.htm)
is beginning the secret of its mysterious sinking. Archeologists are carefully
chipping sand and sediments off her pumps and ballast valves. And yesterday they
recovered three human ribs, a piece of cloth, and part of a leather belt,
presumably from the nine-man crew that had powered the boat with hand-turned
cranks. Check out www.hunley.org/html/frame.htm
for updates and further research.
|
<urn:uuid:0f2d97c3-3dfa-4d75-a520-3bd75cd5c547>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=215335&piddl_msgorder=asc
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.913757 | 476 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Science of Living: Lesson-4 by Acharya Mahapragya
Jain Vishva Bharati
Main steps in Practical Training
The following are the main steps in practical training :
1. Yogic Physical Exercises : To give exercise to all muscles, limbs, and other external organs.
2. Yogic Asanas : To give exercise to deep-seated organs and control their activity.
3. Pranayam : Conscious control and regulation of breath results in determination and increase of will-power; control on the autonomic nervous system is reached.
4. Relaxation (with self-awareness) (Kayotsarga) : To make the mind and body free from physical (muscular), mental (nervous) and emotional tensions.
5. Preksha Dhyan : It is a process of awakening one's own reasoning mind (viveka) and thereby control one's passions and emotions. It is based on the principle of engaging one's mind by concentrating on perception rather than on thought. The perception, again, is that of internal phenomena of consciousness and not that of external objects. It is a technique of seeing one's inner self. It consists of : Regulation and ultimate control of (a) respiratory and other physiological functions, (b) nervous system, (c) endocrine (ductless glands) system and (d) subtle inherent vibrations which produce passions.
Practice of self-observation unravels the mysteries of the unconscious mind and brings about catharsis. The technique balances and harmonizes the endocrine system, which in turn controls the nervous system. This results in equilibrium of the Neuro-Endocrine System.
On Physical Level : Preskha helps each cell to revitalize itself; it facilitates digestion; it makes respiration more efficient, it improves circulation and quality of blood.
On Mental Level : Preksha becomes a methodology to train the mind to concentrate; it cleans and relaxes the mind; it offers a way to treat serious psychosomatic illnesses without drugs; it is an efficient exercise in self-discipline leading to the end of addiction and other bad habits; it leads to what lies beyond the conscious mind.
On Emotional Level : The active functioning of reasoning mind controls reactions to environmental conditions, situations and behaviour of others, harmonization of the functioning of nervous and endocrine systems results in control and ultimate eradication of fear, jealousy, anger, lust and sexual perversion.
On Spiritual Level : The firm control of the reasoning mind, regulation and transformation of blood-chemistry through proper blending of the neuro-endocrinal secretions and production of dispassionate internal vibrations lead to attain infinite compassion, equanimity, bliss and happiness.
(i) Perception of Breathing
Preksha-dhyan includes the following exercises
(a) Complete scientific breathing through the proper functioning of diaphragm; long, deep and rhythmic breathing with total awareness; use of full vital capacity.
(b) Breathing through alternate nostrils (together with holding of breath).
(ii) Perception of Body
Concentration on each part of the body for perceiving the subtle vibrations and sensations taking place even on the cellular level.
(iii) Internal Trip (through the spinal cord and brain) (Antaryatra)
Perception of the Sushumna (spinal cord) and the cerebral cortex.
(iv) Perception of Psychic Centres
The specific centres in the body where consciousness is more active and which are interconnected with the endocrine glands and nervous plexuses.
(v) Perception of Psychic Colours
Visualization of selected Colours while concentrating the mind on different psychic centres. Such practice is found to be unbelievably effective to produce internal changes in subtle consciousness levels.
|
<urn:uuid:99b9ed38-3889-4060-a60f-089a9963f274>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://jainworld.com/phil/sol/sol04.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.870953 | 781 | 2.84375 | 3 |
A handspindle is defined as any implement that can be twisted or rotated by hand to twist fibers together into yarn. Handspindles can be divided into two general categories: a dropspindle, in which the thread is formed as the spindle spins while gravity pulls it to the ground; or a suspended spindle, where the spindle is spun on a set surface like a top and the thread is created by pulling the fiber away from the spindle. Spindle spinning is an art form – whereas modern spinning mills can produce large quantities or yarn in short periods of time, the types of yarn that can be spun are limited by the mechanics of the machines themselves - they cannot rival handspun yarns in delicacy and versatility. At one point, handspinners in India were able to spin almost half a million yards of yarn from a single pound of cotton (Hochberg). In handspinning, you can design the exact kind of yarn you desire with any variations in texture or color or thickness that you wish – your only limitation is your own skill level in spinning.
Most authors agree that the practice of spinning fibers to form thread and yarns has been in existence for over 10,000 years. The spinning wheel, the tool most commonly associated with the art of spinning, was not introduced to Europe until in the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance. Thus, the dropspindle was the primary spinning tool used to spin all the threads for clothing and fabrics from Egyptian mummy wrappings to tapestries, and even the ropes and sails for ships, for almost 9000 years.
Whorls from hand spindles have been dated back to 5000 BCE in Middle Eastern excavation sites. Bette Hochberg in her book Handspindles puts forth the theory that, since the wheel is generally agreed upon to have been invented somewhere around 3500 BCE, it is possible that the use of dropspindles helped man to discover the wheel. By observing the process of rotation as it applied to the whorl of a spindle, early man might have made experimented with that rotation by placing it upon a vertical plane instead of a horizontal one and thus created the wheel.
Spindles and spinning are also an integral part to the mythology and folklore of many cultures. Plato likens the axis of the universe to the shaft of a spindle with the starry heavens as the whorl end of his Republic. The Bible mentions spindles and spinning. Spider Woman, a Goddess in Navaho culture, taught them the art of spinning. Arachne challenged the goddess Minerva to a spinning and weaving contest and was turned into a spider in Greek mythology. In Germanic and Teutonic cultures the three Fates spin, measure and cut the threads of life of mortals. Even our modern fairy tales mention spinning, as in Rumplestilskin, Sleeping Beauty, and East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
But despite the myriad stories and myths involving spinning and the numerous archaeological finds involving spinning implements, scientists have not been able to determine the location and time period in which hand spindles were first used. Most believe it was somewhere in the Middle East, but no definitive evidence can place the craft before the Neolithic period. Whorls made of clay and stone have been found dating as far back as this period, but the spindle shaft itself has not – leading experts to believe that most shafts were made of wood, and thus disintegrated over time. The earliest whorls were made of soft stone like sandstone or limestone that could be shaped without metal tools, but later whorls could be ornately carved and decorated out of materials from bone, porcelain, glass, precious metals and semi-precious stones and came in all shapes and sizes. However, it is very likely that other objects were used to spin fibers into thread before the creation of the handspindle itself.
Spinning fibers into thread was initially accomplished without the use of any tools at all; however, this method was more time-consuming. The fibers were held in one hand, and the other hand was used to pinch off a portion of the fiber. The fibers were then twisted by hand between the fingers while simultaneously being pulled out to create longer lengths of thread. Thread made in this manner is referred to as twisted yarn, rather than spun yarns. A figurine carved from the tusk of a wooly mammoth wearing a loincloth made of twisted threads was carbon dated back to 25,000 BCE, but it is difficult to determine if the threads in her garment were twisted or spun (Hochberg).
The oldest actual “tool” used for spinning thread were common rocks. Archaeologists theorize that this tool was in common use by primitive peoples, but do not have good supporting archaeological evidence for this theory. As the first spinners were nomadic tribes from pre-agrarian societies, it is unlikely that they would have carried their rocks from camp to camp, and would use stones found at each new site for their spinning. A leader thread would be spun by twisting the fibers between the fingers to a desired length, then the resulting thread would be tied around the rock. The rock could then be rotated to spin the fibers as they are played out between the fingers. Spinning with rocks is still done in remote parts of Asia among the nomadic tribes.
A hooked stick is another ancient “tool” used for spinning. Whereas the rock would be used more like a dropspindle, a stick cut from the branches of a tree would be used to spin the fibers by rolling the stick horizontally along the length of your thigh to put twist into the fibers. The first sticks may have been straight, and were a natural outgrowth of rolling the fiber along the length of their leg to twist the fibers. As with the rock, the time and place of the origin of this spinning tool is unknown.
Eventually, man hit upon a way to combine both the rock and the stick to create a tool that could provide greater twisting momentum for improved ease in spinning the yarn. A whorl, often made of clay, bone or a soft rock, was attached to the spindle. The spindle could then be twisted by hand with the weighted end of the shaft suspended on the ground, or rolled along the thigh. It could also be used as a drop spindle, where the whorl could be placed at the top or bottom of the spindle. A variation of this style, the bead-whorl spindle, is considered to be the most widely-used style of spindle throughout history. It is specifically designed to spin fine yarns which require a lot of twist, and was in widespread use throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa where short-staple fibers such as cashmere, cotton and camel were used. These spindles often had slim shafts, a pointed end to reduce friction with the ground, and hooked or pointed tops so that it could be used for either suspended or drop spinning. The bead is usually an inch or less in diameter and made of a dense material like stone or metal so that it rotates quickly to provide a lot of twist. Some styles of bead-whorl spindles place the bead in the center of the spindle, so that the yarn can be spun both above and below the spindle.
Another type of weighted spindle that was commonly used was a cross-arm spindle, where a piece of wood or bone was attached to the bottom of the hooked spindle instead of a rounded whorl. These types of spindles were used exclusively as drop spindles, either twisted by hand or rolled along the thigh to start the rotation while the yarn is pulled out from the fibers. Eventually the cross-arm style was expanded upon to create a double cross-arm spindle, commonly known today as a “Turkish” dropspindle. This style was used across the Middle East, and is formed by two arms that interlock (often at right angles) at the bottom of the spindle to allow for more balanced spinning than the single-arm style. Some sets come with two sets of arms, so that you can use one set for thinner yarns and the second set for thicker yarns, and others come with arms of two different weights, allowing you three possible weight combinations for spinning on the spindle.
The most common form of dropspindle used today is known a hooked high-whorl spindle. This spindle has the whorl located less than half the length of the spindle, with a hook at the top. This type of dropspindle has been used since the twentieth century BCE in Egypt, where wall paintings depict spinners spinning and plying their yarns on hooked high-whorl spindles (Hochberg). Some spindles of this style have two whorls, one above the other, with a space to wind the yarn between the whorls. This type of spindle was in common use throughout the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Another variation of this style is the carved one-piece spindle, in which the spindle was made of lathe-turned wood with a wide top to act as a built-in whorl. These were most often used among European nobility of Italy, France and Spain in the 19th century, once spinning was taken up as a pastime instead of being a daily chore, and were often decorated with gilt and colored enamel.
Whereas high-whorl spindles were in common use in the East, drop spindles where the whorl was placed at the bottom of the spindle predominated Europe and Greco-Roman areas. These low-whorl spindles were most commonly used to spin longer-staple fibers such as linen, silk and wool, and are still in widespread use in India, Indonesia, Peru and the Philippines. Low-whorl dropspindles are second in popularity today to high-whorl spindles for most modern day spindle spinners.
Medieval spinners often used a distaff, (a stick with a fork or ornate comb on the tip used to hold long-staple fibers while spinning) to hold their fibers while they were spinning with a spindle. This stick was usually held under the left arm according to most pictures – meaning that the spinners would have had to set their spindles in motion with their right hand, and feeding their fiber with the right hand. In fact, the term “drop spindle” wasn’t common during that time period – you either spun “on the distaff” or “on the wheel.” In fact, use of the distaff was so common that the term “distaff side” of one’s family indicated relations on the maternal side of the family. Wool and flax were most commonly spun with distaff and dropspindle, even after spinning wheels became the popular tool of choice for spinning shorter-stapled wool and flax tow.
Unfortunately, there are no surviving examples early medieval spinning wheels, so one must look to artwork and historical records for evidence of their existence. Evidence of spinning wheels themselves do not appear in any historical records and artwork of the 13th century. In her book Spinning Wheels, Spinners and Spinning, Patricia Baines reports of written evidence to the presence of spinning wheels in Persia in 1257; and linguistic evidence that suggests they came to Persia from India, so it is entirely possible that they were in use prior to this time. The earliest known artwork depicting a spinning wheel comes from China around 1270 and depicts a “wheel” with long bamboo spokes. This wheel, as well as the Indian styles known as charkha wheels, were not rimed wheels at all, but rather had a string running through holes in the tips of the spokes connecting them in a zig-zag fashion, thus supporting the drive band. The drive band was connected to a spindle turned on it’s side where the whorl might be, and powered by a hand crank. The spinner would turn the hand crank with one hand and spin off of the end of the spindle with the other hand – thus the term “spindle wheel.”
While these rimless spindle wheels were in use in Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Italy and Switzerland, they did not reach Europe until the late 13th century. Baines reports a mention of spindle wheels in Speyer (now Germany) dating from 1298 that forbids the use of wheel-spun warp threads in weaving. Spindle wheels, as they can spin fibers with less gravity and twist, created a softer yarn that would not hold up to the warp tension as well as strong-spun warp threads. Baines notes: “The need for such a regulation surely indicates that spinning on the wheel was an established method by that time.” Unfortunately, there is not enough evidence in the document to define what fibers were being spun and what kind of wheel was being used.
Devices similar to spinning wheels with a conventional rim are pictured in windows of several French cathedrals dating back to the 13th century in Amiens and Chartes, areas known for their woolen goods in the medieval era. The pictures appear to show them being used as bobbin winders for finished yarns, as opposed to wheels for spinning yarns; but the use of a spinning wheel to spin wool seems to have developed in France and Flanders (Baines) Wheels used to spin wool appear in documentable evidence in Britain in the early 14th century as pictures in the Decretals of Gregory IX, a manuscript that was illustrated in England, and shows a woman carding, combing and spinning wool on a wheel. The Luttrell Psalter written and illustrated in East Anglia sometime between 1335-1340, illustrates wool carding and spinning on a wheel.
Oftentimes, these spindle wheels (with the exception of the small charkha wheels used in India) are called “great wheels.” This is not a medieval term, as smaller spinning wheels for comparison did not come into use until more modern times. These smaller wheels, like the ones made by Ashford, Louet, Majacraft and others, were developed late in the medieval period to allow spinners easier handling of the longer staple fibers like linen and combed wools. Baines speculates that the silk reeling and throwing mills of 13th century Italy may have inspired the development of these wheels, as flyers were used to load spun yarn onto bobbins. The thread was twisted as it left the bobbin, rather than being twisted and then loaded onto the bobbin as seen in modern flyer wheels. The first published discussion of these machines doesn’t appear until 1607, yet there is documentation that the technology for these reeling machines was brought from Lucca to Bologna in 1272, and to Florence and Venice in the mid 14th century. Apparently the weaving Guilds made every attempt at keeping the existence of these reeling machines a secret. (Baines)
The earliest known record of a flyer wheel appears in the form of a picture from southern Germany, dated from 1475-1480, and shows flax spinning. Other pictures from the Low Countries dating from the early 1500s show small flyer wheels being used to spin wool. Leonardo da Vinci himself even worked on the mechanics of creating a flyer wheel, as evidenced in his notes of 1490, but he did not invent the flyer wheel itself. (Baines) Just as with the spindle wheels, these flyer wheels were turned with a hand crank. The foot treadle present on most modern spinning wheels was an even later addition, but there seems to be little agreement as to their era of origin. In her book A Weaver’s Garden, Rita Buchannan refers to “the development of the flyer and the treadle-driven wheel in the 15th and 16th centuries.” However, Patricia Baines states that “There still seems to be no definite evidence (for foot treadles) before the 17th century.”
Regardless of the method and device used, as long as you are twisting fibers together to create yarn, you are spinning. You can get a good quality dropspindle for as low as $5 that will give you yarn just as good as you can get on a spinning wheel, which usually starts around $300. No matter how much you spend on your tools, or how historically accurate your methods, as long as you are creating yarn and enjoying yourself, you are keeping this once vital part of our history alive.
Baines, Patricia. Spinning Wheels, Spinners and Spinning. McMinnville: Robin & Russ Handweavers.
Buchannan, Rita. A Weaver’s Garden. New York: Dover Publications, 1999 ed.
Hochberg, Bette. Handspindles. Santa Cruz: Bette & Bernard Hochberg. 6th printing. 1993.
Vester, Paula. Textile History. Stone Mountain: World In A Spin. 1995.
|return to the main index|
|
<urn:uuid:e74aec03-b977-46fa-9546-bc2e3d05ec1f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://kws.atlantia.sca.org/spinning.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00097-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.972197 | 3,556 | 4.09375 | 4 |
is an unincorporated city located in the , a border region between Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara Prefectures of Japan. (It is about 25 km from the center of Kyoto, 30 km from Umeda, Osaka.) The name is commonly shortened to or . The city was constructed to help the advancement of creative arts, sciences, and research, as well as to spur the creation of new industries and cultures.
Kansai Science City is located in portions of the following eight and , in three prefectures:
Out of these, Seika and Kizu in Kyoto Prefecture are completely inside the Kansai Science City.
The overall area of the Kansai Science City is 150 km², with an estimated population of 410,000. There are 12 "Culture and Scientific Research Districts" within the Kansai Science City, encompassing 36 km², with an estimated population of 210,000.
|
<urn:uuid:9f4204cc-8bcd-4027-8e7b-e98be9f32064>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://pages.rediff.com/kansai-science-city/1458656
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.95142 | 192 | 2.6875 | 3 |
PTE101: Applied Technology A (2012-2013)
CURRICULUM PROGRAM: Career and Technical Education
COURSE TITLE: Applied Technology A
CALENDAR YEAR: 2012-2013
GRADE LEVEL: 5-8
COURSE LENGTH: 36 weeks
Major Concepts/Content: The applied technology course provides students an introduction to various forms of technology and technical systems. Career opportunities will also be explored. Students will often work in teams involved in problem solving activities. Activities may include, but are not limited to, agriculture, biotechnology, information, computer, production and manufacturing, robotics, electronics, residential construction, architecture, health services, environmental systems, entrepreneurship, aerospace, transportation, communication, and power and energy technologies. Other activities, listed on the course objectives, will be incorporated to enhance the educational experience.
Major Instructional Activities: This course provides for academic, technical, and social growth. Instructional activities provide hands-on experiences with tools, materials, and state-of-the-art equipment. This modular based program enables all students to broaden their knowledge through practical experience. The course content includes the integration of mathematics, science, humanities and applied engineering concepts.
Major Evaluative Techniques: Students will be evaluated through a variety of methods such as portfolios, rubrics, practical tests, and craftsmanship of final products. Projects will be analyzed and evaluated for meeting the essential objectives, creativity, and presentation quality. In addition, the students will be evaluated on their ability to work cooperatively together, solve problems, and maintain ethical standards.
Course Objectives: Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
- Define technology and recognize its impact.
- Apply problem-solving strategies to the design process in order to create potential solutions.
- Demonstrate methods of graphic representation of ideas.
- Demonstrate the proper use of metric and customary measuring systems.
- Utilize tools, materials, and processes safely to produce models or prototypes.
|
<urn:uuid:2e7c5fb1-5a41-4b50-9bb3-057c49e09e90>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.dodea.edu/Curriculum/Course-Details.cfm?courseid=B198EDF0-08EA-03C6-9FC5D6F9C1C4A79E
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.896083 | 411 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Dawson County, Texas
& POST OFFICES
1889 - 1930
DAWSON COUNTY. Dawson County (D-9) lies on the eastern edge of the Llano Estacado on the southern High Plains. The center point of the county is at 32°45' north latitude and 101°57' west longitude, sixty miles south of Lubbock. The county comprises 902 square miles of rolling prairie, broken on the east. The land, surfaced with sandy and loam soils, drains to playas. The altitude ranges from 2,600 to 3,200 feet above mean sea level. The average annual rainfall is 16.09 inches. The average minimum temperature in January is 28° F; the maximum average in July is 94°. The growing season averages 212 days. The county is crossed by Sulphur Springs Draw, a natural trail used by the Indians since prehistoric times and by the first white men who entered the South Plains. The area was the summer home of Comanches and Kiowas, who moved from waterhole to waterhole in a region that white men supposed waterless. A portion of the future county was included in a Mexican grant issued to Dr. John Cameron on May 21, 1827. Cameron contracted to settle 100 families, but there is no record of any attempt to carry out the contract.
In the fall of 1875 the Twenty-fourth United States Infantry, commanded by Col. William Rufus Shafter, visited the area to prepare a report on the local Indians. On October 18, 1875, the company discovered an Indian encampment at Laguna Sabinas or Cedar Lake, the legendary birthplace of Quanah Parker; the band, however, escaped to the west. The Shafter party made the first wagon roads on the plains and reported favorably on grazing conditions, but the Indian menace remained too severe for immediate settlement. The Nolan expedition of 1877 got lost in the area of the future Dawson and Lynn counties, and several members of the party of sixty died of thirst. Buffalo hunters, more than soldiers, were probably responsible for driving the Indians from the area. A surveying party for Texas and Pacific Railway lands in 1875 reported the presence of thousands of buffalo, and hunters moved in. As cattlemen learned that the grass on the Plains would produce fat cattle, ranchmen moved from the Lower Plains south of the Caprock to the new lands. By the mid-1880s four ranches, C. C. Slaughter's, Lazy S, the TJF, the Fish, and the Bartow, occupied most of the land in Dawson County. The Texas and Pacific reached Big Spring in neighboring Howard County in 1881, and that community served as the shipping point for the area. By 1890 there were 28,536 cattle reported in the county.
The first decade of the twentieth century was a time of dramatic growth for Dawson County, as the population jumped from thirty-seven people in 1900 to 2,320 in 1910, and the number of ranches and farms increased from four to 330. Between 1902 and 1905, as the grazing leases expired, Dawson County lands were filed on for settlement. Prospective settlers waited in line in Big Spring for as long as six weeks when choice pieces of land were released. In 1907 the first railroad land was sold at from three to five dollars an acre. One large ranch was not opened for settlers until 1946, when it sold for sixty-five dollars an acre. The first school in Dawson County began in one room of the Mullins ranch house in 1902. The first church was organized by the Baptists in Chicago in 1904, but the Methodists built the first church building in Lamesa in 1907; it was used alternately by four communions on successive Sundays. The first post office was north of Lamesa at the Bartow ranch headquarters, where residents produced a wagonload of mail to prove to postal authorities that a post office was needed. They were so impressed by the amount of their own handiwork that they humorously named their post office Chicago. That same year, the Dawson County News was begun by J. E. Garrison and the Dawson County Bank was organized. Dawson County, named for Nicholas Mosby Dawson, had been formed on August 21, 1876, but was attached to Howard County for judicial purposes until February 13, 1905, when separate organization was authorized. Dawson County's first election to choose officials and select the county seat was held on March 20, 1905. The contesting towns, Lamesa and Chicago, were only two miles apart. Lamesa won by five votes, but a movement was already afoot to consolidate the towns and all businesses and residences in Chicago were moved into Lamesa. After six years of effort to secure a railroad, the Santa Fe was built into Lamesa in 1911.
Although the first bale of cotton produced in the county was grown in 1903, cotton did not become a main crop until 1914 or 1915. During World War I prices were good for the bumper crops produced. Settlers poured in, bought pieces of the newly partitioned ranches, and sent land prices soaring. More than 24,000 acres was planted in cotton by 1920; in 1930, 182,527 acres, well more than 60 percent of all county cropland harvested, was devoted to cotton production. The county population grew to 4,309 by 1920 and increased almost threefold during the 1920s to reach 13,373 in 1930. However, by 1930, under the impact of adverse farming conditions and prices, almost 70 percent of the county's 2,218 farms were worked by tenants. The Great Depression caused many businesses to fail, but other industries that developed in the county during the 1930s partially offset these losses. The dairy industry prospered. A powdered-milk plant built in 1929 was closed by the depression but began seasonal operation in 1932 making powdered eggs. Oil development began in 1934. Twenty-eight wells were producing in the Welch community and two in the southeastern part of the county in 1946. Intermittent wildcatting has continued. In 1940 the county had a population of 15,367. Agriculture was more diversified, as county farmers grew sorghum on twice as much land as was planted with cotton. During World War IIqv Dawson County provided more men per capita for the armed services than did any other county in Texas. Despite critical farm-labor shortages, an organization of merchants, farmers, and the chamber of commerce met every agricultural quota set for the county. The egg-drying plant turned its entire facilities over to lend-lease production. Dawson County was one of the five counties in the state to win the coveted Army-Navy "E" award. Lamesa Field, an army airfield, was established in 1942 and deactivated two years later.
Irrigation was introduced into the county in the late 1940s, and cotton once again dominated the agricultural economy, with some 300,000 acres planted in 1950 and more than 180,000 in 1960. The county population reached 19,113 in 1950 and an all-time high of 19,185 in 1960, but declined thereafter to 16,604 in 1970 and 16,184 in 1980. New agricultural methods and the increasing use of farming technology saw the number of farms in the county shrink from a peak of more than 2,000 in 1930 to 841 in 1960 and 581 in 1980. The population of the county was predominantly white through the 1930s. In 1930 there were only 261 African Americansqv in the county, or some 2 percent of the population. The number of blacks increased to 537 in 1950 and 873, or 5 percent of the county population, in 1970. Thereafter the number of black residents began to decline. The Hispanic population of Dawson County began to increase dramatically in the mid-twentieth century. Almost 40 percent of the population was Hispanic in 1980 and more than 42 percent in 1990. Politically, the county held to the Democratic party in national elections through 1964, with the exceptions of 1928, 1952, and 1960. From 1968 through 1992 Dawson County voters consistently supported Republican presidential candidates.
The mainstays of the county economy in the 1980s were agribusiness and oil. Dawson County was second in the state in cotton production in 1980, and through the 1980s cotton continued to be the most important agricultural product. Sorghum and wheat were also important crops, and cattle and hogs were raised. Between the first discovery of oil and 1990, oil production totaled 294,809,170 barrels. In 1990 the county population was 14,349. County towns included Lamesa (10,809), Ackerly (153 in Dawson County), O'Donnell (134 in Dawson County) and Los Ybanez (83).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dawson County Historical Commission, Dawson County History (Lubbock: Taylor, 1981). Matthew Clay Lindsey, The Trail of Years in Dawson County (Fort Worth: Wallace, 1958?). Leona M. Gelin and Mark Odintz
Laura Gregory Roberts, County Coordinator
Content of this site has been gathered from many sources and transcribed records. Therefore, errors may occur. When in doubt as to the accuracy of data contained herein, go to the actual records yourself. If you find any inaccurate data, please let me know. The information contained in this website is for your personal use only. All pages, compilations, transcriptions and abstracts are protected by copyright law and may not be published in whole or in part without written consent of the author, contributor and/or webmaster.
Permission is given to copy small portions of this website for personal use only. This entire file and/or website may not be copied or duplicated. Commercial use is prohibited without expressed written permission. That includes, but is not limited to, all photographs.
|
<urn:uuid:1fb71c3d-b2e2-4177-afe6-91d89848f037>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txdawson/history.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.970692 | 2,018 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Editor’s note: Andrew Hartman, son of farmers Mary and Bryan Hartman, wrote about his family’s farm recently and highlighted the modern way his family farms. Andrew just completed his sophomore year at Brophy Prep in Phoenix and hopes to one day fly for the military. And when done serving his country, perhaps come home and work on the family farm. He originally wrote the following article for a school project with a collage of photos. Andrew gave Julie Murphree of the Arizona Farm Bureau, permission to run the story on Julie’s Fresh Air and here. He is currently helping his dad on the farm this summer.
By Andrew Hartman, young farmer and aspiring pilot
Santa Cruz Ranch is a 1,200-acre farm based in Stanfield, Arizona. From cattle and horses to cotton and corn, there’s a little bit of everything here.
The two most important crops grown here are alfalfa and cotton with several hundred acres of each being grown each year.
Now days, most of the work is done by machines with the exception of irrigation which is still done by hand using siphon hoses to pull the water out of the ditch and into the field. The Central Arizona Project (CAP) canals are the main source of water but during the summer this is supplemented by the city of Casa Grande’s runoff water which is completely free.
There is never a dull day on the farm and there is always a lot to do from planting to landplaning to irrigating to tilling and mulching.
Most of the crops grown on the farm are from genetically modified seed. The Santa Cruz Ranch uses hundreds of bags of seed each year. One of our crops planted with genetically modified seed, for example, is Roundup Ready Corn.
- Mortimer Family Farms Establishes Roots on the Site Formerly Known as Young’s Farms (fillyourplate.org)
- Modern-Day Farms: “A Billion Acts of Green” (fillyourplate.org)
- Spring Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing (fillyourplate.org)
|
<urn:uuid:e6261257-101c-4b2f-a8f8-f033ef6fac63>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://fillyourplate.org/blog/santa-cruz-ranch-the-modern-farm-2/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.957794 | 440 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Although cruise ships get most of the attention when it comes to norovirus outbreaks, a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study, released yesterday, found that the majority of cases are linked to food service settings. Food service workers who handle food with bare hands are blamed for the food contamination that is responsible for 64 percent of the country’s norovirus cases. Catering and banquet facilities accounted for 17 percent of outbreaks. Only 1 percent of cases are attributed to cruise ships.
The CDC study looked at data from state, territory and local health departments between 2009 and 2012 on norovirus outbreaks reported through the National Outbreak Reporting System. Over the four-year period, health departments reported 1,008 norovirus outbreaks. Contamination in private residences, healthcare facilities, schools and daycare were linked to 6 percent of outbreak reports.
Norovirus is highly contagious, and can be spread wherever groups of people gather and food is served. Approximately 20 million people contract the virus each year through direct contact with infected people or through contaminated food. While infection is generally not life threatening — most people experience a few uncomfortable days of diarrhea and vomiting — the very young and the elderly can develop serious complications. Severe dehydration and malnutrition, which can be fatal, threatens those with compromised immune systems.
To reduce incidents of contamination, The CDC is recommending that food service managers provide training for employees in proper hygiene, regular hand washing and proper food handling. Kitchen managers and food service workers should obtain certification in food safety. Because 90 percent of contamination comes from handling ready-to-eat foods, such as fruit and sandwiches, with bare hands, use of disposable gloves and utensils are recommended rather than directly touching food.
CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden urges food service businesses to implement policies that encourage sick employees to stay home. In a CDC telebriefing, Frieden notes that employees understandably fear losing their jobs if they must call in sick, therefore the burden of keeping ill workers away from food meant for public consumption falls on management. Dr. Frieden recommends offering paid sick leave and having in place a system to call in substitute workers.
“It is vital that food service workers stay home if they are sick; otherwise, they risk contaminating food that many people will eat.” — Dr. Aron Hall, CDC Division of Viral Diseases
This study does clear up the misconception that norovirus outbreaks are primarily a hazard of cruise travel. Incidents of outbreaks onboard cruise ships do regularly make the news. Ships are required to report illnesses to health officials, unlike restaurants, and therefore norovirus outbreaks at sea do receive more media attention.
|
<urn:uuid:2a46a9fd-e815-4a0f-8141-382822a2d112>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.examiner.com/article/norovirus-contamination-most-often-found-restaurants-not-on-cruise-ships?cid=rss
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.949467 | 539 | 3.015625 | 3 |
A model of genealogical continuity across 2,500 years thus proved to best fit the observed data for Volterra, and especially Casentino, but not for another community dwelling in an area also rich with Etruscan archaeological remains (Murlo), nor (as expected) for the bulk of the current Tuscan population, here represented by a forensic sample of the inhabitants of Florence.and:
As for the second question, the IM analysis shows that indeed there might have been a genealogical link between modern Tuscans and the inhabitants of what Herodotus considered the Etruscans’ homeland, Western Anatolia. However, even under the unrealistic assumption of complete reciprocal isolation for millennia, the likely separation of the Tuscan and Anatolian gene pools must be placed long before the onset of the Etruscan culture, at least in Neolithic times; if isolation was incomplete, the estimated separation must be placed further back in time. Consistent with this view is the observation that Etruscan and Neolithic mtDNAs are close to each other in the two-dimensional plot of Figure S4C; however, a formal test would be necessary to draw firm conclusions from the simple observation of a genetic similarity. Separation times were very close when estimated both using a sample from Western Anatolia, and an expanded sample including individuals from much of Anatolia, and so the choice of the Anatolian population does not seem to affect the results of this analysis.As always with estimates in years, the choice of mutation rate may affect results, but I am reasonably confident that this particular result does not depend on such issues. From the paper:
For these tests we chose the mutation rate (μ) estimated from the data in the previous ABC analyses (very close to the figure accounting for the time-dependency of the mitochondrial molecular clock , μ = 0.003). Tests were also run using the value incorporating a correction for the effects of purifying selection (μ = 0.0014), always finding that it results in a further increase of the estimated separation times (Figure S7B). Only assuming very high mutation rates, at least twice as large as estimated in Henn et al. , was it possible to obtain separation times less than 5,000 years (Figure S7B). With both Anatolian samples, any degree of gene flow after separation between the ancestors of Tuscans and Anatolians resulted in more remote separation times.A couple of observations:
That things did happen in Italy in the last 5,000 years can be inferred on the basis of the Iceman's genome. It will certainly be interesting to extract Y chromosomes and/or autosomal DNA from some of these Etruscan samples.
A different issue that may bias dates upwards is the occurrence of East Eurasian mtDNA in current Anatolian Turks. It is not clear by how much this would affect age estimates (this admixture is low, sub-10%, but from a population that split off from West Eurasians perhaps more than 40kya); it would nonetheless be useful to repeat the experiment after either (i) purging the Anatolian sample of lineages likely to have introgressed into the population in medieval times, or (ii) using a different West Asian sample other than that of Anatolian Turks.
In any case, it's great to finally have the genetic characterization of a historical European people, and hopefully more samples will follow both from Italy (at least from those who practiced inhumation) and elsewhere.
PLoS ONE 8(2): e55519. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0055519
Origins and Evolution of the Etruscans’ mtDNA
Silvia Ghirotto et al.
The Etruscan culture is documented in Central Italy (current Tuscany and Northern Latium, formerly known as Etruria) between the 8th and the 1st century BC. Questions about the Etruscans’ origins and fate have been around for millennia. Herodotus and Livy regarded them as immigrants, respectively from Lydia, i.e. Western Anatolia, or from North of the Alps, whereas for Dionysius of Halicarnassus they were an autochthonous population . Previous DNA studies, far from settling the issue, have raised further questions. The Etruscans’ mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) appear similar, but seldom identical, to those currently observed in Tuscany , . Assuming reasonable effects of genetic drift and mutation, these levels of resemblance proved incompatible with the notion that modern Tuscans are descended from Etruscan ancestors , . Explanations for this result include the (extreme) possibility that the Etruscans became extinct, but also that their modern descendants are few and geographically dispersed, or that the ancient sample studied represents a small social elite rather than the entire population . As for the Etruscans’ origins, ancient DNA is of little use, because pre-Etruscan dwellers of Central Italy, of the Villanovan culture, cremated their dead , and hence their genetic features are unknown. DNAs from modern humans and cattle in Tuscany show affinities with Near Eastern DNAs, which was interpreted as supporting Herodotus’ narrative , , but in these studies modern Tuscans were assumed to be descended from Etruscan ancestors, in contrast with ancient DNA evidence . The claim that systematic errors in the Etruscan DNA sequences led to flawed genealogical inference , is not supported by careful reanalysis of the data .
|
<urn:uuid:4056bbe7-c1f3-45ac-89e8-d469206d46e1>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/02/etruscan-mtdna-origins-ghirotto-et-al.html?m=0
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00188-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.944451 | 1,159 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Welcome to Broken Bones Guide
Broken Bones With Steel Plate Pain Article
. For a permanent link to this article, or to bookmark it for further reading, click here.
You may also listen to this article by using the following controls.
The Broken Bones Basicsfrom:
Most people never see a bone unless they experience broken bones in their lifetime. A bone is living tissue in the body that is comprised of two components. The ends of the bone and the interior of bones are made of trabecular bone and the outside portion of the bone is called cortical. You have short bones, long bones, flat bones and lots of bones with unusual shapes. It is amazing how all these bones come together to form the flexible and moving skeleton.
Bones are hard and usually must endure trauma before breaking. There are medical conditions though, such as osteoporosis, which can cause bones to unexpectedly break. Broken bones are called fractures and can be mere rifts in the bones or a complete break. Naturally the worse the break, the more it hurts, especially if its an open fracture. In an open fracture, the bones has broken through the skin. Of course, some people actually break a bone and do not know it is broken. The pain is more like an ache so they ignore the problem until it worsens.
Broken bones are traumatic. The body is a system and everything is interconnected. When a bone breaks it can cause the whole body to go into shock. Most people do not really understand how to deal with a broken bone. Most first aid kits are designed for skin trauma, but that is as deep as the emergency care goes. It is the initial handling of the broken bones that can make a big difference in how quickly the bone heals.
When you believe someone may have one or more broken bones, the first thing to do is convince the person to lie still. Until you know exactly which bones are broken, you do not want the person to move and potentially cause more damage. People have been known to cause additional trauma to surrounding soft tissue as a result of improperly moving the bones.
In real life situations, most people who suspect a leg or arm bone has been broken usually have someone drive them to the hospital. If you do this the broken bones should be stabilized by immobilizing the bone area. For example, a pillow can be gently held under an arm for a cushion and support. If you suspect any of the broken bones are in the skull, neck or back, the person should not be moved at all. In this case, calling the emergency responders is the correct procedure.
Of course, there are some broken bones they can do very little to help. If you break your tailbone or small tail bone, the cure is allowing enough time for healing. The bones are inaccessible to splints or casts. If you go camping a lot or indulge in sports which frequently cause injuries, your first aid kit should contain field bone cast material for temporary aid.
Broken bones can be very painful, but with proper first aid, long term damage can often be prevented.
Broken Bones With Steel Plate Pain News
Selena Gomez was in good company recently when she danced with a very special little girl. Seven-year-old Audrey Nethery was reportedly at a recent meet-and-greet during Gomez’s “Revival Tour” and got to sing and dance with Selena. Gomez does enjo...
Bluegrass music patriarch Ralph Stanley dies at 89
Article extract not available. Link to the source for the full article....
|
<urn:uuid:57197604-9f9a-4311-bed0-00d0fbf30f07>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://firstaid.ehealthport.com/bones/broken-bones-with-steel-plate-pain.php
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.941739 | 728 | 3.4375 | 3 |
The human body is weird. A U.K. man recently underwent surgery to remove a tooth growing in his ear. And who could forget the tale of the newborn baby who had a fully-formed foot growing in its brain!? Crazy, right? But, as it turns out, it’s not just the occasional misplaced tooth or aberrant foot, everybody is a freak. According to a recent discovery: we can taste with our lungs.
Researchers at the Maryland School of Medicine recently published their findings regarding a strange discovery: we all have bitter taste receptors growing in our bronchial tissue. The team came upon the find accidentally while pursuing unrelated research into muscle receptors in the lungs.
The bitter taste receptors are the exact same kind located on the tongue, but with two differences: unlike on the tongue, the lung receptors are not bunched into taste buds, and they don’t seem to communicate directly to the brain.
However, these findings may have very real implications for asthma patients. Bitter taste receptors tend to tighten or constrict muscle tissue around them. These lung receptors may exist for a very practical reason: to prevent bitter-tasting plant based poisons from entering the body. But in asthma patients, these reactors may become stimulated by man-made chemicals that they mistake for naturally-occurring plant toxins.
|
<urn:uuid:2b039460-0bcd-41cb-95a6-b16de1840627>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.geek.com/gadgets/new-geek-cetera-you-have-taste-receptors-in-your-lungs-1359577/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958819 | 269 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Canada has not been in complete favor with Americans recently
due to various current events, such as the Northern neighbor’s
decision not to participate in the Iraqi War and more
recently its controversial plans to ease up on marijuana
laws. But this hasn’t affected U.S. families who
have relatives residing in Canada. For them, visits across
the border are frequent—and welcome.
There are U.S./Canada border stations set up from coast
to coast. Crossing them requires some identification
but it’s usually a quick process for citizens
of either country. Crossings are generally a short distance
over a bridge or, as in the Detroit-Windsor passage,
Anyone who’s traveled there knows that life in
Canada is very similar to life in the U.S.. They find
familiar store names, the same style of dress, the same
holiday weekends, and the same lifestyles in many cases.
So why is it that Americans seem to know so little
about their neighbors to the North?
There are a number of reasons. Canada, despite being
the second-largest country in the world in land area
(Russia is the only one bigger), has only 30 million
people compared with over 200 million in the U.S.. California
has a bigger population than Canada. Canada is also
much younger, having become a country only 136 years
ago in 1867 (though, much like the U.S., it celebrates
its independence in early July; Canada Day is July 1).
The above information and a lot more can be found out
by exploring Web sites. Start by checking out http://www.canada.worldweb.com,
where you’ll find articles, information, a photo
gallery, Web cams, and an interactive map.
Another good place to begin a discovery tour is at
the Government of Canada’s Web site at http://canada.gc.ca,
where you’ll find links to a wealth of information
about Canada. What you’ll notice first is that
you have to choose the language you want to view the
site in. Since Canada is officially bilingual, you’ll
find that the French language is quite prevalent, especially
within the government, where the law requires that both
languages be used. You’ll notice food products
contain both languages as well.
Besides wondering if everyone in Canada speaks French
(French is the mother tongue of only 25 percent of the
Canadian population), what else do Americans want to
know about Canada? The images most connected to Canada
(in Americans’ minds) are snow ... beavers ...
the maple leaf ... Molson ... and Mounties.
Those things are definitely part of the culture of
Canadians. But there’s more, much more. Visit
the Culture Canada Web site at http://culturecanada.gc.ca.
Delve into various areas of history, beginning many
centuries ago when the country was populated with native
peoples. You’ll be able to follow the history
through the British colonization and eventually its
formation as a country, when the United Empire Loyalists
formed English Canada.
Whether you’re looking for information on society,
government, land, or economy, or information on such
topics as veterans, Canada’s space program, or
health, you’ll find it at this site.
You might prefer to check out information that’s
not posted by the government. There’s a vast array
of sites you’ll find of interest. You can actually
tour Canada from your computer at http://www.tourcanada.com/tours.htm.
The site takes you along some of the more famous sites
in the country. Start off at #1 to get some facts about
Canada and its provinces (the equivalent of states),
then check out each spot along the map for some sightseeing,
where you’ll gain even more knowledge about the
country and some of its highlights.
There’s also a Canadiana resource page at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/Unofficial/Canadiana
that’s got a wealth of information. You’ve
probably already seen some of this information, but
look for some of the unique things, such as the lyrics
to “In Flanders Fields,” which is a famous
war poem written by Canadian John McCrea. Sports, music,
and educational highlights are also offered through
As you surf, you’ll likely notice that words
like “neighbour” are spelled with a “u”
in them. That’s because Canada has traditionally
used the British spelling. Canadians have done that
since 1890, when John A. Macdonald (the first Prime
Minister) ruled in “favour” of the “u”
so that the same system would be used throughout all
of the British Empire. You’ll also find that there
are many words that are exclusively Canadian. Canadians
turn on the tap and not the faucet. They also use the
metric system, so you’ll find highway signs in
kilometers, not miles, and milk in liters, not gallons.
Of course, you won’t find as many discrepancies
in things like newspapers, which follow a style guide.
American television is also prevalent in Canadian homes.
Canada did, however, pass a law requiring Canadian stations
to provide a certain percentage of Canadian content.
Though Canada is not as advanced in television and
movies, more and more Canadian productions are becoming
available. Remember the popularity of Due South on American
stations a few years back? The show, about a Canadian
Mountie in Chicago, was the first Canadian-made series
to earn a prime-time slot on a major U.S. network. It
explored some of the stereotypes that exist between
Canada and the United States. You can view the official
Due South Web site at http://www.duesouth.com
or go to one of the many other sites dedicated to the
show at http://home.hiwaay.net/~warydbom/duesouth.htm.
Mountie is actually a slang term for Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP is unique in that it
is a national, federal, provincial, and municipal policing
body providing policing services to all provinces except
Ontario and Quebec. Sir John A. MacDonald formed the
RCMP in Canada’s early days to maintain order
in what is now Alberta and Saskatchewan. Learn more
by checking out the RCMP home page at http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/index_e.htm.
Genealogists may be familiar with http://www.cyndislist.com/gencan.htm,
a Web site that offers a vast amount of information
about Canadian genealogy information. Though not a Canadian
site, its categorized and cross-referenced index to
genealogical resources on the Internet is one of the
best resources for Canadian genealogy found online.
Still looking for those things that make Canada Canadian?
Like Tim Horton’s coffee, Molson Canadian beer,
and Canadian back bacon? What about the beaver and the
maple leaf? Odds are, you’ll find some of this
information on the more than 300 pages at Canada Info
Don’t miss the link on Canadian-isms to find out
some of the lingo that’s special to Canadians.
Still haven’t seen enough? There’s a wealth
of information at Oh Canada at http://www.ualberta.ca/~bleeck/canada,
which says it is attempting to define what it is to
be Canadian through looking at the multicultural fabric,
history, symbols, and values of the country.
Getting back to understanding how Canada deals with
political and world issues (such as Prime Minister Chretien’s
stand on the war in Iraq), you’ll find information
Take the time to explore these Canadian sites, and
next time there’s a question about Canada on one
of those television game shows, you’ll be one
American who knows the answers.
|
<urn:uuid:9ce08dcb-4eea-4598-beb2-5c33d69ad385>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.infotoday.com/linkup/lud090103-clark.shtml
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00103-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.909601 | 1,797 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Obesity poses greater dangers to birds than to other animals.
Overweight birds are more common than you may think, and unfortunately, the health effects of excess fat can be quite serious. Among the more serious dangers related to bird obesity is the development of hepatic lipidosis.
In birds, excess fat is stored in the liver. When liver cells become filled with too much fat, the cells no longer function properly and may, in time, be destroyed. This condition is called hepatic lipidosis. Over time, liver function may be reduced to the point that it can no longer support life.
Symptoms: Some of the symptoms of hepatic lipidosis include:
- Loss of appetite
- Distended abdomen
- Breathing difficulty
- Seizures and/or tremors
- Beak softening
The best way to protect your bird from hepatic lipidosis is to make sure that he maintains a proper weight. A bird is considered to be overweight if their optimum weight is exceeded by 15 percent or more. Below is a list of a few of the more common bird types and their approximate ideal weights:
Weight Guidelines for Birds
|Blue Fronted Amazon
|African Gray Parrot
|Yellow Nape Amazon
Causes of obesity:
How a bird becomes obese is simple: he takes in more calories than he’s using. Diets that contain large proportions of sunflower seeds, peanuts and walnuts, all of which are high in fat, can be a major factor in weight gain. However, any diet can be harmful if it is consumed in large amounts with little or no restrictions.
Another factor is genetics, which can also play a role in determining predisposition to obesity. For example, Amazon parrots, cockatiels, cockatoos and parakeets (budgies) seem to have more than their fair share of overweight members, and female birds and older birds are also at increased risk.
How to slim down:
If your bird is overweight, what’s the next step? There are some simple things you can do to increase your bird’s activity level.
- One of the easiest changes is to place food and water dishes on opposite sides of the cage. You can also put one dish higher than the other, so your bird is forced to climb around the cage more. (Just be sure your bird can find the new locations of the food and water!)
- Cage size also can be increased to provide more area for exercise, and for those birds that have access to “out of cage” activities, they should be allowed and encouraged to do so more often.
- Changing cage toys more often also can provide increased stimulation and thus more activity.
Feed restriction may not be the best choice because it won’t satisfy hunger and can cause vitamin and mineral deficiency. You may want to consider changing over to a scientifically formulated pelleted diet, but typically, birds that have previously been fed a high fat diet, do not find these diets especially appealing. If you decide to go from a seed diet to a pellet diet, keep in mind your bird will need to be weaned slowly and you need to be sure that your bird is getting enough to eat during the process. It is highly recommended that you initiate dietary changes - with the help of a veterinary professional for weekly weight checks - to ensure your bird is not starving himself.
It’s important to remember that birds will live longer and healthier lives when kept lean. Always seek advice from a veterinary professional before attempting any radical weight loss program. If veterinary advice and nutritional counseling are not readily available, it is safer to increase exercise alone without drastic dietary changes.
|
<urn:uuid:0245768f-bda1-474f-b9b1-0019b9edb632>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.hartz.com/Birds/Health_and_Nutrition/Health/is_bird_overweight.aspx
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.934843 | 757 | 3.703125 | 4 |
At the Castle Valley Special Service District Meeting on Sept. 18, the board discussed the recent taste and odor problems with the Castle Dale and Orangeville water, and possible future solutions.
The district had received several reports of a musty-earthy smell and taste of the water. After researching the problem, they found that there is an excess of algae coming out of Joe's Valley Reservoir. They also discovered a second problem with a moss type material in the river, which is coating all the screens, rocks and bottom of the river. This moss material looks like strings of cotton and is very thick. It is believed that both of these problems are seasonal problems, due to the drought and the heat of the summer.
Algae in the water can contribute taste and odor in water supplies. Algae produce two compounds that cause taste and odor. They are geosmin, an earthy smelling compound, and MIB (methylisoborneal), a musty-smelling compound. Water samples were sent to the Utah State Health Lab to test for geosmin and MIB. The test results showed Castle Dale at 49 parts per trillion and Orangeville at 38 parts per trillion. Almost everyone can taste these compounds at 20 parts per trillion.
To help solved the taste and odor problems, they added a chemical called potassium permanganate. This is an oxidant that is commonly used for taste and odor control. There was not much change so they increased the amount added, until they added too much, which in turn caused the water to have a brownish-tan tint to it. None of the above tastes, odor or color is dangerous to health, so residents don't need to worry about health risks.
There are two possible solutions to the problem. The first is to change the material in the current filters to PVDF. This would make it safe to use chlorine, oxidants and powdered activated carbon. Carbon would be the most effective solution. It is a powder that would be added before the water enters the filters. The board contacted the companies that manufacture the current filters and they did not recommend putting the carbon through them. The board, if they choose this solution, would do a pilot unit first and test it. They would probably need to build a building to feed carbon into the system.
The second solution would be to run a pipe from Joe's Valley Dam to the water treatment plant. The Emery Water Conservancy District has drilled wells up by Joe's Valley that have produced enough water to run the plant. The water is clean and clear. The pipe would most likely have to be run down the middle of the road.
The board will look into these options and present new information at the next meeting.
The board also reviewed the 2003 construction projects. The Orangeville chip seal project is waiting for the paint stripers to come. The board has informed the company that if the stripers are not here when scheduled, they will hire their own stripers and deduct the cost out of the project. Darrel Leamaster will contact the company. All other items for this project have been completed.
The SR-10 water relocation project had not been started, but was scheduled to start relaying line on Sept. 24.
The Ferron Lagoon relocation project is waiting for a written appraisal, and purchase contract. Jeff Richards, attorney, is writing up the contract. Mike Wolfe is sending a letter of intent, to sell the land. They will most likely not take ownership until Jan. 1, 2004.
The curb and gutter projects have all been completed, final inspection was on Sept. 16, and the punchlist will be completed within a few weeks.
The street project is nearly complete, all asphalt has been laid except one street in Huntington, where meters had to be raised.
The Ferron Canyon Road project has been researched. Nielson's Construction collected four test samples. These samples have shown the road consists of three chip seal coats, three inches of asphalt that are very rich and contain too much oil, and then three more inches of asphalt, which are fine, then there are four inches of roadbase on top of two inches of asphalt, and then the natural materials. The road will be rotomilled and reasphalted. Nielson's would like to split the cost three ways between Ferron City, Nielson's and the Special Service District.
The board then reported on the 2004 CIB application. The application has been accepted for a $1,273,300 loan, with a 2.5 percent interest rate, and an eight year repayment schedule, as well as a $636,700 grant. The application may be discussed further in the December meeting, but the board has been told that the application is looking good.
Secondary irrigation systems were also discussed at the meeting. August usage was about average. Mark Mansfield, UP&L and the Irrigation company donated 150 acre-feet to Castle Dale and Orangeville. The board stated that most cities would be fine throughout the end of September.
The next Castle Valley Special Service District meeting will be held on Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m.
|
<urn:uuid:481ba5f2-9049-4649-a21c-1123a20fc097>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.ecprogress.com/print.php?tier=1&article_id=1630
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.968932 | 1,053 | 2.671875 | 3 |
We must invest more, Unesco director-general Irina Bokova said."
New Delhi, Sep 3 - A day-long conference in Dhaka on International Literacy Day Sep 8 will focus on the importance of girls' and women's literacy and education for sustainable development, Unesco said Wednesday.
To celebrate this day, a conference will take place in Dhaka, where the government of Bangladesh in cooperation with Unesco will deliberate on Girls' and Women's Literacy and Education: Foundations for Sustainable Development.
Participants will reflect on girls' and women's education and literacy as conditions for lifelong learning and sustainable development, drawing on experiences from Bangladesh and around the world, said a Unesco statement here.
During the conference, the findings of the 2013/14 Education For All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) will also be presented.
The report observes that if all women had a primary education, child mortality could fall by a sixth and maternal deaths by two-thirds.
Child marriages would fall by 14 percent if all girls in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia had primary education, and by 64 percent with secondary education, the report said.
According to the report, poor quality education is leaving a legacy of illiteracy more widespread than previously believed.
One in four young people - 175 million adolescents - is unable to read a single sentence, said the GMR report which projects that it will take until 2072 for the poorest young women in developing countries to learn to read.
This year's activities focus on the links between literacy and sustainable development.
Unesco believes that literacy is the basis for lifelong learning and plays a crucial role in the creation of sustainable, prosperous and peaceful societies.
We must invest more, Unesco director-general Irina Bokova said.
I appeal to every member state and all our partners to redouble efforts - political and financial - to ensure that literacy is fully recognized as one of the most powerful accelerators of sustainable development, she said.
|
<urn:uuid:0cb5a1dd-b5a8-48d1-a6bf-c91a60cf7de0>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.nerve.in/news:2535002400879
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.952925 | 413 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The Tomb of the Unknowns is a memorial devoted to American service members who dedicated their life without any identifying remains. It is also called as Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is situated in Arlington Cemetery in Virginia, USA. Warren G. who is the president of America in 1921 has honoured for a ceremony at National Cemetery for died unknown soldiers during World War I. After that, three more fighters are also added to the monument memorial. Further, one of the soldiers has been uncovered during that ceremony. People who like to know about tomb of the Unknown Soldier facts can refer in the online for detailed information. Four unidentified soldiers were disinterred from four dissimilar WWI cemeteries of American who was wounded in battle and honoured with service medals. The four caskets of soldiers are arranged in a line for inspection process. Younger decided the third casket by placing a scatter of white roses on it from the left.
Learn about mysterious facts about tomb
The prospective delegates of WWII were selected from two mysterious soldiers who served in European and Pacific Theater. One of the caskets is buried at sea. There was a specific meaning for the steps of the guard at the time of honouring the soldiers. Everyone can learn about tomb of the Unknown Soldier facts with the use of internet resource. Once you refer it by spending your time and efforts, it is assured that you can gain multitude information about historical rifles and its importance. The honours awarded by the authority was rare things happened at the time of Unknown Soldier ceremony. The least away was dedicated to memorial security badge in the Army. Three women would guard the monument rarely. With the use of information gained in the internet, you will come to know that every step of the guard will have a special meaning of it. In that case, you can understand the importance and real meaning of honoured steps and awards about American military service.
Security Guards protect the memorial
It was not easy task to become a monument guard. First, the associates of the Old Guard have to apply for the guard position. After that, the applicants had to go through an extensive training period and in that you have to perform tests on ceremonial steps and weapons. Further, as a guard you have to go through in all effective process like uniform preparation and cadence. Neat and well-ironed uniforms will resemble the courage of military members in high range. Guards in the memorial have the first rate standards than all members. Even the test would conduct to check the knowledge level of the guards by means of quizzes. Once the selection process gets completed, the guards will ask to walk on the mat for 30 minutes to 2 hours. The guards will work on the shift-base for 24 hours. This offer the time for guards to finish training and prepare their guard uniforms and it will take nearly up to 8 hours.
|
<urn:uuid:3eb23f59-5102-4c1d-af8d-beabc592e1ce>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.trailriderguide.com/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.977768 | 572 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Canada's birthrate ballooned from the end of the Second World War until about 1965, thanks to improving economic conditions and a related trend over the same period toward larger families.
Canada's birthrate ballooned from the end of the Second World War until about 1965, thanks to improving economic conditions and a related trend over the same period toward larger families. The result was a 20-year bulge in the population known as the baby boom, a generation whose demographic influence has shaped Canada's economy and society and continues to do so as its members age and move into retirement.
The Birthrate Rises
Although an official definition of the baby boom does not exist, it generally describes a period of increased birthrates lasting from 1946 to about 1965. The Great Depression of the 1930s had prolonged the decline in Canada's birthrate (see Population), as it had in most Western countries. The low point in Canada was reached in 1937, when the gross birthrate (the annual number of live births per 1,000 inhabitants) was 20.1. Improved economic conditions caused a recovery that began to accelerate during the Second World War. By 1945 the birthrate had risen to 24.3; by 1946 it had jumped to 27.2, and it remained between 27 and 28.5 per 1,000 inhabitants until 1959, after which it began to gradually decline.
More Marriages, More Children
The baby boom began with the children whose birth their parents had postponed during the Depression, but two other factors also contributed to the boom.
First, a larger proportion of adults married, and those who did had more children. Women born between 1911 and 1912 had an average of 2.9 children, whereas those born between 1929 and 1933 had an average of 3.3. These two generations are separated by 20 years. Between the older and the younger, the number of children per woman increased by 13%.
Second, more than half of baby-boom births can be attributed to what demographers call "timing phenomena." More adults began marrying at a younger age (the median age for a woman's first marriage was 23.2 years in 1940 and 21.1 years in 1965), and between the end of the Second World War and 1965, young couples tended to have their children during the first few years of married life.
The annual number of births in Canada rose from 253 000 in 1940 to 479 000 in 1960, but dropped to 419 000 in 1965. Over this period of 25 years, the baby boom produced about 1.5 million more births (there were about 8.6 million overall) than would otherwise have occurred, an increase of more than 18%.
By 1965, however, people were marrying at a later age and were waiting longer to have children, partly because more women were entering the workforce, and partly because there was general access to better methods of birth control. (See Women in the Labour Force.)
Canada's population is predicted to exceed 40 million people by 2036. In 2012 there were approximately 1.4 million people aged 80 or over, and by 2036 this could increase to 3.3 million.
"As of July 1, 2012," reported Statistics Canada in 2012, "the median age of the Canadian population was 40.0 years. That is, half of the population was older and half younger. In the past 20 years, that is between 1992 and 2012, the median age in Canada has increased by 6.4 years."
The aging of the population is projected to accelerate rapidly as more of the baby-boom generation turns 65 and as that happens, the number of senior citizens could exceed the number of children for the first time in Canada's history.
Baby boomers caused a swelling in the demographic curve that has been constantly on the move -- likened to a rabbit swallowed by a snake and moving along the snake's body. Within 20 years after the end of the boom in 1966, the "rabbit" reached ages 20-39 and its members had moved into the labour force. In 2011, the oldest members of the "rabbit" had reached 65, the traditional retirement age. Until 2031, large further additions to age groups in retirement are expected. (See Aging.)
However, the changing economy, changing attitudes and expectations toward lifestyle, and longer life expectancy are redefining this generation's approach to age and retirement. Retiring baby boomers are creating a need for workers to fill vacated jobs, many of which require specialized skill sets. This may create a need to retain older workers and delay their retirement, or to find workers from other countries.
As more members of the baby-boom generation enter their 60s, the labour force comprising older workers will increase. By 2036, the senior population in Canada (65 years and over) is expected to more than double and is estimated to then represent 23% to 25% of the total population compared to 14% in 2009.
Appearance of Generation X
The "baby-bust" generation, or Generation X (1966 to 1974) corresponds to the drop in the birthrate after the baby boom – the result of baby boomers having fewer children than their parents. Generation X, a term popularized by author Douglas Coupland, started entering the labour force in the late 1980s. Generation X-ers were greeted by high unemployment and unfavourable income distribution giving them no incentive to produce the next baby boom. Conceivably, the baby bust would have been even more severe except for the effect of the baby boom echo (babies born due to the large number of mothers, not because the average mother had many children.
In 2011, the children of baby boomers (the cohort then aged 19 to 39) comprised 27% of the total population; this group was referred to as Generation Y or the “echo of the baby boom.” The drop in the fertility rate of the generations that followed the baby boomers was influenced by societal changes including increases in separation and divorce rates, female labour force participation and rapid technological change. The children of the echo generation, named Generation Z or the Internet generation, are individuals born since 1993, or after the invention of the Internet, and refers to more than 7.3 million people born between 1993 and 2011.
"War of Generations"
The baby-bust additions to the labour force beginning with the late 1980s were small and resulted in a pronounced change in the proportions of the population producing the national income, versus those consuming it. The number of pensioners or retirees could rise from 1 per 5 members of the labour force, to 1 per 2. Some analysts have suggested a potential "war of generations" as a consequence, including conflicts over how to pay for public services, and how to afford the rising social welfare costs of an increasingly older society. (See Marxism and Keynesian Economics.)
The baby boom generation that was once young is aging: the historical highs in median age experienced during the 1980s and 1990s (34 in 1994) adjusted to a median age of 40 in 2012. Even if there are no further declines in the fertility rate per woman, there will be declines in the total number of births to well below the annual 400 000 number, and increases above the annual 200 000 deaths until there are more deaths than births.
In 2012, there were nearly 5.2 million Canadians over aged 65, an 11.6% increase from 1992. As baby boomers become senior citizens, economic and social demands will increasingly shift from the needs of schools, for example, to the needs of the elderly and the costs associated with an aging population, including health care and income security.
|
<urn:uuid:366df71b-e883-4fd7-986e-fcae7e4b3ab5>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/baby-boom/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.975755 | 1,551 | 3.921875 | 4 |
When you're doing math for graphics, physics, games, or whatever, you should use column vectors when you're representing points, differences between points, and the like.
Symbolically, you should do this: , and do matrix-times-vector like this: v' = Mv, not v' = vM.
Getting your matrix and vector shapes correct is vital to doing more advanced mathematics, especially if you're referring to published mathematical materials, all of which will use columns for vectors, and reserve rows for gradients, differential forms, covariant tensors, and the like. My lecture on vector calculus gives a ton of examples of why it's important to get your matrix shapes correct, and why a vector must be a column, not a row. Here is a single simple example...
Say you have a scalar function of a vector:
This might be something as simple as a dot product with a constant vector, , or something really complicated. If you differentiate this symbolically, you get:
The shape of dv is the same shape as the vector v. But, what is the shape of ? It is to the left of the vector, and their adjacency (multiplication) produces a scalar. Note that this is simple adjacency, there is no implicit dot product or wacky operator between the partial and the vector, they are just multiplied times each other left to right using normal linear algebra rules. So, what does this say about the shapes? Either the vector is a column, and the partial then must be a row, so the adjacency is the simple matrix product of an 1 x n matrix (row vector) times an n x 1 matrix (column vector), which produces a 1 x 1 matrix (a scalar), or, if you insist that dv is a row vector, then tensor insanity ensues and you are forced to come up with some object that when placed to the left of a row vector can multiply it to produce a scalar. That way lies madness, while if you just make sure you are using vectors as columns, and forms as rows, it all just works trivially (until you get to differentiating vector functions of vectors, and then you sometimes have to involve 3-tensors or finesse the notation no matter what you do, but that's a separate topic).
Using column vectors is not at all controversial in the fields of mathematics and physics, but in graphics, due to historical reasons, it's still an issue. In fact, it's probably true that most of the game math libraries out there do v' = vM, which saddens me greatly, but hopefully this is changing.
Be careful when coding up vector libraries, however. It's often tempting to try to use the type system of your language to differentiate between column and row vectors, but I think this is rarely worthwhile. You can do it fairly easily, but it's often more trouble than it's worth—I've found the knee of the complexity/utility curve is to just have a vector type, and do matrix-times-vector as v' = Mv. If you want to do a vector-times-matrix multiply with a row vector, use a named function call instead of an operator, because it's a much less common situation. Often 90% of them are from vTMv operations, in which case you can express this as DotProduct(v,M*v) easily.
The same advice goes for keeping vectors and points separate types. There are just too many circumstances when you want to convert between points and vectors, or take transposes to convert between rows and columns. You still want to keep rows and columns separate in your notation and your variable naming, I've just never seen it pay off when trying to enforce it in code with the type system in your main game programming language, like C++. This is definitely a coding style issue, and so it's subjective, of course, and I'm sure some people have found it's useful. For mathematical programming languages and systems, like Mathematica, I definitely do think it's a good idea.
Some people argue that SSE and other vector floating point units make it so using a column major layout is more efficient, but that has nothing to do with your notational conventions, both on paper and in code. Yes, you might end up storing matrices in column-major (Fortran) order if you're really concerned about this, but you should still do v' = Mv in code, or else risk going insane as you use more advanced math.
Some other pages on the topic:
- My understanding of the history: The 1st edition of the classic graphics text book by Foley and van Dam used row vectors and vector-times-matrix. Iris GL followed suit. They both later realized their mistake relative to all of "real" mathematics and physics, and switched to column vectors and matrix-times-vector, as God intended. F&vD switched in their 2nd Edition, and when OpenGL was created from Iris GL it was switched notationally as well. However, since SGI wanted to keep binary matrix layout compatibility between OpenGL and Iris GL, they decided that the OpenGL matrices would be specified in Fortran column-major order instead of C row-major order, prolonging the pain and confusion.
|
<urn:uuid:41361aee-50bd-4cfb-8cbc-931b2026a43b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://chrishecker.com/Column_vs_Row_Vectors
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00082-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.957469 | 1,101 | 3.046875 | 3 |
|International Vegetarian Union (IVU)|
BSE and CJD - two sides of the same coin?
from EVU News, Issue 2 / 1996
Lecture by Dr.med Walter Schimdt (pictured), held at the Congress Day in Lindau, Germany, March 2nd 1996
Ladies and gentlemen,
It's getting more and more difficult to find your way through the forest of abbreviations, no matter whether they are related to technical or medical problems.
For a long time, such an abbreviation has been worrying all meat-consumers: BSE. This stands for:
BovineI'm speaking of the so-called mad-cow-disease, known since 1981.
It's a disease, which first strikes the central nervous system of cattle, perforates and spongily soaks their brains.
Particularly tragic is the long incubation period. This is the period between being infected with a disease and the appearance of the first symptoms. For the mad-cow-disease it takes 2-8 years, in extreme cases even 25 years.
The behaviour of the stricken cattle changes between aggression and apathy, thus dullness. A complete loss of the capability of orientation leads to a giddy walk followed by falls with fractures of legs and ribs. Add to this, trembling of the muscles in the areas of neck, shoulder and flanks, paralysis and convulsions of face-nerves.
The main problem is whether this disease is infectious to man.
We're used to the fact, that of national side all the dangers which could lead to serious demands intervention are played down. Here too all truthful information has been and still is stopped as in cases of fallout (without knowledge of the range of damage they say that there would be no danger to the population), and an eventual transfer of this lethal disease to man is denied.
BSE started in Britain. According to British Law every affected animal has to be bought by the government and has immediately to be disposed of. Typically again, that disposed of is being identically applied to tins, beer-bottles and thus simply rubbish, but also to the bodies of animals, which fell victims to unbelievable suffering, caused by man.
The British Government see demands for billions of pounds come up to them, caused by huge numbers of dying animals due to BSE. Thus, they'd like to give an all-clear signal as quickly as possible and in doing so, they dont shrink from punishable acts.
British BSE-expert Dr.Narang developed a rapid method, which reliably gives information about the early existence of BSE. One might think that this scientifically valuable discovery would win the ear of the British Health Authorities. Far from it: They started a sudden boycott, Dr.Narang was fired for threadbare reasons, got anonymous death-threats, all his BSE-files were stolen, the brakes of his car were sabotaged and also the tyres were slashed.
Another tragic parallel is the fate of a Belgian veterinary surgeon, Karl van Noppen, who challenged, in spite of all threats, a hormone-misuse which for man and animal is unhealthy but actually on the increase. He was stopped on a way to his consulting room and shot in cold blood. His corpse was thrown into a ditch.
I'd like to go into details of the so-called hormone-misuse: Medicine residues no matter what sort may transfer from animal to man by blood-circulation. So-called motorway-veterinarians illegally deliver to stock-farmers of large agricultural enterprises illegally hormones and other medicine, which contrast the effect upon animals to the possible defects of health on man.
Psychiatric drugs are used, which lower the animals urge to move, cause trouble in responsiveness and changes in the blood.
Beta-blockers are used to stabilise blood circulation of pigs before mass transportation. For people who suffer from bronchial asthma, this may lead to life-threatening conditions. So-called gluco-corticoides, the most famous of which is cortisone, swell animal-bodies and increase weight. They may activate mans gastric ulcers and weaken the immune-system. Oestrogens, these are sex hormones, lead to quicker growth, but favour mans allergies and blood-vessel-defects.
Particularly momentous may be the unmeasured administration of antibiotics, which is supposed to prevent infectious diseases. For man, an accumulation of different antibiotic-residues may lead to resistance and thus in serious cases like pneumonia and blood-poisoning makes the required antibiotics worthless or forces the usege of stronger medicine with therefore more and more delicate side-effects.
Without the black market, which is estimated at maybe twice as much, there was medicine injected for 695 millions of DM into bodies of fattened animals in 1994.
The cause of BSE lies probably in feeding cattle with animal meal from dead sheep.
Since the outbreak of this disease, 160.000 animals have suffered a terrible death. They guess that there are already 500.000 new cases of infection.
For 250 years, the BSE-similar Traber-disease has been known in sheep; named after the staggering walk, the Scrapy. The germs of this disease have been rendered harmless by heating them to 360°C, before using the meat for animal meal. But within the scope of austerity measures, the temperature was decreased to below 138°C with the result that the germs of Scrapy survived and braved any defensive reaction of the immune-system.
In spite of that, it was used as concentrated feed for all kinds of fattened animals, likewise in zoological gardens and big fur-farms. Many of those animals whose pelts were used, were miserably going to ruin because of BSE.
A way of communicating itself to animals on free hunting-ground would have disastrous consequences, espescially with a view to the long incubation period. Striking is the assertion in the latest veterinarian reports on BSE, that an early diagnosis of the infection was not possible up to now. The work and events concerning Dr. Narang, who provided this possibility, are not mentioned anywhere.
In Britain the meat of slaughtered animals then has directly as well as indirectly (via Holland, Portugal, Spain, France and Italy to Germany) been imported as it was made public in a TV-show on 26th January 1996 so that in the end, nobody actually knows, where his meat is really from.
Here too, the reaction of the meat-industry wasn't wanting. CMA another unknown abbreviation means: Central Marketing Association of the German Agricultural Business. They went onto the attack and maintained daringly, it's all simple scaring to rattle the customers. If you ensure when shopping that your meat is really from Germany, you dont run any risk.
But whether a shop-assistant is really able to tell you the origin of meat or whether she would tell you the truth is questionable. Or did you ever receive another answer than certainly when asking whether the goods you were just buying were really fresh or not?
Ms. Margrit Herbst, veterinary surgeon in Schleswig-Holstein, lost her position, because she refused to make out false papers. Thus, not those are being punished who commit forgery, but those who dont for the protection of peoples' health and on behalf of the truth.
Our authorities refer to the ordered routine in slaughter-houses; this is a brief inspection of those animals which have been driven to the death-boxes.
For two reasons this is an excuse:
We know the sleep-depriving film-scenes by Mr. Manfred Karremann, how the exhausted creatures are beaten off the ramp. How can those slaughtermen judge whether the staggering and tumbling of those creatures is due to their electro-shocks or because of BSE?
It's not certain yet, whether the germs are so-called prions (which have changed protein-structures from animal to animal), unknown and infectious protein-structures, like viruses and bacteria.
Holes in the skulls of animals result from bolt-shots in the slaughter-houses. Butchers pick through them with instruments to destroy the spinal cord, whereby they open to germs (in the case of a BSE-infection) ways to blood-vessels. Here, another source of danger arises for man, in the field of cosmetics, you know. Cattle-tallow from offal as a basis for ointment of possibly infected sheep in lip-stick, soap and be ruled out, but even small wounds and cuts, especially of mucous membranes, conceal the small risk similar to protein-extraction from tissue of animals afterbirths in production of medicine.
It is just as hard to exclude the dangers of infectiousness of BSE on man as it is to judge whether there be a connection between BSE and C.J.D.
This abbreviation means Creutzfeld-Jakob-Disease. The absolute similarity of the symptoms and the same development of this likewise spreading disease are striking. That's why it's already reputed to be the human equivalent of the mad-cow-disease.
For the first time it's been described by Hans-Gerhard Creutzfeld, neurologist in Kiel and Alfons Jakob, neurologist in Hamburg. Since 1975 it's also been called spongious enzephalopathy.
The similarity of most of the symptoms to some other diseases makes differential-diagnosis more difficult, uncoordinated movements of multiple sclerosis, amnesia and loss of orientation of Alzheimer or trembling of muscles and paralysis of the nerves of Parkinsons Disease.
You can see how little information there is on Creutzfeld-Jakob is, if you open the volouminous textbook on neurological diseases by Thomas Brand (1993), where you'll only find patchwork-like information. It's proven that this lethal disease caused death for 14 people, who were vaccinated with a substance made of blood-serum from sheep. In Germany butchers and children died, after treatment with growth-hormones (30 in France and 10 in the USA).
In spite of this, the USA delivered a limited ultimatum to the EU to raise the import ban for beef to escape from difficult sanctions.
Minister Seehofer (Germany) answered the question of a TV-reporter, whether he would nevertheless stick to the import ban or not: As usual well have to find compromise solutions.
What such compromises will look like in the end when it comes down to public health is easily imagined.
More and more scientists tend to think that a connection between BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob can be taken as fact, especially since the latest number of infected people shows an alarming rise and is twice as high as in 1985.
In 1995, 55 people died of this incurable brain-syndrome, among them farmers who had direct contact with BSE-infected cattle. This was concealed by the government, but it came to public notice by chance: a fax of the investigating committee landed in a newspapers office (The Daily Mail) instead of the Public Health Ministry.
Of course, for this disease, too, no end of animal testing has been carried out, transferring humane spongiforme brain-material to
- chimpanzeesThe only thing resulting from it was some sort of statistics, that all the named species had completely different incubation-periods, but the same strong symptoms and that they all died very painfully after 1-7 years. A histological examination of the brain substance proved in all cases spongiforme enzephalopathy.
To test the other way round, to see whether the disease can be really transferred from animal to man, is not feasible for obvious reasons.
Thats why in spite of innumerable animal tests the main question is still unsettled, the one of transferring the disease to man.
By means of the identity of the histological results of brain-sections of people and animals, most scientists feel confirmed in supposing a direct connection and a transfer possibility between BSE and CJD.
Every single person has to decide now on their own, whether to expose themselves and their children to these risks or not. Already today, experts, who dont let themselves be browbeaten, say that BSE and CJD are essentially more dangerous than AIDS, because you can protect yourself against it, but you cannot against the germs, which are able to attack all animal food.
It's high time that people who think they couldn't live without meat, reflected upon their eating habits in their own interest. This is not only due to the fear of BSE or CJS, but for two further reasons:
First because the consumption of meat leaves remains of the already mentioned, irresponsible hormone treatment in human bodies, second because the consumption of meat is basically responsible for the shocking rise in heart disease.
Let alone the ethical-moral aspects of the mass breeding of animals, which causes starvation in the 3rd world, since the EU only imports 50 millions of tons of rice, corn, soya and other food each year from India, Argentina, Brazil and even from countries of the Sahel-zone which are permanently threatened by famine.
Thus, animals in our wealthy part of the world are fed with the food of the poor and the poorest for the sake of our consumers, to provide them with meat stuffed with medicine, so that they can eat until they get ill.
Over 80 per cent of world corn is used as fodder. There wouldn't have to be famine, thinking of this quantity.
In addition to these dangers due to wrong food, there are disastrous chemicals in our food of which Prof. Türkauf (Uni Basel) says that they didn't exist 2-3 decades ago, not even in cupboards with toxic material in them. And toxicologist Prof. Zbinden (Uni Zürich) adds, that there no dose of a foreign chemical substance in our body exists without effect.
Economic interests, which are superior to consumer protection not only in terms of the mad-cow-disease and CJD, of the eurocrats in Brussels can make afraid, because they give you more and more the impression that they play their irresponsible games and that they are willing to sacrifice public health for it.
If money and power join, ethics and morality obviously fail.
Dr. med. Walter Schmidt
(This text is also available in German on the WWW: http://www.vegetarismus.ch/bse.htm)
Another Meat Scandal in SwitzerlandShock and disgust were the most used expressions when journalists discovered that not only animal-derived feed but also human placentas have been fed for about 20 years to ruminants. When the disgusting facts were iscovered, there could be found no one responsible for the fact that 2 big birth clinics in Zurich had sent all their several thousand human placentas yearly to a factory for the production of bone-meal and meat by-products. There was a serious reaction amoung the public and probably some more people became vegetarians.
Some decades ago there was another purpose for human placentas: After the birth of a healthy child the father buried the placenta in the garden and nearby or on it was planted a tree as a symbol for the childs life, for it was known that placentas were very nutritious.
Sigrid De Leo
|
<urn:uuid:5efc82be-f4ef-43d9-ae93-0ede21f18cf6>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.ivu.org/news/evu/news962/bse.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00068-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.965438 | 3,223 | 2.53125 | 3 |
UDL as a Framework for Best Teaching Practices
Outline of Presentation to the College of Liberal Arts Master Teacher Initiative Seminar
March 28, 2008 at 11:30 AM, Whitaker Conference Room, Eddy 303
Craig Spooner, Instructional Designer and currently the Coordinator of Professional Development for the ACCESS Project
The ACCESS Project:
- A 3-year grant funded by the US Dept. of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education
- The project is lead by Cathy Schelly, who is very sorry she couldn't be here today. Cathy is the Dir. of CCP, in the Dept. of OT.
- Co-PIs for the project are Marla Roll, director of the ATRC, and Pat Burns, VP for Info and Instr Technology
- The project's full title is "ACCESS to Postsecondary Education through Universal Design for Learning"
What is UDL?
It's a conceptual framework for inclusive pedagogy. It's also a set of practical techniques for both classroom instruction and the creation of accessible course materials.
As you'll see in the video I'm about to show you, UDL is based on three broad Principles
- Presenting information and concepts in multiple ways and in a variety of formats.
- Allowing students multiple ways to express their comprehension and mastery of a topic.
- Encouraging students to engage with new ideas and information in multiple ways.
Who is affected by UDL?
- Students with diverse learning styles
- Students whose first language isn't English
- Students of different ages (from Boomers to Millennials)
- and students w/ disabilities, both apparent and non-apparent
Disabilities have been likened to an iceberg. Those we're most familiar with—like blindness, hearing impairment, or a physical disability that requires a wheelchair—are a very small percentage of the total. Less noticeable are issues like learning disabilities, attention disorders, and, sadly on the rise since the war, head trauma and brain injury.
The good news is that the things you can do the help students w/ disabilities are the same things you may already be doing to help all of your students—things like increasing engagement through active learning, addressing multiple learning modalities, offering course materials in multiple electronic formats, encouraging students to express their understanding to material in alternative ways...
The ACCESS UDL Video
- "Best Practices through Universal Design for Learning," run time 13 minutes
UDL Research at CSU
- students in Psy100 (n=1700)
- Training and discussions about UDL during the semester
- Pre and post surveys of instructors (Teaching Fellows) and students on RamCT
- Faculty interest in reaching more students
- Engaging students and finding new ways to assess their learning: overlap with the work of Sue Doe, Writing Integration Coordinator, gtPathways (gt = Guaranteed Transfer)
- Addresses the Expression component of UDL
- Striving to "institutionalize" UDL through existing program
- Examples: CTSS, TILT
- New "UDL" category under the N. Preston Davis Award for Instructional Innovation
- And, we have been nominated in the "group" category for that same award for our training and dissemination efforts.
|
<urn:uuid:65719e51-afe0-439a-a3ef-52d5824bed53>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://accessproject.colostate.edu/presentations/udl/MTI/spr_08/index.cfm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.933432 | 675 | 3.09375 | 3 |
She christened him George. For eight weeks, just like William and Kate's baby who is his first cousin seven times removed, Prince George William Frederick Charles of Cambridge looked set to be the future king.
In the event fate had other plans for George. He grew up to a life of low-born mistresses and bungled soldiering. It was a world very different to that of the little girl cousin who pipped him to the throne.
The first Prince George of Cambridge was the man who would have reigned as Britain's king if Queen Victoria had not been born.
Although George was the elder of the cousins by two months his father Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, was younger than Victoria's father Edward, Duke of Kent. Both dukes were sons of the mad King George III. Edward's seniority meant that it was his child rather than Adolphus's who eventually succeeded her grandfather and her childless uncles George IV and William IV. It was Princess Victoria of Kent, not George of Cambridge, who gave her name to the age.
Today Victoria remains one of Britain's best-known and best-loved royals while George is a forgotten figure. His life included its fair share of excitement and a number of near-fatal incidents. These included death threats from a tutor, Mr Welsh, who had suffered a mental breakdown, having his horse shot from under him at the Battle of Inkerman in the Crimean War and narrowly avoiding drowning when a ship on which he was sailing to Malta was hit by lightning and almost sank.
Like his cousin Victoria, George was a long-lived and hardworking member of the Royal Family. Popular in his own lifetime he was intensely patriotic. He once remarked: "Upon returning to England one feels that everything here is so superior to what one has seen abroad that one is doubly proud of being an Englishman." He was known for his conservative views and his upright behaviour but in George's case appearances were misleading. For the young prince, who was chosen by his uncle William IV as a possible husband for Queen Victoria, decided instead in 1847 to marry an actress, Sarah Fairbrother.
Sarah's father was a servant who afterwards worked as a labourer. Sarah performed in ballet and pantomime as well as taking small parts in Shakespearean comedies. She was better known for her looks than her acting.
George's marriage to Sarah (who called herself Louisa) was illegal as well as disreputable. George had not asked the sovereign's permission as he was required to do by the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. As Sarah was already the mother of two of George's sons, both born out of wedlock, and even had two more illegitimate children, one the son of an English aristocrat, the other the daughter of an Irish landowner, George must have known there was no way Victoria would agree to their marriage.
So he married Sarah quietly at a parish church in Clerkenwell, describing himself in the register as George Frederick Cambridge, gentleman. Until Sarah's death 43 years later Queen Victoria turned a blind eye. Officially George never married.
Victoria probably did not much mind. Despite her uncle's plans she never wanted to marry her cousin George. She called him an "odious boy" although she gave him the first dance at the special ball organised for her 14th birthday. In an uncharacteristically romantic gesture George presented her with a brooch in the shape of a posy of lily-of-the-valley.
He grew into a hearty young man but his looks were against him and Victoria described him as "very ugly, his skin in a shocking state". As soon as he could he grew thick bushy whiskers.
But if Queen Victoria was not attracted by George's looks there was no shortage of women who were. Scandal dogged the young prince. In his early 20s his family was forced to deny rumours that he had made the unmarried Lady Augusta Somerset, a duke's daughter, pregnant.
Rejecting George, Victoria married another cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, whom she considered "perfection, perfection in every way - in beauty - in everything!" Victoria had enough of a sense of humour to notice how relieved George appeared when she told him she had chosen Albert in his place.
Saved from being Victoria's husband George became a soldier. As a nine year-old boy he had been made a colonel in a German regiment, the Hanoverian guards.
Eight years later he became a colonel in the British Army. In total he served in Victoria's army for 58 years. To his intense annoyance he was forced to retire in 1895 when he was 76 and still in full health.
His promotion was rapid. He spent only 10 days as lieutenant-colonel of the 8th Light Dragoons before being appointed colonel of the 17th Lancers. By the time he was 26 he was a major general and commanded the troops at the splendid state funeral given to the Duke of Wellington in 1852.
As George would soon discover such slick ceremonial was poor preparation for the bloody business of battle. Early in 1854 George became the youngest of the divisional commanders serving under Lord Raglan in the Crimean War in which Britain, France and Turkey fought against Russia.
He set off for the front by train, travelling in luxurious style and stopped first in Paris, afterwards in Vienna. There George delivered to the Austrian emperor a letter from Victoria - a mission for which he was better qualified than the fierce campaigns which soon awaited him.
He may have been brave but he was also unprepared for the responsibility entrusted to him and the challenges of full-scale war.
At the Battle of Alma in September 1854 his hesitation almost proved fatal to British chances. Inexperience compounded poor judgment. Happily he was overruled by other commanders and ultimately led a successful assault on the Russian position.
It was a similar story two months later at the Battle of Inkerman. George narrowly escaped with his life yet almost half of his men were less fortunate. His nerves had been rattled and for the time being he lost his appetite for warcraft. He spent the remainder of the war in Britain.
The future prime minister Benjamin Disraeli wrote in his diary that George had to be sent home to prevent him from going mad.
He behaved with scant regard for public opinion
His reward in 1856 was to be made commander-in-chief of the army. It was the ultimate promotion and he owed it to his cousin the Queen. Victoria was under no illusions about George's lack of ability - she had written to him during the war about gossip circulating in London's gentlemen's clubs about his incompetence.
But Victoria wanted to keep the position in the Royal Family and George remained commander-in-chief for the next 39 years. A diehard traditionalist he interested himself in every aspect of army life except those that might have made the British Army a more efficient, modern, merit-based service.
Owing his own promotion to his royal background he was convinced that blue blood made the best officers. Under pressure to embrace reform he exclaimed: "Brains? I don't believe in brains!"
In his private life too he behaved with scant regard for public opinion. His marriage to Sarah Fairbrother proved a mixed blessing. Sarah became an invalid and George later remarked: "When a man, through some unfortunate accident, makes a great mistake, he must abide by it."
But far from abiding by Sarah he distracted himself with long-term mistress Louisa Beauclerk.
In 1850 on the death of his father George became 2nd Duke of Cambridge.
Although he had three sons with Sarah Fairbrother none was entitled to inherit the dukedom, which remained extinct following his death in 1904.
That changed on April 29, 2011, when Queen Elizabeth II conferred the title on her grandson Prince William on his wedding day.
|
<urn:uuid:b90dc57e-01b1-485e-b2c0-6de8ef20219f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/417808/Prince-George-The-previous-Duke-of-Cambridge-was-a-love-rat-and-hopeless-soldier
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.9913 | 1,627 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Wilderness Environ Med, 2014 Jan 3. pii: S1080-6032(13)00247-0
Honey is one of the most ancient remedies for wound care. Current research has shown promising results for its use in wound care. This review is intended to inform readers of the physiological properties of honey and the evidence that exists to support its clinical use.
When compared with evidence for current wound treatment, honey has proven to be a safe, effective, and sometimes superior treatment for various wounds. There are currently US Food and Drug Administration-approved medical-grade honey products available in the United States. Although there have been no clinical trials exploring the use of honey in wilderness environments, it may be a safe, improvisational wound treatment. More robust studies are needed for definitive conclusions of its efficacy and safety.
|
<urn:uuid:54402be2-6308-4061-9c34-0985c868f4d4>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://apitherapy.blogspot.com/2014/01/wound-care-in-wilderness-is-there.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00105-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.927816 | 166 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Nobel Peace Prize winner and president of South Africa from 1994-1999, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. He and other members of the African National Congress were deemed South Africa’s most dangerous criminals as they rebelled against Apartheid.
Christo Brand is an Afrikaner, who was raised in a multi-ethnic community, unaware of the realities of Apartheid. In 1978, when he turned 18, he chose to be a prison guard rather than a soldier or policeman. The brutality and danger, and the racism inherent in the law, were confusing to his tolerant sensibility.
|
<urn:uuid:63453d96-beea-40e3-b044-6d104d48fd55>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://kmuw.org/term/nelson-mandela
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00061-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.978902 | 122 | 3.125 | 3 |
Radiocaesium intake in Great Britain as a consequence of the consumption of wild fungi
Barnett, C.L.; Beresford, N.A.; Frankland, J.C.; Self, P.L.; Howard, B.J.; Marriott, J.V.R.. 2001 Radiocaesium intake in Great Britain as a consequence of the consumption of wild fungi. Mycologist, 15 (3). 98-104. 10.1016/S0269-915X(01)80029-XFull text not available from this repository.
In the years following the Chernobyl accident the consumption of wild fungi has been shown to contribute significantly to the radiocaesium intake of humans in several countries. However, in Great Britain, the collection of wild fungi for consumption has generally been thought to be of minor importance and the pathway has not been considered in assessment of radioactivity to humans. The study reported here provides information on contamination levels and consumption rates of wild fungi. To gather the information required, two concurrent surveys were conducted. The first assessed the radiocaesium contamination levels present in commonly eaten fungal species where samples of wild fungi were collected from mainland Great Britain (in collaboration with the British Mycological Society's affiliated Fungus Groups). The second was a survey of consumption habits. The results show that it is not the actual amount of fungi consumed by individuals which determines their radiocaesium intake, but rather the species they select; mycorrhizal species, for example, have significantly greater l37Cs activity concentrations than saprotrophic and parasitic species. It is concluded that the consumption of wild fungi would not currently be expected to appreciably increase the intake of radioactivity of most consumers above that attributable to the normal diet.
|Item Type:||Publication - Article|
|Digital Object Identifier (DOI):||10.1016/S0269-915X(01)80029-X|
|Programmes:||CEH Programmes pre-2009 publications > Other|
|CEH Sections:||_ Environmental Chemistry & Pollution|
|Additional Keywords:||radioecology, edible fungi, radiocaesium, dietary habits, annual committed effective dose|
|NORA Subject Terms:||Ecology and Environment|
|Date made live:||03 May 2012 09:14|
Actions (login required)
|
<urn:uuid:16a2a93e-ff9a-43d4-b319-866f5d4a5f9c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/17754/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.870968 | 493 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The earliest people divided time into two intervals, nighttime and daytime. Today’s atomic clocks divide time into picoseconds—trillionths of a second! How did we get from there to here?
This detailed examination of the art of telling time spans cultures, technologies, and, of course, centuries. Children will discover which Egyptian god governs time measurement and what it is inside a mechanical clock that makes it go “tick-tock.”
Learn how the 12th century “verge and foliot” came to be replaced by the 17th century pendulum, and eventually by 20th century quartz crystals and microcircuits!
Thorough, in-depth explanations of clock technologies are presented in their historical context and paired with illustrative diagrams. Paperback, 32 pages. Ages 8 and up.
|
<urn:uuid:1740ff90-5f6e-4afc-a1d3-e4c2ed857b5b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.montessoriservices.com/elementary/math-physical-science/about-time
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.940123 | 171 | 3.5 | 4 |
|WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION||
|Explanation of the criteria for classification and numbering of components|| K70.1.02
|Explanation of the dates on the component's description|
MODERN IRRIGATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR SMALLHOLDERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
1. Purpose and objectives
To identify the pre-conditions of water availability, institutional support and economic opportunity which need to be met before smallholders
can adopt and benefit from modern irrigation methods. Also to review the
range of equipment and indicate those most suitable for use by smallholders.
This report defines a smallholding as a farm, typically less than 5 ha and often very much smaller, with a mix of commercial and subsistence production, providing the principal income for a family who supply most of the labour. Also included are small commercial farms producing high-value crops for export. The discussion of irrigation methods applies both to individual farms and to smallholder schemes where water supply is shared.
The report has seven chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the potential role of modern irrigation methods against a background of increasing water scarcity and food shortages, as in sub-Saharan Africa. The possible shortcomings of introducing technologies to improve production and income from different environments are set out. The need to learn lessons from past successes and failures is emphasized.
In Chapter 2 various modern irrigation technologies are described and classified. The advantages and disadvantages of different systems and their suitability for use by smallholders are discussed and summarized in a Table. Chapter 3 defines what characteristics equipment should have if it is to be used on smallholdings. These include the maintenance and operational skill requirements, as well as durability and ease of installation on small plots.
There is a review in Chapter 4 of the experiences of smallholders in a range of economic and agro-ecological conditions. This aims to relate the characteristics of modern irrigation systems with the willingness of farmers to adopt the methods and maintain the equipment. Information from eleven countries, including Israel, India, Zimbabwe and Guatemala, is discussed and listed in detail in an appendix. The diversity of conditions helps to identify those common features which are essential in the adoption of modern technology. The potential of modern schemes in African smallholdings is examined briefly in Chapter 5.
The last two chapters draw the study together. There is a summary of the findings, and conclusions are drawn both on the type of equipment
likely to be appropriate and on wider social, economic and policy matters. There is also an outline of issues that must be addressed to promote the use of modern irrigation methods and ensure that technology can be
exploited for the greatest benefit of smallholders in developing countries. The text is supported by an extensive bibliography.
5. Operational requirements and restrictions
6. Form of presentation
Book of 90 pages, with 4 figures 22 tables and 2 appendices.
7. Operational experience
The author has wide experience of technology transfer and staff training on irrigation schemes in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
8. Originator and technical support
This report was commissioned by the Engineering Division of the Department for International Development, and prepared by HR Wallingford Ltd, Howbery Park, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8BA in association with the Intermediate Technology Development Group of Intermediate Technology
From the UK HOMS Office, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK. Generally for sale, but single copies available free at the discretion of the UK HOMS Office. Also available from book retailers (ISBN
1 85339 457 2).
10. Conditions on use
Subject to the usual laws of copyright with respect to reproduction and distribution.
|(First entered:29 JAN 01||
Last updated: 13 DEC 00)
|
<urn:uuid:fc95327a-9e99-4c55-ac1c-7a1c6f180697>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/hwrp/homs/Components/English/k70102.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.912429 | 784 | 3.21875 | 3 |
verb[with object] Photography
Change the relative darkness of (a part of an image) by overexposure to light: you can solarize some bits more than others by burning in areas with your flash enlarger
More example sentences
- The lower the contrast grade of the paper, the less light is required to solarize it.
- Luminos Classic Warm Tone is a very interesting paper that is available in one grade only - it is unusual in that it is a warm-toned emulsion that solarizes like a bromide paper.
- The general procedure used was to develop for 60 seconds in the first developer, remove the print to the second developer, solarize at 70 to 90 seconds, and continue development to about 150 seconds total.
- Example sentences
- Cropping, masking, duplicating, special effects, double exposures, solarisation and selenium printing are always best done in the darkroom.
- When all the tones in a print consist of blacks and murky greys (as so many do), it may hardly be considered a successful solarization.
- In my experience with print solarization, the presence of bromide definitely contributes to the formation of the reversed image.
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: so¦lar|ize
Definition of solarize in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
|
<urn:uuid:63fb1186-1246-410a-a878-3c689aef3a3e>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/solarize
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.896376 | 303 | 3.078125 | 3 |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA scientists are doing their best to tell us where a plummeting six-ton satellite will fall later this week. It’s just that if they’re off a little bit, it could mean the difference between hitting Florida or landing on New York. Or, say, Iran or India.
Pinpointing where and when hurtling space debris will strike is an imprecise science. For now, scientists predict the earliest it will hit is Thursday U.S. time, the latest Saturday. The strike zone covers most of Earth.
Not that citizens need to take cover. The satellite will break into pieces, and NASA put the chances that somebody somewhere on Earth will get hurt at 1 in 3,200. But any one person’s odds of being struck have been estimated at 1 in 21 trillion.
As far as anyone knows, falling space debris has never injured anyone. Nor has significant property damage been reported. That’s because most of the planet is covered in water and there are vast regions of empty land.
If you do come across what you suspect is a satellite piece, NASA doesn’t want you to pick it up. The space agency says there are no toxic chemicals present, but there could be sharp edges. Also, it’s government property. It’s against the law to keep it as a souvenir or sell it on eBay. NASA’s advice is to report it to the police.
The 20-year-old research satellite is expected to break into more than 100 pieces as it enters the atmosphere, most of it burning up. Twenty-six of the heaviest metal parts are expected to reach Earth, the biggest chunk weighing about 300 pounds. The debris could be scattered over an area about 500 miles long.
Jonathan McDowell, for one, isn’t worried. He is in the potential strike zone — along with most of the world’s 7 billion citizens. McDowell is with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. “There’s stuff that’s heavy that falls out of the sky almost every year,” McDowell says. So far this year, he noted, two massive Russian rocket stages have taken the plunge.
As for the odds of the satellite hitting someone, “it’s a small chance. We take much bigger chances all the time in our lives,” McDowell says. “So I’m not putting my tin helmet on or hiding under a rock.”
All told, 1,200 pounds of wreckage is expected to smack down — the heaviest pieces made of titanium, stainless steel or beryllium. That represents just one-tenth the mass of the satellite, which stretches 35 feet long and 15 feet in diameter.
The strike zone straddles all points between latitudes 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south. That’s as far north as Edmonton and Alberta, Canada, and Aberdeen, Scotland, and as far south as Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America. Every continent but Antarctica is in the crosshairs.
Back when UARS, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, was launched to study the ozone layer in 1991, NASA didn’t always pay attention to the “what goes up must come down” rule. Nowadays, satellites must be designed either to burn up on re-entering the atmosphere or to have enough fuel to be steered into a watery grave or up into a higher, long-term orbit.
The International Space Station — the largest manmade structure ever to orbit the planet — is no exception. NASA has a plan to bring it down safely sometime after 2020.
Russia’s old Mir station came down over the Pacific, in a controlled re-entry, in 2001. But one of its predecessors, Salyut 7, fell uncontrolled through the atmosphere in 1991. The most recent uncontrolled return of a large NASA satellite was in 2002.
The most sensational case of all was Skylab, the early U.S. space station whose impending demise three decades ago alarmed people around the world and touched off a guessing game as to where it might land. It plummeted harmlessly into the Indian Ocean and onto remote parts of Australia in July 1979.
The $740 million UARS was decommissioned in 2005, after NASA lowered its orbit with the little remaining fuel on board. NASA didn’t want to keep it up longer than necessary, for fear of a collision or an exploding fuel tank, either of which would have left a lot of space litter.
Predicting where the satellite will strike is a little like predicting the weather several days out, says NASA orbital debris scientist Mark Matney. Experts expect to have a good idea by Thursday of when and where UARS might fall, Matney says. They won’t be able to pinpoint the exact time, but they should be able to narrow it to a few hours.
Given the spacecraft’s orbital speed of 17,500 mph, or 5 miles per second, a prediction that is off by just a few minutes could mean a 1,000-mile error. It probably won’t be clear where it fell until afterward, Matney says. If it happens in darkness, it should be visible.
“If someone is lucky enough to be near the re-entry at nighttime, they’ll get quite a show,” says Matney, who works at Johnson Space Center in Houston, also in the potential strike zone.
Space junk in general is on the rise, much of it destroyed or broken satellites and chunks of used rockets. More than 20,000 manmade objects at least 4 inches in diameter are being tracked in orbit.
It’s mostly a threat to astronauts in space, rather than people on Earth. In June, the six residents of the International Space Station took shelter in their docked Soyuz lifeboats because of passing debris. The unidentified object came within 1,100 feet of the complex, the closest call yet.
|
<urn:uuid:bd825ab0-8d88-4ac0-afeb-acdfe5ae97c8>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/09/earth_to_satellite_when_will_y.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00050-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.949226 | 1,262 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Specific Signs of MS
Spasticity and Fatigue
Spasticity is the involuntary increased tone of muscles leading to stiffness and spasms. Fatigue may be triggered by physical exertion. It can improve with rest, or it may take the form of a constant and persistent tiredness.
Impaired Sensitivity to Pain, Temperature, and Touch
Most people with symptoms of MS also experience paresthesias, which are brief, abnormal sensory feelings, such as numbness, prickling, or "pins and needles" sensations. Loss of sensation sometimes occurs as well. Some people may also experience pain, but this is uncommon.
Speech impediments, tremors, and dizziness are other frequent MS symptoms. Occasionally, people with MS also experience hearing loss.
Difficulty Thinking Clearly
Approximately half of all people with MS have cognitive symptoms, such as difficulties with concentration, attention, memory, and poor judgment. However, such MS symptoms are usually mild and are frequently overlooked. In fact, these symptoms are often only detected with thorough testing.
People with multiple sclerosis may be unaware of their mental difficulties. It is often a family member or friend who first notices a problem. Such impairments are usually mild, rarely disabling, and intellectual and language abilities are generally spared.
Cognitive symptoms occur when lesions (also called plaques) develop in the brain areas responsible for processing information. These problems tend to become more apparent as the information to be processed becomes more complex. Fatigue may also add to thinking difficulties.
Scientists do not yet know whether these thinking difficulties are due to problems with receiving information (acquisition), recalling it from the memory (retrieval), or a combination of both.
Types of memory problems can differ, depending on a person's specific pattern of MS (relapsing-remitting, primary-progressive, etc.), but there does not appear to be any direct connection between how long the person has had the disease and how severe his or her cognitive problems are.
|
<urn:uuid:9cdeeb8b-48ed-4732-9863-ecb086ec4980>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://multiple-sclerosis.emedtv.com/ms/ms-symptoms-p2.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.967678 | 408 | 3.390625 | 3 |
What can trigger allergies?
There are a number of different allergy-causing substances a person might react to, depending on their genetics. These are some of the most frequent allergens, allergy diagnosis and treatments.
- • Dust mites. They are microscopic organisms that live in house dust. House dust is a mixture of potentially allergenic materials including fibers from different fabrics, dandruff from animals, bacteria, mold or fungus spores, food particles, bits of plants, dead skin and other things. Dust mites accumulate in carpets, mattresses and pillows. Their defecations cause allergic reactions in hypersensitive skin. This trigger affects 90 percent of people who suffer from allergies.
The pollen of flowers and tree blossom.
Provokes reactions in 70 percent of allergic people.
- • Domestic animals. They are the third most common cause of allergic reaction; 40 percent of asthmatic children have allergic reactions to the proteins secreted by the oil glands in an animal's skin, as well as to the proteins present in an animal's saliva or urine.
- • Molds. They are microscopic fungi with spores that float in the air like pollen. In the fall molds are more common. They can bring on sever asthma attacks.
- • Foods. In this allergy trigger group, the most common allergic foods are milk, chocolate, eggs, fish and peanuts. Colorants and preservatives can also trigger allergic reactions.
- • Medications. Some people develop allergies to certain medications. The best treatment of drug allergies is to avoid the offending drug altogether. There are a number of ingredients in cosmetics and perfumes that can trigger allergies in some people.
DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT
An important part of diagnosing allergies is a careful evaluation of your symptoms. Your doctor will ask you several questions to rule out other conditions that may cause allergy-like symptoms. You should inform your doctor about the environmental conditions around you (home, work, contact with animals), triggering factors that provoke symptoms, family history with allergies, etc. Other tests may be performed—based on your doctor's recommendations after the medical history and examination—to determine which allergens are causing your symptoms. These may include a skin test or a blood test. In both, a sample is taken from the allergy sufferer and analyzed for antibodies. On the basis of both tests (doctors may not always be able to determine the exact cause) your physician will diagnose a specific treatment.
In the past 100 years allergies and cases of asthma have increased significantly, especially in children and young adults. There is evidence that air pollutants worsen allergies and asthma. High concentrates of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and a large array of particles in the air, due to a high emission of diesel exhaust, are significant factors in air pollution spurring allergies.
Cigarette smoke contains a number of toxic chemicals and irritants. People with allergies may be more sensitive to cigarette smoke than other people, and research studies indicate that smoking may aggravate allergies. Smoking does not just harm smokers but also those around them. Research has shown that children and spouses of smokers tend to have more respiratory infections and asthma than those of non-smokers. In addition, exposure to secondhand smoke can increase the risk of complications such as sinusitis and bronchitis. Not only cigarette smoke is irritating, smoke from wood stoves and chimneys can also be irritating for asthmatics. They release certain chemicals including sulfur dioxide. If you can, avoid wood stoves and fireplaces, and keep the room well ventilated.
|
<urn:uuid:0dacdd73-d3ec-4362-a7ff-7878cf2b60e9>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.faqs.org/oc/Overcoming-Allergies/What-can-trigger-allergies.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.935649 | 731 | 3.625 | 4 |
WikipediaRead full entry
Cannabis sativa is an annual herbaceous plant in the Cannabis genus, a species of the Cannabaceae family. People have cultivated Cannabis sativa throughout recorded history as a source of industrial fibre, seed oil, food, recreation, religious and spiritual moods, and medicine. Each part of the plant is harvested differently, depending on the purpose of its use. The species was first classified by Carolus Linnaeus in 1753.
Its seeds are chiefly used to make hempseed oil which can be used for cooking, lamps, lacquers, or paints. They can also be used as caged-bird feed, as they provide a moderate source of nutrients for most birds. The flowers (and to a lesser extent the leaves, stems, and seeds) contain psychoactive chemical compounds known as cannabinoids that are consumed for recreational, medicinal, and spiritual purposes. When so used, preparations of flowers (marijuana) and leaves and preparations derived from resinous extract (e.g.hashish) are consumed by smoking, vaporizing and oral ingestion. Historically, tinctures, teas, and ointments have also been common preparations. In traditional medicine of India in particular C. sativa has been used as hallucinogenic, hypnotic, sedative, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory agent.
The flowers of the female plant are arranged in racemes and can produce hundreds of seeds. Male plants shed their pollen and die several weeks prior to seed ripening on the female plants. Although genetic factors dispose a plant to become male or female, environmental factors including the diurnal light cycle can alter sexual expression. Naturally occurring monoecious plants, with both male and female parts, are either sterile or fertile but artificially induced "hermaphrodites" (a commonly used misnomer) can have fully functional reproductive organs. "Feminized" seed sold by many commercial seed suppliers are derived from artificially "hermaphrodytic" females that lack the male gene, or by treating the plants with hormones or silver thiosulfate. In the case of production related to recreational use of Cannabis, the process of "cloning" provides the grower with DNA identical female plants eliminating the need of seeds for the growing process.
A Cannabis plant in the vegetative growth phase of its life requires more than 12–13 hours of light per day to stay vegetative. Flowering usually occurs when darkness equals at least 12 hours per day. The flowering cycle can last anywhere between nine to fifteen weeks, depending on the strain and environmental conditions.
In soil, the optimum pH for the plant is 6.3 to 6.8. In hydroponic growing, the nutrient solution is best at 5.2 to 5.8, making Cannabis well-suited to hydroponics because this pH range is hostile to most bacteria and fungi.
Broadly, there are three main cultivar groups of cannabis that are cultivated today:
- Cultivars primarily cultivated for their fibre, characterised by long stems and little branching.
- Cultivars grown for seed which can be eaten entirely raw or from which hemp oil is extracted.
- Cultivars grown for medicinal or recreational purposes. A nominal if not legal distinction is often made between industrial hemp, with concentrations of psychoactive compounds far too low to be useful for that purpose, and marijuana.
Although the main psychoactive constituent of Cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant is known to contain about sixty cannabinoids; however, most of these "minor" cannabinoids are only produced in trace amounts. Besides THC, another cannabinoid produced in high concentrations by some plants is cannabidiol (CBD), which is not psychoactive but has recently been shown to block the effect of THC in the nervous system. Differences in the chemical composition of Cannabis varieties may produce different effects in humans. Synthetic THC, called dronabinol, does not contain CBD, CBN, or other cannabinoids, which is one reason why its pharmacological effects may differ significantly from those of natural Cannabis preparations.
- Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)
- Cannabidiol (CBD)
- α-Humulene, contributes to the characteristic aroma of Cannabis sativa
- Caryophyllene-oxide, with which some hashish detection dogs are trained
Difference between C. indica and C. sativa
Cannabis sativa has a higher level of THC compared to CBD, while Cannabis indica has a higher level of CBD compared to THC.[dubious ] Cannabis strains with relatively high CBD:THC ratios are less likely to induce anxiety than vice versa. This may be due to CBD's antagonistic effects at the cannabinoid receptors, compared to THC's partial agonist effect. CBD is also a 5-HT1A receptor (serotonin) agonist, which may also contribute to an anxiolytic-content effect. This likely means the high concentrations of CBD found in Cannabis indica mitigate the anxiogenic effect of THC significantly. The effects of sativa are well known for its cerebral high, while indica is well known for its sedative effects which some prefer for night time use. Both types are used as medical cannabis. Indica plants are normally shorter and stockier than sativas. They have wide, deeply serrated leaves and a compact and dense flower cluster. The effects of indicas are predominantly physical and sedative.
- Greg Green, The Cannabis Breeder's Bible, Green Candy Press, 2005, pp. 15-16 ISBN 9781931160278
- Wang L, Waltenberger B, Pferschy-Wenzig EM, Blunder M, Liu X, Malainer C, Blazevic T, Schwaiger S, Rollinger JM, Heiss EH, Schuster D, Kopp B, Bauer R, Stuppner H, Dirsch VM, Atanasov AG. Natural product agonists of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ): a review. Biochem Pharmacol. 2014 Jul 29. pii: S0006-2952(14)00424-9. doi: 10.1016/j.bcp.2014.07.018. PubMed PMID 25083916.
- West, D. P, Ph.D. 1998. Hemp and Marijuana: Myths & Realities. North American Industrial Hemp Council. Retrieved on 23 April 2007
- Novak J, Zitterl-Eglseer K, Deans SG, Franz CM (2001). "Essential oils of different cultivars of Cannabis sativa L. and their antimicrobial activity". Flavour and Fragrance Journal 16 (4): 259–262. doi:10.1002/ffj.993.
- Essential Oils
- "What are the differences between Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa, and how do they vary in their potential medical utility?". ProCon.org.
- J.E. Joy, S. J. Watson, Jr., and J.A. Benson, Jr, (1999). Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing The Science Base. Washington D.C: National Academy of Sciences Press. ISBN 0-585-05800-8.
|
<urn:uuid:d153e17b-d6f5-4625-9423-f6149fc12b51>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.eol.org/pages/594919/overview/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.903973 | 1,499 | 2.859375 | 3 |
February 1, 2012
Targeting Malaria Hotspots
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Malaria is a parasite disease that is passed from one human to another by the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes. The parasites enter the blood stream and infect red blood cells. The disease involves shaking, chills, high fevers, anemia, and flu-like symptoms.
There are approximately 300-500 million cases of malaria each year and more than 1 million people die from it, according to the United States National Library of Medicine. Although most cases are relative to more tropical climates, it can become dangerous for people all over the world, especially those who travel.A recent report suggests that targeting malaria “hotspots” is a highly efficient way to reduce malaria transmission at all levels of transmission intensity. It is not known whether these trends are global or whether they are also present in areas where political instability has hindered effective malaria control.
"Malaria hotspots appear to maintain malaria transmission in low transmission seasons and are the driving force for transmission in the high transmission season. Targeting the hotspots would mean the most infected and most diseased households would be prioritized with the added benefits of reducing transmission to the whole community," Teun Bousema, with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, was quoted as saying.
SOURCE: PLoS Medicine, January 2012
|
<urn:uuid:36991053-3091-4e69-8c23-20820b576bfe>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1112465911/targeting-malaria-hotspots/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.954511 | 281 | 3.71875 | 4 |
While people in West Africa continue to die from Ebola, scientists are pondering a mystery that has eluded them since the first known outbreak of the virus among humans, in 1976: Where does this fearful bug hide when it’s not killing people?
A new hypothesis described Tuesday in EMBO Molecular Medicine presents an unexpected scenario of how Ebola 2014 may have gotten started. The study suggests that the virus may have passed into its first human victim, a child, from a small insect-eating bat, an animal so diminutive that it is hunted by children but not by adults.
Ebola virus is a zoonosis, meaning an infectious agent that lives inconspicuously and innocuously within some nonhuman animal (its reservoir host) and spills over occasionally into humans, causing disease.
Fruit bats, which are relatively large and meaty, have often been touted as suspects, but the virus’s reservoir host has never been positively identified. The gold standard of proof—culturing live virus from the tissues or blood of a candidate animal—hasn’t ever been achieved from fruit bats, nor from any other creature. So the virus is still at large, its reservoir indeterminate, its whereabouts unknown, somewhere within the landscape of tropical Africa.
Tracking a Killer
The Ebola epidemic of 2014, which has now totaled almost 20,000 cases and at least 7,708 deaths, began quietly in southeastern Guinea slightly more than a year ago. News of the outbreak reached the wider world last March, and within weeks Fabian Leendertz of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin assembled a multidisciplinary team that included ecologists and veterinarians, plus an anthropologist to interview local people, and traveled to the affected area, near the borders of Liberia and Ivory Coast.
Surveying wildlife in forests there, the scientists found no evidence of a die-off among larger animals, such as duikers, monkeys, and chimpanzees, that are also susceptible to Ebola. This suggested that perhaps the virus had spilled over directly from its reservoir host into humans, without passing through other animals hunted or scavenged for food.
The team then focused on a village called Méliandou, in Guinea—the index village, where the human outbreak began. A young boy, Emile Ouamouno, was the earliest known victim. He died with Ebola-like symptoms in Méliandou back in December 2013, followed soon by his mother, sister, and grandmother. No adult males died in the first wave of the outbreak, another clue that seemed to point away from hunted wildlife as the origin of the virus.
During eight days in Méliandou, Leendertz’s team gathered testimony from survivors and collected samples, including blood and tissues from captured bats. From these data emerged the new hypothesis: Maybe the reservoir host was a bat, yes—but a very different sort of bat, in a different ecological relationship with humans.
While fruit bats are abundant in southeastern Guinea, they don’t roost in large aggregations near Méliandou. But the village did harbor a sizable number of small, insectivorous bats, which roosted under the roofs of houses and in natural recesses, such as hollow trees. The locals call them lolibelo.
“These bats are reportedly targeted by children,” the new paper recounts, “who regularly hunt and grill them over small fires.” Imagine a marshmallow roast, except the marshmallows are mouse-size bats devoured by protein-hungry children.
The researchers then uncovered another clue: a large hollow tree, which had recently been set afire, producing as it burned what someone recalled as “a rain of bats.” Leendertz’s team collected soil samples at the base of that tree, which eventually yielded traces of DNA assignable to Mops condylurus, commonly called the Angolan free-tailed bat.
That species matched the villagers’ descriptions of lolibelo. What’s more, the big hollow tree had reportedly been a favorite play spot for small children of the village, including the deceased little boy, despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that it was full of little bats.
Too Close for Comfort?
All this is circumstantial evidence, pointing to a possibility that Ebola 2014 began when the boy in Méliandou came in contact with an Angolan free-tailed bat.
Bats of that species have previously been found to contain antibodies against Ebola virus, but the sample numbers were very small, and antibodies are weak evidence. The species has therefore not been included among the prime suspects as a reservoir for Ebola. That could change, if further sampling of Angolan free-tailed bats reveals any stronger data connecting the bat and the virus.
The new paper is intriguing and suggestive—but is it important?
“Could be,” says Charles Calisher, emeritus professor at Colorado State University and an authority on zoonotic viruses, “if they would follow up with more studies.”
Leendertz and colleagues have already followed up, with extensive bat sampling in villages in Ivory Coast, Guinea’s neighbor to the southeast. Laboratory results from those samples, available soon, may suggest whether Mops condylurus is a hot lead in the long search for Ebola’s hiding place—or just another enticing dead end.
If the lab data do implicate this bat species, then a disquieting question arises: Why aren’t there more spillovers of Ebola virus into humans—outbreaks beginning every month, every week?
The Angolan free-tailed bat is a forest creature that has become a village creature; as the great trees (including the hollow trees, like that one in Méliandou) have been felled, replaced by clearings and gardens and settlements, the bat has been forced to adapt. It has become synanthropic, closely associated with humans. Now it roosts in the hundreds beneath the thatch and metal roofs of village houses, just overhead as people eat and sleep.
Is Ebola that close too? If so, we’ve got still more to learn about this lethal, mysterious virus: not just where it hides and how it gets into humans, but why sometimes it lurks without leaping.
David Quammen’s most recent book is Ebola: The Natural and Human History of a Deadly Virus. You can follow him on Twitter at @DavidQuammen.
|
<urn:uuid:a1508414-0640-414b-8502-b3531bace275>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/12/141230-ebola-virus-origin-insect-bats-meliandou-reservoir-host/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00054-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.964333 | 1,343 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Human beings are affected by a myriad of social, psychological and emotional factors which often make them behave irrationally and illogically.
Behavioural finance tries to explain why and how investors make suboptimal decisions, which create anomalies, such as during stock market bubbles and crashes.
By understanding the cause of irrational behaviour, investment returns can hopefully be improved. Losses are more painful than gains, so investors prefer to lock into a guaranteed modest gain and avoid a sure loss.
In a series of 1980s articles by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, 150 people were asked to make two decisions: The first was to choose between (a) a sure gain of S$240 (HK$1,485) or (b) a 25 per cent chance of gaining $1,000.
Or second: to choose between (c) a sure loss of $740 or (d) 75 per cent chance of losing $1,000.
The result was that 84 per cent and 87 per cent of the respondents chose (a) and (d), respectively, even though (b) and (c) would result in higher expected values (i.e the gain or loss multiplied by the respective probability).
People also indulge in mental accounting, separating profitable investments from loss-making ones. This is despite the fact that the total net worth remains the same.
Mental accounting and loss aversion cause investors to refuse to sell at a loss, costing them the chance to switch to more profitable investments to recoup the loss.
Another common mistake is anchoring investment decisions on irrelevant price points, such as the price level when one starts monitoring a stock. When the actual price falls below the anchor price, an investment is made, as it is considered cheap. If the anchor price is exceeded, the stock is then regarded as too expensive to buy. Whether an investment is expensive or cheap should be evaluated against fundamental factors, such as earnings and cash flows.
Some feel that they need to sell if the price is rising, since it cannot go up for ever. Galaxy's share price increased from a low of 55 HK cents in November 2008 to HK$20 at present as it managed to get financing to start its Cotai project in Macau. Others hold on, hoping for a rebound. Espirit's share price plummeted from a high of over HK$125 in October 2007 to a low of HK$8 over three years as profits dropped. Investors are typically overconfident in their ability to buy and sell at the best price and exit before a crash. This can lead to too much leverage, excessive trading and a portfolio containing a few large positions. Nick Lesson of Barings, Jerome Kerviel of Societe Generale and Kweku Adoboli of UBS are just some examples.
The dotcom bubble is a good example of herd instinct, when investors lapped up expensive internet stocks, many with dubious business plans and no track record.
Buy low, sell high, sounds simple, but many investors panic in bear markets and sell, even though it may be time to pick up some bargains. How many investors would be gutsy enough to pick up HSBC's shares at HK$33 or Esprit at HK$8? Investors become overly optimistic during bull markets and feel much more comfortable investing, instead of taking profit.
Investors often overreact. Companies with good news risk being overbought and subject to a subsequent correction when investors, reading the good news too much into the future, overreact before realising that they have been too sanguine.
Conversely, a company with bad news may become oversold before its share price recovers when investors realise things are not so bad after all.
Overconfidence, herd instinct, excessive pessimism or optimism and overreaction exacerbate market swings, and lead to market bubbles and crashes.
Whitney Tilson, of T2 Partners, who manages several hedge and mutual funds says decisions must be grounded on hard-headed fundamental and technical analysis.
Do not rely on random anchor prices, price movements, preconceived notions or the heart.
There is no point refusing to sell at a loss. It can be better to reinvest.
Few investors can consistently beat the markets. Do not be out to make a quick buck. Think longer term, maintain a diversified portfolio and keep leverage manageable. Do not make an investment just because others are doing so. Perform your own independent analysis and seek contrary opinions. Finally, focus on the big picture and long term.
The loss French bank Societe Generale suffered as a result of unauthorised trading by Jerome Kerviel in 2007 and 2008
|
<urn:uuid:00bdea65-7268-497c-991c-d5bb6be3d246>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.scmp.com/print/article/998886/logic-goes-out-window
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.9544 | 952 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Far out on the high seas, on any given day, hundreds of fishing vessels drag huge nets, big enough to snag a 747 jumbo jet, across the ocean bottom, vacuuming up 150-year-old fish, flattening ancient reefs and destroying everything else in their paths.
Only the biodiversity of tropical rainforests rivals that of the deep sea our planet's largest wilderness an aquatic wonderland that is now being systematically razed by what is likely the world's most environmentally destructive business. The fishing occurs mostly around the ocean's most unique topographical formations submarine canyons, mid-oceanic ridges and tens of thousands of seamounts (most are extinct volcanoes) which support a stunning profusion of endemic species, many of which are yet to be discovered. Trawlers reduce these habitats to rubble in minutes, undermining the viability of the very fish that brought the vessels there in the first place. A "rapidly growing number of scientific studies documenting [deep-sea] trawling impacts led to the unmistakable conclusion that bottom trawling is the world's most harmful method of fishing," says the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, which comprises leading environmental NGOs around the world and advocates an immediate moratorium on the practice.
But the problem is worsening, say experts, because more and more fishing vessels are heading out to the high seas traditionally, a fishing free-for-all to "top up" their load once they've hit the quota for their home country's fishing area, known as an exclusive economic zone. At the same time, demand keeps rising in wealthy countries for nutritious, and delicious, white-fish meat from species that have become increasingly hard to find closer to shore. "All fisheries are turning gradually into deep-sea fisheries because they have fished themselves out of the shallow waters," says Robert Steneck, a marine ecologist at the University of Maine. "The solution is not going into the deep sea, but better managing the shallow waters, where fish live fast and die young but where the ecosystems have greater potential for resilience."
High-seas bottom fish are also far more fragile than their shallow-water cousins. They are slow-growing, long-lived species the orange roughy, for instance, can live 150 years which perversely encourages fishermen to take as much as they can, while supplies last. Some 20 years after New Zealand started its orange roughy industry in the 1970s (the name orange roughy was dreamed up to better market the slimehead fish, which was initially tossed overboard as trash fish), the ocean's stock of roughy was 75% depleted. Over the years, this "tragedy of the global commons" has resulted in the serial depletion of one species after another.
"Industrial fisheries are now going thousands of miles, thousands of feet deep and catching things that live hundreds of years in the least protected place on Earth. They are roving bandits using state of the art technologies to plunder," says Elliott Norse, president of Marine Conservation Biology Institute.
This is a business that couldn't stay afloat without substantial subsidies from governments of roughly a dozen high-seas fishing nations including Japan, South Korea, Russia, Iceland, Spain, France and the Ukraine according to new research conducted by the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Centre. The subsidies defray substantial fuel costs trawlers need a lot of power to move nets that weigh 15 tons and stretch a mile deep keeping these boats working around the clock for weeks and months, mining the deep sea (it takes about four hours to fish 2.5 sq km).
The good news is that, although the practice is growing, high-seas bottom-trawling is still a relatively small portion of the global fishing industry. Among the 12 leading high-seas fishing countries, bottom-trawling accounted for less than 2% of the 15.5 million tons of total landed catch, and added about $600 million to a worldwide $26 billion-a-year fishing business. And University of British Columbia researchers calculate that current subsidies for high-sea bottom-trawling amount to just over $150 million, a small fraction of the $30 billion that governments spend yearly to prop up a global fishing industry that produces twice as much as is sustainable. "It's important to nip these subsidies in the bud before more interests get barnacled around them," says University of British Columbia's Rashid Sumaila, who has advised the World Trade Organization on the issue. "Eliminating them would render these fleets economically unviable and would relieve tremendous pressure on over-fishing and vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems."
After three years of negotiations among roughly 40 countries, the United Nations General Assembly agreed in December 2006 to a new regulatory regime for high-seas fisheries but Japan, Russia, Iceland and Canada objected to a complete moratorium on unregulated bottom trawling. If enforced, the U.N.'s compromise resolution would require fishing nations to conduct environmental impact assessments demonstrating that their fishing is not harmful that could spell the end of deep-sea bottom trawling, which accounts for 80% of all deep-sea catches. But it's a fate that some countries are willing to face. New Zealand's fishing industry long a poster child for everything that was wrong with the business seems to have accepted the new terms after an intense public debate.
Still, there is considerable uncertainty over whether other countries will abide by the new norms. Spain, among other countries, has a history of using loopholes to get around quotas and conservation-monitoring laws. And Russia, which got the world started on bottom-trawling in the 1960s, is now reviving its deep-sea capacity, say concerned conservationists.
"For the last several hundred years since [Hugo] Grotius wrote his 'Freedom of the Seas' treatise [in 1609] we have had freedom to fish on the high seas, without constraints, but clearly for deep-sea bottom trawling this can't continue. And I am reasonably optimistic it can be stopped," says Matthew Gianni, Deep Sea Coalition co-founder, who became a conservation advocate 20 years ago, after a decade of trawl fishing off U.S. coasts. "If there is going to be a turning point I think the concerns and the process of negotiation that played out at the General Assembly will prove to be that point."
|
<urn:uuid:7f76929d-53a8-4e8e-8dcb-3aa2affa6a1b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1694495,00.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00197-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958316 | 1,301 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Charter elementary schools outperform traditional public schools in reading and math and charter middle schools do better in math, according to The Effect of Charter Schools on Student Achievement, an analysis of 40 high-quality studies by economists Julian Betts and Emily Tan of the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE). Overall, the gains are “modest but positive.”
Middle-school reading scores and high school math and reading were about the same.
Charter school effects vary dramatically, the meta-analysis found. Urban charter schools perform better than suburban or rural charters, especially at the middle and high school levels. In particular, Boston charter schools performed significantly better than traditional public schools; New York City charters also showed strong gains.
KIPP middle-school students showed “significant and large improvements in both math and reading.” A student who started at the 50th percentile could expect to move to the 59th percentile in math and the 54th percentile in reading in a single year.
|
<urn:uuid:b99cdfe6-f4b3-4cf7-b36b-15970205702b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2011/10/k-8-charters-show-reading-math-gains/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00187-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.961405 | 212 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Recall from Chapter 2 that the Fourier transform is a mathematical technique for converting time domain data to frequency domain data, and vice versa.
A plot of My as a function of time is a -sine function. Fourier transforming this gives peaks at + and - because the FT can not distinguish between a positive vector rotating at + and a negative vector rotating at - from the data supplied.
The solution is to input both the Mx and My into the FT. The FT is designed to handle two orthogonal input functions called the real and imaginary components.
Detecting just the Mx or My component for input into the FT is called linear detection. This was the detection scheme on many older NMR spectrometers and some magnetic resonance imagers. It required the computer to discard half of the frequency domain data.
Detection of both Mx and My is called quadrature detection and is the method of detection on modern spectrometers and imagers. It is the method of choice since now the FT can distinguish between + and -, and all of the frequency domain data be used.
Think of f() as the overlap of f(t) with a wave of frequency .
This is easy to picture by looking at the real part of f() only.
Consider the function of time, f( t ) = cos( 4t ) + cos( 9t ).
To understand the FT, examine the product of f(t) with cos(t) for values between 1 and 10, and then the summation of the values of this product between 1 and 10 seconds. The summation will only be examined for time values between 0 and 10 seconds.
The inverse Fourier transform (IFT) is best depicted as an summation of the time domain spectra of frequencies in f().
The actual FT will make use of an input consisting of a REAL and an IMAGINARY part. You can think of Mx as the REAL input, and My as the IMAGINARY input. The resultant output of the FT will therefore have a REAL and an IMAGINARY component, too.Consider the following function:
In FT NMR spectroscopy, the real output of the FT is taken as the frequency domain spectrum. To see an esthetically pleasing (absorption) frequency domain spectrum, we want to input a cosine function into the real part and a sine function into the imaginary parts of the FT. This is what happens if the cosine part is input as the imaginary and the sine as the real.
In an ideal NMR experiment all frequency components contained in the recorded FID have no phase shift. In practice, during a real NMR experiment a phase correction must be applied to either the time or frequency domain spectra to obtain an absorption spectrum as the real output of the FT. This process is equivalent to the coordinate transformation described in Chapter 2
If the above mentioned FID is recorded such that there is a 45o phase shift in the real and imaginary FIDs, the coordinate transformation matrix can be used with = - 45o. The corrected FIDs look like a cosine function in the real and a sine in the imaginary.
Fourier transforming the phase corrected FIDs gives an absorption spectrum for the real output of the FT.
The phase shift also varies with frequency, so the NMR spectra require both constant and linear corrections to the phasing of the Fourier transformed signal.
Constant phase corrections, b, arise from the inability of the spectrometer to detect the exact Mx and My. Linear phase corrections, m, arise from the inability of the spectrometer to detect transverse magnetization starting immediately after the RF pulse. The following drawing depicts the greater loss of phase in a high frequency FID when the initial yellow section is lost. From the practical point of view, the phase correction is applied in the frequency domain rather then in the time domain because we know that a real frequency domain spectrum should be composed of all positive peaks. We can therefore adjust b and m until all positive peaks are seen in the real output of the Fourier transform.In magnetic resonance, the Mx or My signals are displayed. A magnitude signal might occasionally be used in some applications. The magnitude signal is equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of Mx and My.
Constant value at all time
Real: cos(2t), Imaginary: -sin(2t)
Comb Function (A series of delta functions separated by T.)
Exponential Decay: e-at for t > 0.
A square pulse starting at 0 that is T seconds long.
If f() = FT( f(t) ) and g() = FT( g(t) )
then f() g() = FT( g(t) f(t) ) and f() g() = FT( g(t) f(t) )
It will be easier to see this with pictures. In the animation window we are trying to find the FT of a sine wave which is turned on and off. The convolution theorem tells us that this is a sinc function at the frequency of the sine wave.
Another application of the convolution theorem is in noise reduction. With the convolution theorem it can be seen that the convolution of an NMR spectrum with a Lorentzian function is the same as the Fourier Transform of multiplying the time domain signal by an exponentially decaying function.
What is the FT of a signal represented by this series of delta functions? The answer will be addressed in the next heading, but first some information on relationships between the sampled time domain data and the resultant frequency domain spectrum. An n point time domain spectrum is sampled at dt and takes a time t to record. The corresponding complex frequency domain spectrum that the discrete FT produces has n points, a width f, and resolution df. The relationships between the quantities are as follows.
df = (1/t)
The convolution theorem can explain why this problem results from sampling the transverse magnetization at too slow a rate. First, observe what the FT of a correctly sampled FID looks like. With quadrature detection, the spectral width is equal to the inverse of the sampling frequency, or the width of the green box in the animation window.
When the sampling frequency is less than the spectral width, wrap around occurs.
Consider the two-dimensional array of data depicted in the animation window. This data has a t' and a t" dimension. A FT is first performed on the data in one dimension and then in the second. The first set of Fourier transforms are performed in the t' dimension to yield an f' by t" set of data. The second set of Fourier transforms is performed in the t" dimension to yield an f' by f" set of data.
The 2-DFT is required to perform state-of-the-art MRI. In MRI, data is collected in the equivalent of the t' and t" dimensions, called k-space. This raw data is Fourier transformed to yield the image which is the equivalent of the f' by f" data described above.
Copyright © 1997-2009 J.P. Hornak.
All Rights Reserved.
|
<urn:uuid:87d23a64-cd41-4d68-a779-5c5dcd9f6e89>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/nmr/chap-5/chap-5.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.913073 | 1,498 | 3.765625 | 4 |
The easiest way to make a ring blank (the starting point for carving your ring) is to use a wax ring tube. Matt Wax make ring tubes
in three different wax hardnesses:
Blue - Soft, flexible
Red/Purple - Medium, flexible.
Green - Hard, strong.I used a 1 1/8" diameter flat top purple ring tube.
Referencing your drawing, use the pair of scribers to draw a line around the whole of the tube measuring 1mm wider than the maximum width of your ring
(the 1mm extra is a safety margin for filing and sanding.)
Using the jewlers saw and a fine spiral saw blade cut your rough blank free from the tube
Cut 0.5mm further out from the scribed line, keeping the line on the inside of the blank (this gives you a margin to file off the worst of the saw marks). Don't try and cut straight through the tube all in one go, instead work your way around the tube paying careful attention to the location of the scribed line.
An easy way to cut a truly square ring blank is to use a mitre box and saw
Once you've cut your blank free, use the larger flat file to remove the worst of the saw marks.
Then use the ring sizer to scrape the inside hole to the desired finger size.
Keep the hole about 1mm smaller than the finished size to allow for shaping and sanding.
|
<urn:uuid:de3192f9-68c7-4529-ab88-c59ff90e22ee>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-a-three-stone-diamond-engagement-ring/step5/Making-a-ring-blank/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.875889 | 299 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Women Soldiers in the American Revolution
By Marjy Wienkop, 1st NJ Regiment
It would be absurd to think that during a time like the American Revolution when emotions ran so high, families were being torn apart, and one's home, property, and lifestyle were at stake that there weren't a handful of women who wanted to take up arms and pitch in. The military looked aside when young boys joined up. In many places boys as young as twelve were seen in the ranks. It was, therefore, not uncommon to see a soldier with no facial hair and one having a high voice. Since there were no real physical examinations for recruits, other than a cursory visual examination, some women who were not overly feminine in appearance, especially rural women whose hands and face showed a life of physical outdoor labor, were able to sneak into the ranks. The mores of the time dictated that a person's body be pretty much covered all the time and full bathing was very infrequent, so it is possible to believe no one might catch on to the deception. There is evidence, as in the case of Deborah Samson, that some women were known to be such by their messmates, but because of their fighting ability and toughness were accepted as equals.
The following is an ongoing project and by no means complete. The accounts of women soldiers have come together very slowly. Some are fairly detailed and some exist only as a single sentence or phrase, almost as an afterthought. Most accounts have come from the few pension applications that exist or through discharges when a woman was discovered. There are a few eyewitness accounts that have come second- hand through diaries or interviews. There are virtually no personal diaries. The literacy rate among common folk was low during the 18th century as compared with the Civil War period where thousands of diaries exist. Women soldiers who served, survived the war, were never discovered, and didn't seek government pensions are untraceable.
There are several accounts of women soldiers in Continental Regiments. The most popular account is that of Deborah Samson (the correct spelling does not include a "p" in the last name). Nailing down what appears to be truth and what seems to be erroneous is difficult, as there are many slight variations to the story. Deborah Samson was enlisted by Capt. Ephalet Thorp on May 20, 1782 as Robert Shurtliff in Capt. George Webb's Company of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment of Foot. From descriptions of her uniform, she was apparently part of a light infantry unit. She participated in fights against Tories from West Point to Tappan Zee in New York State. Near Tarrytown, her unit ran into a skirmish where Samson received a saber wound to the left side of the head. At East Chester, Deborah's unit was ambushed by Tories and she received two musketballs in the thigh. She went off alone and removed one by herself, leaving the other in. Samson also participated in some fighting with Indians near the Adirondacks.
Deborah left New York with Major General John Patterson for
Philadelphia to serve as his clerk. There she picked up a fever. Dr.Barnabas
Binney, upon treating Samson, discovered her identity and told General Patterson.
Patterson told General Washington who had General Knox make out discharge papers.
Deborah was honorably discharged in October 1783 and received back pay of
L 34 in 1792; in 1805 received invalid pay, aided by Paul Revere, of
$4 a month. It was doubled in 1818 to $8. She died in 1827 at age 66.
Another soldier was Anna Marie Lane. Her birth and death dates are unknown. Virginia State records indicate the governor entered a petition on her behalf as "she is very infirm having been disabled by a severe wound which she received fighting as a common soldier in one of our Revolutionary Battles", namely the Battle of Germantown. The state at the same time pensioned a John Lane, possibly her husband or brother.
Elizabeth Gilmore of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania drew pay as a private in the Continental Army (Pennsylvania Archives, Phila., 1874-1914, 5th Series, IV,680.) She is also listed among "Rangers on the Frontier" (Ibid, 3rd Series). According to the DAR memorial plaque on her grave, she married a fellow soldier in 1780 and both continued to serve in the same company until the end of the war.
Ann (or Nancy) Bailey enlisted as Samuel Gay on February 14,
1777 in Capt. Abraham Hunt's Company of the 1st Massachusetts Regiment.
She quickly rose to the rank of corporal. One account says sergeant, but several
accounts say corporal. Either way, Bailey seems, at this point, to be the woman who
achieved the highest rank. In less than three weeks, she deserted for reasons
unknown. Capt. Hunt swore out a warrant for her arrest. He discovered she was
female on March 3, 1777. The court fined her
L 50 and she was given
two years in prison for "appearing in mens cloths". There was a second trial at
which she was fined L 16 to the state. After this she disappears from
Another woman in uniform was discovered and discharged, having enlisted in the 1st New Jersey Regiment in 1777. She was driven "threw the town with the whores march beating" after a very short time in the ranks.
Margaret Corbin used her own name and appears to have been accepted by her fellow soldiers. She served with her husband in the artillery in the Battle of Ft. Washington where they were both wounded, Margaret losing part of her arm and a breast from grapeshot. She was captured and treated as a prisoner of war. After her release, she was assigned to garrison duty in the Invalid Corps at West Point, NY. She must have been in men's clothing because she would not have been in the Invalid Corps and on garrison duty in a skirt. Her treatment as a prisoner of war and assignment to garrison duty is only congruent with that of a soldier, not a campfollower. A pension granted in 1780 specifically stated she be given "one compleat suit of cloaths out of the public stores". The Quartermaster General only had clothing for men. She died around 1800 near Highland Falls, NY. Her grave was located by the DAR in 1926 and the body was reinterred at West Point. Corbin having served with the artillery, is often confused with Mary Ludwig Hayes McCauley of Battle of Monmouth fame, as Molly Pitcher. Hayes was, however, observed by several people wearing a skirt.
Sally St. Clair was a Creole girl who disguised herself as a soldier in a South Carolina Regiment and followed her lover into battle fighting beside him. One account says it was the famous Sgt. Jasper of Marion's Brigade, but I doubt this. She was killed in the Battle of Savannah reportedly protecting him. Sally was not discovered to be female until her death.
There exists a vague reference of "two females" recruited for the 2nd South Carolina Regiment. They were never named and left no further record, so it is unknown for sure what their roles were.
A woman was also observed who "stepped into her husband's place in an infantry formation" at the Battle of Monmouth.
Women soldiers existed on the frontier, also. Ann (Mad Ann) Bailey, born Ann Hennis in 1742 in Liverpool, England, migrated to America in 1761, settling in the Shenandoah Valley. She married Richard Trotter, a veteran of the French and Indian War and a prominent member of the Augusta militia. They lived near the present day Covington, Virginia. Trotter was killed in the battle at Pt. Pleasant on the Ohio River in 1774 while with Col. Andrew Lewis' militia fighting Indians. Ann vowed revenge. She dressed in male buckskin attire and rode a black stallion named Liverpool. Reportedly, she was an excellent shot and absolutely fearless. Ann became an Army courier and scout, receiving regular army pay and rations. Her belligerent mannerisms and hatred of Indians terrified them, so they named her "Mad Ann".
In 1785 she married John Bailey in Greenbrier County and after his death moved back to Pt. Pleasant where her son William had settled. At age seventy, she built her own log cabin and lived there until her death on November 22, 1825 at age eighty-three.
A great majority of the soldiers of the Revolution were short-term militia enlistments who signed up for one to three years. As these recruits were so desperately needed and were under even less scrutiny than the Continental regulars, it is even more likely that women entered these ranks.
Capt. Reuben Randolph's 5th Company of the Monmouth County (NJ) militia has listed in its roster a Jenny (also spelled "Jeany" in some records) Sutton. A 1776 payroll in the NJ State Archives shows that Jeany Sutton served 35 days at Perth Amboy. It is unknown for sure whether "Jenny" or "Jeany" was female or if this is some form of nickname of the French "Jean". There were some families of French Hugenot descent in this part of Monmouth County, now southern Ocean County, but Sutton is not a French surname. Curiously, in researching some of the French families found in the area, I found that after the French and Indian War, the descendants all had English or Biblical given names. None were of French origin.
There exists a very unusual document discovered by the Daughters of the American Revolution. It is a list reading a "Classed Returne of Capt. James Green's Company for filling up the New Jersey Regiments as Well as for Raising the men to be stationed on the Frontears of the County, as Follows Viz: ...". It is dated 29 June 1780. The list of names includes 95 men and 19 women. The names of the women are not segregated into a particular class or division, but are interspersed within the names of the men. There are some women's surnames that match those of the men indicating some relation, but in other cases there are single women, and even a widow, with no other family members on the list. The women with surnames the same as a man's on the roster are not necessarily listed near him. There appears to be no separation between the males and females in Capt. Green's roster. It is a distinct possibility that these women were fighting members of equal stature to the men.
So far there has been no extensive or systematic search made on women soldiers of the Revolutionary War, but as they are found and as I and others make the search, names will be added to the list of women who chose to fight for their liberty.
"Ann Bailey: Mystery Woman Warrior of 1777", Patrick J. Leonard. MINERVA: Quarterly Report on Women and the Military. Vol.XI, Nos.3&4, Fall/Winter 1993, pp. 1-4.
America's First Woman Warrior: the Courage of Deborah Sampson. Lucy Freeman and Alma Bond., Paragon House, NY. 1992.
Battle Cries and Lullabies. Linda Grant DePauw. University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
The Female Review: The Life of Deborah Sampson. John A. Vinton., Boston. 1866.
Founding Mothers. Linda Grant DePauw., Haughton-Mifflin, Boston, 1975.
GSA, National Archives and Records Service, Vol.3, p. 161, card #37174622 (in ref. to Ann or Nancy Bailey)
A History of Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Edwin Salter. E. Gardner and Son, Pub., Bayonne, NJ. 1890.
Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolution, Vol.6, p. 340.
"Militia Women of 1780, Monmouth County, New Jersey", Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine. Vol. 113, No.4, April 1979, pp. 309-312.
NJ State Archives, Revolutionary War MSS Series, MS # 1128 (ref. for Jeany Sutton)
Private Yankee Doodle. J. P. Martin. Little,Brown, and Company. Reprinted by permission by Eastern Acorn Press, 1991.
The Uncommon Soldier of the Revolution. National Historical Society., Eastern Acorn Press 1986.
Woman Warriors. David E. Jones, Brassey's, Washington, 1997.
"Women in Combat", Armed Forces and Society, Linda Grant DePauw. Vol.7, No. 2, Winter 1981, pp. 209-226.
|
<urn:uuid:ed39a4bc-2ba7-4951-8ee1-b149e7f45e4a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.continentalline.org/articles/0002/000202.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.979217 | 2,641 | 3.375 | 3 |
When plants become invasive, they can create environmental havoc. Several of the cacti and succulents are considered invasive in various areas of the globe.
The Hottentot fig was originally native to South Africa. Extremely adaptable, it has now naturalized in various regions of the world. These include some parts of Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and Italy). This is also invasive in coastal areas of Great Britain, Ireland, and California.
Originally introduced as a landscape plant, it has now naturalized and started to crowd out native plants. Now, it covers vast areas of coastal regions where it grows on cliffs or rocky and sandy terrain. The plant does further damage by increasing the salt content of the soil.
A related species, the red Hottentot fig has naturalized in the Mediterranean region. This was originally native to South Africa.
Some of the prickly pears are also known for their invasive nature. These have now naturalized in dry valleys of Switzerland, western China, Bhutan, Africa, and the Canary Islands as well as vast areas of Australia.
One species of prickly pear was originally introduced to the Canary Islands as food for the cochineal insects. Then, it escaped from cultivation.
According to experts, a single prickly pear plant was originally introduced to Australia in 1839. Eventually the plants covered more than 25 million hectares. Much of the land was abandoned as a result.
To bring the plant under control, Australian scientists brought in the pyralid moth from Argentina. As the larvae feed on the prickly pear pads, this exposes the plants to a bacterial problem, which lead to the death of the plants within a couple years. Sadly, the moth itself has become a problem since it was introduced to the Caribbean. From there it spread to Florida and now threatens native prickly pears in the U.S.
The Barbary fig has also naturalized in Portugal and the Mediterranean region, while the prostrate cactus has become invasive in southern Europe.
Of course, there is also the question of purslane (Portulaca oleracea). This was reportedly first introduced to North America as a vegetable crop. However, it escaped and became a widespread weed. This has also naturalized in other areas of the world, such as the Philippines.
In one of his gardening encyclopedias, garden writer Donald Wyman wrote that purslane was one of the worst weeds in the U.S. However, the purple loosestrife and the thistle are far worse problems. At least, purslane can be pulled and eaten as a vegetable or used as animal feed.
|
<urn:uuid:ab5e4113-8a42-4dd7-854a-981fd9e2f629>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.bellaonline.com/ArticlesP/art60689.asp
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00131-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.977302 | 548 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Aikido For Children & Youth
Aikido Has Helped Kids With
- Confidence issues
- Dealing with bullies
- Helps children/teens avoid the traps of drugs, violence, negativity, crime and suicide
- Improves grades
- Improves overall performance in all things
Aikido Can Help In The Following Areas
Spirit: Aikido develops win/win philosophy… everyone wins.
Body: Aikido is physically challenging but not impossible, and it is good for strength training and weight loss.
Mind: Children & youth can understand their minds. They learn that the mind is a tool; therefore, they learn problem solving skills and mental discipline.
Emotions: Aikido is self-empowering no matter how the child or youth may feel. Children learn that emotions are tools.
Social: Aikido builds social skills using “no loser” games, teaching consensus, teamwork, cooperation and community activities.
Brief Description Of Aikido
- Aikido is a non-violent, non-resistant martial art from Japan.
- Aikido means unifying energy, the way of harmony.
Success With Aikido
- Kids in group homes grow up with fear because there is no order or center in their lives. When they practice Aikido they learn about their own power. They learn to speak and act for themselves but in harmonious ways.
- Children & youth with physical, psychological, and/or developmental challenges learn about their center and how to have real internal self-control.
- Good athletes and high achievers become even more skilled.
Aikido Is Appropriate For Ages
- 4 to 104
Children & Youth’s Reactions To Aikido
- More confidence
- If the child or youth is timid or frightened, they will like Aikido because it will teach them self-defense.
- Usually children are surprised that they have so much physical power.
- Children with developmental challenges may not know the names of the techniques, however they learn the moves and enjoy their power.
Extra Care Is Needed
- Make sure you tell the teacher or the head instructor about old injuries and conditions.
- Classes may have to be modified when people come with old injuries.
- Children with developmental challenges may need Aikido sessions to be modified. For instance, a child with Down Syndrome cannot understand the esoteric practice, however they can learn basic moves and how to be non-violent.
Contraindications: When Aikido Should Be Avoided
- Sometime parents and children misunderstand what Aikido is and think that aggressive moves are part of the practice.
- When children, teens and parents think that Aikido is for attacking
- If the child has certain disabilities (physical, mental or emotional) that severely impair ability to participate
- When it is used by a child to hurt others
- Anger/violence levels are out of control.
- Aikido is a relatively modern martial art.
- Historically, Aikido is derived from aggressive, Samurai, and war practices like Aikijitsu (or Aikijujitsu).
- After World War Two, the founder, O’sensei Morihei Ueshiba, was advised by one of his teachers, Onisaburo Deguchi, to call the practice “Aikido” (O’sensei means Honored Teacher).
- Aikido means “the way” or a way of life. The practice became one of non-resistance.
- By the end of his life, O’sensei Morihei Ueshiba believed that Aikido should be practiced in non-violence.
- Some people still teach a rigid form of aggressive pre-war practice.
- It was illegal to practice martial arts in Japan after the war. Aikido was practiced in secret. It spread rapidly in the Japanese military.
- Aikido is now practiced all over the world.
- In Japan there are Aikido clubs in elementary and secondary schools.
Basic Concepts And Components Of Aikido
- Attack energy or tense energy can be redirected.
- Integrates body, mind and spirit
- Joins with and uses the energy (attack) in order to redirect
- Uses circular, spiraling movements instead of direct movements (kicks, punches) and blocks, reduces anger, which takes people out of the present moment and causes a loss of focus, power and judgement
- Finding peace in chaotic situations is possible.
- Relies on being relaxed, focused, balanced and grounded
- Cultivates gentle power
- Practices the loving protection of all beings
Description Of A Typical Session
- Information about new students is taken.
- Information is given to new students about terms and Dojo rules.
- Sessions start with a bowing ceremony which shows respect and is a representation of the way Aikido is practiced.
- Next is a meditation.
- Physical warm-ups get the students ready for new teaching or review of a particular Aikido technique.
- Practice with a Partner.
- The lesson ends with a Misogi (purification meditation).
- Bowing out
- Sweep the mat/clean up.
Major Differences Of Opinion Between Practitioners
- Some practitioners feel that Aikido is a spiritual practice, while others see it as a martial art. Some feel that Aikido is both.
Fees/Costs In 2007
- For children - $40 to $60 a month
- For teens/adults - $40 to $60 a month
Average Time Per Session
- One hour
- All day seminars and camps are also available.
Recommended Length Of Time Between Sessions
- Recommended two sessions per week
Estimated Length Of Time Before Improvements Can Be Expected
- Four to six sessions
- Once the child or youth is engaged with full participation, changes can be noticed.
Suggestions To Make Aikido More Effective With Children
- Parents should not practice the moves with their children.
- Artistic freedom
- Positive discipline.
Other Methods That Complement Aikido
- Tai chi and other Martial Arts
- Any activity that involves focus
- Leadership development courses
- Any activity that involves focus
Nature And Length Of Training To Be A Practitioner
- Practitioners are certified by their teachers going back to the founder.
- It takes a minimum of four to six years of regular rigorous training for an adult to become a black belt. It takes longer for children.
- Black belt is considered beginning level and is an indication of competence, but not expertise.
- The holder of a black belt may teach classes if invited to do so by their instructor.
Special Training Needed To Work With Children & Youth
- Knowledge of children and teaching styles
- Behavior management skills
- Conflict resolution skills
- Communication skills
- Mostly, people learn how to teach kids’ classes “on the job”.
- Look for someone who enjoys working with children.
Professional Associations To Contact For Names Of Local Practitioners
- AikiWeb; Website: www.aikiweb.com
- Ki Society of the U.S.; P.O. Box 75433; Seattle, WA 98125-0433; 206-527-2151; Fax: 206-522-8702; Website: www.ki-aikido.net; Email: [email protected]
Number Of Certified Practitioners In U.S., Canada, And Mexico
- In Sonoma Country, California, there are seven dojos (training halls).
What To Look For When Choosing The Best Practitioner
- Showing kindness
- Moving gracefully
- Exhibiting a sense of joy and play in their practice
- Teaching Aikido as the opposite of aggressiveness
Resources, Research Papers, Books, DVDs, Websites
- AikiWeb - The Source for Aikido Information: Its principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information. Website: www.aikiweb.com
- Downloadable video (mpeg) clips of aikido in action: www.stenudd.com/aikido/video.htm
- Stevens, John. Abundant Peace. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1987.
- Deguchi, Kyotaro. The Great Onisaburo Deguchi. Japan: Oomoto Foundation, 1973.
- Dobson, Terry and Jan Watson. It’s a Lot Like Dancing: An Aikido Journey. Berkeley, CA; Frog, Ltd., 1993.
Helpful Tips For Parents
- Remind children to focus and take time each day to sit for a second to get focused or to meditate.
Biography Of Isaiah Wisdom, Author
- Years Experience: 17
- Approximate total number of clients who are children, or teens (in a school year): 200 children a week
Isaiah Wisdom’s Personal Statement
Aikido’s unifying principal is love.
To Contact Isaiah Wisdom, Who Contributed This Chapter
Isaiah Wisdom; 880 Piner Road, #55; Santa Rosa, CA 95403; Ph: 707-571-2013;
The choice of teacher is often more important than the martial art form. Aikido and martial arts can improve physical confidence. It can complement Nonviolent Communication skills. My younger son and godchildren have benefited from their involvement with martial arts.
I have been very impressed with the effects of most of the martial arts upon children & youth. I have noticed that Aikido has the biggest effect in helping children be balanced, harmonious, and able to respond. With any martial art, children’s confidence grows, as does their coordination. One of the biggest benefits is learning to control fear and aggression. Children & youth feel safer when they feel they can defend themselves. As always, having the right teacher is very important, so make sure you feel good about who you and your child choose.
|
<urn:uuid:8a514309-c8ca-42d1-94b8-27c5b186ded0>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.growingupeasier.org/index.php?main_page=page&id=142&chapter=3
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00070-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.903148 | 2,121 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Old Testament Interpretation (Like Everything Else in Christianity) Begins and Ends With Jesus Christ
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. (John 5:39)
In the Church’s view, the whole of Israelite history, as contained in the Old Testament, is about Jesus Christ. The relationship of the Old Testament to the New is one of promise to fulfillment, and of type to anti-type. Put another way, we interpret the Old Testament neither in the same way the ancient Israelites did, because we are looking at it with hindsight; nor in the way Jews do today, for everything in it takes on new and fuller meaning in the light of Christ. Everything in Orthodox Christianity begins and ends with Jesus Christ, and the Old Testament is no exception.
… the Hebrew Scriptures are also to be understood and interpreted in relation to Jesus Christ, who is both their source and their fulfillment. He is their source because he is the Logos, the eternal Word of God, who serves both as the agent of creation and as the ultimate content or referent of the prophetic oracles. And he is the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures because at the deepest level of meaning they point forward to him and to his saving work. Christ, therefore, provides the true key to the inner meaning of the Law and the Prophets. Accordingly, Christ himself is our “hermeneutic principle” or principle of interpretation, in that it is he who reveals the true sense of all inspired Scripture. (Breck, John, Scripture in Tradition: The Bible and its Interpretation in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood, New York, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001) pp. 9-10)
Every passage of the Old Testament as well as the New bears direct or indirect witness to the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is Truth itself in incarnate form. ”I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” he declares, Jn. 14:6). (ibid., p. 33)
The Fathers also insist that the God with whom all the Old Testament figures deal is God the Son. It was God the Son who walked with Adam and Eve, God the Son who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, God the Son who instructed Noah to build his ark.
All of these three stories bear typological meanings. That is, they each prefigure Christ, are each “types” of Christ or of something related to Him. The bush that burned without being consumed, for example, typifies how Mary became pregnant and gave birth to Jesus, her body alight with Him, without her virginity being destroyed or in any way diminished. Noah’s ark symbolizes the Church, bearing her passengers safely to the other side of the turmoil of life and death. The story of God liberating Israel from slavery in Egypt foreshadows Christ liberating His people from bondage to sin and death. Some fathers, with regard to some biblical accounts, go so far as to say God’s main purpose in arranging or permitting these events was for our sake, to prepare us for Christ’s coming, so we would understand what Jesus was doing.
The Early Church was not particularly interested in the historicity of the Old Testament. The early Fathers didn’t necessarily deny it, but what interested them was always what the Old Testament had to say about Jesus. They looked for Him and found Him throughout.
Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech-- unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. (2 Corinthians 3:12-16)
The Old Testament is to be interpreted according to Christ, and not vice-versa! As Christ said in a parable, nobody patches an old garment with a new piece of cloth, because the patch will shrink and the rip will be made worse. Old clothes must be patched with old fabric. Similarly, nobody puts new wine into old wineskins, or the wineskin will burst and the wine will be lost; but new wine must be put into new wineskins, to preserve both. (Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, Luke 5:37-38) Christ is the New Wine; He transfigures the Old Testament. We must not interpret Him by it, but it by Him, “bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)
Christ Himself began the process of giving new, deeper interpretations to the Old Testament; or, rather, of bringing out what was implicit there all along but hidden. The Fifth Chapter of Matthew contains several examples of Jesus giving the Old Testament deeper meanings than others had seen there before. Perhaps the most startling example of His re-interpretation of the Scriptures came when Jesus preached against divorce.
They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?" He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so...” (Matthew 19:7-8)
In other words, God spoke to ancient Israel with great and gracious condescension, in His decrees making generous allowances for His people’s spiritual weakness and immaturity, and in His language often putting things in over-simplified, too-crude words to make it understandable to them. Meat is for adults; infants cannot digest it and need milk instead. The Old Testament is spiritual milk. The meat must await the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Another quite startling re-interpretation Jesus gives to the Old Testament is contained in one of His claims to divinity: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw [it], and was glad.” (John 8:56)
Jesus also appropriated the title “Son of Man,” giving new meaning to that figure in the book of Daniel, Chapter 7.
After His resurrection, as He was walking with two of His followers on their way to Emmaus, Jesus continued the process of interpreting the Old Testament for them. Here is His response when they spoke to Him (whom they did not yet recognize) of their distress that Jesus had been crucified.
"O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.
St. Paul also found new, Christian meaning in the Old Testament. For example, in I Corinthians 10, he says the Israelites, by passing through the sea, “were baptized unto Moses.” (10:3) Then, speaking about the rock in the desert which Moses struck with his stick and it gushed forth water for the thirsty Israelites, St. Paul says, “That rock was Christ.” (10:4) In verse 6, he adds, “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.” St. Paul is much more concerned with the function of these events as examples today than as history; in fact, the part he mentions in verse 3 about the rock following Israel is pure legend.
In Galatians 4:21-31, St. Paul makes what he himself calls an allegory (v. 24) of the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar.
Most of the Epistle to the Hebrews is devoted to interpreting Old Testament worship in terms of shadows and patterns of “things to come”, especially in chapters 9 and 10. Moreover, it is in the name of spiritual maturity that St. Paul urges his Jewish readers to adopt this typological understanding of the old Testament. (Hebrews 5:12- 6:2)
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
So Christians from the beginning have followed Christ and St. Paul in telling the old story in a new way, in a way that begins and ends with Jesus Christ. They have set aside parts of it (such as ritual laws) as no longer relevant to Christians (Galatians 4:10); they have found new meanings in other parts of it.
For example, Christians see Psalm 22 as an astonishingly detailed prophecy of the Crucifixion. But before Jesus was crucified, there was no way to interpret that Psalm in that way. Similarly, in Isaiah 7:14, Christians see a prophecy concerning the birth of Christ: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” But before Christ came, the prophecy only meant that God would destroy King Ahaz’ enemies within the time it would take for a maiden to marry, conceive, give birth to a son, and teach him the difference between right and wrong. Christians have always reinterpreted the Old Testament.
St. Basil the Great gives us a fine example of what it means to reinterpret Old Testament understandings of Divine Justice in the Light of the New, which Light is Christ. The “disasters” God is said to bring us are to put a stop to evil or at least contain it, or to correct us, not literally to gratify some divine hostility.
Famines and droughts and floods are common plagues of cities and nations which check the excess of evil. Therefore, just as the physician is a benefactor even if he should cause pain or suffering to the body (for he strives with the disease, and not with the sufferer), so in the same manner God is good who administers salvation to everyone through the means of particular chastisements. But you, not only do you not speak evilly of the physician who cuts some members, cauterizes others, and excises others again completely from the body, but you even give him money and address him as savior because he confines the disease to a small area before the infirmity can claim the whole body. However, when you see a city crushing its inhabitants in an earthquake, or a ship going down at sea with all hands, you do not shrink from wagging a blasphemous tongue against the true Physician and Saviour.
And you may accept the phrase ‘I kill and I will make to live’ (Deut. 32:39) literally, if you wish, since fear edifies the more simple. ‘I will smite and I will heal’ (Deut. 32:39). It is profitable to also understand this phrase literally; for the smiting engenders fear, while the healing incites to love.
It is permitted you, nonetheless, to attain to a loftier understanding of the utterance. I will slay through sin and make to live through righteousness. ‘But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day’ (Il Corinthians 4:16). Therefore, He does not slay one, and give life to another, but through the means which He slays, He gives life to a man, and He heals a man with that which He smites him, according to the proverb which says, ‘For You shall beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from death’ (Proverbs 23:14). So the flesh is chastised for the soul to be healed, and sin is put to death for righteousness to live.... When you hear ‘There shall be no evil in a city which the Lord hath not wrought’ (cf. Amos 3:6), understand by the noun ‘evil’ that the word intimates the tribulation brought upon sinners for the correction of offenses. For Scripture says, ‘For I afflicted you and straitened you, to do good to thee’ (cf. Deuteronomy. 8:3); so too is evil terminated before it spills out unhindered, as a strong dike or wall holds back a river.
For these reasons, diseases of cities and nations, droughts, barrenness of the earth, and the more difficult conditions in the life of each, cut off the increase of wickedness. Thus, such evils come from God so as to uproot the true evils, for the tribulations of the body and all painful things from without have been devised for the restraining of sin. God, therefore, excises evil; never is evil from God.... The razing of cities, earthquakes and floods, the destruction of armies, shipwrecks and all catastrophes with many casualties which occur from earth or sea or air or fire or whatever cause, happen for the sobering of the survivors, because God chastises public evil with general scourges.
The principal evil, therefore, which is sin, and which is especially worthy of the appellation of evil, depends upon our disposition; it depends upon us either to abstain from evil or to be in misery.
Of the other evils, some are shown to be struggles for the proving of courage... while some are for the healing of sins... and some are for an example to make other men sober. (If anybody can give me the reference for this, which I have lost, I shall be grateful.)
Some Fathers of the church, notably St. Gregory of Nyssa, bid us make heavy use of allegory in interpreting the Old Testament. St. Gregory does just that in his most famous work, The Life of Moses, in which he brings out allegorical and spiritual meaning and application from every incident in Moses’ Life.
Other Fathers agree that Christians ought to value the stories in the Old Testament more for their spiritual than their historical or literal meanings. “Very often many things are said by the Holy Scriptures and in it many names are used not in a literal sense... those who have a mind understand this.” (Saint Isaac the Syrian, Homily 83.)
If one fails to allow the revelation in Christ quite frankly to re-work the Old Testament, to let Christ be the Light of the World, by Whom and in Whom all else is properly understood, ones reading of both Testaments will be seriously misguided and the correct doctrine of salvation will be in jeopardy.
Now please go and read Fr. Stephen's far better (and shorter!) post for some different points on the same subject here.
|
<urn:uuid:a85e9eae-61f8-488e-8f7a-b676aac1c4ce>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://anastasias-corner.blogspot.com/2009/01/help-reading-old-testament.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00106-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.960134 | 3,246 | 2.890625 | 3 |
If we don't limit CO2 emissions by the end of the century, we will be in big global warming trouble.
But, it isn't clear to me that not limiting CO2 emissions is an option. Sure, we could fail to adopt environmental regulations, but most CO2 emissions are due to hydrocarbon fuel combustion and we are also approaching Peak Oil.
Peak Oil doesn't mean that we will suddenly run out of oil. It means that supply will start shrinking, as an indirect consequence of the finite supply of oil and gas, while demand will continue to rise. This will drive up oil and gas prices, which will reduce consumption, not to zero, but as we get further and further past Peak Oil, to a greater and greater extent.
There is good reason to believe that we are already at Peak Oil, or will be there soon (in a matter of a few years).
There is a general consensus between industry leaders and analysts that world oil production will peak between 2010 and 2030, with a significant chance that the peak will occur before 2020. Dates after 2030 are considered implausible. Determining a more specific range is difficult due to the lack of certainty over the actual size of world oil reserves. Unconventional oil is not currently predicted to meet the expected shortfall even in a best-case scenario.
For unconventional oil to fill the gap without "potentially serious impacts on the global economy", oil production would have to remain stable after its peak, until 2035 at the earliest.
Given the large range offered by meta-studies, papers published since 2010 have been relatively pessimistic. A 2010 Kuwait University study predicted production will peak in 2014. A 2010 Oxford University study predicted that production will peak before 2015. A 2014 validation of a significant 2004 study in the journal Energy proposed that it is likely that conventional oil production peaked, according to various definitions, between 2005 and 2011. Models which show a continued increase in oil production may be including both conventional and non-conventional oil. Major oil companies hit peak production in 2005. . . .
As of 2012, both world crude oil production and remaining proven reserves were at record highs.Thus, there is very good reason to believe that with or without environmental CO2 regulations, that world CO2 emissions will fall significantly before the end of the century.
The big question is whether or not coal will be substituted for oil and gas as they come into short supply and make up for the shortfall in CO2 emissions caused by reduced oil and gas consumption. The global supply of coal is also finite, but Peak Coal is not likely until far more than 86 years from now. If we substitute solar and wind and hydro power and energy conservation for declining oil and gas supplies, global warming worst case scenarios won't come to pass. If we substitute coal, they might.
|
<urn:uuid:840901d6-4986-446f-ad3e-ab09751a9e10>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://washparkprophet.blogspot.com/2014/06/are-there-limits-to-climate-change.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.964922 | 572 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Upper-limb spasticity occurs when the muscles in the arm are constantly contracted (shortened) and stiff. This can cause unusual and uncontrollable muscle movements (spasms) in the arm. People with upper-limb spasticity may also have trouble coordinating the movement of their arms. They may have trouble using the arm normally. Upper-limb spasticity can also be painful.
Funding and support for this material have been provided by Allergan.
Upper-limb spasticity can force the arm into an uncomfortable position. The shoulder may be rotated, the elbow and wrist can become flexed and the fist may be clenched. The arm may also be forced up against body.
Upper-limb spasticity is the result of damage to the nervous system (brain and spinal cord). The job of the nervous system is to send electrical messages back and forth from the brain to different parts of the body. Normally, the brain quickly sends signals which travel through the spinal cord and then through nerves that branch out to all organs and body parts. When there is an injury or damage to the nervous system, the electrical messages are disrupted and the brain begins to send too many messages. This results in the muscles stiffening and contracting.
The following are some of the most common causes of upper-limb spasticity in adults:
Stroke. Most strokes are caused by a blockage in an artery that carries blood to the brain. This can cause that part of the brain to be damaged, and you may lose control of a function that is controlled by that part of the brain. For example, you could lose the use of an arm or leg, or the ability to speak. The damage can be temporary or permanent, partial or complete. Stroke is one of the most common causes of upper-limb spasticity.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MS is an autoimmune disease that affects the nervous system. In people who have MS, the immune system destroys the myelin sheath. The myelin sheath is the substance that surrounds and protects your nerve cells. When myelin around nerves is damaged or destroyed, the nerves can’t function properly to deliver these signals in the right way. This can cause a variety of symptoms, including stiffness or muscle spasms in the arms.
Spinal Cord Injury. The spinal cord is made up of bundles of nerves and nerve cells that carry messages from your brain to the different parts of your body. The spinal cord is protected by the bony rings in your back that make up the spinal column (also called the vertebral column or the backbone). The symptoms of a spinal cord injury depend on where the damage occurred. Damage to the vertebra (bones) in the neck (also called a cervical injury) can result in a loss of function in the arms as well as increased muscle contraction and muscle spasms in the arms.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). TBI can occur when there is a severe, violent strike to the head, which causes the brain to bump against the inside of the skull. It can also occur when an object, such as a bullet or a piece of the skull, penetrates the brain. These types of injuries can cause bleeding or swelling of the brain, as well as damage to the nerve cells. This disrupts the way the brain sends messages out to the rest of the body. Traumatic brain injury can affect behavior, speech, sensation and movement, including upper-limb spasticity.
Adult Cerebral Palsy (CP). CP is a term for a group of neurological disabilities that affect muscle control, movement and coordination because of damage to the cerebral cortex (the area of the brain that controls muscle movement). People who have CP have trouble controlling their muscles and coordinating body movements. They may have stiff or weak muscles, which can cause them to make unusual muscle movements. Upper-limb spasticity is common in adults who have CP.
If you have upper-limb spasticity, your doctor may talk to you about physical therapy. Physical therapy can include stretching, strengthening exercises and muscle training. This will help you improve flexibility, coordination and strength in your arms. Sometimes braces or splints can also be used to help prevent muscles from contracting too much.
Your doctor may also talk to you about different medicines. Antispastic medicines can help your muscles relax so that you have fewer spasms. Another treatment your doctor may recommend is injection therapy, which also helps relieve muscle spasms.
Your doctor may recommend surgery if the muscles or tendons become very stiff and limit the range of motion in the arms.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. NINDS spasticity information. Accessed June 16, 2010
U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. Spasticity. Accessed June 16, 2010
National Stroke Association. Spasticity and paralysis after stroke. Accessed June 16, 2010
WebMD. Spasticity causes, symptoms and treatments. Accessed June 16, 2010
Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Spasticity. Accessed June 16, 2010
Written by familydoctor.org editorial staff
|
<urn:uuid:54c2e707-90f5-4fe8-a280-cf55eb29a562>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/upper-limb-spasticity/bibliography.printerview.all.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94784 | 1,067 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Isn't that exactly what "marginal cost" means?
Hello all, I have 2 questions and if you could help me and explain them I would appreciate it so much. Thank you!
1. The marginal cost C′(q) (in dollars per unit) of producing q units is given in the following table.I found the answer of (a) which is 19,500 but how do I find (b) without a function to plug into my integral?
(a) If fixed cost is $12,000, estimate the total cost of producing 400 units. (b) How much would the total cost increase if production were increased one unit, to 401 units?
q 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 C′(q) 24 20 15 17 22 32 38
2. The graph of a derivative f′(x) is shown in Figure 5.67. Fill in the table of values for f(x) given that f(0) = 2.
x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 f(x) 2
Figure 5.67 Graph of f′, not f
I have no idea how to even start this one. Please help me!
|
<urn:uuid:aacf2700-d17e-4218-8da2-96ad3701017e>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://mathhelpforum.com/calculus/211985-fundamental-theorem-calculus.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.930025 | 244 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The Centennial of Alfred Russel Wallace's The World of Life: The Co-Discoverer of Natural Selection Proposes Intelligent Evolution!
Everyone seems to remember that Alfred Russel Wallace co-discovered the engine of modern evolutionary theory, natural selection, with his famous Ternate letter sent to Charles Darwin in early March of 1858. The receipt of that letter prompted an astonished Darwin into action to finally unveil his own theory and the rest is history. Or is it? Forgotten in the glare of Darwin's preeminence is that Wallace went on to craft his own theory, a theory imbued with intelligent design. First announced in April of 1869, Wallace would go on to develop a theory of directed, detectably designed, and purposeful common descent best described as intelligent evolution.
Wallace would continue to develop his ideas. On December 2, 1910, the London publishing house of Chapman and Hall released his World of Life: A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose, the culmination of more than forty years of research, investigation, and thought on the subject. Without the aid of molecular biology or modern information theory, Wallace saw specific features of biological complexity as clear and demonstrable evidences for intelligent design. Some thought that Wallace had overstepped the line and committed heresy in such assertions, but Wallace was quick in his own defense: "I also wish to point out that, however strange and heretical some of my beliefs and suggestions may appear to be, I claim that they have been arrived at by a careful study of the facts and conditions of the problem. I mention this because numerous critics of my former work [on cosmology]--Man's Place in the Universe (to which this [The World of Life] may be considered supplementary)--treated the conclusions there arrived at as if they were wholly matters of opinion or imagination, and founded (as were their own) on personal likes or dislikes, without any appeal to evidence or to reasoning. This is not a method I have adopted in any of my works."
Not surprisingly, some still branded--and indeed still continue to brand--Wallace a heretic. Nevertheless, his biographer James Marchant, offered a more reasonable assessment when he wrote in 1916, "Yet we may intimate his boldness and ask whether he was not, perhaps, in advance of his age and whether his heresies were not shrewd anticipations of some truth at present but partially revealed."
The issues Wallace raised with regard to the unique properties of the human mind and biological complexity remain with us today, but with perhaps clearer answers being offered along some of the lines suggested by him a century ago in The World of Life.
|
<urn:uuid:a1c2dcd2-6127-4189-9337-86a4a280874c>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/the_centennial_of_alfred_russe041171.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.978886 | 545 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Tearing apart limbs, sawing through ribs, and separating skull bones are activities usually relegated to summer slasher movies, not the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. However, renovations to the museum's dinosaur hall—which started this spring—necessitate the removal of dinosaur and extinct mammal skeletons that can weigh nearly five tons.
The renovations will modernize a hall that has never seen a major overhaul. They will also give researchers a chance to study the specimens on display—some of which haven't been touched in decades—in more detail.
Only by dismantling the skeletons and removing the plaster and glue covering the actual fossils can paleontologists answer questions such as the specimens' age, how their bones articulate, and whether the animals suffered injuries while alive.
Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosauria at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., can't wait to get his hands on a meat-eating Jurassic dinosaur called Allosaurus that has been on display for 30 years. "Scientifically, it's well known," he says, because "for a long time, it was one of the only Allosaurus specimens that represented a single individual."
All in One
There are a lot of Allosaurus specimens out there, Carrano said, but they consist of bones from many different individuals. It has been difficult for scientists to figure out how an Allosaurus skeleton fits together, because often the limbs are cobbled together from several animals.
The bones in the Smithsonian's 17-foot-long (5 meters) Allosaurus come from one individual. So once the crystallized glue holding the skeleton together is removed, researchers and conservators can get a better sense of how the joints articulate.
Carrano would also like to determine this particular individual's age. Slicing a thin cross-section out of a leg or rib bone can help with that. Placing that slice under a microscope, researchers will be able to count growth rings on the bone, very much like counting tree rings.
There's also evidence that this particular Allosaurus suffered a major injury to its left side. In preparation for the Allosaurus overhaul, researchers pulled out some ribs and a shoulder blade that have been sitting in storage and saw something interesting.
"The left shoulder blade looked like it was broken and then healed improperly," Carrano said. If paleontologists can fit the wonky shoulder blade together with the ribs, they might be able to tell the severity of the injury.
There are also plans to slim down their specimen. "Our Allosaurus has more of a barrel chest, and we need to make it a little [slimmer]," Jabo said.
When the museum first displayed the Allosaurus 30 years ago, researchers and preparators decided to use casts of the ribs instead of the actual specimens. Modifications to the rib shapes resulted in a heftier-looking finished product. Jabo says the final, remounted skeleton will look much more natural.
Researchers also plan to lop off a couple of inches from the Allosaurus's tail, which is not original fossil but made of casts of vertebrae. "The tail that's on that specimen is a little bit too big," said Peter May, owner and president of Research Casting International (RCI), a Canada-based company that is handling the dismantling, conservation, and remounting of 58 specimens in the museum's dinosaur hall.
"It's got over 50 vertebrae," May said, when it should have something closer to 45.
Finally, Carrano hopes to be able to compare the Allosaurus with another dinosaur in the collections called Labrosaurus. Labrosaurus is known only from a single bone, Carrano said. The bone is half of a lower jaw with a puffy front end. "It's [the result of] some sort of disease or injury where the two front teeth are missing and there's an abscess there," Carrano said.
However, Labrosaurus is now thought to be a type of Allosaurus, and both of the Smithsonian specimens come from the same quarry. Plus, the Allosaurus is missing the exact bone that's currently labeled Labrosaurus. "So it's entirely possible that this bone belongs to our [Allosaurus]," Carrano said.
"Frankly, a lot of the stuff we'll learn from these things won't happen until they come down and we have a good look at it," Carrano said. May and his crew were able to take the Allosaurus apart in big chunks in one day, but they still have hours ahead of them in the lab, where they'll break the skeleton down further into individual bones and clean them.
So Carrano and Jabo will have to wait.
Follow Jane J. Lee on Twitter.
|
<urn:uuid:92979bdb-a2c6-4a1b-bfd0-9c0c99123cd1>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140731-dinosaur-hall-smithsonian-renovation-culture-science/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958209 | 978 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Identity Theft Information
What is Identity Theft
Identity theft is when someone uses your personal information fraudulently. This can be your social security number, name, or credit card number.
What do identity thieves do?
Identity theft costs you time and money and can destroy your credit. Common crimes including obtaining credit cards, car loans, illegal immigration scams, contracting for other services, buying merchandise, and even changing your address so you aren't aware of these transactions.
Other examples include:
- Writing bad checks on a newly opened bank account.
- Not paying the bills for a new credit card account.
- Obtaining personal loans, car loans or cash advances.
- Opening a new cell phone plan.
- Changing your mailing address and gain access to your existing accounts.
- Obtaining employment.
- Renting an apartment and not paying rent.
How do identity thieves steal information?
Being aware of the methods of identity theft can help you minimize your overall risk.
Common methods include:
Lost/stolen wallet or checkbook
The most commonly reported source of information used to commit fraud is a lost or stolen wallet or checkbook. Stolen wallets and checkbooks usually contain a number of credit and debit cards, in addition to other personal documentation. Using these items, a thief can get enough information to obtain credit under the victim’s name, or sell the information to an organized crime ring.
Crooks search mailboxes for pre-approved credit offers, bank statements, tax forms, or convenience checks. They also look for credit card payment envelopes that have been left for postal carrier pick-up.
They rummage through trash looking for bills or other paper with your personal information on it.
They pretend to be financial institutions or companies and send spam or pop-up messages to get you to reveal your personal information, accounts, and passwords.
Changing Your Address
They divert your billing statements to another location by completing a change of address form. This way you won't be aware of any new accounts or transactions and this may expose your existing accounts to the identity thief.
How to avoid Identity Theft
Months may pass before you become away of any wrongdoing. Monitoring your credit card and other account statements weekly can greatly decrease your identity theft risk. In fact, the majority of identity theft crimes are self-detected. And according to a recent report by the Better Business Bureau, accessing accounts online provides earlier identity theft detection compared to monitoring monthly paper statements and bills.
Use credit and debit cards safely
-Report lost or stolen credit cards immediately.
-Cancel all inactive credit card accounts.
-When using your credit card do not volunteer any personal information.
-If you’ve applied for a credit card and have not received the card in a timely manner, immediately notify the appropriate financial institution.
-Closely monitor the expiration dates on your credit cards. Contact the credit issuer if the replacement card is not received prior to your credit card’s expiration date.
-Sign all new credit cards upon receipt.
-Match your credit card receipts against monthly bills to make sure there are no unauthorized charges.
Request electronic versions of bills, statements, and checks instead of paper. This allows you to monitor accounts more often on a weekly basis.
Sign up for direct deposit of payroll to prevent paper checks from ending up in the wrong hands.
Shred all personal and financial information such as bills, bank statements, ATM receipts, and credit card offers before you discard them.
Keep your personal documentation (e.g. birth certificate, Social Security card, etc.) and your bank and credit card records in a secure place.
Limit the personal information that you carry in your wallet or purse.
Do not give your Social Security number, credit card number, or any bank account details over the phone unless you have initiated the call and know that the business that you are dealing with is reputable.
Do not disclose bank account numbers, credit card account numbers, and other personal financial data on any Web site or online service location, unless you receive a secured authentication key from your provider.
Do not allow mail to go uncollected. Retrieve it promptly.
Memorize your numbers and/or passwords. Do not write your Social Security number or passwords on paper and store them in your wallet or purse.
Avoid leaving envelopes containing your credit card payments or checks in your home mailbox for postal carrier pickup.
Prior to discarding a computer, make sure all personal information is deleted from its hard drive.
Take receipts at ATMs, bank counters, or unattended gasoline pumps with you.
Use passwords on your credit cards, bank accounts, and phone cards.
Review your credit reports annually.
Be aware of your surroundings when entering your Personal Identification Number (PIN) at an ATM.
How can I tell if my identity has been stolen?
Things to look for if your personal information may have been compromised:
-There are a number of events that alert you to possible identity theft. You may experience some or all of the following:
-You find charges on statements for items you did not buy.
-Creditors contact you about non-payment of a bill that you believe you have paid.
-A debt collector or business contacts you about purchases you did not make.
-You are approved or denied credit for accounts that you never requested.
-A bill or other expected mail fails to arrive. A missing bill could mean an identity thief has changed your billing address.
-You receive credit cards that you didn't apply for.
-A collection agency contacts you about non-payment on an account that you never opened.
-You are denied credit or are offered less favorable credit terms (e.g., high interest rate) for no apparent reason.
-You have missing cards (credit, ATM, debit) or other identifying information such as licenses or membership IDs.
What do to if you become a victim of identity theft:
Step 1: Close your credit cards and tell your bank
Act now! Call the customer service number on the back of your credit cards. If your wallet has been stolen, find the contact information on past bills or get a general number through an operator. The customer service representatives can help ensure that you will not be responsible for any purchases made via identity theft.
Also, while you may not need to close your checking or savings accounts, contact your bank or financial institution and alert them of the identity theft. This allows the bank to monitor your account for suspicious activity.
Step 2: Alert a credit reporting agency
The three major credit reporting agencies collect credit history on consumers and deliver a calculated score based on factors such as repayment behavior. An identity thief may attempt to contact one of these agencies to change the name or address associated with your account. Alerting the agency will allow them to closely monitor your account for suspicious requests and to contact you when such requests are made.
Act now! Contact one of the agencies below. Each can quickly assist your request to monitor your account for unusual activity. Instruct them to flag your file with a fraud alert including a statement that creditors should get your permission before opening any new accounts in your name. Ask the agencies for copies of your credit report. (Credit bureaus must give you a free copy of your report if it is inaccurate because of suspected fraud.) Review your reports carefully to make sure no additional fraudulent accounts have been opened in your name or unauthorized changes made to your existing accounts.
You may want to ask about the option to freeze your credit. A consumer report security freezes limits a consumer reporting agency from releasing a credit report or any information from the report without authorization from the consumer.
Equifax: (800) 685-1111
Experian: (888) 397-3742
TransUnion: (800) 916-8800
Step 3: Contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
The FTC has an initiative to collect details about victims of identity theft. By filing your complaint, you help federal authorities understand the methods and targets of identity thieves and aid them in tracking down these criminals to prevent future theft. You can contact the FTC through their toll-free hotline (877) IDTHEFT (877-438-4338) or you can file your complaint online at http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft.
Step 4: Be proactive. Monitor your credit by requesting free credit reports from http://annualcreditreport.com. US consumers are entitled to one free report per credit reporting agency per year so spread out your requests quarterly.
|
<urn:uuid:f5c56614-20c4-4622-b521-1637f989b593>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://www.tcnj.edu/~it/security/IdentityTheftInformation.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.921827 | 1,767 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Sign Language of the NetherlandsPrint
7,500 in Netherlands (2014 EUD). 45,000 deaf, 495,000 hard of hearing (2005 National Hearing Foundation). 7,500 sign language users (2014 EUD). 10,000–13,000 deaf or severely hard of hearing (Dovenschap brochure). 86,500 deaf (2014 IMB). L2 users: 15,000 in Netherlands. Total users in all countries: 22,500 (as L1: 7,500; as L2: 15,000).
Seven recognized dialects. Five developed around the original five deaf schools: Groningen, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Brabant (Stoop 2014). One is associated with the unique home for deaf elderly people, and one is the standardized variety. Fingerspelling system similar to French Sign Language [fsl].
Deaf schools. Deaf associations. All ages.
400 working sign language interpreters (2014 EUD). Organizations for SLN teachers and interpreters. A sign center (Nederlands Gebarencentrum) develops NGT teaching materials and studies NGT lexicography. Research on NGT done at University of Amsterdam and Radboud University. Although NGT recommended for official recognition by a special committee, the Dutch government has not recognized the language (Schermer 2012). Taught as L2 (e.g. parents of deaf children). Teachers at deaf schools and interpreters have official college-level training. Secular, Christian.
|
<urn:uuid:9e143256-6a4a-46b8-af6b-86d74b9238a7>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/dse
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00094-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.876899 | 314 | 2.734375 | 3 |
White Bread, Other High-Glycemic Foods Increase Risk of Type-2 Diabetes
The prevalence of type-2 diabetes, also called non-insulin dependent diabetes, continues to rise worldwide. According to the latest estimates, more than 18 million Americans currently suffer from type-2 diabetes.
Previous research suggests that refined cereal products and foods with a high glycemic index (GI) - which measures how fast a food is likely to raise your blood sugar - may increase the risk of diabetes, while fruits, vegetables and foods high in fiber may reduce diabetes risk.
In this study, Australian researchers examined the dietary habits of 36,787 men and women (ages of 40 and 69) who did not have diabetes. Dietary information was collected using a food frequency questionnaire, with particular attention paid to glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load. A follow-up questionnaire was administered four years later to ascertain whether any of the patients had been diagnosed with diabetes; confirmation of diabetes was later obtained from licensed medical practitioners.
Results showed that high intakes of starch, total cereal foods, bread, white bread, and "other cereal" products (including sweet-flavored cereals) were associated with higher GI, while high intakes of fruit and vegetables were associated with lower GI. Bread intake, particularly white bread, also had a positive association with diabetes. Patients who consumed the highest quartile of white bread were 37 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than those with the least frequent bread intake. Intakes of total carbohydrates, sugars, and magnesium had an inverse association with the risk of developing diabetes; fiber had no influence on diabetes risk.
"Our data suggest that a diet with high carbohydrate content and a low GI may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes," the authors concluded. They added that white bread "was the food most strongly related to diabetes incidence and was also the most strongly associated with GI." The authors suggest that a "simple change" from white bread to breads with a lower glycemic index could reduce the risk of diabetes, and that "changing bread type may be a more acceptable dietary change than one requiring a whole new eating pattern."
Hodge AM, O'Dea K, English DR, Giles GG. Glycemic index and dietary fiber and the risk of type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care
|
<urn:uuid:536510f3-8868-450c-9773-b21e290a01b0>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/crr/article.php?id=1346
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.953335 | 467 | 3.375 | 3 |
Educational Uses of The MissionThe Mission, the first program in this series, provides significant opportunities for learning - both inside and outside the classroom. "What could be more intriguing than exploring the history of a neighborhood?" says Carol Marquis, Past President of the California Council for the Social Studies. "The Mission provides students and their teachers with a colorful journey through history and tells a compelling story of people in a unique location."
Educators can use The Mission to explore historical, geographic and anthropological topics, as well as contemporary social science issues such as immigration, multiculturalism and urban studies. To help educators explore the rich historical materials, this resource guide provides lesson ideas for grades 4, 8, 9 and 11. (See pages 5 to 8.) The program may be recorded off-air for educational use by K-12 schools and kept in perpetuity.
Community groups, schools and families will find The Mission a welcome companion in journeying beyond the surface to discover our community's origins and culture, using the discussion questions and activities on page 10 as a guide.
We invite all viewers to rediscover our history, not as a series of dates and remote events, but as a continuing story that lives in the streets of every neighborhood and in the hearts of the people who were born there, or who left their homes to establish new lives there.
After viewing The Mission, we hope you can stand on a single street corner and tune in to the drumbeat of the original inhabitants, the voices of the early settlers, the screech of the streetcars and the whistle of the wartime factories with an enriched appreciation for the contributions of those who walked before.
Take me to The Mission home page
Take me to the Neighborhoods Menu page
|
<urn:uuid:4e1e943f-1a6f-4f7f-9179-a0699c85eb81>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.kqed.org/w/hood/mission/eduses.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.942842 | 352 | 3.5625 | 4 |
3rd grade geometry
Looking for a worksheet to help practice basic geometry? This printable works with identifying different types of angles.
Do you know your quadrilaterals? Learn how to identify five different types of quadrilaterals and put your new knowledge to use with a few practice problems.
Searching for a worksheet to help you child with spatial awareness? This printable shape quiz works with basic geometric shapes.
Help your third-grader learn about right angle geometry with this simple geometry worksheet.
Help your child practice identifying equilateral triangles on this geometry worksheet.
From angles and congruent shapes to calculating perimeter, this quiz covers variety of topics in third grade geometry.
Filled with questions on lines and polygons, this practice quiz makes a great review sheet or study guide for an upcoming test.
Covering the concepts of symmetry and congruence in geometry, this worksheet is perfect for third graders who need a quick review.
Learn some basic geometry with this worksheet all about the angle.
|
<urn:uuid:b854ee5a-60fa-44dd-945e-44ad7fbf4352>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.education.com/collection/brittanyringo/3rd-grade-geometry/?viewfewer
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.898659 | 215 | 4.0625 | 4 |
UK CHEMISTRY SYLLABUSES (16 to 18)
I assume that you want to get the best grade you possibly can with the minimum of effort! Getting a good grade is rather like playing a game with your examiners - in which they make up the rules (and occasionally change them). You aren't going to win unless you know those rules.
Before you do anything else:
How to download a copy of your syllabus
Finding your way to the right syllabus
Most of the following links take you to the front page of each of the websites. In most cases, you will then have to find your own way to your syllabus. This is because these sites are liable to change.
Be aware that the syllabuses are called by various names.
In the A level system they are known as specifications. You want GCE Advanced and Advanced Subsidiary (A and AS) Chemistry.
In Scotland they are known as Arrangements Documents.
Finding the syllabuses is usually straightforward (I've given some help where this isn't the case) - finding other information may take you longer!
The A level Exam Boards:
Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers:
Problems reading the downloaded syllabus?
Most syllabuses are available only in pdf format. You need software such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to access it. You have almost certainly got this (or the equivalent) software on your computer, but if your computer is old, you may not have the latest version.
If your downloaded syllabus won't open, it may be that the syllabus was created in a newer version of the Reader than you've got. You will have to download a new version of Reader.
If you need a new version of Acrobat Reader, use this link:
Go to Main Menu . . .
© Jim Clark 2000 (last modified June 2010)
|
<urn:uuid:4f00001a-d529-40dc-8c9e-8034f300178f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.chemguide.co.uk/syllabuses.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00112-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.947915 | 392 | 2.703125 | 3 |
such as "Introduction", "Conclusion"..etc
September 2008 -- Yale molecular and evolutionary biologists in collaboration with
Department of Energy scientists produced the full genome sequence of
Trichoplax, one of nature's most primitive multicellular organisms,
providing a new insight into the evolution of all higher animals.
The findings reported in the August 21 online edition of the journal
Nature show that while Trichoplax has one of the smallest nuclear
genomes found in a multi-cellular creature, it contains signature
sequences for gene regulation found in more complex animals and humans.
Further, it defines Trichoplax as a branching point of animal evolution.
"Trichoplax placozoans are animals that have only four body cell
types and no structured organs. They represent descendents of the
oldest multi-celled animal, perhaps older even than sponges," said
author Stephen Dellaporta, professor of molecular, cellular and
developmental biology at Yale.
This study shows that compared with the nuclear genome of humans
that contains 3 billion base pairs, Trichoplax has only 98 million.
Earlier sequencing work showed that the mitochondrial genome of
Trichoplax is over twice the size of those found in most animals with
genes, introns and spacer sequences like the most primitive organisms.
However, size is not all that matters. DNA sequences that organisms
share in common represents what was in their genomes at the time of
their divergence. Unlike other model systems for studying evolution,
including fruit flies and worms, even the arrangement of genes is
conserved between the Trichoplax and human genomes.
"Trichoplax shares over 80 percent of its genes with humans," said
Dellaporta. "We are exited to find that Trichoplax contains shared
pathways and defined regulatory sequences that link these most
primitive ancestors to higher animal species. The Trichoplax genome
will serve as a type of "Rosetta Stone" for understanding the origins
of animal-specific pathways."
Trichoplax is from an ancient lineage and brings significant
insights to understanding how animal life evolved from the common
ancestor 600 million years ago. The consortium believes that the
Trichoplax genome establishes a new standard basal group for the
comparative analysis of animal genomes, genes, and biological processes.
The genome portal for Trichoplax is http://genome.jgi-psf.org/Triad1/Triad1.home.html.
Study co-authors include Mansi Srivastava, Emina Begovic, Jarrod
Chapman, Uffe Hellsten, Takeshi Kawashima, Alan Kuo, Therese Mitros,
Asaf Salamov, Meredith Carpenter, Ana Signorovitch, Maria Moreno, Kai
Kamm, Jane Grimwood, Jeremy Schmutz, Harris Shapiro, Igor Grigoriev,
Leo Buss, Bernd Schierwater, Stephen Dellaporta and Daniel Rokhsar.
Funding for this work was from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation,
the National Science Foundation, the German Science Foundation and the
Human Frontiers Science Program.
Enter the code exactly as it appears. All letters are case insensitive.
|
<urn:uuid:968441bd-d665-415b-ab3f-e73aa1899c8f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.biology-online.org/kb/revision.php?p_id=13744&a_id=5461
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.8844 | 693 | 3.65625 | 4 |
What do you think -was King Arthur a real person, or is he purely the stuff of legend? Either way, he makes for a good story.
In England, the most popular tales of chivalry are the Welsh legends of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. No one knows for sure if there was a real person who served as the inspiration for Arthur ...or if so, which historical figure it was. The earliest known mention of Arthur is a reference to a mighty warrior in "Gododdin," a Welsh poem written about 600 AD. Another 200 years would pass before Arthur would receive another mention, this time in The History of the Britons, which credits him with winning 12 battles against Saxon invaders.
It's likely that tales of Arthur were also spread by word of mouth, because when Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote down the tales of Arthur in his History of the Kings of Britain in 1135, he recorded Arthur's birth in the late fifth century, childhood, military conquests, marriage to Guinevere, relationship with his mentor Merlin, and his death in 542 when he was mortally wounded in battle by his treacherous nephew Mordred. Geoffrey is also the first person to identify Arthur as a king, not just a warrior.
COOKING THE BOOKS
So where did Geoffrey of Monmouth get his information? He claimed to have gotten it from a "certain very ancient book written in the British language," but did not identify it by name. Historians now believe there was no such book. They theorize that Geoffrey simply recorded the popular tales of his day, and when needed, made up his own details to fill in any gaps, drawing from legends surrounding leaders like Alexander the Great and Charlemagne. That didn't stop readers from taking The History of the Kings of Britain seriously -it served as the standard text on British history for more than 600 years.
Geoffrey of Monmouth wasn't the first to invent tales about King Arthur, and he certainly wasn't the last. In 1155 another writer, Wace of Jersey, introduced the concept of the Round Table; five years later the French poet Chrétian de Troyes wrote five Arthurian romances that are credited with introducing the Holy Grail and Sir Lancelot's affair with Queen Guinevere. A 13th-century French poet, Robert de Boron, contributed the famous story of the orphaned Arthur winning his crown by removing a magic sword from a stone.
One thing historians agree on is that even if "King Arthur" really did live in England in the early sixth century, he and his knights did not live in castles, wear suits of armor, or fight in tournaments -because none of those things existed in the sixth century. So why is Arthur so closely associated with them? Because Geoffrey of Monmouth and other contributors to the Arthurian legend had no sense of how different life had been 600 years earlier. They, not Arthur, lived in an age of castles and knights in shining armor, and they filled their stories with the trappings of their own era. In the process they created a world for King Arthur that he, if he did really exist, would never have recognized.
YOU CAN LEAD A KNIGHT TO WATER...
What about the generations of knights that grew up listening to the chivalrous tales of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table -how well did they live up to the noble example set by their hero? Did they give to the sick and the poor? Did they protect orphans and the elderly? Did they respect woman and treat captured knights with the same respect they'd show upon guests?
Not quite -medieval knights preached chivalry, but practicing it was another story, as Will Durant writes in The Story of Civilization:
Theoretically the knight was required to be a hero, a gentleman, and a saint. All this, however, was chivalric theory. The hero who fought one day bravely in tournament might on another be a faithless murderer. He might [preach] of protecting the weak,and strike unarmed peasants down with a sword; he treated with scorn the manual worker and with frequent coarseness and and occasional brutality the wife whom he had sworn to cherish and protect. He could hear Mass in the morning, rob a church in the afternoon, and drink himself into obscenity at night.
_________________________The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.
If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
|
<urn:uuid:0be5da3e-fe12-4dec-8f0f-c0ca6f3c042d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/06/25/the-legend-of-king-arthur/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00114-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.9759 | 966 | 3.203125 | 3 |
(Difference between revisions)
Revision as of 11:14, 14 August 2010
Lecturing Faculty: Martina Koniger and Drew Webb
Laboratory Instructors: Melissa Beers and Tucker Crum
Study Group Leader/Course Peer Mentor: Catherine Cheng
Lecture: T/F 11:10-12:20
Lab: M 1:30-5; T 12:30-4; W 2:15-5:45; Th 1-4:30; F 1-4:30
Welcome to BISC 219!
Over the course of the semester you will perform experiments that encompass both forward and reverse genetics approaches to answer complex questions about gene structure and function using the nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, as a model organism. You will gain familiarity with sophisticated molecular tools that are widely used to study gene location, regulation and expression.
The success of your experiments is largely in your own hands. Please read through the entire set of experiments before beginning a lab series and read again, carefully, the portion to be done in lab that day before starting your work. Try to avoid the “hands-on- brain-off” pitfall common to lab students; instead, think as well as do. Be aware of what is actually happening in your tube during each step of a protocol. Know where you are in the stepwise progression toward answering your experimental questions as you complete each part of an experiment or series. Success in these labs will depend on paying meticulous attention to detail and on following instructions precisely. It is equally important to understand the conceptual basis of your experimental design and its goals. By doing all this, you will eventually see the results of your faith and hard work: you will have modeled the way science is done by scientists.
Many of the reagents used in these experiments are expensive and they require many hours of preparation. In using them, please exercise care and common sense to avoid contaminating reagent stocks and to make sure you don’t “hord” shared reagents. A considerable amount of money has been spent to provide enough equipment of adequate sophistication so that each student will have “hands-on” experience. For example, you will be using micropipets for dispensing tiny quantities of solution very accurately. These micropipets cost approximately $250 each. Please treat all of the equipment with care so that many classes of genetics students can use them.
At times you will be required to follow specific instructions concerning the handling or disposal of materials. Please obey these instructions precisely, both for your own protection and to comply with established guidelines for use of these reagents. You should read the Wellesley College Safety Information at:
Wellesley Safety. This site has specific safety information related to the type of experiments you will perform. There are times when you should wear gloves in lab to prevent contaminating your samples and also to prevent your samples from contaminating you. Please remember, however, that your gloves can be easily contaminated if you touch your face, hair, etc. and that you can contaminate door-knobs, computer keyboards, phones or other non-lab equipment with your gloves. Change your gloves often and never touch non-lab equipment (such as computer key boards) with gloved hands unless specifically directed to do so.
On occasion, you will be expected to come into lab outside of normal hours to collect data or to continue an experiment. We have tried to keep the extra time to a minimum, but please understand that BISC219 lab is an ambitious program in genetics requiring your full commitment and cooperation.
The three series of experiments you will perform during the semester are:
Series 1: Autosome or Sex Chromosome?
Series 2: Mapping a Mutation
Series 3: RNA interference (RNAi)
You will be expected to keep a lab notebook of all the work done in these experiments. This notebook should be useful to you when you write your scientific paper on your work at the conclusion of each series of experiments. Protocols are provided in this wiki, but an outline or flow chart should be written by you before lab in your notebook. Do not just print and attach the directions found in the wiki. Prepare tables for results and do all calculations in your notebook.
Acquisition of scientific writing skills is a primary goal of the lab experience; therefore, writing about your experiments in the form of scientific research reports will constitute the bulk of your lab grade. The process of learning scientific writing will be aided through small practice assignments before you write a complete paper. There is a 5% per day penalty for late work. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, no work will be accepted for point credit more than one week after the due date.
Another good way to learn to write effectively about your work is to read well constructed research reports. Therefore, during the semester you will read and discuss several primary research articles that are related to your experiments.
We sincerely hope that you find your introduction to the world of genetics both exciting and intellectually stimulating. As always, we appreciate comments and suggestions for improving the program. Good luck and have fun!
|
<urn:uuid:411bfea7-62ec-48b4-b39f-4f7d2738f158>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.openwetware.org/index.php?title=BISC_219/F10&diff=444798&oldid=443821
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.943177 | 1,057 | 2.515625 | 3 |
D.A. Blodgett Updates Bullying Prevention Project
The prevention project, which is intended for middle school students, educates them about the serious problem of bullying, and helps them develop and deliver bullying prevention messages. It consists of a PowerPoint presentation with a guided discussion, classroom discussions and action projects.
The PowerPoint presentation contains slides and a video which address the bully, the bystander, civil rights and hate crimes, when bullying behavior may constitute and crime, and the right of every student to feel safe at school.
The action projects encourage students to participate in projects in their own school, with younger students and with parents in the community, to bring awareness to the problem and help eradicate bullying.
"The recent conclusion of the tragic case involving Phoebe Prince reminds us once again that bullying is not a harmless rite of passage," said District Attorney Blodgett. "Bullying can have a devastating impact on the victims and their families. That is why we continue to aggressively address this issue and look for ways to improve and enhance our educational and prevention efforts."
This program is a resource for schools and police, and is intended to be used within a broader school curriculum.
Members of the media are welcome to attend.
|
<urn:uuid:b594594b-beb9-4bb4-a874-cae473ec3ee7>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.mass.gov/essexda/media/press-releases/2011/new-bullying-prevention-project.html
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00183-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.94893 | 251 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Sensing the Sacred: Religion and the Senses, 1300-1800
The University of York, England, UK
21-22 June 2013
Confirmed keynote addresses from:
Nicky Hallett (University of Sheffield)
Matthew Milner (McGill University)
& Chris Woolgar (University of Southampton)
Religion has always been characterised as much by embodied experience as by abstract theological dispute. From the sounds of the adhān (the Islamic call to prayer), to the smell of incense in the Hindu Pūjā (a ritual offering to the deities), the visual emblem of the cross in the Christian tradition, and the ascetic practices of Theravada Buddhism, sensation is integral to a range of devotional practices. At the same time, the history of many faiths is characterised by an intense suspicion of the senses and the pleasures they offer.
This international, interdisciplinary conference, to be held at the University of York from 21 to 22 June 2013, will bring together scholars working on the role played by the senses in the experience and expression of religion and faith in the pre-modern world. The burgeoning field of sensory history offers a fertile ground for reconsideration of religious studies across disciplinary boundaries. We welcome papers from anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, historians, literary scholars, musicologists, philosophers, theologians, and any other interested parties. Possible topics might include, but are by no means limited to:
- Synaesthesia: how do religious rituals blur sensory boundaries, and challenge sensory hierarchies?
- Iconography and iconoclasm: how might we conceive the ‘rites of violence’ in sensory terms? How does iconography engage the non-visual senses?
- The senses and conversion: how are the senses used to elicit conversion?
- Material cultures of religion: what role do the senses play in mediating between bodies and sacred objects?
- The senses and gender: are sensing practices gender specific?
- The inner (spiritual) senses: how do they relate to the external (bodily) senses?
- Sensory environments: to what extent do environments shape devotional practices and beliefs, and vice versa? How do we use our senses to orient ourselves in space?
- Affect: what role do the senses play in the inculcation of religious affect?
Proposals (max. 300 words) for papers of 20 minutes are welcomed both from established scholars, and from postgraduate students. Applications from panels of three speakers are encouraged, as well as individual proposals. They should be sent to conference organisers Robin Macdonald, Emilie Murphy, and Elizabeth Swann at [email protected] by 6pm on 5 November 2012.
For further information see http://www.york.ac.uk/crems/events/sensingthesacred/
Send comments and questions to H-Net
Webstaff. H-Net reproduces announcements that have been submitted to us as a
free service to the academic community. If you are interested in an announcement
listed here, please contact the organizers or patrons directly. Though we strive
to provide accurate information, H-Net cannot accept responsibility for the text of
announcements appearing in this service. (Administration)
|
<urn:uuid:38ccd36f-4eb7-4bb0-915e-23b325063a64>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=196611
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.925103 | 678 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Dr. Mike King
Digital Art Museum (DAM) is a joint research project between London Guildhall University and two independent galleries, one in London England, and the other in Wiesbaden Germany. It aims to become a leading on-line resource for the history and practice of computer art. At the time of writing the focus has been on the Pioneers of computer art from 1956 to 1986, which is delineated as Phase 1 of the project. These artists are characterised by their engagement with early computer technologies for image production, which technologies include both analogue and digital circuitries, and may only remotely resemble modern digital computers. Many of the pioneers were not in the first instance artists, or not necessarily trained artists, and may be included in DAM more for the historical significance of their work than for their artistic abilities. However in the first instance the emphasis in DAM is always on artistic excellence, and in particular on those artists who have stayed in the field for a substantial period.
The date 1956 has been chosen for the birth of computer art because a number of commentators, including SIGGRAPH panels and Jasia Reichardt, director of the prestigious Institute of Contemporary Arts in London England, have cited this date. It is a little arbitrary for several reasons, firstly because much of the 'digital' art starting in this period was in fact analogue, and because the experiments of both Ben Laposky and John Whitney Sr. started a little earlier. Nevertheless, it marks the beginnings of computer art experiments by a third early pioneer, Herbert Franke, and in some sense also the beginning of a movement. 1986 has been chosen as the end of this pioneering period with a similar arbitrariness, but not without some important historical landmarks, all to do with the paint system. Firstly, Britain's BBC TV broadcast a series called 'Painting with Light' which followed a group of well-known modern painters as they came to grips with the Quantel Paintbox (a pioneering television graphics paint system); secondly, Andy Warhol made a series of works with the Commodore Amiga, including self-portraits and portraits of singer Deborah Harry; and thirdly it was the year in which Photoshop was written (though not yet released for the mass market).
Phase 2 of Digital Art Museum (tentatively called 'the Paintbox Era') runs from 1986 to 1994, in which year the world wide web took off. Phase 3 (tentatively called the Multimedia Era) will include artists from 1995 onwards, and is intended to showcase new and emerging talent.
This paper will focus mainly on the Pioneers of digital art and the relationship of their work to Modernist art styles. In an odd way the computer emserged as a tool for artists at just the wrong time: too late for the mathematical explorations of Constructivism and Suprematism (by decades), just too late for Op Art (by a few years) and just in time to see Postmodernism make the kind of content-based art that the computer lends itself to somewhat redundant. Hence computer art has never been mainstream and has also been dogged by its association with the non-artist and art-naïve practitioner from the computer sciences. Some of the most significant practitioners of computer art, including John Whitney Sr. and Harold Cohen have been highly critical of much of computer art, and rightly so. However the observation behind Digital Art Museum is that the best work from the best digital artists is compelling as art, historically important, and significant for its interdisciplinary creativity.
This is a good point to add a personal note. I work at the intersection of art, science and the spiritual, regarding each as an open and systematic inquiry into different aspects of the deep structure of human experience. Clearly this essay focuses on the border territories between art and science, but it is obliged to touch on the spiritual in passing for two reasons. Firstly the birth and progress of Modernism is associated with the spiritual in unexpected ways, and secondly a number of the digital art Pioneers had or have explicit interests in this field. One can make a fairly rounded analysis of both Modernism and digital art without reference to the spiritual, but it seems pointless to leave this gap of comprehension.
Phase 1 artists
As Digital Art Museum is an on-going research project it is not possible at this point to give a comprehensive list of pioneers, or at least not one that would satisfy everyone. Hence the list in Table I is tentative, and will be reduced or expanded on two criteria: (1) the historical contribution to the field (2) the substantial nature and quality of the body of art that survives. (Readers are cordially invited to contribute to the selection process, and to alert us to any historical omissions or inaccuracies.) Note that the column marked 'Enter' is the approximate date that the artist started working with computers (where known).
Artist Category / Comment Country Enter
Ben Laposky Mathematician / artist US 1950
Herbert Franke Mathematician / artist Germany 1956
John Whitney Sr. Filmmaker - as artist in residence with IBM US 1958
Charles Csuri Artist - Algorist US 1960
Michael Noll Computer Scientist - Riley and Mondrian simulations US 1963
Frieder Nake Mathematician Germany 1963
Edward E. Zajac Artist / Animator US 1963
Kenneth Knowlton Computer Scientist US 1967
Ruth Leavitt Artist US
Lillian Schwartz Artist / filmmaker / art analysis US 1968
Vera Molnar Artist France 1968
George Nees Mathematician - computer sculpture Germany 1969
Manfred Mohr Artist - Algorist Germany 1969
Harold Cohen Artist UK 1972
Joan Truckenbrod Artist US 1975
Yoichiro Kawaguchi Artist / animator Japan 1975
Laurence Gartel Artist - early paintbox US 1977
Jean-Pierre Hébert Artist - Algorist US 1979
Mark Wilson Artist - algorithmic plotter art US 1980
Roman Verotsko Artist - Algorist US 1982
David Em Artist - 1st significant use of 3D US 1983
Rejane Spitz Artist Brazil 1983
Paul Brown Artist, educator UK
Yoshiyuki Abe Artist Japan
Table 1 Phase One of Digital Art Museum, tentative selection
In Phases 2 and 3 of the project it is the second criterion that will mainly apply. The few artists discussed in this paper have been selected to show how their work related to modern art movements, and not to give a comprehensive development of the field.
Making a brief historical journey through the Pioneers, we note an early cluster of activity in the 1950s with Ben Laposky and John Whitney Sr. in the USA, and Herbert Franke in Germany. Ben Laposky was a mathematician and artist who died in 2000. His first artworks, which he called 'oscillons,' were made with an oscilloscope in 1950, and he claims to have exhibited them from 1952 to 1975 in over 216 exhibitions in the US and abroad, and to have been the subject of 160 publications . It was Herbert Franke's publication 'Computer Graphics - Computer Art' that brought to light the almost simultaneous, yet independent development of this artform in Franke's own work, and also in that of John Whitney Sr. Yet all three came to these experiments from rather different approaches, Whitney's being the most rooted in modern art. Whitney was an experimental filmmaker, interested in the visual parallels with music and the possibility of new abstract cinematic forms, gaining the necessary technological and mathematical skills to realise his artistic purposes. Franke, scientist first and artist second, was active in the production of works of art and their exhibition, just as Laposky was. Both started from mathematics. The concerns of some of the Pioneers who were not primarily artists can be understood from a comment made by Franke:
If one is engaged, as we are, with an inventory of all mathematical branches and with an interest in visualising all forms that come to light, one can obtain plenty of forms, shapes and structures never seen before - an expansion of our treasury of forms. Many of these forms have considerable aesthetic charm. According to the usual criteria we cannot call them original works of art. But they can be considered elements available for new creations and can be used to develop artworks.
A focus on mathematics, in this case, or on the technology itself in other cases, is characteristic of some early computer art, and provides a very different motive from that of the artist. Laposky, Franke and Whitney were interested in artistic forms deriving from simple mathematical elements, principally the interaction of sine curves upon each other, and in time. (Whitney tells us in a 1970 interview that he took to the computer because he realised that his earlier equipment was doing mechanically what an oscilloscope would do ). However, Whitney is primarily an artist, Franke a scientist, and Laposky somewhere inbetween. Whitney tells us that his motivation lies with the artistic nature of harmony:
Indeed, "The nature of art has become uncertain," and for one sizeable block of composers, that grand Pythagorean certainty - the harmony - has come apart. Even so the foundation of my work rests first upon laws of harmony, then in turn, upon proof that the harmony is matched, part for part, in a world of visual design. That is my hypothesis.
Another artist whose work explores the visual equivalencies of musical structure is Edward E. Zajac, though he seems to have reached his inquiry and conclusions independently of Whitney.
Jumping now to 1969, we mention the work of another German artist, Manfred Mohr, whose work has a mathematical basis, this time principally in the hypercube. Although Mohr had strong interests in music, this time jazz, he only in his later work experimented with animation, focusing instead on a long series of print-based work that sometimes demonstrated visual equivalences to music. In his early work, as a transition from his painting, Mohr experimented with dense rows of symbols, selected and placed using pseudo-random techniques, a process more located in semiotics than mathematics. Then began a life-long exploration of the cube, itself perhaps the meeting point of sign and mathematical abstraction, and at first sight an unpromising basis for a personal oeuvre. However, with astonishing persistence and originality, Mohr began to make variations, fractures and dimensional progressions that gave him a reputation in Germany and beyond, his prints finding their way into significant collections. The principle element of his later work, projections of n-dimensional hypercubes, fractured onto the 2-dimensional plane, is an artistic obsession that has an interesting history in modern art, and will be explored later.
Adopting the computer somewhat later than Mohr, painter Roman Verostko developed a body of work over 25 years that explored the computer's algorithmic capability. Interestingly, the pre-computer paintings of both men show abstract expressionist influences. Verostko's use of algorithms is quite different however, reflecting a stronger interest in the organic, and eschewing 3D or higher dimensional representations. He is also unusual in his calligraphic interests, which led to experiments in using the plotter with Chinese brushes and inks, specially adapted for the machine. Verostko introduces the Leonardo essay on his work by saying "The software, called Hodos, can generate paintings that bear an uncanny resemblance to my work made by hand over 20 years ago" . The paper goes on to discuss the main themes in his work, including the idea of tension between 'control' and 'uncontrol', a significant area of exploration with many computer artists.
Manfred Mohr and Roman Verostko are, since around 1996, part of a group called the 'algorists', along with artists Mauro Annunziato, Charles Csuri, Helaman Ferguson, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Ken Musgrave, and Mark Wilson. All use computer algorithms as the basis for their work, and a subset exclusively use plotters. The 'algorists' had of course been working with computers for many years before forming the group, Charles Csuri for example as far back as 1960 or earlier.
One of the most unusual computer art oeuvres of the last 25 years belongs to Harold Cohen, a successful British abstract painter, who abandoned his career in painting in the early 80s to program computers. His ambitious aim was to 'teach' the computer the rules of artistic composition that drove his own work, and this resulted in an Artificial Intelligence program called 'AARON'. Initially running on minicomputers the size of a large refrigerator, and exhibited in this form at the Tate Gallery, London UK, in 1983 , it is now housed in Cohen's laptop, and has the alarming capability of 'painting' to itself.
The last of our very small (and not particularly representative) selection of computer artists is Laurence Gartel, who started working with video synthesizers in 1976. This is some 10 years before the watershed of 1986 (marking as we saw earlier the introduction of the Paintbox to painters, the use of the Amiga by Warhol, and the creation of Photoshop), and was at a time when the video image could only be crudely manipulated and then photographed off the video monitor. While the 'algorists' and artists working in similar ways with plotters could manage with relatively cheap computer equipment, the video and pixel-based image required expensive equipment far beyond the budget of individuals. In Ruth Leavitt's 'Artist and Computer' we learn that the necessary equipment in 1975 would comprise a computer ($50,000) a frame-buffer ($80,000) a tablet ($5,000) and a colour TV monitor ($5,000) . In the year 2002 all this hardware is subsumed within a cheap personal computer, totalling around $1,000, apart from the tablet which would be a small additional cost. The frame-buffer, essentially fast video RAM with a controller chip and digital-to-analogue converters, has experienced the most astonishing drop in price, from $80,000 to $80. Gartel is unusual for having entered the paint-box style of work so early, and having persisted through the evolution of this technology to the present day.
Some Modern Art Movements
Leaving technology for the moment, we now look at painting. The origins of Modern Art may not be exactly disputed, but there are numerous myths about its motives that bear closer examination, for example that modernism rejected the irrational and superstitious; that it represented progress and democracy; and that above all it was a break with the past. These were some of the themes of a UK Channel 4 TV documentary and booklet called 'Hidden Hands - a Different History of Modernism' which focused on the spiritual interests of modernist painters, the obsession with cleanliness following the first world war, and the patronage of the American Abstract Expressionists by the CIA during the cold war. There is no need to dwell overly on these factors that undoubtedly helped shape modern art movements, but a brief look at the spiritual influences will be useful as several digital artists amongst the pioneers had such interests.
Norbert Lynton in his introduction to 'The Story of Modern Art' points out that the conventional or received views on modern art were determined by a small group of curators and critics, such as Alfred Barr, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York . Maurice Tuchman has been foremost amongst those who saw Barr's formalist critique as one that suited the time but failed to probe beneath the aesthetic, formalist structures of abstract art to the spiritual motivations of the artists . I have explored the issue of the spiritual and occult influences on the artists of the early 20th century in several papers and , drawing on the work of another art historian, Roger Lipsey . Lipsey's seminal work has the phrase 'An Art of Our Own' as part of the title, a reference to a comment made by Constantin Brancusi that artists at the beginning of the 20th century had struggled free of the prime patron and subject matter of thousands of years - religion. Yet the paradox for modern art lies here, because Brancusi's work, as with other pioneering artists such as Mondrian, Kandinsky, Itten, and Arp, to name just a few, drew explicitly and intentionally on spiritual material. According to Lipsey, Brancusi's bed-time reading for many years was the 'Life of Milarepa' an autobiographical account of an 11th century Tibetan Buddhist, and so it went with many artists at this time, drawing on a wide variety of new and ancient spiritual traditions. In the late 20th century it had become intellectually inconceivable that writers, artists and thinkers could be so interested in such material, let alone be fully signed up members of occult organisation such as Theosophy and Anthroposophy, or followers of spiritual teachers such as G.I.Gurdjieff. Alfred Barr did not single-handedly bury these real and important influences on modern art, it was Western culture as a whole that denied these facts, and held up a rational modernism, one that was to be understood in terms of aesthetics, formalisms, and polemic.
The tensions between aesthetics and polemics, between spiritual content and socialist principles marks 20th century art, and impacted on the digital art pioneers as much as the other artists. While the artists at the start of the 20th century were widely influenced by the spiritual, it was the impact of world war one, the Russian revolution and world war two that progressively cemented the shift towards the polemical, socialist, egalitarian, and finally a content-free art. The reason for pointing this out in this context is that the computer, as a tool for working on content, has only a marginal role in the kind of art that now dominates the fine art world. Hence to understand many of the digital art pioneers we have to look at earlier modern art movements, though it is a vast subject that can only be lightly touched upon here. Norbert Lynton has this to say on art movements:
The story of modern art is usually told in terms of movements: Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, and so on. It was as group events that developments tended to come before the public, and in some instances (futurism, Surrealism) it is true that the art and its movement context fittingly went together. But in most cases the movement was a fabrication ---
Lynton goes on to say that despite this the 'movement' is of course a useful handle on art, as it is for us with our Digital Art clusters, such as the 'Algorists'. Of the early modernist movements, we can select a few that have a particular bearing on digital art, in particular Cubism, Constructivism, and Suprematism.
Cubism might be seen as the modernist precursor par excellence, an art that rejected older methods of representation and subject matter, and which resonated with discoveries in mathematics and science, in particular of the fourth dimension and relativity. Cubism developed between 1907 and 1911 in the work of Picasso and Braque, who later commented that "We were like two mountain climbers roped together". The paintings fractured the three-dimensions of space, iconically represented by the cube, and attempted to show all sides of an object at once, at the same time stripping out colour to the basic greys and browns. Leonard Schlain, in his book 'Art and Physics' has shown that not only were these artistic revolutions directly related to the discoveries of Einstein, but that such advances always anticipated those of science . The latter claim is radical, but the parallels between art and science bear up under close examination. Schlain points out that travelling near the speed of light results in the observer seeing gradually more and more of the normally occluded sides of an object, until at the speed of light one sees all sides at once; at the same time colour is stripped out - exactly what the cubists were indicating in their paintings. However higher dimensions were not just a scientific or mathematical interest, it was also a spiritual one, and was the particular obsession of a Russian philosopher who had an impact on Russian Constructivism and Suprematism - P.D.Ouspensky. I have explored some of these issues around dimensionality elsewhere , but we can say that the lasting legacy of cubism is, paradoxically, the jettisoning of the third dimension in 20th century art in favour of flat surface.
Moving on to the Constructivism of Tatlin and the Suprematism of Malevich (both Russian artists) we see the flattening of the picture plane, the abstraction of once-familiar representations, and the stripping out of colour, or its handling in new and unrealistic treatments. Explicit now are concerns with technology, concerns that presage those of many computer artists, and present, but hidden in creative tensions, are the conflicting impulses to the spiritual, and its denial via the imperatives of the socialist systems of thought emerging after the Russian revolution. The obsession of pre-first world war artists and thinkers with the occult, so strange to present sensibilities, give way to the more recognisable Marxist preoccupations, even within the artists that fled Russia and invigorated European and American art movements. Inherent in Kandinsky's analysis of the spiritual art was an elitism, symbolised by his upward-moving triangle , which ran counter to the new thinking. At the same time the spiritual interests prior to 1914 were seen as impotent in halting the barbarity and horrors of war; art itself was under challenge from the socialist perspective for similar reasons.
It is perhaps in the work of Naum Gabo that Constructivism has the closest relationship with science, and hence with some of our computer art Pioneers. Gabo attended lectures on relativity in Munich as part of his studies, firstly in medicine, and then in applied science, though these remained incomplete in favour of art . In fact he received no formal training in art, though he absorbed influences from across the spectrum of Expressionism and Constructivism. Gabo's first works are figurative, often constructions of heads, but these give way through a process of abstraction (common to many artists of the period) to completely geometrical forms. Unlike some artists who made mathematics their starting point Gabo worked spatially, intuitively, and one may add more controversially, emotionally and spiritually.
If the First World War turned many artists and thinkers away from the spiritual and towards socialist ideals, then the Second World War created further hostility towards occultism. Tuchman tells us that to use the word spiritual in the late 1930s and 1940s was near-heresy and dangerous to an artist's career because of the political associations of such ideas with Nazism . Once the full horrors of the Nazi experiment were known such associations were entirely negative. Yet despite this, the American Abstract Expressionists had a range of spiritual interests, from Jungian archetypes, to Zen Buddhism, to Native American Shamanism. Pollock for example was deeply influenced by Native American artforms and the influence can be traced right through his entirely abstract action paintings .
After WW2 Abstract Art also flourished in Britain with both abstract and figurative elements and led to new movements such as the Situation group (which included Harold Cohen before his involvement with computers), Colour-Field painting and Op Art (short for Optical Art). Op Art grew more from Constructivism, and developed through artists such as Josef Albers and Victor Vasarely in the 1940s and Bridget Riley in the 1960s. This is one of the few modern art movements to overlap with computer art developments.
Pop Art, an art movement which derived its imagery from mass-communication media and popular icons, developed in Britain and the US independently at first, in the mid-1950s. It was not until the mid-80s that computer technology had developed enough for a mainstream Pop artists such as Richard Hamilton to take it up seriously (though he had used them as early as 1963 for specific tasks ).
To sum up this very brief survey of some Modern Art movements, we can identify interests with the deep structure of human experience, whether expressed through the spiritual or the scientific, as an important element in abstraction. Whether the art that so evolved was put to socialist purposes as with Russian Constructivism, or whether on the other foot it (supposedly) received backing from the CIA as with American Abstract Expressionism is a secondary issue. The abstract, geometrical, mathematical, scientific and technological bases for such art forms make them important sources for early computer art explorations, even if the computer artists were revisiting themes at the end of the 20th century that had been discovered at its start.
Anti-art is also an important strand in modernism, expressed sometimes as a deliberate rejection of deeper meanings, focusing, as in Pop Art, on the surface glitter of modern life, reflecting just the sheer vibrancy and energy of the city and its fantasies. More generally artists might reject art itself (e.g. Marcel Duchamp), or its capitalist context, its exclusivity, or any of the values previously held central to its pursuit.
Relationships between Computer Art and Modernism
Let us return now to our focused selection of digital artists and examine how their work might relate to modern art movements. Frank Dietrich, artist and media researcher at the University of Utah, USA, has written several valuable papers dealing with the history of computer art and its relationship with modernism, but with a focus on how the computer takes art in new directions and . Here we look rather at the relationship with old ones.
With the cluster of Laposky, Franke and Whitney we might observe that soulmate to all three could be Naum Gabo, whose work in the late 30s predates the computer explorations by 20 years. While Gabo realised his ideas in sculpture, the computer artists were using oscilloscopes and purpose-built equipment, often conveying their ideas on film more than with prints or photographs. The Constructivist ideals and preoccupations may not have been researched in depth by the computer artists, but they would have been aware of some of the work, and more to the point they gravitated to the artistic forms because of a fundamental interest in the aesthetics of mathematics and science. Laposky claims 'abstract geometric painting, cubism, synchronism and futurism' as his inspiration and 'op art' amongst the art forms that his work related to .
Whitney describes his work in terms of 'harmony', but not just the abstracted harmonies of musical theory or the science of waveforms. They are specifically the Pythagorean harmonies that informed artists of the Renaissance and religious painters through Western history, and which Whitney used the computer to visualise. In fact the Whitney family, which included a number of artists and filmmakers, were influenced by a range of spiritual sources including Buddhism, and which informed Whitney's work. These were shared of course by many Constructivists, including Gabo, who often referred to the emotional and spiritual significance of his works.
Cynthia Goodman, author of the well-known survey of computer art 'Digital Visions' writes:
'In Europe, in the late 1960s, artists with strong visual and conceptual alliances with the Constructivist tradition, including Manuel Barbadillo, Edward E. Zajac, Vera Molnar, and Manfred Mohr, were the first to use computers for artistic ends.'
Gabo continued with his constructivist sculptures until his death in 1977, just after a solo show at the Tate Gallery. This longevity of pursuit in a single artistic style is typical of the mathematically-inclined artist, and we see it with Mohr and Verostko. This is not to say that the oeuvre is not rich and varied, but it is a contrast to the continuous revolution that was for example the artistic life of Picasso. Mohr's work in the 1970's could almost have been part of the Op Art tradition, but once he started the cubic experiments in 1975 he stuck with it. The Op Art aesthetic, perhaps accidental, gives way to the fractured projected n-dimensional cubes that formed the basis of all subsequent work, the only major innovation being the introduction of colour in 1999. Can we relate this body of work to cubism, or is it only a coincidence of name? The fact is that the fractured projection of cubic space onto canvas, and the interest in the fourth and higher dimensions is common to Cubism and Mohr, and to a succession of artists in the 20th century, well-documented by art historian Linda Dalrymple Henderson . The exploration of this by computer has also been the work of artist Tony Robbin.
But modern art movement intertwine and produce a rich set of conditions for the computer art Pioneers. We can see Cubism, Constructivism and Op Art aesthetics and concerns in the art of Mohr, and discern Abstract Expressionist influences on his paintings. Verostko shared these influences, but it is more specifically the work of Jackson Pollock that inform Verostko's interests in the placing, rhythm and densities of line in his plotter art. The Dadaists, with their interest in 'automatism' - the visual equivalent of automatic writing - were also an important influence on his explorations of 'control' and 'uncontrol'. We noted that Pollock's influences include the Shamanistic artforms of Native Americans, and that this spiritual thread runs through Verostko's work, and his writings (he doesn't hesitate to cite spiritual traditions such as Buddhism and Taoism). In contrast Mohr rejects 'metaphysics' and in doing so again highlights for us the opposing ideologies buried beneath the surface of 20th C art:
The world will not be changed from the outside but from the inside and aesthetical decisions will be more and more based on knowledge rather than on irrelevance. The shift from uncontrollable metaphysics to a systematic and logical constructivism may well be a sign of tomorrow . [my emphasis]
In fact it was the technology that drove the early computer art experiments as much as the artistic influences of prevailing art movements. We can see this in an influential cluster of activity at the Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, USA, described for us in an illuminating article by Michael Noll . Noll himself typifies the computer professional who took an interest in art and produced computer-generated works, rather than the artist who took up the computer. Bell Labs had an open research strategy that encouraged such explorations and allowed for collaboration between engineers, such as Noll, and artists such as painter Lillian Schwartz, animator Stanley Van Der Beek and video artist Nam June Paik. Indeed quite a proportion of the names we associated with the Pioneers of digital art came out of this venture, including Edward E. Zajac, mentioned earlier. The work produced from the Bell Labs experiments in the 1960s was influenced by the art movements we have discussed, in works that sometimes mimicked paintings (such as the line compositions of Mondrian, or Op Art pieces by Bridget Riley such as 'Current'). Other works reflected the interest in the fourth dimension and hypercubes, and led to a 4D animated title sequence for the NBC television company. Whether Manfred Mohr had been aware of this is unclear, but it shows again the iconic status of the hypercube in 20th C art.
Noll was involved with a seminal art show at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York in 1965, where work from Bell Labs was exhibited, and which led to exhibitions round the world. At almost exactly the same time two German computer artists, Georg Nees and Frieder Nake, mounted a ground-breaking show at the Galerie Niedlich, Stuttgart, Germany.
Harold Cohen in contrast had already achieved critical success in painting before taking up the computer, showing internationally including the Venice Biennale in 1966. His work is described in many books and papers , and his incisive thinking on the work and art in general has enriched the field for several decades (see for example the paper for Creativity and Cognition 3 ). More than any other computer artist his work represents a challenge to notions of art, a challenge that lives alongside the tradition started with the Dadaists but asks perhaps the most awkward questions yet. I once asked him why so few artists and researchers had followed in his footsteps, why no art movement had grown around his pioneering oeuvre, to which he replied 'it is just too much hard work' [private discussion at Creativity and Cognition 3 conference, 1999]. This is undoubtedly true as the sheer size of his AARON programme testifies, but perhaps few artists also have the courage to face the question: if a machine can make art, then am I a machine?
When looking at modern art movements in the 20th century we can find identify many of the artistic concerns that also drove the computer art pioneers. However, none of the digital art genres became a significant art movement compared to those recognised in the fine art world. Jasia Reichardt, director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (and curator of the 'Cybernetic Serendipity' exhibition) in London UK during the 70s made this observation about the early digital work:
Most art movements are remembered for the relatively few great works which are associated with them and the exceptional individuals who brought them about. --- Those trends or movements which demonstrate a current preoccupation but fail to produce works of great quality leave an incomparably lesser trail. --- Since the early 1950s, however, there have been two international movements which in this context constitute an exception. An exception in the sense that there are no masterpieces to be associated with them, nevertheless these two movements have unique significance both socially and artistically. The first of these is Concrete Poetry, and the second, Computer Art .
Since Reichardt wrote this in 1971 it may still be true that there are no great masterpieces of computer art, but there certainly is a substantial body of fine work that can stand as art.
To finish, it is important to point out that Digital Art Museum aims to serve contemporary artists through showcasing their work, just as much as by archiving the achievements of the past. However, many young artists might be tempted to ask how the majority of the pioneers might be relevant to the current situation, given the dominance of programming in the early years and the present availability of high quality software ready-made for the artist. I addressed this question in a 1995 Leonardo paper , citing many of the artistic inquiries discussed in this paper: control / uncontrol, algorithmic art, rule-based art, visualisations of mathematical entities, and even artificial intelligence. It is by collecting a credible body of early computer art together that DAM can present the case for an art/science collaboration that would match the early efforts and bring to fruit these many promising experiments.
This short paper has attempted to survey two extensive fields: digital art, and art movements of the 20th century, and to demonstrate how one is located in relation the other. Only a few of the computer art Pioneers could be discussed here, and an even tinier proportion of Modern Art movements could be introduced, but the main areas of overlap have been set out. Digital Art Museum is a project in its infancy but it is clear that further work on the Pioneers will better show the way in which their concerns were embedded in the artistic life of the 20th century.
This research has been made possible by a research award from the Arts and Humanities Research Board of England. James Faure-Walker has given invaluable advice.
Laposky, Ben, Oscillons: Electronic Abstractions in Leavitt, Ruth (Ed.) Artist and Computer, Harmony Press, 1976, p. 92
H. W. Franke, Computer Graphics - Computer Art, Phaidon, 1971.
H. W. Franke and H. S. Helbig, "Generative Mathematics: Mathematically Described and Calculated Visual Art", in Leonardo, 25, Nos. 3/4 (291--294) 1992.
Whitney, John H. Digital Harmony, Peterborough: Byte Books 1980, p.179
Whitney, John H. Digital Harmony, Peterborough: Byte Books 1980, p.5
Zajac, E. Edward 'Computer Graphics: Color-Based Time', Leonardo Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 39-43, 1986
Roman Verostko, 'Epigenetic Painting: Software as Genotype', Leonardo Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 17-23, 1990
Harold Cohen, Exhibition Catalogue, London: Tate Gallery Publications 1983
Leavitt, Ruth (Ed.) Artist and Computer, Harmony Press, 1976, p. 64.
Saunders, Frances Stonor, Hidden Hands, London: Channel 4 Television
Lynton, Norbert: The Story of Modern Art, Oxford: Phaidon, 1986 p.10
Tuchman, Maurice: Hidden Meanings in Abstract Art, in Tuchman, Maurice (Ed.): The Spiritual in Art - Abstract Painting 1890 -1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986
King, Mike, 'Concerning the Spiritual in 20th C Art and Science' Leonardo, Vol. 31, No.1, pp. 21-31, 1998
King, Mike, 'Concerning the Spiritual in Cyberspace', in Roetto, Michael (Ed.), Seventh International Symposium on Electronic Art, Rotterdam: ISEA96 Foundation, 1997. p. 31-36
Lipsey, Roger, An Art of Our Own - The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art, Boston and Shaftesbury: Shambhala, 1988
Lynton, Norbert: The Story of Modern Art, Oxford: Phaidon, 1986,p. 10
Schlain, Leonard, Art and Physics, Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light, New York, Quill William Morrow, 1991
King, Mike: 'The Tyranny and Liberation of ThreeSpace - A Journey by Ray Tracer' in Digital Creativity, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1999, Swets and Zeitlinger, p. 215 - 227
Kandinsky, Wassily, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, New York: Dover Publications Inc, 1977, p. 6
Nash, S.A. and Merkert, J: Naum Gabo - Sixty Years of Constructivism, Munich: Prestel-Verlag, p.12
Tuchman, Maurice, 'Hidden Meanings in Abstract Art', in Tuchman, Maurice (Ed.): The Spiritual in Art - Abstract Painting 1890 -1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986, p.18
Rushing, W. J., 'Ritual and Myth: Native American Culture and Abstract Expressionism', in Tuchman, Maurice (Ed.): The Spiritual in Art - Abstract Painting 1890 -1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986, p.273-295.
Hamilton Richard, The Prints of Richard Hamilton, Catalogue prepared by Richard S. Field, Middletown, Conn. Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University 1973, p57.
Dietrich Frank: 'Visual Intelligence: The First Decade of Computer Art (1965-1975)' Leonardo Vol.19, No. 2, pp. 159-169, 1986
Dietrich Frank: 'The Computer: a Tool for Thought-Experiments', Leonardo Vol. 20, No.4, pp. 315-325, 1987
Laposky, Ben, Oscillons: Electronic Abstractions in Leavitt, Ruth (Ed.) Artist and Computer, Harmony Press, 1976, p. 92
C. Goodman, Digital Visions, Abrams, New York, 1988, p.51
Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1983.
Robbin, Tony, Fourfield: Computers, Art, and the Fourth dimension, Boston, Toronto, London: Bullfinch, 1992
Mohr, Manfred in Leavitt, Ruth (Ed.): Artist and Computer, Harmony Press, 1976, p.96
Noll, Michael: The Beginnings of Computer Art in the United States: A Memoir, Leonardo Vol. 25, No 1, p.39-44, 1993
See for example McCorduck, P. Aarons Code - Meta-Art, Artificial Intelligence, and the work of Harold Cohen, Freeman, New York 1991
Cohen, Harold, 'A Self-Defining Game for One Player', in Candy, L. and Edmonds, E. (Eds.) Creativity and Cognition - Proceedings of the 3rd Creativity and Cognition Conference, ACM SIGCHI, 1999, p. 14.
Reichardt, Jasia: The Computer in Art, London : Studio Vista, 1971.
King, Mike: 'Programmed Graphics in Computer Art and Design', Leonardo Vol 28, No.2, pp. 113-121, 1995
|
<urn:uuid:b3131abb-0050-427f-ba18-2997c7024c3f>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.dam.org/essays/king-digital-art-museum-2002
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00136-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.955865 | 8,516 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Books for Teaching Biographies
- Grades: 3–5
From Unit Plan: Biographies: Beyond Book Reports
Early in your school year, plan the time of year that would be best for your class to explore the biography genre. Think about choosing months that highlight special events such as Black History Month, Women's History Month, or Hispanic Heritage Month.
Because I have numerous biographies in my personal collection I have not listed those titles in the books I am using this month. Use titles you already own, plan to purchase or have borrowed from your school and public library. When choosing titles, remember to include books that will meet varying interests — athletics, business, literature, the arts, public service, science, and exploration. The more variety you can offer, the more students you will be able to hook on this very valuable type of non-fiction.
I love the resources listed below because they have given me so many ideas on how to actively engage students as they read different genres throughout the year.
10 Ready-to-Go Book Report Projects by Rebekah Elmore & Michael Gravois
Liven up any reading program with this teacher resource book of ten meaningful, creative, book report projects.
Classroom Tip: Last year my daughter's teacher assigned a fantastic project. When I discovered it came from this book, I had to have it immediately. You will love all ten of the comprehensive projects. Each project includes great student directions, rubrics, and illustrations.
30 Biography Book Reports by Debbie Rovin-Murphy
Help kids get more out of the biographies they read as they create their own book reports in a variety of formats such as diary entries, newspaper articles, scrapbooks, and more.
Classroom Tip: This is the absolute best resource for sparking ideas on how to make biographies fun and engaging for the students. This one truly is a must-have on my list.
30 Nonfiction Book Reports by Debbie Rovin-Murphy
These fun activities build students' reading comprehension as they create their own artifacts, travel brochures, documentaries, peek-through posters, and much more. You'll also find teaching strategies, reproducible templates, and a bibliography of children's nonfiction.
Classroom Tip: You can use this book all year long for fun activities that help students understand nonfiction.
Better Than Book Reports: More than 40 Creative Responses to Literature by Christine Boardman Moen
Looking for creative alternatives to the traditional book report? This resource offers all sorts of original ideas, such as culture kits, tangram tales, story trees, press conferences, and 35 more.
Classroom Tip: These are wonderful short activities perfect for use with small reading groups.
Beyond Book Reports: 50 Totally Terrific Literature Response Activities that Develop Great Readers and Writers by Michelle O'Brien-Palmer
This collection of creative "read and respond" activities goes way beyond book reports to cultivate students' critical-thinking skills and broaden their story comprehension. Students can predict outcomes, retell their favorite stories, and share their personal responses to a story through paper genre pizzas, character report cards, 3-D setting maps, and more. Simple step-by-step directions, student samples, and ready-to-go, reproducible graphic organizers accompany each activity.
Classroom Tip: I have found this versatile resource works well with any book and with students of every learning style and strength.
Building Skills in Writing: Report Writing by Karen Kellaher
Includes mini-lessons to help you teach students how to write to inform using various report formats, take effective notes, identify and develop a topic of appropriate scope, exclude extraneous information, use checklists to evaluate their work, and more.
Classroom Tip: You will want to use the checklist to evaluate student work again and again.
Instant Personal Poster Sets: Biography Report
Doing biography reports are easy and fun with this class set of fill-in posters that invite kids to research, write, and draw about any person -- past or present.
Classroom Tip: Use the easy prompt-based format to guide your students through the research process. These posters look fantastic as a classroom or hallway display.
Internet Activities: Famous American Series (3 books)
Here are all the Web resources you and your students need to learn all about three historic Americans: Lewis and Clark, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Harriet Tubman. Inside, you'll find background information, an Internet scavenger hunt, reproducible worksheet, and more Web-based activities.
Classroom Tip: Stand these three sturdy folders up next to your classroom computers. The activities are designed to help your students develop critical-thinking skills and build their Internet-research skills. Ideal for independent learning centers.
Read, Sing, and Learn Mini-Books: Famous Americans by Agnes Dunn & Marie Crocco
Introduce kids to 20 famous Americans with these adorable biography mini-books. Each eight-page mini-book features a piggyback song that invites kids to sing along and remember important facts about a historical figure. Includes an easy-to-read biography, fun facts, an interactive puzzle, a writing prompt, and more.
Classroom Tip: Mini-books are a great way to introduce students to several different famous people while teaching them the structure of the biography genre.
|
<urn:uuid:0b03b39d-ddc0-4b4d-8b56-e1248b1cdcb8>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/books-teaching-biographies
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00000-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.921353 | 1,100 | 3.703125 | 4 |
The Namgis Community of British Columbia
History/Origins of the Namgis: Those-Who-Are-One-When-They-Come-Together
Long ago, a man named Gwa’ nalalis asked his Creator God to turn him into a river. Creator God complied and the Gwa’ni River was born. At the mouth of this river, the Namgis community thrived before being discovered by General George Vancouver in 1792. He was exploring what is now Vancouver Island. The Namgis was one tribe among the Kwakwak’waka Nations, occupying lands along the Nimpkish River Valley.
In the 1700’s, the population neared 19,000, but, with European influence, their numbers declined, largely due to outbreaks of smallpox. By 1880, they totalled a mere 3,000 members. Europeans brought industry to the area in the form of a fishing saltery and persuaded the Namgis to relocate to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island to work and live.
Namgis families lived together as extended family units, as many as 50 in one “Big House”. These families were called na’ mima, or “of one kind”.
The Kwakwaka’wakw community, of which the Namgis was part, was organized into four specific classes: nobility, aristocracy, commoners and slaves.
Many Namgis were notable artists. Ornate weavings, carvings and artwork have always been hallmarks of their culture. Surrounded by cedar forests, this wood figures largely in their crafts and homes. “Big Houses” were made of cedar and usually had an ornate totem pole by the entrance, representing the family within. The Namgis fashioned clothes from softened cedar, but for battles, strong cedar armor and helmets were made.
In summer, Namgis men wore tattoos, jewelry and little else. In winter, fat was rubbed over the skin for warmth; clothing and blankets were woven from cedar fibers.
Being an ocean/coastal community,
travel was by dug-out cedar canoes, which could transport a single
individual or an entire tribe. Ocean-going canoes were used for
Because no written language existed, the Namgis needed ways to acknowledge important events such as marriages, births and deaths. Legal/political disputes required a forum and because of their devotion to all things in the natural world, a venue for worship and giving thanks to the elements that sustained them was needed. Even a baby’s first haircut was noteworthy.
Thus, the potlatch was born. This ceremony was at the heart of their society and the most important event on the Namgis calendar. It was usually held in the ‘Big House’ of the most affluent family, as gift-giving featured heavily in the festivities. A potlatch could take years to organize and attendance was by invitation only. Dance was vital to tribal life, and rehearsals began months in advance. Costumes, scenery, artwork, catering, seating arrangements- everything was planned to the smallest detail.
Grievances were profusely aired by the host, but recipients of complaints weren’t allowed to respond…until they hosted a potlatch of their own.
The Namgis selected specific people to remember every detail of a potlatch. These individuals were painstakingly chosen and generously paid.
Despite being a seemingly innocent celebration, missionaries believed that by celebrating the potlatch, the “Indians” were being inhibited from becoming “civilized”. In 1913, the government banned the potlatch and seized countless ceremonial masks, artwork, costumes and regalia.
Decades later, the government rescinded their decision and returned the artifacts. Many can be seen at the U-mista Cultural Center. U-mista appropriately translates to “a returning; a coming back”.
Copyright John Lowe 2010 All Rights Reserved
|
<urn:uuid:00e005b0-fe11-4a98-99ff-5310e3fcc37d>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.namgis.org/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.972521 | 841 | 3.703125 | 4 |
This is my first Instructable and my first summer project. This is a Pressure Sensitive LED Card driven by a 3 Volt battery and a basic transistor circuit which senses the resistance between the two probes (the foil). Luckily as you press harder the transistor allows for more current to reach the LED this is a neat effect and something which I thought my girlfriend would appreciate. As such I decided to make this simple circuit I was studying into a card for here and in the process document and write up the process.
I included an EAGLE Schematic file of the schematic and a pdf version. Furthermore I have those files hosted on my github account. The schematic was taken from the circuit used in MAKE Magazine's Introduction To Transistors video. The video is a good basic introduction to transistors. However, I don't really understand the inner workings of transistors so I am going to avoid in depth discussions of transistors, instead resorting to links to explain a little more about transistors.
|
<urn:uuid:3e99bcef-731c-43a2-b795-5edd7e9c9d59>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.instructables.com/id/Glowing-Heart-Card/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00153-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958317 | 199 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Solar energy is clean, local, job-intensive, easy to install, quick to deploy, simple to maintain... but expensive. That used to be the mantra that solar promoters had to bear over the years, and it seemed an effective reason to keep the power system relying on dirtier, but apparently cheaper energy sources. Solar photovoltaic technology has been available for a long time, but it needed public support to bring it to the market. Feed-in tariffs have been the most efficient support scheme.
Yet solar energy is running through its learning curve much quicker than anyone could have anticipated. And subsequently, the need for new plants to get economic support has become lower and lower. Today a solar panel costs some 80% less than just five years ago to yield the same power. And costs are projected to lower by another 50% by 2020.
But we don't need to wait any longer to get solar energy for less money than dirty energy sources. Solar energy has now crossed another historic threshold. At the end of last year, for the first time ever in Spain, a solar plant was switched to the grid to sell the electricity at wholesale market prices, that is, getting the same reward as any conventional power plant. No subsidy, no feed-in tariff.
The plant, developed by independent renewable company Enerpro, is located in the Southern Spain province of Seville. Step by step, the company is building the solar arrays, that follow the sun's move from east to west every day. The first megawatt is already plugged in, and the company is working to complete the 2.5 MW of the plant at their 6 hectare field. They plan to connect 12 MW in different plants this year, and to start with plants 300 MW in size next year. All at pool prices, because the total cost of their electricity, including investment and O&M, makes it the cheapest in the pool, Enerpro says.
Enerpro is the first, but not the only one. Last year the Spanish electricity transmission system operator (Red Electrica de España), had received close to 200 applications for more than 40,000 MW of PV plants to connect to the Spanish grids. All those plants are waiting for procedural green light to access the grid, while their investors are valuing the fact that electricity from new PV plants can now compete in the market without any support system to make the investment profitable.
All those figures must be put in context to realize what they mean. Spain had at the end of 2013 a total of 4,681 MW of solar capacity, that supplied 3.2% of the yearly demand. If all those planned plants managed to access the power system, we could expect the solar PV yield to increase ten-fold, what would be equivalent to nearly one third of total demand. Considering that renewables already supplied 42.4% of the demand in the main (peninsular) system, it is clear that a full transformation of the power system towards a clean, renewable one is possible.
If technical reliability is put into question, it is interesting to realize that the Spanish system has already proved its ability to integrate up to 67% of electricity from variable sources (wind power record reached last Christmas day) with no blackouts or whatsoever. Utilities with large investments in coal may have other ideas however.
- Jose Luis Garcia is head of the climate and energy unit, and the research and advocacy for Greenpeace Spain
|
<urn:uuid:e323e427-8001-41a4-988b-eed136dc0b27>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/blog/subsidy-free-solar-takes-off-in-spain/blog/48113/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00141-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.967912 | 699 | 2.90625 | 3 |
New Rules Would Cut Methane Vented on Public Lands
The Obama administration on Friday proposed new rules that would lead to a crackdown on oil and gas wells that vent or flare methane into the atmosphere on public and tribal lands.
Methane is about 35 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas driving climate change over the span of a century, and it’s the chief component of natural gas produced in the U.S. Oil and gas companies flared or vented about 375 billion cubic feet of natural gas between 2009 and 2014, enough to supply more than 5 million homes with gas.
An oil and gas well flaring in New Mexico.
Credit: WildEarth Guardians/flickr
“If we’re wasting that much energy, we’re not operating very efficiently,” Janice Schneider, the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for land and minerals management, said in a news conference Friday.
The rules proposed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management are meant to reduce the amount of natural gas that is vented or flared and lower its impact on the climate and air quality.
Fracked Oil, Gas Well Defects Leading to Methane Leaks
U.S. Public Lands Fading As Fossil Fuels Source
Public Lands May Be America’s Best Climate Defense
Most of the U.S. natural gas supply comes from private lands, but about 11 percent comes from public lands. Energy companies operating on both types of land flare as much as a third of the gas they produce. Oil wells sometimes vent and flare gas because the infrastructure doesn’t exist to capture it. Other times, wells leak from valves and other places, and the leaks are often not stopped for extended periods of time.
There is currently no limit to how much gas energy companies operating on public lands are allowed to flare. The rules proposed Friday would limit flaring to 1.8 million cubic feet of gas per month per well, affecting about 16 percent of all oil and gas wells operating on federal lands.
The rules would be phased in over three years and would capture and save about 56 billion cubic feet of natural gas from wells on public lands each year — enough for about 760,000 homes, BLM officials said.
Energy companies will also be required to swap out old leaky equipment and use infrared cameras to detect gas escaping from their wells at least twice annually. “Infrared cameras allow you to see leaks in real time,” BLM Director Neil Kornze said.
Companies will also be barred from venting gas directly into the atmosphere. “They’d need to limit venting from storage tanks and minimize gas losses when removing liquids from wells,” Kornze said.
The public has 60 days to comment on the proposed rules before they are finalized later this year.
|
<urn:uuid:dc2a9f5f-10f7-4aee-9beb-d56110a0c960>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/rules-would-cut-methane-vented-public-lands-19947
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.958935 | 584 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Investigating Step 1:
Analyzing the assignment
Most professors will tell you explicitly what they want for an
assignment. If they don't, you can tell a lot by looking for
certain terms in the assignment instructions.
|Explain, compare and contrast
|Argue, persuade, evaluate
Examples of papers on tattooing:
Report: This paper will explore the history of
tattooing in the United States.
Analytical paper: This paper will explain
differences in attitudes toward tattooing in the 1960s and 1990s.
Argumentative paper: This paper will argue that
tattoos present serious health risks to adolescents.
|
<urn:uuid:8d37236d-6fe0-49e2-be39-773de3d5323a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://library.nd.edu/instruction/potofgold/investigating/?page=7
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00057-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.818904 | 138 | 2.828125 | 3 |
THE STUDY “Endocrine Regulation of Energy Metabolism by the Skeleton” by Na Kyung Lee et al., published in Cell, August 10, 2007.
THE MOTIVE Nestled about the body, endocrine glands like the thyroid, ovaries, testes, kidneys, and the heart secrete hormones, controlling crucial processes like hunger, blood pressure, and sexual reproduction. Now a team of scientists has shown that even cells in the skeleton—which we commonly think of as mere scaffolding—exude a hormone that helps the body store fat and regulate sugar levels in the blood. The finding not only shatters suppositions about the skeletal system, but it may ultimately yield strategies for treating diabetes.
THE METHODS In 2000, Gerard Karsenty, a molecular geneticist at Columbia University in New York City, discovered that leptin, a hormone made by fat cells, helps mold and repair the skeleton by acting upon bone-building cells called osteoblasts. Because hormone signaling is usually a two-way street, Karsenty thought the skeleton might in turn influence the fat cells. To find out how, he turned to an engineered strain of mice lacking a gene for what was then a mysterious protein called osteocalcin, which is produced by osteoblasts. The mutant mice produced less insulin—the hormone made in the pancreas that helps cells burn sugar—and they were plump and diabetic, with high levels of glucose in their blood. (Osteocalcin’s role appears to involve regulating energy metabolism.)
Karsenty and his team then set about finding what other genes might be involved in this newfound signaling. They engineered other strains of mice, each lacking one of the other genes that are especially active in osteoblasts. The most intriguing mutant type of mice were unusually thin; they generated more active osteocalcin, secreted more insulin, and produced many times more of the insulin-releasing cells in the pancreas. They also created two to three times more adiponectin, a signaling molecule that enhances insulin sensitivity. All these factors protected them from developing diabetes and obesity—just the opposite of the osteocalcin-deficient mice.
In the next experiment, Karsenty looked for evidence of such signaling effects in osteoblasts from normal mice. When he put the osteoblasts on one side of a porous membrane with either insulin-releasing pancreas cells or insulin-sensitizing fat cells on the other side, the pancreas cells made more insulin, and the fat cells made more adiponectin. Osteoblasts taken from the osteocalcin-deficient mice, however, had no impact. This demonstrates, Karsenty says, that the osteoblast component of the skeletal system has a direct role in regulating energy metabolism in ordinary animals.
THE MEANING Why do bones produce a hormone that regulates sugar levels within the body? The answer, Karsenty says, lies deep in our evolutionary past. One of the functions of the skeleton (especially important before the advent of orthopedic surgery) is to repair broken bones. “But [this process] requires a lot of energy,” he says, “because you have to very quickly resorb the bone and replace it. For bone remodeling to work, you need to be tightly linked to energy metabolism.”
Karsenty’s findings could lead to new treatments for diabetes. Because osteocalcin levels in untreated patients with diabetes tend to be low, injections of the protein might alleviate the symptoms of diabetes in humans, an approach Karsenty is testing in mice. “The addition of osteocalcin as a metabolic regulator may one day lead to novel therapies, but we need to understand much better how it works and how it fits into physiology before such therapies can be attempted in humans,” says endocrinologist Mitch Lazar, director of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, he says, “the Karsenty paper is first to show that the skeleton is an endocrine organ, which is exciting.”
|
<urn:uuid:91c72922-6339-40b8-bf0e-22faaaa0873b>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov/big-boned-how-your-skeleton-can-make-you-fat
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00106-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.936208 | 852 | 3.34375 | 3 |
|Home | X-Objects | Stars | Habitability | Life ||
Early Cosmos around Supernova 1997ff
In a letter published July 9, 2009, a team of astronomers revealed the detection in five-years of archival data of two new type IIn supernovae at z~2 (one was found to be around 10.3 billion years old) at the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey. Both were bright in ultra-violet wavelengths and are conjectured to result from core-collapse explosions of very massive stars with 50 to 100 Solar-masses that also expelled large amounts of gas. The astronomers believe that their detection technique (of subtracting the light of a supernova's surrounding galaxy from multiple images) can be used to find thousands of other ancient supernovae, which helped to seed the early universe with heavy elements (Keck press release; Cooke et al, July 8, 2009; and Rachel Courtland, New Scientist, July 8, 2009).
Two type IIn supernovae (where
core-collapse explosions of massive
stars have also expelled large
amounts of gas) have been detected
from over 10 billion years ago (more).
Early Cosmos around Supernova 1997ff
Deep Field images made with the Hubble Space Telescope since 1995 have revealed more than 1,500 galaxies in the process of formation over 10 billion years ago. These early, peculiarly shaped galaxies are hypothesized to be the seeds of some of today's larger bright galaxies. Many early galaxies (or "sub-galactic clumps") appear to contain several billion stars spanning 2,000 to 3,000 light-years (ly), larger than a normal star cluster in the Milky Way but smaller than a present-day galaxy, which typically is around 30,000 to 100,000 ly across. The density of these early galaxies was significantly higher than that of luminous galaxies found today. Astronomers believe that many of these objects have collided and merged with each other over time to grow into the giant and luminous galaxies seen today (more on 18 galaxies about 11 billion ly away). According to radio images, small radio sources (that were less than 600 ly across) were found at the center of many early galaxies. These radio sources had radio emission so concentrated that they had to come from material in accretion disks orbiting supermassive black holes (more on galactic black holes). Tending to be bluish and small, many of the early galaxies also exhibited rapid star formation (converting as much as 100 Solar-masses of gas per year into stars), about 100 times the rate found in the Milky Way today (more on early star formation). In December 2002, however, the European Southern Observatory reported that astronomers viewing extremely distant galaxies in the infrared (at photometric redshifts of 1.95 < z < 3.5) found relatively larger, redder galaxies that did not appear to be forming stars at a rapid rate, had apparent spiral structure, and may have comprised more than half of the mass of normal matter in that early period of the universe (more discussion from the ESO press release) and Labbé et al, forthcoming).
Rogier Windhorst, Sam Pascarelle,
Arizona State University, STScI, NASA
Larger true-color image of ultraviolet
emission redshifted to visible light.
Early galaxies about 11 billion years
ago tended to be small, bluish, and
peculiarly shaped (more).
Photographed about eight days after it exploded, Supernova 1997ff (SN1997ff) was found by astronomers comparing the northern Hubble Deep Field, a 10-day observation of a tiny region of sky first explored by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, with a follow-up observation in 1997. The Deep Field images depicted a diverse myriad of galaxies, including many of the peculiar, small galaxies common in the earliest era of galaxy formation around 11 billion years ago. The supernova was found in a faint and very distant, reddish elliptical galaxy with billions of highly evolved stars, which was apparently brightened by gravitational lensing from closer bright galaxies. It was found to be the farthest and oldest supernova directly observed (Benítez et al, 2002). Although now identified as a very bright Type-Ia supernova, SN1997ff was not seen directly in the Hubble images because its light was buried in the glow of its host galaxy due to their tremendous distance from Earth. It was found when astronomers used special computer software to subtract the light of the galaxy in the Deep Field images taken two years apart (Riess et al, 2001; Gilliland et al, 1999; and Gilliland and Phillips, 1998). SN997ff's extremely high cosmological, photometric redshift (z=1.7 +/-0.1) made it the oldest detected Type-Ia supernova through mid-2002. [See Tycho's Star for the youngest known Type-Ia supernova in the Milky Way observed from Earth.]
Larger infrared and collage images.
SN 1997ff was found in a small
and peculiar, early irregular
galaxy in the northern Hubble
Deep Field image, at upper right,
(more at SN 1997ff and STScI).
Supernovae of Type I lend themselves well to research into cosmological parameters because they are intrinsically very bright and, hence, can be seen to great distances. These supernovae all have nearly identical intrinsic luminosities, and so comparisons of their actual, observed luminosities with their known intrinsic luminosities allows astronomers to determine their distances (more on their usefulness as "standard candles" (Branch and Tammann, 1992). Moreover, the wavelength distribution of the light from the supernovae indicates how fast they are receding from Sol. Estimating both the distance and recession speed of ancient Type-Ia supernovae allow astronomers to calculate the expansion of the universe, back during an era when matter in the universe was still relatively dense and expansion was still slowing under the influence of gravity and before its later hypothesized, subsequent acceleration from a mysterious repulsive force (more discussion at Tai-Pei Cheng's The Accelerating Universe slide show, usefulness of Type-Ia supernovae from NASA's Observatorium, and NERSC's press release on SN 1997ff).
Larger infrared and collage images.
Type-Ia supernovae (such as SN 1997ff located around
11.3 billion light-years away in the faint reddish galaxy
at left) are useful "standard candles" for their very
distant host galaxies (more from SN 1997ff and STScI).
Record-breaking Supernova 1997ff appeared brighter than it should if the universe had been expanding at a steady rate. Some astronomers hypothesized that a decelerating universe holds galaxies relatively close together and objects in them would have appeared brighter because they would be closer. According to Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute, the ancient universe may have been slowing down after the Big Bang from the mutual tug of its mass when light left this distant supernova, but by the time of more recent supernovas, the universe had begun accelerating, stretching the expanse between galaxies and making objects in them appear dimmer (more).
Larger illustration and caption.
Ancient Type-Ia supernovae
like SN 1997ff suggest that
the universe once expanded
at a slower rate then
accelerated about 7.5
billion years ago (more).
Supernovae are classified as Type I if their light curves exhibit a sharp peak and then fades away smoothly and gradually. In theory, such supernovae are caused by the detonation of a relatively high-mass white dwarf composed mostly of carbon and oxygen (a stellar remnant whose progenitor star was too low in mass to progress to the core fusion of heavier elements) when infalling matter from the gaseous envelope of a moderately massive, binary companion eventually creates enough gravitational pressure to overcome the electron degeneracy holding up the white dwarf (illustrations of accretion theory). Already more massive than Sol, the white dwarf accretes sufficient additional mass to exceed the critical limit of 1.4 Solar-masses ("Chandrasekhar mass limit"). Such supernovae can also occur when two closely orbiting, however, white dwarfs collide and merge to create a single object that exceeds 1.4 Solar-masses. The spectra of these supernovae are hydrogen-poor relative to the more common Type II supernovae, which is consistent with the presumption the white dwarf progenitors of Type I have already blown off most of their outer layers of hydrogen and helium in planetary nebulae. Moreover, the smooth decline of their light is also believed to result from the gradual decrease in energy available with the radioactive decay of the unstable heavy elements produced in Type-I supernovae.
In the accretion scenario, the white dwarf accretes mass from its companion relatively rapidly. Moreover, any "nova outbursts" that occur on the white dwarf are relatively weak and eject little matter, so that the white dwarf grows in mass. (This is different from the mechanism of a "nova" in which the white dwarf doesn't reach the Chandrasekhar limit and collapse, but merely ignites nuclear fusion in the matter that has accreted on its surface) When the accretion has raised the white dwarf's mass to the critical mass of about 1.4 solar masses, the density and temperature in the star's center become so severe that carbon and oxygen start fusing ("burning") explosively. Within roughly one second, the burning front moves all the way to the surface, making the entire white dwarf into one huge nuclear fireball (more illustrated discussion of novae versus supernovae). A thermonuclear shockwave races through the supernova's expanding stellar debris, fusing lighter elements into heavier ones and producing a brilliant visual outburst that can be as intense as the light of billions of stars. The entire star explodes and destroys itself, without leaving a compact central object. All of the star's matter -- namely, the products of the nuclear burning (iron, nickel, silicon, magnesium, and other heavy elements) plus unburned carbon and oxygen -- are ejected into space at speeds ranging from about 6,000 to 8,000 miles/second (20 to 30 million miles/hour). The supernova explosion and the sudden dispersion of its gravitational mass presumably flings its companion star away at high velocity. Unlike supernovae of Type II, the matter ejected in Type-I supernovae consists almost entirely of the heavier elements (spectrum of some elements in Tycho's SNR), as there is very little hydrogen left on white dwarfs. While the tremendous increase in luminosity is given by energy liberated by the explosion, its gradually fading light is fueled by radioactive cobalt decaying into iron.
In contrast to Type-Ia supernovae, Type Ib and Type Ic do not exhibit silicon lines and are even less understood than Type Ia. Types Ib and Ic are believed to correspond to stars ending their lives (as Type-II supernovae), but such stars would have lost their hydrogen before, and so their hydrogen lines don't appear on their spectra (more). Type Ib supernovae result from a high mass star that has blown off much of its outer hydrogen and helium shells and so resemble most closely Type Ia supernovae. They are somewhat dimmer as much of the light is absorbed by the surrounding nebula of material that the star has just recently thrown off, and no helium seen in their spectra. Type Ic supernovae are produced by high-mass stars that have blown off much of their outer hydrogen layers while still retaining significant helium layers, and so they are similar to Type Ib except that helium is seen in their spectrum.
Supernova 1997ff lies around 11.3 +/-0.2 billion light-years (ly) from Sol, which means that the progenitor star that evolved into the exploding white dwarf was even older (Riess et al, 2001; Gilliland et al, 1999; and Gilliland and Phillips, 1998). It is located in the northeast corner (12:36:44.18:+62:12:44.8, J2000 and ICRS 2000.0) of Constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear, which also encompasses the Big Dipper or Plow (Plough) -- northeast of Megrez (Delta Ursae Majoris), northwest of Alioth (Epsilon Ursae Majoris) and Alcor (80 Ursae Majoris), southwest of Thuban (Alpha Draconis), south of Kappa Draconis, and southeast of Giausar (Lamda Draconis). The observed colors and temporal behavior of this supernova matched that of a typical SN Ia (Riess et al, 2001).Unfortunately, it has never been visible with the naked eye. Useful catalogue numbers and designations for this supernova remnant include: SN 1997ff.
More discussion of the discovery of Supernova 1997ff by astronomers at HubbleSite.org.
Up-to-date technical summaries on this star are available at: NASA's ADS Abstract Service for the Astrophysics Data System; and the SIMBAD Astronomical Database mirrored from CDS, which may require an account to access.
Constellation Ursa Major is only visible from the northern hemisphere. The seven stars of the Big Dipper in this constellation are famous as the traveller's guide to Polaris, the North Star. For more information about the stars and objects in this constellation, go to Christine Kronberg's Ursa Major. For another illustration, see David Haworth's Ursa Major.
© 2003 Sol Company. All Rights Reserved.
|
<urn:uuid:34f4ac1e-9f62-4694-835e-d64d5f6a5442>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://members.fcac.org/~sol/solcom/x-objects/sn1997ff.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.934284 | 2,837 | 4.15625 | 4 |
Lesson 7: Summary of Questions to Determine Learning Outcomes Achievement
- What does it mean to be a ____________ major?
- What should a _____ major know?
- What should a _____ major be able to do?
- What type of attitude and values should a _____ major have?
- What level of knowledge, performance and attitude attainment is acceptable to be able to graduate?
- What types of learning opportunities should be provided to enable students to attain the learning outcomes determined above?
- What assessment methods should be used to determine whether or not students have attained the outcomes established for the program?
"The starting point for understanding a curriculum is often the same place as the starting point for assessment. Faculty begin by agreeing on the overall focus of their academic program and on their goals and objectives (e.g., learning outcomes) for learning. If clear statements of learning [outcomes] do not exist already, faculty must carefully consider their expectations for their graduates. If statements do exist, faculty should review them to ensure they are reasonable and up-to-date." (Palomba & Banta, p. 274)
|
<urn:uuid:250ffb0c-f146-4f1f-9b38-badfaff7d5c3>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://lcc.edu/cte/resources/self_paced/program_level/outcome_achievement.aspx
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393146.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00194-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.936867 | 236 | 3.8125 | 4 |
Fashion history shows that women are ever changing their minds about long
versus and short and it was the same with cloaks. As well as longer versions, shorter cloaks were in vogue from 1850 and were
ideal cover ups for wearing over the wider crinolines styles. Cloaks were
perfect to disguise pregnancy effectively for the Victorian fashion of large
families and along with the shawl they were an essential female garment. The
mantle cloak in the header up on the right of the page is similar in cut to the
line drawing of 1843 directly below.
Mantle Cloak Fur Trim
Mid Victorian Hip Cloak
The short cloak
construction was often merged with the hip length mantelet styles with semi fitted or
hanging loose sleeves. You can see in the illustrations below that the
cape and the mantelet had a similar silhouette as the 1880s progressed.
1887 Mantelet Front
about Mantelets and see a good range of colour fashion plate picture examples in the
Mantelet pages. Other jacket styles were also popular and they are
illustrated in other coats and jackets.
In the 1890s tailored masculine inspired coats and suits were thought ideal
for the new woman because they were practical and unobtrusive in appearance. But the huge sleeves of finer weight more feminine
garments, meant that a top layer in the form of a short cloak often now called a
cape was essential to
keep the torso warm.
Elderly women opted for the semi tailored functional look as shown in the
first four styles below. Hip length cloaks like these existed alongside the
shorter versions shown on the next page.
For those involved in historical costume re-enactment, getting the style
correct for the age of the wearer will ensure a more authentic look to a
More Elderly Cloak Styles
Feminine styles reigned for formal occasions and high shouldered much shorter
waist and above waist length
capes big enough to fit over the huge sleeve variations of the 1890s were ideal.
In costume history terms this was the era of
La Belle Époque and the decorative capes are a good
illustration of the embellishment skills executed at the time when everything
was made as ornate and beautiful in keeping with the mood of society.
The much more flirtatious, youthful frivolous styles of cloaks and capes, along
with typical fabrics of the 1890s, are illustrated on the
If you like this page then please share it with your friends
For more information about coats and cloaks click below:-
-------- Link Pink ---------
For superb Victorian or Edwardian re-enactment costumes in USA, try the reproduction costume range at:
Fashion-Era.com looks at women's costume and fashion history and analyses the mood of an era. Changes in technology, leisure, work, cultural and moral values. Homelife and politics also
contribute to lifestyle trends, which in turn influence the clothes we wear. These are the changes that make any era of society special in relation to the study of the costume of a period.
Fashion-Era.com can take no responsibility for any information on the site which may cause you error, loss or costs incurred from use of the information and links either directly or
indirectly. This site is owned, designed, written and developed by author: Pauline Thomas and Guy Thomas. This site is designed to be viewed in 1024 X 768 or higher.
Before you write to me for costume/fashion help or information please, please consult the extensive sitemap which lists all our pages. If you still cannot find the answer after searching the site, then before you email me, please consider if you are prepared to make a donation to the website.
Donations Reader's donations help this site flourish, in particular donations encourage me to write more articles on fashion history as well as current trends. PayPal
allows anyone with a credit card to donate easily and securely. You may donate any sum you feel appropriate.
|
<urn:uuid:691f216b-974f-474b-afb9-483502ec43b0>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.fashion-era.com/Coats_history/cloak_costume_history_2.htm
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.941939 | 839 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Q: I live on Lake Nottely. Each year the lake level is drawn down 20 feet, which exposes a large area of muddy bank. Is there any plant that could survive being covered with water part of the year and still grow and hold the bank against erosion when it is exposed?
A: Have you considered growing rice? No, seriously, you are faced with an almost impossible situation. Aquatic plants need constant immersion —they will die if the bank is exposed. Terrestrial plants will suffer root rot if they are underwater for more than a few days. There are bog plants that might adapt to your site. At the top of your bank, experiment with yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus), Japanese iris (Iris ensata) or sweet flag (Iris acorus). One shrub that might do well in a marshy spot is Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica). Liriope is reputed to grow underwater. Try some spreading monkey grass (Liriope spicata) in the flooded area to see if it can survive through the year.
Tags For This Article: liriope
|
<urn:uuid:702e56bc-95ab-4ce3-96a0-02f038cb62ee>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.walterreeves.com/gardening-q-and-a/pond-plants-for-pondside/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.946066 | 233 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The place where the sacrament of penance is administered. In the early Church it was any kind of seat and was generally before the altar in the Middle Ages. In the sixteenth century it took the form of a separate compartment for the kneeling penitent and for the priest, furnished with a grille. This form became prescriptive until after the Second Vatican Council. The new Order of Penance does not specify for the Latin Rite what the confessional should be. It merely says: "The sacrament of penance is celebrated in the place and location [in loco et sede] prescribed by law" (Ordo Paenitentiae, IV, 12).
|
<urn:uuid:d9ce71c2-3110-402b-9752-1a99deb0d420>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=32715
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00105-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.949237 | 135 | 2.9375 | 3 |
South African Journal of Science
On-line version ISSN 1996-7489
MEINCKEN, M.. Atomic force microscopy to determine the surface roughness and surface polarity of cell types of hardwoods commonly used for pulping. S. Afr. j. sci. [online]. 2007, vol.103, n.1-2, pp. 4-6. ISSN 1996-7489.
Atomic force microscopy can be used to determine the surface roughness and surface polarity of different cell types originating from hardwood species. This analytical method allows images representing the topography and polarity of a surface to be captured simultaneously at a molecular (nanometre) resolution. The distribution of hydrophilic (polar) groups on these cell surfaces influences the subsequent processing of woodpulp in paper manufacture. These surface properties of fibres, vessel elements and parenchyma cells were investigated for Acacia mearnsii, Eucalyptus grandis, E. dunnii and E. macarthurii. A clear distinction was observed between the cell types and the species in terms of polarity and surface roughness. All four species are currently being used for paper manufacture in South Africa,butnot with equal success. This study may help to explain the differences in pulp quality obtained for the various species.
|
<urn:uuid:5aa87e0d-5a0b-4f38-9eab-16baeab2fd4a>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0038-23532007000100005&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00121-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.875379 | 276 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-layer protocol for transmitting hypermedia documents, such as HTML. It was designed for communication between web browsers and web servers, though it can be used for other purposes as well. It follows a classical client-server model, with a client opening a connection, making a request, and waiting until it receives a response. It is also a stateless protocol, meaning that the server does not keep any data (state) between two requests.
Though often based on a TCP/IP layer, it can be used on any connection-oriented transport layer.
- HTTP Headers
- HTTP message headers are used to describe precisely the resource or the behavior of the server or the client. Custom proprietary headers can be added using the 'X-' prefix; others in an IANA registry, whose original content was defined in RFC 4229. IANA also maintains a registry of proposed new HTTP message headers.
- HTTP cookies
- How cookies work is defined by RFC 6265. On receiving an HTTP request, a server can send a
Set-Cookieheader with the response. Afterward, the client returns the cookie value with every request to the same server in the form of a
CookieHTTP header. Additionally, an expiration delay can be specified. The cookie can also be restricted to a specific domain and path.
- Basic access authentication
- Considering HTTP transaction, basic access authentication is a method by which an HTTP user agent provides a username and password to the user, once a request has been made.
- HTTP Pipelining FAQ
- HTTP/1.1 introduced a well-intentioned but ultimately treacherous feature called HTTP Pipelining. This FAQ addresses common questions and issues about its use.
- HTTP access control (CORS)
- Cross-site HTTP requests are HTTP requests for resources from a different domain other than the domain of the resource making the request. For instance, a resource loaded from Domain A (
http://domaina.example/), such as an HTML web page, makes a request for a resource on Domain B (http://domainb.foo/), such as an image, using the
http://domainb.foo/image.jpg). This occurs very commonly on the web today — pages load many resources in a cross-site manner, including CSS stylesheets, images and scripts, and other resources.
- Controlling DNS prefetching
- HTTP response codes
- HTTP Response Codes indicate whether a specific HTTP request has been successfully completed. Responses are grouped in five classes: informational responses, successful responses, redirections, client errors, and servers errors.
A brief history of HTTP
HTTP's original conception was a protocol with a single method (GET) and returning only HTML pages, and has since undergone several revisions. The first documented version was HTTP/0.9 in 1991, corresponding to the original version. Very simple, it has a rudimentary search capability via the HTML
<isindex> element and an extension of the URL using the '
In 1992, a version was published that later became, with minor changes, HTTP/1.0 (finalized with RFC 1945 in May 1996). One major improvement was the ability to transmit files of different types, like images, videos, scripts, stylesheets, instead of only HTML files, by using MIME types in conjunction with the
In 1995, the IETF began developing a new version of HTTP, which became HTTP/1.1. It quickly spread into wide usage, and was officially standardized in 1997 with RFC 2068, and received minor fixes in RFC 2616 two years later.
Connection: keep-alive, which allowed reuse of established TCP connections for subsequent requests with, greatly improving performance by lowering the latency between them. This is especially useful with complex HTML documents that fetch multiple resources, like images and stylesheets. It also brought the
Host: header, which allows a single server, listening on a specific port, to serve requests for different websites; this paved the way for collocating numerous websites on one server, greatly reducing the cost of hosting.
Since then, the HTTP protocol evolved by adding new headers, defining new behaviors without the need to fundamentally change the protocol. Unknown headers are simply ignored by servers or clients.
HTTP/1.1 is currently being revised by the IETF HTTPbis Working Group, and its successor HTTP/2 is currently being deployed worldwide.
HTTP request methods
The request method indicates the action to be performed by the server. The HTTP/1.1 standard defines 7 methods and allows others to be added later, such as WebDAV. The IETF HTTPbis Working Group is currently working on an IANA registry to list them all. If a server receives a request method that it does not know, it must return a
501 Not implemented response. If it knows the method but is configured not to answer it, it must return a
405 Method not allowed response. Only the
GET methods are required to be supported; all others are optional.
Two specific semantics are defined in the standard and are crucial for web developers: the safety property and the idempotent property.
A safe method is a method that doesn't have any side-effects on the server. In other words, this property means that the method must be used only for retrieval of data. The safe HTTP methods defined in HTTP/1.1 are:
- GET, used to retrieve information identified by the request URI. This information may be generated on the fly or the GET may be conditional if any of the If-Modified-Since:, If-Unmodified-Since:, If-Match:, If-None-Match: or If-Range: HTTP headers are set. In that latter case, the information is only sent back if all the conditions are fulfilled.
- HEAD, which is identical to GET but without the message body sent.
- Any safe method is also idempotent.
- Not having any side-effects means, for the GET method, that it must not be used to trigger an action outside the server, like an order in an e-commerce site. If a side-effect is wanted, a non-idempotent method should be used, like POST.
- When a page is generated on the fly by a script, the script engine may calculate the page as if it was requested by a GET and then strip the data block. This does not cause a problem as long as the GET as implemented in the script is safe, but if it has any side-effects (like triggering an order on an e-commerce site), the HEAD method will trigger it too. It is up to the web developer to ensure that both the GET and HEAD method are safely implemented.
An idempotent method is a method such that the side-effects on the server of several identical requests with the method are the same as the side-effects of one single request.
- HEAD and GET, like any safe method, are also idempotent, as a safe method does not have side-effects on the server.
- PUT uploads a new resource on the server. If the resource already exists and is different, it is replaced; if it does not exist, it is created.
- DELETE removes a resource from the server.
- POST triggers an action on the server. It has side-effects and can be used to trigger an order, modify a database, post a message on a forum, or other actions.
- OPTIONS is a request for communication options available on the chain between the client and the server (through any proxies); this method is typically sent before any preflighted cross-origin request, to know whether it is safe to do it.
Note: Preflighted cross-origin requests cannot be made on servers that don't allow or support the OPTIONS method.
- TRACE is a kind of ping between the client and the server (through any proxies).
Many more methods, such as PROPFIND or PATCH are defined in other standards-track RFCs of the IETF, like WebDAV.
The CONNECT method is defined in RFC 2817.
HTTP Requests Methods in HTML Forms
In HTML, different HTTP request methods can be specified in the
method attribute of the
<form> element and the
<button> elements. Only GET and POST methods are standardized to be used in these attributes by the HTML specification. See this StackExchange answer why other HTTP request methods are not allowed.
HTTP response codes
When answering a client request, the server sends back a three-digit number indicating whether the request was successfully processed. These codes can be grouped into five categories:
- Informational responses (of the form
1xx) are provisional responses. Most of the time neither the end user nor the web developer or webmaster should have to bother with these. The most common is the
100 Continueresponse, indicating that the client should continue with its request.Note: No informational response codes were defined in the HTTP/1.0, and, therefore, they must not be sent back when this version of the protocol is used.
- Success responses (of the form
2xx) are for successfully processed requests.
200 OKresponse is by far the most common success response, but
206 Partial Contentis also seen when fetching a file or media like video or audio.
- Redirection responses (of the form
3xx) indicate that the resource that the client requested has moved, and the server cannot serve it directly. Most redirection responses contain location information describing where to find the requested resource; user-agents can then retrieve it without further user interaction. The most common redirection responses are
301 Moved Permanently, indicating that the URI is no longer valid, and the requested resource has been moved elsewhere, and
302 Found, which indicates that the resource has been temporarily moved to another place.Note: For webmasters, it is recommended to set a
301 Moved Permanentlyredirection when moving pages to another address. This allows old links to still reach the resource, and teaches search engines and other programs the new location, so they can transfer their metadata to it. It is also important to add cache headers to the
301 Moved Permanentlyresponse, so the redirect is cached by the client to prevent it from making unnecessary requests to the original URI.
- Client error responses (of the form
4xx) indicate that the request sent by the client is either invalid, incomplete, or doesn't have enough rights to be performed. The most common such response is 404 Not Found which is sent back when the URI requested doesn't exist. A few other responses are often presented to the end user, like 400 Bad Request, sent when the request is not a valid HTTP request (as this should not happen but may indicate a bug into the user agent or, less likely, the server). Also 403 Forbidden, which is sent when the client request a resource that does exist but isn't allowed to be transmitted (like a directory content).
- Server error responses (of the form
5xx) indicate that the server had a problem handling the valid client request. The two most common such responses are 500 Internal Server Error, a generic error code indicating a bug in the server or 503 Service Unavailable indicating that the server cannot process the request due to a temporary problem, like a disabled service for maintenance purposes or the non-availability of a database.
More on redirection responses
In Firefox, redirections (such as 301 and 307) that specify a
HTTP headers allow the client and the server to pass additional information with the request or the response. A request header consists of its case-insensitive name followed by a colon '
:', then by its value (without line breaks). Leading white space before the value is ignored.
Headers are grouped according to their contexts:
- General headers
- These headers apply to both requests and responses but are unrelated to the data eventually transmitted in the body. They, therefore, apply only to the message being transmitted. There are only a few of them, and new ones cannot be added without increasing the version number of the HTTP protocol. The exhaustive list for HTTP/1.1 is Cache-Control:, Connection:, Date:, Pragma:, Trailer:, Transfer-Encoding:, Upgrade:, Via: and Warning:.
- Request headers
- These headers give more precise information about the resource to be fetched or about the client itself. Among them one can find cache-related headers, transforming a GET method in a conditional GET, like If-Modified-Since:, user-preference information like Accept-Language: or Accept-Charset: or plain client information like User-Agent:. New request headers cannot officially be added without increasing the version number of the HTTP protocol. However, it is common for new request headers to be added if both the server and the client agree on their meaning. In that case, a client should not assume that they will be handled adequately by the server; unknown request headers are handled as entity headers.
- Response headers
- These headers give additional information about the response, like its real location (Location:), or about the server itself, like its name and version (Server:). New response headers cannot be officially added without increasing the version number of the HTTP protocol, but new response headers can be used if both the server and the client agree on their meaning. In that case, a server should not assume that they will be handled adequately by the client; unknown response headers are handled as entity headers.
- Entity headers
- These headers give more information about the body of the entity, like its length (Content-Length:), an identifying hash (Content-MD5:), or its MIME-type (Content-Type:). New entity headers can be added without increasing the version number of the HTTP protocol.
Headers can also be grouped according to how proxies handle them:
- End-to-end headers
- These headers must be transmitted to the final recipient of the message; that is, the server for a request or the client for a response. Intermediate proxies must retransmit end-to-end headers unmodified and caches must store them.
- Hop-by-hop headers
- These headers are meaningful only for a single transport-level connection and must not be retransmitted by proxies or cached. Such headers are: Connection:, Keep-Alive:, Proxy-Authenticate:, Proxy-Authorization:, TE:, Trailers:, Transfer-Encoding: and Upgrade:. Note that only hop-by-hop headers may be set using the Connection: general header.
To learn about the specific semantic of each header, see its entry in the comprehensive list of HTTP headers.
Useful request headers
Among the numerous HTTP request headers, several are especially useful. If you are building your requests by using
XMLHTTPRequest, or writing an extension to send custom HTTP requests via XPCOM, then it is important to ensure the presence of headers that are often set by browsers based on the preferences of the user.
- Controlling the language of the resource
- Most user-agents, like Firefox, allow the user to set a preference for the language for received resources. Browsers translate this into an Accept-Language: header. It is good practice for web developers to include this header when building HTTP requests.
- Using conditional GET
- Caching is a major tool to accelerate the display of web pages. Even when parts of a webpage are refreshed via an
XMLHTTPRequest, it is a good idea to use the If-Modified-Since: header (and other similar ones) to fetch the new content only if it has changed. This approach lowers the burden on the network.
Useful response headers
The configuration of a web server is critical to ensure performance and security of a web site. Several headers should be used correctly to this end.
Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks exploit the ability to put third-party content inside an
<iframe>. To mitigate that risk, modern browsers have introduced the
CSP frame-ancestors directive. By setting it to the value
'none', it prevents browsers from displaying this resource inside of a frame. Using it on critical resources (like those containing financial or private information) will reduce the risk of XSS attacks. Note that this specific HTTP response header is not the only way to mitigate XSS; other techniques, like setting Content Security Policies, may be helpful too.
Minimizing the amount of data transferred accelerates the display of a web page. Though most techniques, like CSS Sprites, should be applied on the site itself, compression of data must be set at the web server level. If set, resources requested by the client with an Accept-Encoding: request header are compressed using the appropriate method and sent back with a Content-Encoding: response header. These can be set in Apache 2 servers with the mod_deflate module.
HTTP Caching is a technique that prevents the same resource from being fetched several times if it has not changed. Configuring the server with the correct response headers allows the user-agent to cache the data adequately. To do that, be sure that:
- Any static resource provides an Expires: response header that is set to far in the future. That way, the resource may stay in the cache until the user-agent flushes it for its own reasons (like reaching its cache size limit).
Note: On Apache, use the ExpiresDefault directive in your .htaccess to define a relative expires:
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 month".
- Any dynamic resource provides a Cache-control: response header. Theoretically, any HTTP request done through a safe method (GET or HEAD) or even through a solely idempotent one (DELETE, PUT) may be cached; but in practice, careful study is needed to determine if the caching of the response may lead to inappropriate side-effects.
Setting the correct MIME types
The MIME type is the mechanism to tell the client the kind of document transmitted: the extension of a file name has no meaning on the web. It is, therefore, important that the server is correctly set up so that the correct MIME type is transmitted with each document: user-agents often use this MIME-type to determine what default action to do when a resource is fetched.
- On Apache, one can match file extensions with a given MIME type in .htaccess using the
AddTypetype directive like
AddType image/jpeg jpg.
- Most web servers send unknown-type resources using the default
application/octet-streamMIME type; for security reasons, most browsers, like Firefox, do not allow setting a custom default action for such resources and force the user to store it to disk to use it. Some common cases of often incorrectly configured servers happens for the following file types:
RAR-encoded files. The ideal would be to be able to set the real type of the encoded files; this often is not possible (as it may not be known to the server and these files may contain several resources of different types). In that case, configure the server to send the
application/x-rar-compressedMIME type or users will not be able to define a useful default action for them.
Proprietary file types. Pay special attention when serving a proprietary file type. Be sure not to forget to add an x-prefixed type for it; otherwise, special handling will not be possible. This is particularly the case with resources using the Keyhole Markup Language, which should be served as
|
<urn:uuid:dcdc429a-846e-4674-a961-eb465f05e2c5>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.891951 | 4,082 | 4.28125 | 4 |
Urinary incontinence, or involuntary leakage of urine, is common in older women. There are 2 main types. Urge incontinence is sudden, urgent urine leakage. Stress incontinence is urine leakage with coughing, sneezing, or physical activity. Some women have both types. It is currently thought that women must keep a diary of their symptoms and undergo full examination and testing for doctors to make an accurate diagnosis of incontinence. Most women and doctors avoid these because the diary is difficult to keep and the tests are complicated, invasive, and difficult to interpret. As a result, incontinence is not diagnosed or treated in many women. Women and their doctors would benefit from a simpler way to diagnose the different incontinence types.
|
<urn:uuid:0a57d69b-6ac6-44e3-aae1-74e2ea9bc413>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=723753
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.968763 | 152 | 2.546875 | 3 |
They have been known by many names throughout history. Creatures that prey on the blood or life-force of the living have frightened millions into locking doors and windows at night. Cultures around the globe each have their own depictions of these monsters, but most have come to know them as Vampires. However, what led our ancestors to put so much faith in the creation of these beings?
1. Identification: vampires are undead
Prior to current biological understanding, a corpse could show signs of “life” after death. Many misunderstood blood from the mouth and nose as being signs of the creature feeding. The truth? Gases from decomposition cause remaining fluids in the body to be forced out through any available orifice.
2. Teeth: vampires have 2 longs canines to suck your blood
Elongated teeth after death were viewed as signs that the dead were rising from the grave to feed. The truth? Receding of the gum-line and lips is a common occurrence of decomposition, which makes the teeth look like they have grown longer. This is also a sign of some forms of porphyria.
3. Fingernails: vampires have long fingernails
Our ancestors viewed the growth of fingernails after death to be a sign of the dead manifesting claws. The truth? As in teeth, decomposition causes the skin to recede from fingernails as well giving the illusion that the nails are growing.
4. Hunger: vampires feed exclusively on blood
Cravings for blood in the early centuries could get one burned at the stake. However, cravings for a certain material is often a sign of a deficiency in our diets. The truth? Those suffering from Iron-deficiency Porphyria could experience cravings for iron-rich foods – such as meat and blood.
5. Combustible: vampires are burned by sunlight
As this has been embellished upon for hundreds of years, some are affected by sunlight, and this could cause severe irritations, rashes, and even burns. The truth? There are a variety of illnesses that affect people on a regular basis keeping them indoors at all times – such as forms of Porphyria.
6. Wooden Stakes: vampires can be killed with a wooden stake through the heart
It is well known that the only way to truly kill the vampire is a wooden stake through the heart. The truth? Anything piercing your heart has a good chance of killing you.
7. Crosses: vampires are sensitive to the crucifix
Prior to Christianity, crosses were unheard of which left humans without a means of deterring the vampire. The truth? After the creation of Christianity, vampires took on characteristics of the religion and were thus affected by a symbol of divine nature – such as the cross.
8. Shape-shifting: vampires can can change their shape
Like werewolves, it’s thought that some vampires have been able to change shape and species at will. Versions of Dracula could shape-shift into a bat. The truth? There has been no scientific documented evidence that anyone could shape-shift in this manner. Scientifically, you could not alter the mass of an object to be less than or greater than the current mass. At least, not without altering the density of the mass.
9. Reflections: vampires do not reflect in a mirror
Your mirror won’t show you if a vampire is coming up from behind you. The truth? The only way to hide something from view in a mirror is to bend the reflection of light around the object – are we saying vampires have cloaking technology?
So, do vampires really exist?
Although these truths are present and conclusive, many will still believe in the undead who come back to drain the blood from unsuspecting victims. As pure belief is a strong driving force, facts are not always accepted by the masses. Accepted or not, it is hard to refute the data collected throughout history.
However, could the information collected just be reasoning behind some shred of actual vampirism that has stayed under the radar for thousands of years? It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve placed an answer to a question we don’t understand. Myths and legends, after all, pass through the ages for a reason…
Nancy Parker was a professional nanny and she loves to write about wide range of subjects like health, Parenting, Child Care, Babysitting, nanny, www.enannysource.com/ etc. You can reach her @ nancy.parker015 @ gmail.com.
|
<urn:uuid:9593f347-70ce-41da-8aa0-3275be903595>
|
CC-MAIN-2016-26
|
http://www.relativelyinteresting.com/do-vampires-really-exist-9-truths-to-consider/
|
s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz
|
en
| 0.965422 | 943 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.