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A cranium found in 1972 and the lower jaw of a newly discovered fossil,
shown reconstructed and combined above, are believed to be from
the same ancient hominid species.
The big-brained, upright primates of the genus Homo—the group to which we modern-day humans belong—evolved in East Africa around 2.4 million years ago. By half a million years later, Homo erectus, from whom we’re directly descended, was walking the plains near Lake Turkana in what is now Kenya. But anthropologists have increasingly come to believe that Homo erectus wasn’t the only hominid around. Three newly discovered fossils, detailed online this week in Nature, confirm that at least two other Homo species lived nearby—providing the strongest evidence yet that several evolutionary lineages split off in the genus’s early days.
Over the past few years, several studies have illuminated some of what happened during the brief period when modern humans and Neanderthals overlapped in Europe, with genetic analyses showing that the two groups interbred tens of thousands of years ago (though not frequently) and ancient remains suggesting that modern humans fought and—more controversially—ate their prominent-browed contemporaries.
It seems that humans and Neanderthals made occasional love and intermittent war, but what were those interludes of interaction actually like? What was going on inside those distinctive crania? It’s a tricky question to answer—behavior doesn’t fossilize—but anthropologist Thomas Wynn and psychologist Frederick L. Coolidge combine genetic and anthropological evidence with a healthy dose of well-informed speculation to offer an intriguing picture of how Neanderthals may have lived, thought, felt, and acted.
Could Neanderthal DNA have protected our ancestors from diseases?
What’s the News: While we humans have certainly outlasted our hominin cousins, new research shows that Neanderthal and Denisovan genes may have helped us spread far and wide. By mating with the two species, our ancestors acquired genes that allowed them to adapt to diseases outside of Africa far quicker than would have been otherwise possible, according to Peter Parham, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University.
What’s the News: Archeologists have discovered thousands of stone tools in Texas that are over 15,000 years old. The find is important because it is over 2,000 years older than the so-called Clovis culture, which had previously thought to be the first human culture in North America. As Texas A&M University anthropologist Michael Waters says, “This is almost like a baseball bat to the side of the head of the archaeological community to wake up and say, ‘hey, there are pre-Clovis people here, that we have to stop quibbling and we need to develop a new model for peopling of the Americas’.”
How the Heck:
What’s the Context:
Not So Fast:
The Future Holds: Now it’s time for archeologists to rethink the North American narrative of migration: How did humans first populate the continent? As James Adovasio, the executive director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute, told NPR, “Everything we’re learning now, from genetics, from linguistic data, from geological data, from archaeological data, suggests that the peopling process is infinitely more complicated than we might have imagined 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago.”
Reference: The Buttermilk Creek Complex and the Origins of Clovis at the Debra L. Friedkin Site, Texas. By Michael R. Waters et al. DOI: 10.1126/science.331.6024.1512
Image: Courtesy of Michael R. Waters
Neanderthals: They weren’t really into distance running. According to research by David Raichlen in the Journal of Human Evolution, they were more the power walking type: The shape of a Homo sapiens heel compared to that of a Neanderthal would have allowed our ancestors to be much more efficient runners over long distances.
Raichlen stated with living humans, studying them as they ran on treadmills.
By looking at MRI scans of their ankles, he found that the distance between a point on the heel bone just below the ankle bone, and the back of the heel bone where the Achilles tendon attaches, was proportional to the runner’s efficiency. The shorter this distance, the greater is the force applied to stretch the tendon – and the more energy is stored in it. This means that people with shorter distances are more efficient runners, using less energy to run for longer. [New Scientist]
With this knowledge, Raichlen and colleagues looked at the remains of Neanderthals as well as humans of the same era. The difference, he says, was distinct.
Though attempts to teach creationism (or its twin sister, intelligent design) in the classroom have been struck down in court, these anti-science approaches still influence the teaching of evolution in American schools. Barely more than one-quarter of 926 high school science teachers who responded to a survey published in Science this week unabashedly taught evolution in their classrooms.
Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer of Penn State have been watching this story for years, tracking whether courtroom victories like 2005’s Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District truly freed up teachers to teach evolution without fear. In an early 2008 study, a book, and new results published in Science, the answer is a depressing “no”:
Only 28% of the 926 teachers surveyed, “unabashedly introduce evidence that evolution has occurred and craft lesson plans so that evolution is a theme that unifies disparate topics in biology.” … Most biology teachers belong to the “cautious 60%,” who are “neither strong advocates for evolutionary biology nor explicit endorsers of nonscientific alternatives,” the study says. [USA Today]
It’s not that a wave of creationism is overtaking our biology teachers—just 13 percent of respondents said they advocated that viewpoint. What’s more likely, Berkman and Plutzer say, is a crisis of confidence. Says Berkman:
“The survey left space for [the teachers] to share their experiences. That’s where we picked up a lot of a sense about how they play to the test and tell students they can figure it out for themselves. Our general sense is they lack the knowledge and confidence to go in there and teach evolution, which makes them risk-averse.” [LiveScience]
Early humans trekking out of Africa moved faster than we thought they did: New archeological evidence suggests they reached the Persian Gulf 50,000 years before we previously thought.
Archeologists excavating a rock shelter in Jebel Faya, in the United Arab Emirates, found a cache of hand axes and other tools that date back 125,000 years ago. Their age was established by dating the silicon in the chert tools, and also via comparison to other artifacts:
Team member Anthony Marks of Southern Methodist University, an anthropologist, said the tools were made in ways consistent with the 125,000-years-ago time period and therefore raise the inevitable question of how they got to the area near the Persian Gulf…. “Either these people came out of East Africa or they came from nowhere,” he said. [The Washington Post]
The team’s research, published in Science, posits that the area’s climate had a role in spurring mankind’s expansion around the planet. Climate records suggest that the Red Sea was much shallower during an ice age that lasted from 200,000 to 130,000 years ago, because much of the world’s water was trapped in glaciers. This allowed early humans to cross the now-shallow Red Sea for new land in the southern Arabian peninsula, the researchers say. After the crossing, these early humans would have found themselves in a surprisingly fertile place: Towards the end of that ice age, the deserts of Arabia experienced a brief “wet” era with rivers, lakes, vegetation, and wildlife.
Welcome to the family of critters with sequenced genomes, orangutans. In Nature this week, scientists unveil the draft DNA sequencing of our great ape cousins—the only great apes that live exclusively in Asia.
The researchers assembled the draft genome of the female Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) using a whole-genome “shotgun” strategy, an old-fashioned approach that cost about $20 million. In addition, the researchers gathered sequence data from five wild Sumatran orangutans and five Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) using a faster and thousandfold cheaper next-generation platform. [LiveScience]
What did scientists find in there? For one thing, orangutans share about 97 percent of the their genome with humans, compared to the 99 percent we famously share with chimpanzees. The two orangutan species—inhabiting the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra—diverged about 400,000 years ago, lead author Devin Locke says. That’s much more recently than scientists had thought.
They also discovered that over the last 15 million years, orangutan DNA changed at a different rate than either ours or chimps’. Orangutans have undergone fewer mutations of the DNA, have a lower gene turnover rate, and have fewer duplicated DNA segments.
Diet, brains, murder at the hands of a certain species called Homo sapiens, life expectancy: These and more have been floated as reasons to explain the vexing question: Why did Neanderthals die out about 30,000 years ago while our ancestors persisted?
In a study in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Erik Trinkaus argues that we should scratch the last one—life expectancy—off the list. His wide-ranging survey of Neanderthal and early human remains shows that our ancestors had no particular advantage over the Neanderthals in living into old age.
Dr. Trinkaus studied fossil records of humans from across Eurasia and of Neanderthals from the western half of Eurasia to estimate adult mortality in the two groups. He found that there was approximately the same number of adults in the 20-to-40 age range and over-40 age range in both groups. [The New York Times]
Putting on clothing to protect our woefully hair-deficient bodies is one of the key moments in the history of becoming human. Just when our species took this step, however, is open to a fair amount of guesswork—scientists can’t exactly dig up fossilized parkas and trousers. But what scientists can do is determine roughly when two species diverged, and that has made all the difference: Using the lice that have traveled with people for thousands of years, a team has tracked the time that humans first became dedicated followers of fashion—perhaps as long as 170,000 years ago.
The key to the study by David Reed and colleagues, which appears in Molecular Biology And Evolution, is that there are two kinds of lice that hang around humans: the head lice that live on our scalp, and the body lice that live in our clothes. At one point in the past these two shared a common ancestor, Reed reasoned, and the body lice would have split off and become a separate group once they had human clothing in which to live.
So if we can figure out when they arrived at the scene, we’d have a minimum age on clothes. Thanks to modern molecular techniques, we can compare the genomes of these two lice and come up with that date. For the curious, a “Bayesian coalescent modeling approach” tells us that we were going clothed at least 83,000 years ago, and maybe as far back as 170,000 years. [Ars Technica] | <urn:uuid:e0de29fe-bc1b-44a6-9a6f-d431f8cb873b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/tag/human-evolution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00088-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951223 | 2,507 | 4.125 | 4 |
The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation 2014 and by Race and Ethnicity
Women’s median earnings are lower than men’s in nearly all occupations, whether they work in occupations predominantly done by women, occupations predominantly done by men, or occupations with a more even mix of men and women. Data for both women’s and men’s median weekly earnings for full-time work are available for 116 occupations; these include only one occupation—‘health practitioner support technologists and technicians’—in which women have exactly the same median weekly earnings as men, and one—‘stock clerks and order fillers’—where women earn slightly more than men. The occupation with the widest gap in earnings is ‘personal financial advisers,’ with a gender earnings ratio of just 61.3 percent. In 109 of the 116 occupations, the gender earnings ratio of women’s median weekly earnings to men’s is 0.95 or lower (that is, a wage gap of at least 5 cents per dollar earned by men); in 27 of these occupations the gender earnings ratio is lower than 0.75 (that is, a wage gap of more than 25 cents per dollar earned by men). | <urn:uuid:6e2b72f8-c94c-4ae4-84b3-5aac91ff8dea> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/the-gender-wage-gap-by-occupation-2014-and-by-race-and-ethnicity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963706 | 250 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Natural calamities are the calamities which are inflicted by God, or Nature, on man and his world. At these calamities, the unseen hand wreaks havoc in the part of the world it chooses to act upon. On these natural activities of nature no scientific or technological developments can wield any control. They can occur as and when and where nature ordains it.
Natural calamities can be of many different kinds, but the similarity in all, is their massive destruction in the area of their occurrence. The natural disasters are of many kinds, they are drought and famine, flood, earthquake, hailstorm and a cyclone. In the wake of all these, in one sweep there is complete devastation and destruction, due to which normal life comes to a standstill. Loss of life is well nigh complete, and belongings of people get lost, blown away or swept away. The scene is one of awe, of some unknown power that appears to wreak some revenge on the people of the area. One feels that, there will never again be life in the area, there will never again come up any construction in the area. But, nature plays its part in this also,and even after the most ghastly disasters, life has come up blooming as ever as before in areas of such devastation.
A very touching scene is of a drought effected area. In any country that depends on the annual rainfall for its source of water, if there is no rain, for the water supply, the obvious famine comes in its wake. This condition of getting no rain is called drought, and with it, as its automatic corollary comes famine. For with the scarcity of water there is no vegetation and food scarcity follows. The crops get burnt up with heat, the earth gets parched for water, and all life seems to be cracking in the heat.
Just the opposite condition occurs when there is a flood. A flood is another from of a natural calamity. On the one hand, we find men dying due to want of water while on the other, in flood we see them marooned by huge expanses of water. High rise buildings start as if floating in water, men, livestock, and materials get an opportunity of floating, swimming and even drowing. If this flood is accompanied with a storm then there is no panacea for the sufferers. With the impact of the strong breeze, trees get uprooted and there appears no hope for the survival of life.
Regarding an earthquake, Oh God, the earth cracks and creeps with the huge solid face of the earth moving light as light as a cradle, moving in a loving soft breeze. However, this cradle of love is no less than a destruction of the highest magnitude, and causes massive destruction as of the other calamities. The earth appears to be crying under the weight of civilization and breaking and cracking in places with an unwarranted speed. The result of this swing like action of the earth is, the occurrence of cracks big and small in different places and, the falling of huge high rise buildings, felling of trees and complete annihilation of life and materials.
A hailstorm and a cyclone also result in absolute disaster and breakdown of lige. The latest of such tragedies has been a cyclone in the Gujarat state of India. Trees have been blown off their very roots, and houses and huge buildings have been as if dug out of their very foundation, and all life has been destroyed or dislocated.
As far as India is concerned, I feel that, nature has been very kind on the one hand and very cruel yes very cruel on the other. I say this because, not one year goes when there has been no natural disaster. However, when such calamities do occur in India, the entire Indian machinery, Governmental or non-government does fear up to provide succour to the disturbed area. The Government sanctions crores of rupees for the rehabilitation of the people in the area, food and medicines are air dropped and the entire country feels and acts together. However, it is a matter of thought that, even after 50 years of self rule, the Government has not been able to take any concrete steps to avert such natural disasters. For example in Assam every year there is a flood in the River Brahmaputra and then the machinery is geared up to take the people out of the trouble, but, no success has been achieved in averting the disaster.
It is to be thought of why we have not been able to avert the calamities which are annual. For if know of a calamity that is to come, we should be able to save ourselves from it. At this juncture, let us analyse why and how these calamities have remained unchecked even when we are so deep into civilization and development. The obvious reasons to my mind are two – one that, we are not able to, and second, we are not sufficiently interested in removing the hazard. I feel the Indian scenario is a combination of the two causes. We are not able to check them and also we are not as serious as we should be in trying to prevent these tragedies. For example in Assam, as just mentioned, every year without fail, there are floods. Though there has been instituted a Brahhmaputra Board that has done some work to clean the river, and increase the stretch of the river bed, the floods come non-stop. This proves another point that, man has no power over the will of nature. Though to-day man thinks that he can do everything and nature is now irrelevant, yet, all his efforts to counter the pangs of nature fall flat and fail. The repeated disasters that befall on earth are a continuous reminder to man that there is always a hand that can undo all that man does. For if this was not true, man would be ruling like a monarch on earth without a fear but, as we all know, this is not so. Nature plays its game off and on and gives pin pricks to this self styled monarch to remind him of his drawbacks and disabilities, and keep him in a balanced state of mind. | <urn:uuid:7bf693ad-0a8c-4a3c-8004-a8492d1cbc6b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://currentessays.blogspot.com/2008/09/natural-calamities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971154 | 1,244 | 2.515625 | 3 |
|Sanford-Burnham researchers convince transplanted stem cell-derived neurons to direct cognitive function—getting us a step closer to using these cells to treat Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions.|
“We showed for the first time that embryonic stem cells that we’ve programmed to become neurons can integrate into existing brain circuits and fire patterns of electrical activity that are critical for consciousness and neural network activity,” said Stuart A. Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., senior author of the study. Lipton is director of Sanford-Burnham’s Del E. Webb Neuroscience, Aging, and Stem Cell Research Center and a clinical neurologist.
The trick turned out to be light. Lipton and his team—including Juan Piña-Crespo, Ph.D., D.V.M., Maria Talantova, M.D., Ph.D., and other colleagues at Sanford-Burnham and Stanford University—transplanted human stem cell-derived neurons into a rodent hippocampus, the brain’s information-processing center.
They then specifically activated the transplanted neurons with optogenetic stimulation, a relatively new technique that combines light and genetics to precisely control cellular behavior in living tissues or animals.
To determine if the newly transplanted, light-stimulated human neurons were actually working, Lipton and his team measured high-frequency oscillations in existing neurons at a distance from the transplanted ones. They found that the transplanted neurons triggered the existing neurons to fire high-frequency oscillations. Faster neuronal oscillations are usually better—they’re associated with enhanced performance in sensory-motor and cognitive tasks.
The transplanted human neurons not only conducted electrical impulses, they also roused neighboring neuronal networks into firing—at roughly the same rate they would in a normal, functioning hippocampus.
The therapeutic outlook for this technology looks promising. “Based on these results, we might be able to restore brain activity—and thus restore motor and cognitive function—by transplanting easily manipulated neuronal cells derived from embryonic stem cells,” Lipton said.
It is not clear yet if the same techniques will work with induded pluriopotent stem cells (IPS), or if the possibility for extending intelligence via implantation into healthy brains will be a possibility.
SOURCE Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute
|By 33rd Square||Subscribe to 33rd Square| | <urn:uuid:787ebc1c-16fa-4c48-9f1c-3552df9aea65> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.33rdsquare.com/2012/11/transplanted-neurons-derived-from-stem.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899991 | 501 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Early Twentieth Century
Motivating the American Public in World War Two
Author: Greg Herbert
School: Walt Whitman High
Grade Level: Advanced Placement
Time Estimated: 3 Days
During WWII Americans were motivated in various ways to support the American war effort. Although the depictions of Hitler and his German army were negative America for the most part stood idly by as the Axis Powers began an onslaught across the continent of Europe and Asia. After the Neutrality Acts issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the embargo placed upon Japan, the United States hand was forced into war after Pearl Harbor. It was here that the mass media began to motivate American support of the war effort in every conceivable way.
The U.S. Government released news reports in movie theaters reaching Americans of all age. The government also used popular characters to drum up American support and contributions to the war effort through several Walt Disney and Looney Toons video clips. Lastly, and perhaps most interestingly, Americans were exposed to businesses manipulation of the war to motivate Americans through advertisements. The underlying theme was that if you weren’t spending money on their products you were un-American and did not fill the role of a patriot. If you weren’t spending money and consuming goods, you weren’t supporting America and its efforts to stop Hitler.
Essentially, students will be looking to see how American businesses attempted to motivate consumers to support the war effort in a “profitable” way? Did buying one product over another really showcase your patriotism?
Students will learn about the different types of propaganda that was used and what the designed goals of these were. Students will reflect their knowledge by answering several questions, see attached assignment, regarding the pieces of propaganda and will participate in a class discussion about them.
Unit 5: "The Common Good"
Lesson Sequence 3: “And the Home Front”
- Teachers and students will require access to a computer lab for both days.
- Students will be analyzing the resources linked to in the WWII Propaganda Packet
Teacher’s Note: The assignment sheet contains all the questions and instructions for students.
- 1. Students will be distributed a copy (attached assignment sheet) of the assignment and will review with the teacher
- 2. Students will view the cartoons and posters
- 3. Students will answer the questions as they view each source (see assignment sheet)
- 1. Students will complete their propaganda viewing while answering questions and preparing discussion points and questions for each source (see assignment sheet).
- 1. Students will be asked to comment in class about each of the cartoons.
- 2. Students will be shown several of the images they viewed the past two days.
- 3. Students will be put into three different groups for a short Socratic Seminar. Each group will be assigned a topic: Cartoons, Posters, or Business Advertisements.
- 4. Call each group to the front, one at a time, and show the images that pertain to each group.
- 5. After viewing each image they will be given a few minutes to discuss what they see and how they interpreted each. Be sure students not only include information directly from the images but also include outside information.
- 6. Only the students in the group are to discuss the images.
- 7. Students will turn in their answers to the assignment (see assignment sheet).
ESOL: Students will be instructed to make vocabulary cards for confusing terms which will be reviewed before the beginning of the topic.
Advanced: Students will be asked to find examples of these in today’s world as well as create their own advertisement or propaganda poster
Special Education: Students will work in partners and the para-educator will take a more prominent role in assisting these students. Students will not be asked to view all of the videos and images and will not be required to answer all of the questions.
Students will submit answers to the questions on the assignment sheet and will write a short paper on their impressions of the government and business propaganda (on assignment sheet).
The sources I used are all listed with their websites in the WWII Propaganda Packet. I feel each source provided me with unique insight in to how the government and businesses used imagery to motivate public emotion and opinion regarding the war and citizens efforts to support the war. | <urn:uuid:4d8457b3-41c8-4623-aa5e-0c50f188e861> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chnm.gmu.edu/mcpstah/lesson-plans/early-twentieth-century/?planid=24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00046-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95125 | 892 | 3.890625 | 4 |
History of Left Handed People - sounds sinister!
It is fairly safe to assume that those interested in the history of left handed people, will indeed be left handed people themselves. Right-handed people basically take their dominance for granted. However, it is a fascinating subject for all, because almost everybody knows a “leftie”, be it family member, close friend, work colleague, school pal, whoever.
Looking into the history of left handed people will shock today’s generation when they learn that in previous centuries, they would be spanked in school and chastised at home for being different. Their left hands would be tied behind their backs, in an effort to force them to write with their “correct” hand.
There used to be extreme and severe suspicions of anything left. In the history of left handed people, the Latin term for left is sinister, which in modern English can be interpreted as meaning “evil”; “menacing”; or “threatening”. By contrast, “dexter” is the Latin word for right, which is used in a complimentary way when talking of someone well skilled in the hands, i.e. “dexterous”.
In researching the history of left handed people, scientists have discovered that the left-hander uses both sides of their brain evenly, while the right-hander is controlled more from the left. One theory, with regard to hand preference, is that it is determined from two manifestations of a gene at the same point. These genes are referred to as the “C ” and “D” genes. The D gene is more numerous and consequently leads to the majority of the population favouring their right-hand. The C gene is less likely to occur, but when it does, the hand preference of the individual will be split 50/50 between right and left.
Throughout the history of left handed people, there has been many only too willing to cast disparaging remarks. One such person was a 19th-century Italian criminologist named Cesare Lombroso , who famously spoke of “Left-handedness being a stigma of degeneracy”. Such statements have thankfully long since disappeared from the views of the world, and it is worth remembering that, if ever on the receiving end of any derogatory comments from a “rightie”; the left side of your brain controls the right side of your body, and the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body; so only left handed people are in their right mind! | <urn:uuid:3297b3e3-1a0a-4b87-896b-a8643104e13d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.left-at-the-start.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394937.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00066-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963124 | 534 | 2.5625 | 3 |
At 1,336 pages, World Economic Plants: A Standard Reference is more for professionals and scientists than the casual reader. The book,compiled by an Agricultural Research Service botanist and a University of Texas taxonomist, could also be considered a testament to the diversity of our plant life.
Authors John Wiersema and Blanca León link the list of scientific names with the geographic origins, uses, and relationships of 12,235 plants. They also provide over 50,000 common names for those plants in 27 languages, among them Arabic, Chinese and Russian. Plants often have different names and uses in different countries, says Wiersema, who is with the ARS National Germplasm Resources Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.
The book, published by CRC Press, focuses on plants that are “directly or indirectly important to international [or interstate] commerce ... or have recognized potential for widespread economic usage,” according to the text. Plants used for food, fiber, timber, medicines, ornamental purposes, crop breeding and many other uses are included, along with those having negative impacts, such as invasive weeds and poisonous plants.
The book is an update of an edition the researchers published in 1999 that inventoried 9,500 plants. DNA studies have revolutionized what scientists know about plants and their classifications in recent years. The new edition incorporates that recent molecular data, as well as information gleaned from other types of plant studies.
Along with including 25 percent more plants, the 2013 version indicates more “use classes,” such as whether a plant is, for instance, a food source or has medicinal value. Some of the most common categories are ornamentals (5,361), medicines (2,997), food and food additives (2,212), and weeds (2,136).
Readers can look up a plant under its common name or its scientific name, and using the latter, they can learn about the plant’s geographic distribution, what it is called in other languages, and how it is used. To supplement data on a plant’s native range, the authors have added information on where a plant has been introduced or cultivated.
Information in the book and its sources are fully elaborated on in the ARS Germplasm Resources Information Network, which is part of the ARS National Plant Germplasm System and is publicly available online.
This updated edition, requested by the publisher, offers the advantage of serving as a condensed summary of that information in an easily retrievable format. It will be useful to researchers, plant breeders, librarians, companies involved in regional or global marketing of plants or plant products, regulatory officials or anyone who needs basic, accurate information about economic plants.
The publication took over two years to complete, and the material was reviewed for accuracy by more than 150 experts.
The book costs $149.95 and can be ordered online at www.crcpress.com.
The research is part of Plant Genetic Resources, Genomics, and Genetic Improvement, an ARS national program (#301) described at www.nps.ars.usda.gov.
Source: Agricultural Research Magazine | <urn:uuid:7247f951-3bc2-4574-abad-f419d29cfa2c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.potatogrower.com/2014/03/new-reference-provides-uses-origins | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941023 | 654 | 3.375 | 3 |
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Home > Patients & Visitors > Health Library > Diabetes: Preventing High Blood Sugar Emergencies
High blood sugar in
diabetes occurs when the sugar (glucose) level in the
blood rises above normal. It is also called hyperglycemia. When you have diabetes, high blood sugar may
be caused by not getting enough insulin or missing your diabetes medicine. It may also be caused by eating too much food, skipping exercise, or being ill or
Unlike low blood sugar, high blood sugar usually happens
slowly over hours or days. Blood sugar levels above your target range may
make you feel tired and thirsty. If your blood sugar keeps rising, your kidneys will make more urine and you can get
dehydrated. Signs of dehydration include being thirstier than usual and having darker urine than usual. Without treatment, severe dehydration can be life-threatening. Over time, high blood sugar can damage the eyes,
heart, kidneys, blood vessels, and nerves.
Watch for symptoms of high blood sugar. Symptoms include feeling very tired or thirsty and urinating more often than usual. As long as you
notice the symptoms, you will probably have time to treat high blood sugar so that
you can prevent an emergency. Three things can help you prevent high blood
Infections that aren't treated (such
as urinary tract infections, pneumonia, and skin infections) can raise your
risk for a high blood sugar emergency.
The best way to
prevent high blood sugar emergencies is to treat high blood sugar as soon as
you have symptoms or when your blood sugar is well above your target
range (for example, 200 mg/dL or higher).
If your blood sugar levels
are above your target range, drink extra liquids. This helps replace the fluids lost
through your urine. Water and sugar-free drinks are best. Avoid caffeinated drinks,
alcohol, and soda pop. And avoid other drinks that have a lot of sugar, such as fruit juice.
Other Works Consulted
Inzucchi SE, et al. (2012). Management of hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes: A patient-centered approach. Diabetes Care, 35(6): 1364–1379.
Inzucchi SE, et al. (2015). Management of hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes, 2015: A patient-centered approach: Update to a position statement of the American Diabetes Association and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. Diabetes Care, 38(1): 140–149. DOI: 10.2337/dc14-2441. Accessed February 18, 2015.
Kitabchi AE, et al. (2009). Hyperglycemic crises in adult patients with diabetes. Diabetes Care, 32(7): 1335–1343.
ByHealthwise StaffPrimary Medical ReviewerE. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal MedicineKathleen Romito, MD - Family MedicineSpecialist Medical ReviewerRhonda O'Brien, MS, RD, CDE - Certified Diabetes Educator
Current as ofMay 22, 2015
Current as of:
May 22, 2015
E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine & Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine & Rhonda O'Brien, MS, RD, CDE - Certified Diabetes Educator
To learn more about Healthwise, visit Healthwise.org.
© 1995-2015 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated.
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North Kansas City Hospital | <urn:uuid:db3f750b-6355-42a7-922e-b089d9c9f095> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.nkch.org/patients-visitors/health-library/healthwise-document-viewer/?id=aa20968 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00006-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.854778 | 843 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Harvard Professor David Keith says that two new reports by the National Academy of Sciences are likely to boost a deeper look at possible geoengineering options for climate engineering.
Scholars on opposite sides of geoengineering debated the climate change strategy's potential — pitfalls and benefits — this week at the Science Center.
An international regulatory framework is needed to govern possible research and deployment of engineering approaches to counter climate change, an authority on environmental law says.
By tailoring geoengineering efforts by region and by need, a new model promises to maximize the effectiveness of solar radiation management while mitigating its potential side effects and risks.
University of Calgary Professor David Keith calls for investment in geoengineering research as part of the search for solutions to climate change. | <urn:uuid:5059356a-cba4-4476-a19e-4183b17cbd3d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/tag/geoengineering/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928177 | 147 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Light-Activated Water Disinfector Works Even In the Dark; Is Cheaper, Greener Solution?
Photo via mckaysavage via Flickr CC
Sounds a little contradictory, but research coming from Jian-Ku Shang, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and his team have come up with a photocatalyst that disinfects water with sunlight or artificial light, and will keep on disinfecting even after the lights go out. It promises to be an effective solution for unsafe water in developing countries - or anywhere. Currently, we can use UV light to kill bacteria in water, but the scientists at University of Illinois have built upon this ability, using nanotechnology to create a photocatalyst that can use visible light, rather than UV light, to accomplish the same task. The research was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry.
Working within wavelengths of 400 and 550 nanometers, the photocatalyst is made of titanium oxide fibers mixed with nitrogen so that the fibers will absorb visible light, and nanoparticles of palladium to maximize the efficiency of disinfection. By being able to utilize more visible light, and not just a sliver of the spectrum, the photocatalyst becomes a simple solar-powered and even artificial light-powered solution for safe drinking water.
According to Technology Review, "Shang and his colleagues tested the photocatalyst by placing it in a solution containing a high concentration of E. coli bacteria and then shining a halogen desk lamp on the solution for varying lengths of time. After an hour, the concentration of bacteria dropped from 10 million cells per liter to just one cell per 10,000 liters."
But the kicker is that it keeps disinfecting for up to 10 hours after the lights go out, which means water can be disinfected even over night. The photocatalyst was shown to kill bacteria for as long as 24 hours after losing its light source.
The photocatalyst can be a solution for developing countries where water quality is low, used in conjunction with purifiers that remove particles from the water so that safe, clean, pure water is available for everyone The scientists also imagine that it could provide mass disinfection by being incorporated into systems that expose water to light as it travels through pipes. The primary question we have, though, is what is left in the water after disinfection occurs - something we didn't see addressed in the available information about the new material.
The Journal of Materials Chemistry states,"Shang says that he hopes to study the charge transfer process in more detail, so that he can optimise the efficiency of the individual charge transfer steps. He indicates that the solar driven materials could have many environmental antimicrobial systems. In particular, he says that it could be a cheaper and more environmentally-friendly alternative to water disinfection by chlorination, which produces harmful disinfection by-products." | <urn:uuid:b7569d7d-040a-4e40-a513-c70e0dfd9a3a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/light-activated-water-disinfector-works-even-in-the-dark-is-cheaper-greener-solution.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00175-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947118 | 588 | 3.203125 | 3 |
NASA scientists have broadcast pictures of the transit of Venus from Alice Springs to the world after cloudy skies and a mystery computer connection problem delayed the transmission.
The planned live broadcast of the rare astronomical event from an Alice Springs high school was delayed by an hour by what was later identified as an "IT problem".
Earlier, the ABC had been told that the problem was caused when a backhoe being used by a roadwork crew cut a fibre-optic cable, knocking out many internet connections in parts of the Northern Territory.
A school spokesperson says NASA computers have been connected to the school's internet system to allow the transmission to go ahead.
The transit can be seen from the NASA website and will be broadcast from Alice Springs until mid-afternoon.
Scientist Michael Johnson says Alice Springs has quickly become the main live streaming site worldwide for the transit.
"We are now getting beautiful images," he said.
He says the Alice Springs coverage was vital because another NASA site in Mongolia had clouded over and the sun had set in the United States.
"Right now, we are the main feed, coming out of Australia to NASA, so they are enjoying our images around the world," he said.
Clear skies and dry weather have made for near perfect viewing conditions in Darwin.
Hundreds of people have been watching the event through free telescopes on the city's Esplanade.
The next time Venus will be visible passing between Earth and the sun will be in 2117.
Alice Springs was one of only two locations outside the United States that was to have contributed to a live NASA broadcast of the transit of Venus across the sun.
American scientist Michael Johnson says Alice Springs was chosen because the whole six-hour event would be visible from the central Australian town.
He says NASA was intending to collate the data and compare it to previous transits.
"What makes it so special is that it is an extremely rare event," he said.
"This tiny dot that goes across the sun only happens every 105 years."
Internet and mobile services, including ATMs, across parts of the Northern Territory have been affected by the cutting of the fibre-optic cable.
Telstra says the cable was damaged late yesterday, about 17 kilometres south of Mataranka.
Spokeswoman Jane Singleton says technicians have been working to restore services.
"What has happened is roadworks ... out of Mataranka have disrupted and, in fact, severed and damaged the fibre (optic cable)," she said.
The cable has been repaired and services are being restored | <urn:uuid:ebd67535-2257-4907-927d-f623b0a0bb29> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-06/roadworks-cut-cable-on-transit-of-venus-cover/4055002?pfm=sm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975706 | 524 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Bangalore: The country’s maiden mission to Mars is on course, with its orbiter crossing the halfway mark on its voyage to the red planet, four months after it left the Earth on December 1.
Red letter day: One of the first images of our planet clicked by the Mars Color Camera (MCC) onboard the Mars Orbiter. The picture was taken on November 19 from an altitude of 67,975 km. Pic/ISRO
Mangalyaan, which was launched on November 5 from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, has travelled nearly 337.5 million kilometres till now.
“The spacecraft on, Wednesday at 9.50 am, crossed the halfway mark of its journey to Mars along the designated helio (sun)-centric trajectory in the solar orbit,” the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement.
“In terms of radio distance, the 1,337-kg orbiter is cruising at 39 million km away from Earth, travelling at 1.55 km per second in the sun’s orbit,” the space agency said.
At R450 crore, India’s Mars mission is the cheapest inter planetary mission ever undertaken. The mission intends to explore the presence of methane on the Red Planet with the help of five scientific instruments onboard the spacecraft.
The orbiter is expected to reach the Mars on September 24, when it will become the farthest any Indian object has ever travelled. Incidentally, the spacecraft is crossing the halfway mark a day after the Earth was at its closest to the red planet.
Of the 51 missions to Mars launched from across the world till date, 27 have failed so far.
To infinity and beyond
A team comprising nearly 500 ISRO scientists had worked tirelessly to ensure that Mangalyaan was ready for its launch within a record 15 months.
The mission to Mars was successfully launched on board PSLV C 25 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh on November 5. On December 1, the Trans-Mars Injection manoeuvre was conducted successfully, and the spacecraft was set in its course towards planet Mars through a helio-centric trajectory. If Mangalyaan manages to reach Mars, India will become the first country to achieve the enviable feat on a spacecraft’s maiden flight. Till date, only the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency have successfully managed to send a spacecraft all the way to Mars. | <urn:uuid:87bf3230-4d65-4884-b013-4711d2b718e2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mid-day.com/articles/mission-to-mars-mangalyaan-crosses-halfway-mark-to-the-red-planet/15219091 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936308 | 516 | 2.734375 | 3 |
A breast biopsy is a procedure to remove a small sample of breast tissue for laboratory testing. Breast biopsy is a way to evaluate a suspicious area in your breast to determine if it is breast cancer. There are several types of breast biopsy procedures.
A breast biopsy provides a sample of tissue that doctors use to identify and diagnose abnormalities in the cells that make up breast lumps or other unusual breast changes. And the lab report from the breast biopsy can help determine whether you need additional surgery or other treatment.
Your doctor may recommend a breast biopsy if:
- You or your doctor feels a lump or thickening in your breast, and your doctor suspects breast cancer
- Your mammogram shows a suspicious area in your breast
- An ultrasound scan reveals a suspicious finding
- Your breast MRI reveals a suspicious finding
- You have unusual nipple changes, including crusting, scaling, dimpling skin or bloody discharge
Risks associated with a breast biopsy include:
- Bruising and swelling of the breast
- Infection or bleeding at the biopsy site
- Altered breast appearance, depending on how much tissue is removed and how your breast heals
- Additional surgery or other treatment, depending on biopsy results
Contact your doctor if you develop a fever, if the biopsy site becomes red or warm, or if you have unusual drainage from the biopsy site. These can be signs of an infection that may require prompt treatment.
Before the breast biopsy, tell your doctor if you:
- Have any allergies
- Have taken aspirin in the last seven days
- Are taking blood-thinning medications (anticoagulants)
- Are unable to lie on your stomach for an extended period of time
If your biopsy will be done using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), tell your doctor if you have a cardiac pacemaker or other electronic device implanted in your body or if you're pregnant or think you may be pregnant. MRI generally isn't recommended under these circumstances.
Wear a bra to your appointment. Your health care team may place a cold pack against the biopsy site after the procedure, and the bra can hold the cold pack in place and provide support for your breast.
Several breast biopsy procedures are used to obtain a tissue sample from the breast. Your doctor may recommend a particular procedure based on the size, location and other characteristics of the breast abnormality. If it's not clear why you're having one type of biopsy instead of another, ask your doctor to explain.
For many biopsies, you'll get an injection to numb the area of the breast to be biopsied. Types of breast biopsy include:
Fine-needle aspiration biopsy. This is the simplest type of breast biopsy and may be used to evaluate a lump that can be felt during a clinical breast exam. For the procedure, you lie on a table. While steadying the lump with one hand, your doctor uses the other hand to direct a fine needle - more slender than that used to obtain a blood sample or tissue sample - into the lump.
The needle is attached to a syringe that can collect a sample of cells or fluid from the lump. Fine-needle aspiration is a quick way to distinguish between a fluid-filled cyst and a solid mass and, possibly, to avoid a more invasive biopsy procedure. If, however, the mass is solid, it will need further evaluation.
Core needle biopsy. This type of breast biopsy may be used to assess a breast lump that's visible on a mammogram or ultrasound or that your doctor feels (palpates) during a clinical breast exam. A radiologist or surgeon uses a thin, hollow needle to remove tissue samples from the breast mass, most often using ultrasound guidance.
Several samples, each about the size of a grain of rice, are collected and analyzed to identify features indicating the presence of disease. Depending on the location of the mass, other imaging techniques, such as mammography or MRI, may be used to guide the positioning of the needle in a core needle biopsy depending on the location of the mass.
Stereotactic biopsy. This type of biopsy uses mammograms to pinpoint the location of suspicious areas within the breast. For this procedure, you generally lie facedown on a padded biopsy table with one of your breasts positioned in a hole in the table. You may need to remain in this position for 30 minutes to one hour.
The table is raised several feet, and the equipment used by the radiologist is positioned beneath the table. Your breast is firmly compressed between two plates while mammograms are taken to show the radiologist the exact location of the area for biopsy.
The radiologist makes a small incision - about 1/4-inch long (about 6 millimeters) - into your breast. He or she then inserts either a needle or a vacuum-powered probe and removes several samples of tissue. The samples are sent to a lab for analysis.
Ultrasound-guided core needle biopsy. This type of core needle biopsy involves ultrasound - an imaging method that uses high-frequency sound waves to produce precise images of structures within your body. During this procedure, you lie on your back or side on an ultrasound table.
Holding the ultrasound device (transducer) against your breast, the radiologist locates the mass within your breast, makes a small incision to insert the needle and takes several core samples of tissue to be sent to a lab for analysis.
MRI-guided core needle biopsy. This type of core needle biopsy is done under guidance of MRI - an imaging technique that captures multiple cross-sectional images of your breast and combines them, using a computer, to generate detailed 3-D pictures. During this procedure, you lie facedown on a padded scanning table. Your breasts fit into a hollow depression in the table.
The MRI machine provides images that help determine the exact location for the biopsy. A small incision of about 1/4-inch long (about 6 millimeters) is made to allow the core needle to be inserted. Several samples of tissue are taken and sent to a lab for analysis.
Surgical biopsy. During a surgical biopsy, a portion of the breast mass is removed for examination (incisional biopsy) or the entire breast mass may be removed (excisional biopsy, wide local excision or lumpectomy). A surgical biopsy is usually done in an operating room using sedation given through a vein in your hand or arm (intravenously) and a local anesthetic to numb your breast.
If the breast mass can't be felt, your radiologist may use a technique called wire localization to map the route to the mass for the surgeon. During wire localization, the tip of a thin wire is positioned within the breast mass or just through it. This is usually done right before surgery.
During surgery, the surgeon will attempt to remove the entire breast mass along with the wire. To help ensure that the entire mass has been removed, the tissue is sent to the hospital lab to check the edges (margins) of the mass.
If cancer cells are present in the margins (positive margins), some cancer may still be in the breast, and more tissue must be removed. If the margins are clear (negative margins), then the cancer has been removed adequately.
At the time of the breast biopsy, a tiny stainless steel marker or clip may be placed in your breast at the biopsy site. This is done so that if your biopsy is positive, your doctor or surgeon can locate the biopsy area to remove more breast tissue surgically.
After a breast biopsy
With all types of breast biopsy except a surgical biopsy, you'll go home with only bandages and an ice pack over the biopsy site. Although you should take it easy for the rest of the day, you'll be able to resume your normal activities within a day. Bruising is common after core needle biopsy procedures. To ease pain and discomfort after a breast biopsy, you may take a nonaspirin pain reliever containing acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) and apply a cold pack as needed to reduce swelling.
If you have a surgical biopsy, you'll likely have stitches (sutures) to care for. Your health care team will tell you how to protect your stitches.
It may be a few days before the results of a core needle biopsy are available. After the biopsy procedure, your breast tissue is sent to a lab, where a doctor who specializes in analyzing blood and body tissue (pathologist) examines the sample using a microscope and special procedures.
The pathologist prepares a pathology report that is sent to your doctor, who will share the results with you. The pathology report includes details about the size, color and consistency of the tissue samples, the location of the biopsy site, and whether cancer or precancer cells were present.
If your breast biopsy reveals normal results or benign breast change, your doctor will need to see if the radiologist and pathologist agree on the findings. Sometimes the opinions of these two experts differ. For instance, your radiologist may find that your mammogram results suggest breast cancer or precancer, but your pathology report reveals normal breast tissue. In this case, you may need more surgery to obtain more tissue to further evaluate the area.
If your pathology report says that breast cancer is present, it will include information about the cancer itself, such as what type of breast cancer you have and additional information, such as whether the cancer is hormone receptor positive or negative. You and your doctor can then develop a treatment plan that best suits your needs.
Aug. 22, 2013
- Esserman LJ, et al. Breast biopsy. http://www.uptodate.com/home. Accessed June 4, 2013.
- For women facing a breast biopsy. American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/treatment/understandingyourdiagnosis/examsandtestdescriptions/forwomenfacingabreastbiopsy/index. Accessed June 4, 2013.
- Having a breast biopsy: A guide for women and their families. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/index.cfm/search-for-guides-reviews-and-reports/?productid=407&pageaction=displayproduct. Accessed June 4, 2013.
- Ultrasound-guided breast biopsy. RadiologyInfo.org. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=breastbius. Accessed June 4, 2013.
- MRI-guided breast biopsy. RadiologyInfo.org. http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=breastbimr. Accessed June 4, 2013. | <urn:uuid:50894792-0afb-46a3-8c5d-18bd71898cbc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/breast-biopsy/basics/why-its-done/prc-20020395?p=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00146-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921949 | 2,257 | 2.90625 | 3 |
In a fire, you are excited and unable to think clearly, so having a fire escape plan in place helps prevent panic, which can result in injury or death.
The first few minutes after the start of a fire are important to those in the building. Fire travels quickly, and the hottest and largest concentration of smoke and gasses will rise to the highest point.
A majority of the people killed by fire die as a result of heat and gases, not by the direct flame.
When developing a fire escape plan for your home, involve the entire family.
Begin by drawing a simple floor plan of the home. A plan should be made for each floor.
Develop a floor plan showing normal and emergency exit routes from each sleeping area. Use solid and broken arrows to show primary and secondary routes.
Plan two exits from each room. The normal exit route will be used if possible. If the normal route is blocked, the alternate route will be used. Some means of alarm should also be established. Your family's alarm device can be a whistle, bell or pan and spoon. Regardless of your alarm choice, never play with your means of sounding an alarm.
After creating your escape plan, discuss how everyone will escape if fire is detected and the alarm is sounded.
Things to consider and discuss include:
If you find yourself unable to escape from a burning building:
Those living in apartment buildings should follow the steps provided above for creating a home fire escape plan.
If a fire occurs, alert other apartment occupants by shouting or pounding on doors. Sound the fire alarm if one is available in the building.
Upon leaving the apartment, always close the apartment door behind you. In exiting your apartment under emergency conditions, approach stairways with caution. Do not use an elevator as an escape in case of fire.
Prepare an escape plan showing escape routes and post in your work place. Encourage your company to practice fire drills.
Learn the location of fire exits and alarm boxes near you and know the Fire Department's phone number.
Make mental notes of several fire exits whenever you enter a restaurant, store, theater or other public place.
If you see smoke or detect a burning smell, sound the alarm. As you exit a burning building, close doors behind you. Always use stairs to exit a building, never an elevator. | <urn:uuid:d94782e7-d6a0-4e20-9467-68b478bd00b1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fairfield-city.org/fire/escapeplan.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932345 | 476 | 3.546875 | 4 |
The MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured this true-color image of Hurricane Frances swirling above the waters of the tropical Atlantic Ocean on August 31 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 AM EDT). At the time this image was taken Frances was located approximately 285 km (175 miles) northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico and was moving towards the west at 24 km/hr (15 mph). Maximum sustained winds were near 215 km/hr (135 mph) with a minimum central pressure of 950 mb. This makes Frances a Category 4 storm on the Saffir/Simpson Scale.
The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions and formats.
NASA image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.
- Terra - MODIS | <urn:uuid:088b3bef-d261-4cd8-989a-d7caa44dcd40> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=13767 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915697 | 164 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Living on Earth’s Eileen Bolinsky reports on the EcoBots, a new design of robots that create their own energy by eating flies.
CURWOOD: Just ahead: California’s bid to put a lid on the gases that are warming the planet. First, this Note on Emerging Science from Eileen Bolinsky.
[SCIENCE NOTE THEME]
BOLINSKY: It may sound more like science fiction than science, but a team of British scientists are developing what they hope will become the ultimate, autonomous, killer robot.
As reported in the current issue of New Scientist magazine, robotic scientists in Bristol, England are refining the design of EcoBot II: a robot that produces its own power by catching and “digesting” flies.
The EcoBots will be used as “release and forget” devices, meaning they can be sent into areas that are either too dangerous or inaccessible to humans. The robots would carry out tasks such as monitoring temperature or toxic gas concentrations, for example. Results would then be radioed back to a base station.
EcoBot is not the first carnivorous robot to be developed, but if scientists succeed in making it self-sustaining, it may well prove the most practical. The robot is designed to generate its own power by breaking down the sugar contained in the skeletons of flies, a process which releases electrons that drive an electric current.
Right now, the flies must be manually fed into the fuel cells, but scientists are improving the design of the EcoBot so it will be able to lure the insects on its own. The likeliest way they will accomplish this, however, is by using sewage or excrement for bait—a solution that is guaranteed to cause quite a stink. That’s this week’s Note on Emerging Science. I’m Eileen Bolinsky.
CURWOOD: And you’re listening to NPR’s Living on Earth.
ANNOUNCER: Support for NPR comes from NPR stations, and: The Noyce Foundation, dedicated to improving Math and Science instruction from kindergarten through grade 12; Ford, presenting the Escape Hybrid, whose full hybrid technology allows it to run on gas or electric power. Full hybrid technology details at fordvehicles.com; The Annenberg Fund for excellence in communications and education; and, The Kellogg Foundation, helping people help themselves by investing in individuals, their families, and their communities. On the web at w-k-k-f dot org. This is NPR, National Public Radio.
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Contribute to Living on Earth and receive, as our gift to you, an autographed copy of one of Mark Seth Lender's extraordinary hummingbird photographs. Follow the link to see Mark's current collection of photographs. | <urn:uuid:e47ab844-c0f1-44c1-87d0-d0df01589ff9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=04-P13-00038&segmentID=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900823 | 729 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Judaism: Gathering Tears in a Flask
Moshe KempinskiMoshe Kempinski, author of "The Teacher and the Preacher", is the editor...
One may ask, then, was it all for naught? Can prayers really “work”?
Prayer does not change G-d’s mind, it changes us.
We read that King Hezekiah is told of the Divine decree declaring that he would die. He turns to the wall in prayer and Hashem thereupon rescinds the decree (2 Kings 20:1-6). What did Hezekiah say that G-d was not already aware of and brought about the seeming change? In actual fact, his prayer did not change G-d’s mind at all. Hezekiah’s prayer changed Hezekiah. He became a new Hezekiah after prayer, a new vessel, and as a result was worthy of a different decree.
The crisis and tragedy surrounding these three boys transformed this country. The nobility and steadfast faith of the families of these boys uplifted the collective and individual soul and spirit of this country. The plight of these young men empowered the members of this extended family called Israel to ensure that no stone was left unturned, both physically and spiritually.
There was not a sense of walking as separate entities joining a larger community. The determined and hushed procession towards the gravesite was experienced as if by one collective soul. That feeling of oneness was so palpable that one did not have to acknowledge or express it to any one that was there. They were all there to be with the families .They were there because they needed to be. They needed to stand together, pray together, cry together and simply breath together.
We then return to our question; “was it all for naught? Do prayers “work”?
What do the words “place my tears in Your flask.”mean?
May the memories of the young boys Nafatali, Eyal and Gilad be for a blessing for their families and for all of us. May all those prayers gathered in the heavens bear fruit quickly in our days. | <urn:uuid:45437063-a4e4-47b8-bffe-730951a86efb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15270 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00059-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975452 | 449 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Nature’s batteries’ may have helped power early lifeforms
One of the best known molecules for carrying energy around our bodies is adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Image Credit: Nanyang Technological University
Researchers at the University of Leeds have uncovered new clues to the origins of life on Earth.
The team found that a compound known as pyrophosphite may have been an important energy source for primitive lifeforms.
There are several conflicting theories of how life on Earth emerged from inanimate matter billions of years ago – a process known as abiogenesis.
"It’s a chicken and egg question," said Dr Terry Kee of the University of Leeds, who led the research. "Scientists are in disagreement over what came first – replication, or metabolism. But there is a third part to the equation – and that is energy."
All living things require a continual supply of energy in order to function. This energy is carried around our bodies within certain molecules, one of the best known being adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which converts heat from the Sun into a useable form for animals and plants.
At any one time, the human body contains just 250g of ATP – this provides roughly the same amount of energy as a single AA battery. This ATP store is being constantly used and regenerated in cells via a process known as respiration, which is driven by natural catalysts called enzymes.
"You need enzymes to make ATP and you need ATP to make enzymes," explained Dr Kee. "The question is: where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? We think that the answer may lie in simple molecules such as pyrophosphite which is chemically very similar to ATP, but has the potential to transfer energy without enzymes."
Phosphorous may have been contained in meteorites that struck the Earth billions of years ago. Credit: Artist impression by David Hardy
The key to the battery-like properties of both ATP and pyrophosphite is an element called phosphorus, which is essential for all living things. Not only is phosphorus the active component of ATP, it also forms the backbone of DNA and is important in the structure of cell walls.
But despite its importance to life, it is not fully understood how phosphorus first appeared in our atmosphere. One theory is that it was contained within the many meteorites that collided with the Earth billions of years ago.
"Phosphorus is present within several meteoritic minerals and it is possible that this reacted to form pyrophosphite under the acidic, volcanic conditions of early Earth," added Dr Kee.
The findings, published in the journal Chemical Communications, are the first to suggest that pyrophosphite may have been relevant in the shift from basic chemistry to complex biology when life on earth began. Since completing this research, Dr Kee and his team have found even further evidence for the importance of this molecule and now hope to team up with collaborators from NASA to investigate its role in abiogenesis. | <urn:uuid:887a1624-3ea4-437a-a6d0-f8e07aa5af05> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.astrobio.net/topic/origins/origin-and-evolution-of-life/natures-batteries/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00154-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966204 | 616 | 3.609375 | 4 |
We learn in elementary school about the three phases of matter -- solids, liquids, gases -- and how they behave. These forms of matter, particularly liquids and gases, have a tendency to act differently in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station, regardless of their density, or mass.
The Binary Colloidal Alloy Test-6 - Phase Separation, or BCAT-6, investigation looks at how liquids and gases separate and come together in microgravity. This helps researchers to understand the fundamental questions about what happens when gases and liquids separate from each other, along with resulting patterns in the way solids are suspended in liquids. The results of this physics investigation may be used in the creation of better formulas and stabilizers to extend shelf life for products, foods, and medicines; and advances in propellant research for future rocket engines.
In an interview, Peter Lu, co-investigator for the BCAT-6, said, "The nice thing about going to microgravity is that those density differences don’t matter...you have the liquids and gasses separating from each other, but one doesn't always float to the top over the other and we can actually look at the structure of that process."
During the interview, Lu discussed previous investigations of this nature, why the station is a great place for this type of research, and what types of results researchers are looking for exactly. Learn more about BCAT-6 in the feature “It's All in the Mix With Fluid Physics in Space.” | <urn:uuid:c7319659-3332-45a2-bb69-2b1ed1819451> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/bcat6_video.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00018-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936956 | 310 | 3.578125 | 4 |
It is a common misconception that water shortages and restrictions are only the norm for people living in drought-prone regions or third world countries. However with rapid population growth now placing an enormous strain on already limited lake and groundwater resources, the urgency for “smart” water management is now hitting home in North America.
As water shortages continue, water and energy costs will continue to rise. Using alternative water sources responsibly combined with water-efficient irrigation technology is the best way to make “every drop count”. The solution is clear… there is no better time to reduce your water usage, lower your operating costs and ensure that our fresh water supply exists for future generations.
Reduce reflux 'ger' davi jones than 60 million americans experience. Doctor may ask if acid reflux. | <urn:uuid:5ad21431-fa2c-4025-a753-29aeb380f2fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.smartwateringsystems.ca/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921177 | 163 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Fruit. Vegetables. Lean meat. Nuts. Dairy. Popcorn.
Most of us recognize the first five as regular recommended components of a healthy diet, but a new study finds that popcorn contains more healthful antioxidant substances called "polyphenols" than fruits and vegetables.
Further, popcorn averages only about 4 percent water, while polyphenols are diluted more in the 90 percent water that makes up most fruits and vegetables.
And, the part of popcorn you hate, the hulls that get stuck in your teeth, is actually the healthiest part, with the highest concentration of polyphenols and fiber.
Joe Vinson, who has made a career of analyzing healthy components in chocolate, nuts and other foods, says "popcorn may be the perfect snack food."
It's 100 percent unprocessed whole grain, and one serving provides 70 percent of the recommended daily intake -- the average person eats only half a serving of whole grains a day.
The study found the amount of polyphenols in popcorn was up to 300 mg a serving, compared to 114 mg for sweet corn and 160 mg for all fruits per serving.
Of course, there are two sides to the story; the study covered plain popcorn, not the stuff you buy slathered in tropical oils and a blizzard of salt at the movie theater, or event microwave popcorn, with is about 43 percent fat, or the 28 percent fat you take in if you pop it in oil yourself.
As with any food, popcorn can't do the nutrition job by itself. Fruits and vegetables contain vitamins and other nutrients that are missing in popcorn, and dried fruit has polyphenols in concentrated form the same way popcorn does.
But no food, no matter how healthy, does any good if we don't eat it. Perhaps, with the right marketing, popcorn is a "growth" industry for farmers on the Golden Plains. | <urn:uuid:98137492-70b3-4a63-be4b-36a642433aa2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1829893.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944063 | 388 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Accidental discovery: Scientists are checking the area near Kanab where bones were found
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Archaeologists meticulously dug through dirt atop a ridge on Kanab's eastern edge Monday, gingerly picking their way around what are believed to be the skeletal remains of at least five ancient American Indians.
The bones were discovered on private land last week when a turf farmer was digging a trench to install an irrigation line.
"I was on a backhoe . . . when the guy I was working with yelled at me. I saw a big femur bone sticking up," said Tom Willardson, the owner of Tommy's Turf.
He had laid about 1,400 feet of irrigation line when the bone turned up. He called police.
"I stopped digging out of respect for who [the bones] belonged to," said Willardson on Monday.
City police reported the find to the Kane County Sheriff's Office, which in turn called in Bureau of Land Management officials based at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument headquarters in the south-central Utah community.
Ironically, the discovery is across the street - about a quarter-mile away - from the new Grand Staircase visitors center, which opened last June.
The state archaeologist also was called in, and officials from the various agencies worked together to investigate what could be a burial plot for as many as five people - probably Anasazi - who inhabited the region of southern Utah along the present-day Arizona state line 1,000 years ago. Carbon dating of the bones has not been done, but scientists are estimating their age based on other evidence uncovered at the site.
BLM archaeologists turned over control of the dig to the Antiquities Section of the Utah Division of State History, according to Marietta Eaton, the monument's assistant manager for cultural and earth sciences. The state controls finds on state and private land.
Eaton said because of the 400-mile distance between state antiquities offices in Salt Lake City and Kanab, Utah officials asked BLM archaeologists to act as their agents to evaluate the site and remove the bones so Willardson can continue to work on his sod farm.
"If they had been found on BLM land, we would have had to stop [Willardson] and work with [Indian] tribes on how to proceed," said Eaton.
Remains found on federal land are covered under the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. Unlike state law, NAGPRA won't allow federal officials to aid landowners in mitigating such delays.
However, state Archaeologist Kevin T. Jones said Monday that local protocol largely mirrors the NAGPRA procedures in thor- oughness. Once the amount of remains and artifacts that would be affected by Willardson's work are documented and removed, they will be sent to Salt Lake City for further study by experts.
When that work is completed, tribes in the area - most notably the Hopi - will be informed of the findings so they can repatriate the remains and any artifacts found with them.
Jones said the Hopi claim to be direct descendants of the Anasazi who settled the Four Corners Region until about 750 years ago when they inexplicably disappeared.
Eaton said it appears the location where the sets of remains were buried may have been settled to take advantage of its good view of the surrounding valley.
She praised Willardson for his prudent action in halting work and calling authorities. Willardson, in turn, said he was impressed with the scientists' professionalism and meticulous techniques.
"I've been having a good time watching them," he said. "Their work involves taking pictures and drawings with tools that include little brushes and trowels. They're experts; I give them credit for that." | <urn:uuid:05d0676e-4860-434e-be58-8e80556f782b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://archive.sltrib.com/printfriendly.php?id=2435544&itype=ngpsid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00072-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975925 | 812 | 2.609375 | 3 |
10 Highwaymen Who Gallantly Terrorized Britain
The words “Stand and deliver!” conjure up images of handsome, gallant gentlemen on well-groomed horses, their faces hidden by masks, relieving carriage passengers of their worldly possessions. It’s an idealized image of men who were oftentimes little more than robbers only looking out for themselves, but, oddly, it was an image that many highwaymen achieved even during their own day.
For some reason, these men (and, occasionally, women) escaped the stigma that is associated with most criminals, becoming a gallant class of selfless individuals who robbed the rich to give to the poor. Unfortunately, the poor didn’t always figure into the equation.
Claude Duval (or Du Vall) is credited with being one of the first great gentlemen highwaymen. Born in France in 1643, Duval emigrated to England after meeting a group of Royalist exiles, who were laying low in France during the Civil War. Once the war was over, Duval not only moved to England, but got an intimate look at the life of English nobility. Not content to live off a servant’s wage, he turned to the life of a highwayman, and he did it in style.
One of the most famous stories about him is his robbery of a carriage on Hampstead Heath. Here, upon meeting the beautiful young wife of the elderly knight he was robbing, Duval danced with the young woman on the side of the road. He then took only a portion of the money the knight was carrying as payment for the entertainment. He was well known but, by all reports, far from reviled. After fleeing to France for a short time to let the heat die down, he returned to England and was arrested during a drunken night out.
Once his death sentence was given, it was said that a number of his previous victims (mostly women that had been wooed by his courtly demeanor) tried to speak up on his behalf to get him a pardon. It didn’t work. He was executed in 1670, and his body was taken to lie in state at a local tavern. There were so many mourners present that the wake was cut short, as it was deemed rather unseemly.
By the time Jack Sheppard was 20 years old, the failed carpenter had turned to highway robbery to support his drinking and whoring habits. He was more famous for his escapes than his actual crimes, though, having bested law enforcement a number of times, to the delight of the masses.
In 1723, he was arrested for pickpocketing. When one of his most devoted prostitute companions came to visit him, she was promptly arrested as well. They made their escape from New Prison, Clerkenwell by hopping a 6.7-meter (22 ft) wall. A year later, the same girl distracted the guards while Sheppard escaped through a high, narrow window in Newgate. The same year, Sheppard escaped from Newgate once again by getting out of his handcuffs, picking a number of locks, and finally making it to the prison’s roof. He was arrested a short time later during a drunken celebration and was sentenced to hang.
He had an escape plan for that, too, and it involved author Daniel Defoe. Defoe, who had already ghostwritten an autobiography that detailed Sheppard’s crimes and escapes, was to secure his body after he was hanged and attempt to revive him. Unfortunately for Sheppard, he was such a popular figure that the crowd that had assembled at his hanging rushed the gallows as he dropped, grabbing him and pulling him downward to give him a less painful, more dignified death than the slow strangulation that he had counted on.
Isaac Darkin was 18 years old when he robbed his first victim. He was promptly arrested. Because of his age, he escaped the death penalty on the condition that he enlist in the military. By all appearances, he agreed, boarding a ship bound for the West Indies. He jumped ship before it had even sailed from the Thames, bribing a merchant vessel to let him aboard. Once he was back on land, he changed his name to Dumas and took to making a living robbing people throughout the Western parts of England.
Deciding that he needed a real career—and a respectable one, should anyone start asking questions—Darkin enlisted in the Navy, while continuing his career as a highwayman and ladies’ man. He was well known for his dislike of crude language and his invariably proper, well-dressed, and elegant appearance. It was when he robbed Lord Percival that he finally had another run-in with the law. Denying his identity and nationality didn’t actually fool anyone, but Darkin was still released on a technicality, much to the dismay of the women who had taken to visiting him in jail. He headed to London, where he was arrested on another charge of highway robbery and, this time, found guilty. He was executed in 1761, when he was 21 years old.
John Rann, also known as “Sixteen String Jack,” was one of the first highwaymen (and indeed, criminals) to make his occupation as much about his celebrity status as about his actual crimes or the spoils of his robberies. He was a larger-than-life, over-the-top figure whose nickname came from his extravagant dress. He was always perfectly groomed and gentlemanly in his appearance, always wearing silk breeches that had eight silver strings hanging from them. He encouraged all rumors that were spread about him, and consequently, there are a couple of different versions of his story.
He was born somewhere around 1752, and at some point, he entered life as a coachman. He was strongly associated with several different women. His apprenticeship didn’t give him enough income to support his lifestyle or his women, so he turned to highway robbery. Many of his crimes were of the flamboyant, drunk and disorderly type. It was ultimately an attempt by one of his mistresses (who quickly gave up his name) to sell a stolen watch that earned Rann his first arrest. When he got off, it only made him that much more confident. He boasted to full pubs of his highwayman lifestyle and predicted his own early death. He got off on minor charges of attempting to climb through windows into homes where the ladies always seemed to come to his defense.
It was a similar situation—his female associates trying to sell stolen property—that led to Rann’s final trial, after he and an associate robbed a clergyman riding through Ealing. His female associates got off, stating that they unknowingly traded clean clothes for the stolen property, but Rann himself was executed in December 1774.
6Sir Humphrey Kynaston
Humphrey Kynaston was a 15th-century highwayman who descended from Welsh royalty and was said to ride the devil as his horse. His great-grandfather was the Duke of Gloucester and his cousin was a lord, but that certainly didn’t help keep Kynaston on the right side of the law. He had inherited family property at Myddle Castle, but he let it run into ruin as he set up camp in Nesscliffe, Shropshire. The area was wool country, and there were plenty of merchants returning home with gold and silver after selling their precious wool. Kynaston hid in the mountains of Shropshire, and according to stories, he was one of the highwayman outlaws who was well loved by the poor.
Like Robin Hood, he was said to steal from the rich and give to the poor, who were so grateful that they would keep his horse fed and watered and bring him food when he was forced into hiding by the law. It was his horse—named Beelzebub and said to be the devil himself—that legends credit with Kynaston’s success. Stories are told about Kynaston fleeing the sheriff by clearing rivers in a single jump, and, in one tall tale, leaping from the top of Nesscliffe Hill and landing 14.5 kilometers (9 mi) away.
No one’s quite sure just what happened to Kynaston. Some stories say that he took ill and died in his cave. Others say that he changed his ways, was pardoned, and lived out the remainder of his days in peace. Regardless of which is true, his devil horse seems to have kept him out of the hangman’s noose that ended the lives of so many other highwaymen.
It was said that the devil followed Lyon’s body when it was brought back to the town that he had terrorized for decades. This unleashed violent thunderstorms on the kindly innkeeper that had volunteered to bring the gentleman robber home after his execution. George Lyon, along with two accomplices, was hanged for burglary in April 1815. It wasn’t the first run-in with the hangman for the self-proclaimed “King of the Robbers.” Thirty years earlier, he had narrowly escaped the noose for a similar crime: robbery.
For 30 years, Lyon and his gang terrorized the town of Up Holland, committing burglary after burglary. Everyone in the town knew that he was guilty, but decades went by with nothing being pinned on him, even when town magistrates offered a reward for any information that would lead to his capture. Finally, the magistrates managed to infiltrate the gang enough to buy back some silver that they had stolen, getting the evidence that was needed to hang Lyon. Reports of his execution say that he painted a dashing figure up on the gallows; at that time, executions were a very public affair and it was important to die well and leave a lasting impression.
Leave a lasting impression he did—along with a number of illegitimate children. (According to local gossip, the dashing burglar was responsible for a number of children born to unmarried women in the village—including children born simultaneously to a mother and daughter.) Lyon’s grave is still in Up Holland and has become something of an attraction. Even though records of him committing highway robbery are few and far between, a Robin Hood–like legend has grown up around him, complete with songs.
Like many of his contemporaries, much of John Nevison’s life is a blur of truth and fiction. Born somewhere around 1639, he briefly served in the military before returning to his English homeland to look after his ailing father. Unable to get a steady job, Nevison became a highwayman. He was arrested several times, only to keep escaping. Once, he had a friend pretend to be a doctor, declare Nevison dead, and carry him out of the prison in a coffin. Always the thoughtful highwayman, he never killed anyone and targeted only those he thought could afford to lose some money.
His nickname, “Swift Nick,” was said to have been given to him by King Charles II himself. After robbing a man in the morning, Nevison fled 322 kilometers (200 mi) on horseback to play a bowls match with another city’s mayor in the evening. This cemented his alibi for the morning robbery. (The story was later, more famously, attributed to Dick Turpin and his fictional horse, Black Bess.) It wasn’t long after Nevison’s legendary ride that he ended up committing his first murder: killing a constable that tried to arrest him. And it wasn’t long after that he was arrested, tried, and finally hanged in May 1685. The chair that he had fallen asleep in before he was arrested can still be seen in a local church in Wakefield.
3James Maclaine & William Plunkett
Maclaine and Plunkett are, at a glance, perhaps two of the most unlikely of partners. The well-dressed, if not jowly, son of a Presbyterian minister, Maclaine was a happily married man with two young children, when his beloved wife died. Despondent and no longer able to support himself, he devised a new life plan—find a rich woman, marry her, and live off her money.
He met and befriended a failed chemist named William Plunkett. Together they headed off to London, where they scouted for suitable rich women. The pair quickly ran out of money. Since no suitable prospects had presented themselves, the men turned to highway robbery instead. The only problem with this plan was that Maclaine was, at heart, something of a coward and did little more than look on and shiver with fear while Plunkett did all the dirty work. Eventually, Maclaine stepped up a bit, yet he still sent apology notes to a man named Horace Walpole—after robbing and nearly killing him—offering to give him the chance to buy his stolen goods back.
Eventually, Maclaine was put on trial for trying to sell some stolen merchandise that his victim had advertised as having been taken by a highwayman. Maclaine was put on trial, found guilty, and hanged in 1750. Plunkett simply disappeared and was not a part of the trial.
Lady Katherine Ferrers was, depending on the account, 12 or 14 years old when she married Sir Thomas Fanshaw, himself 16. They lived at the Ferrers’ family home in Hertfordshire, and all accounts agree that Katherine was a bit mad. Unbeknownst to her husband, the highway robber who was preying on his dinner guests after they left the safety of his home was Katherine herself. Hostess by evening, she would retire to her chambers as their guests left. Here, she would trade her dresses for the black pants and cloak of a highwayman, mount her black horse, and ride into the night to rob those she’d just dined with.
Along the way, she met a farmer named Ralph Chaplin, who had nighttime activities similar to hers. They partnered for a while, but he was eventually caught and hanged by the roadside. Katherine herself had a fairly successful career that was brought to an abrupt end when a passenger in a wagon she was trying to rob shot her. She made it back to her family estate before she died, aged 26.
It wasn’t just the mysterious robberies that stopped with her death. Fires that had been breaking out across the countryside also stopped, cows were no longer shot dead in their fields, and no one else was killed by a mysterious, unseen assailant on their own property. None of these crimes were ever directly connected to Katherine, but it was thought to be more than a coincidence that they ended with her death. Her nocturnal hobbies cost her a place in the family crypt. She was buried at night in the cemetery of St. Mary’s Church.
Dick Turpin is, perhaps, one of the best known of Europe’s highwaymen, and he’s possibly the worst example of what the idea of a gentleman robber was supposed to be. Born in 1705 in Essex, Turpin couldn’t be bothered to put in the hard work that would have allowed him to make a good, honest living as a butcher, following in his father’s footsteps. He joined a gang instead, raiding houses in the London area, stealing what he could, and outright destroying the rest. Turpin was one of the last members of the gang to be caught; he had since moved on from robbing houses to holding up carriages that were traveling to and from London.
The fictional stories that grew up around Turpin were largely just that: fiction. Turpin became a character in books that embellished the details of his life. Added to the story were dashing good looks, a beautiful, devoted black horse, and a family inheritance that Turpin was supposedly cheated out of. The historical Turpin was a cold-hearted murderer, whose egotistical boasting and a letter back home eventually led to his capture, trial, and execution. It was only after his death and the publishing of a book called Rockwood in 1834, that he was catapulted to fame as a gentleman robber. Perhaps more fitting to his memory was the fate of his corpse. The night that he was buried, Turpin was dug up by grave robbers, who sold his corpse to a doctor for dissection. His body was discovered missing, recovered, and reburied, while the doctor was fined. | <urn:uuid:0351d520-fb11-4825-ac77-ba3ab42ed9fb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://listverse.com/2014/03/23/10-highwaymen-who-gallantly-terrorized-britain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00033-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.99282 | 3,423 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Watch 1998 Barack Obama Discuss the Importance of Cities
Andrew Kaczynski/Video screen capture
We've all gotten used to to the 2011 version of Barack Obama, with his hair rapidly graying under the constant pressures of his office. But this CSPAN video from 1998, uploaded to YouTube by Andrew Kaczynski, reminds us of what the President looked like 13 years ago, and of what he thought about a recurring theme on TreeHugger- the importance of cities.
Speaking at a Brookings Institution panel on the revitalization of cities, Obama, the State Senator representing a Chicago district, doesn't put forward any radical, or even particularly green ideas, but he does focus on the plight of urban residents as suburban sprawl sucked jobs and wealth out of cities.
He mentions "continuing patterns of inequality" and discuses the need for better schools in inner cities to draw wealthier residents back in, as well as the "spacial mismatch" between thriving downtown business districts and unemployment in residential neighborhoods.
Yes, we need to strengthen our cities. But we also need to stop seeing our cities as the problem and start seeing them as the solution. Because strong cities are the building blocks of strong regions, and strong regions are essential for a strong America.
Via Dr. Pratik Mhatre's Urban Planning Blog. | <urn:uuid:a508b9cb-15b1-4c64-8d5f-f098f1e6cc2d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/watch-1998-barack-obama-discuss-importance-cities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953891 | 270 | 2.515625 | 3 |
A little bit of asteroid 1999 RQ36 may wind up on Earth in 2017. That’s assuming that NASA’s OSIRIS mission launches in 2011, with the aim of investigating the properties of such Earth-crossing bodies. And while an asteroid sample may help us understand much about the early Solar System, OSIRIS offers a potentially greater benefit. It can help us sharpen our tracking skills so we can plot asteroid orbits with much greater precision.
How? You’ll recall that we recently discussed the the Yarkovsky Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack effect. YORP is the minute push that an asteroid receives over time as it absorbs sunlight and emits heat — let’s call it the Yarkovsky Effect for short. It’s a tricky thing to measure because of the uneven nature of asteroidal surfaces, and the varying wobble and rotation of each. Trying to predict an asteroid’s orbit as it approaches Earth demands that we take the Yarkovsky Effect into account. And OSIRIS is tasked with measuring the effect for the first time.
Without such knowledge, we have no way of determining for sure which of the charted near-Earth objects may emerge as a threat. 1999 RQ36, a little less than 600 meters in diameter, moves within 280,000 miles of Earth, not all that much farther than the distance of the Moon. The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center calls it ‘potentially hazardous.’ Keep adding up the effects of the Yarkovsky push and that potential could one day be realized.
We’ll know more about OSIRIS’ move through the NASA decision-making process later this year. It’s one of three Discovery-class missions recently selected for study but whether or not it flies depends upon the budget and the demands of competing missions. Whatever the fate of OSIRIS, we need to keep up a persistent effort to convince the powers that be that Earth needs a robust asteroid detection and tracking system, one based both on Earth and in space, and that an asteroid sample return mission has to be part of the package. The issue could not be clearer: the sooner we identify an incoming object, the faster we can deal with it.
Addendum (thanks to Larry Klaes for the tip): Robyn Williams discusses OSIRIS with Michael Drake (University of Arizona), audio and transcript available here. | <urn:uuid:3a56a929-76e0-4b7f-bfe8-7e647b190609> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1128 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00027-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916732 | 512 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Co-Founder of Wake Up World
What is Aquaponics?
Aquaponics is an integrated aquaculture (growing fish) and hydroponic (growing soil-less plants) system that mutually benefits both environments.
Aquaponics was essentially born out of hydroponics, which at the time made farming a lot easier. This process was associated with planting your veggies inside containers together with water. The hydroponic model involved utilizing lots of chemicals and fertilizers to promote growth, so the produce was not 100 % natural.
Thankfully, fertilizers and harmful chemicals are not required when setting up your own home organic aquaponics system. The fish waste is absorbed by the greenery which is used as a nutrient solution for the growing plants, cultivating a wonderful condition for them to grow in. The only external input to the system is food for the fish. Both systems complement each other in practical interdependence. So essentially, if you have happy and content fish, you have an amazing system that will produce fresh food for you all year round! | <urn:uuid:6ed06cdb-c725-40b4-bbb0-4e0b3ca77483> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wakeup-world.com/category/gardening/aquaponics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948429 | 217 | 2.671875 | 3 |
It started when a 26-year-old college graduate couldn't find a job and started selling fruits and vegetables without a license. When the authorities confiscated Mohamed Bouazizi's inventory, he despaired and set himself on fire, lighting a flame of chaos that's still reverberating around the world.
Bouazizi's suicide resonated with young Tunisians who suffered high unemployment (i.e., 52%) under an authoritarian regime and centrally planned economy that presented neither opportunity nor hope. The American press reported the uprising as a democratic revolution, but it was more about food than democracy.
Dissatisfaction with food prices is why Tunisian strongman Ben Ali slashed the price of commodity foods, such as bread and milk in an effort to remain in power. For citizens of the developing world, merely putting food on the table accounts for 70% of the typical income. Worldwide, food prices are skyrocketing.
The United Nations actually foresaw this. In December the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization issued a policy brief warning of food price volatility and the threat to developing country food security.
Floods in Australia, drought in China, poor harvests in Argentina and Russia, and ethanol in the United States are all causing global food prices to set records.
The Energy Independence and Security Act mandates the production of 12.6 billion gallons of ethanol (15 billion gallons by 2015), sucking up 24% of domestic corn production while receiving taxpayer subsidies of 45 cents per gallon. The subsidies are necessary because it takes more energy (and expense) to grow corn and convert it to gasoline than to drill for oil and refine it. The diversion of food to fuel may spark a spike in the price of energy.
Chaos Abroad. Partly responsible for the jump in food prices, ethanol helped create chaos in Tunisia. Facebook and Twitter ensured the entire world knew of Ben Ali's fall. Egypt, suffering similar youth unemployment, authoritarian government, and rising food prices, blew up. Groups unfriendly to the West in general and the U.S. in particular spotted the trend and lent encouragement, resulting in growing chaos in a region critical to global energy production, with the potential to affect world energy prices.
Chaos at Home. If that's not chaotic enough, North American electric reliability is looking increasingly suspect. Reserve margins have fallen from more than 30% in the 1990s to just over 15% today, which is the minimum threshold for reliable operation. While a poor economy reduces demand projections, capacity is still not being added as fast as demand will grow. Moreover, cheap, reliable base-load coal generation is being retired and replaced with more expensive, less reliable renewable energy, particularly wind.
Renewable energy may be important to our future energy mix, but poses reliability challenges. Fossil fuel generation supply can be ramped up and down to match demand. By contrast, renewables ramp up and down independent of demand, often rapidly and without notice. The strategy for renewables is to develop a smart grid to arbitrarily reduce demand when supply falls. But the grid isn't smart yet, which means the thinning reserve margins combined with uncertain renewable supply leads to more frequent brownouts and blackouts, not to mention higher prices.
Throw in the President's plan for a million electric cars and plug-in hybrids and the recipe for chaos is complete. It's chaos for the country, but it can be profit for you.
As events, foreign and domestic, drive up the price of energy, demand for higher efficiency heating and air conditioning will increase regardless of incentives. Further reductions in electric reliability will spur interest in standby generators. Reliability and pricing will increase the attractiveness of residential solar applications.
Of course, all bets are off should sanity infect the nation. Chaos would end if we started to become energy independent again by resuming offshore drilling, drilling in ANWR, drilling on off-limits federal land, extracting our abundant shale oil, and ceasing the growing resistance to hydraulic fracturing for our rich reserves of natural gas, the mining of our plentiful and cheap coal deposits, clean coal generation, and nuclear plant siting and construction.
If sanity strikes, against the odds, the HVAC industry's focus would simply shift from efficiency to comfort. That wouldn't be bad either.
Matt Michel is CEO of Service Nation, which operates the Service Roundtable, the Retail Contractor Coalition, and the Service Nation Alliance. For more information, call toll free 877.262.3341. | <urn:uuid:d258b783-ca6b-4e09-b3d0-2d00e78a2e74> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://contractingbusiness.com/archive/profiting-chaos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934913 | 916 | 2.703125 | 3 |
What is the Real Meaning of Boxing Day?Posted by Blanco Canada on Dec 26, 2012 in Blog, Holidays | 5 comments
When most of us think of “Boxing day”, shopping and “great deals” is the first thing that comes to our mind. Second to that for some, is electronics, or “Best Buy”. But before it was fighting through the crowd for the best sales and discounts, what was boxing day?
Logically, one would assume that Boxing day, following Christmas Day would mean a day for boxing up the Christmas decorations for another year or maybe throwing away (recycling) boxes that the presents came in, but would that require it to be a holiday?
I did a little digging.
Boxing Day originated in in England. Servants and tradespeople would have to work on Christmas day, so they would get the day after off to visit family and friends to celebrate. Gifts and money would be placed in boxes to take home with them as a thank you for all their hard work during the year. It eventually became a day to give to those who are needy as well.
So instead of fighting through the overcrowded shopping, maybe we should let our bosses know what we want in our gift boxes for Boxing Day*
*Not responsible for any outcomes should anyone try this | <urn:uuid:8aaa2506-e806-4314-9666-a44483a74c30> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rethinkthesink.com/2012/12/26/what-is-the-real-meaning-of-boxing-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00094-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984095 | 275 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Newsroom > DHHS News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2013
Nebraska Women Binge Drink at Higher Rate than National Average
April is Alcohol Awareness Month
Lincoln—Nebraska women binge drink at a rate higher than the average in the rest of the country, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC data indicate that in 2011, 15.7 percent of women age 18 or older reported binge drinking in the state, compared to 12.5 percent nationally.
“This is an area where we don’t want to be Number One,” said Scot L. Adams, director of the Division of Behavioral Health at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.
For women, four or more drinks during a single occasion is considered binge drinking. For men, it’s five or more drinks.
Nebraska men also report binge drink at a higher rate than the national average—30.2 percent, compared to 24.2 percent nationally.
“For women, binge drinking is especially concerning because it increases the risk for breast cancer, heart disease and stroke—leading causes of death in women—as well as other health problems,” said Dr. Joseph Acierno, Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Division of Public Health.
“Binge drinking isn’t healthy on many levels. There’s a risk of alcoholism,” Adams said. “There’s a risk of drunk driving. There’s a risk of social behaviors you don’t want to face the next day.”
The Division of Behavioral funds community coalitions in Nebraska to combat underage and binge drinking, as well as drunk driving and prescription drug abuse. Strategies include responsible beverage server training, education in schools and media campaigns designed to raise awareness, and change social norms.
April is Alcohol Awareness Month. | <urn:uuid:7499c22c-f8cc-4087-a685-a928b6082fbc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dhhs.ne.gov/Pages/Newsroom_Newsreleases_2013_April_Alcohol.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933627 | 391 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Double Toggle Jaw Crusher
Modern machinery is crushing after the steam engine and electric motor and other power machinery gradual improvement and promotion have been created.
1858, American Blake invented crushing rock jaw crusher; Americans EW Blake (Black) design and manufacture of the world's first jaw crusher. Its structure in the form of double toggle (simple swing type) jaw crusher. Since the jaw crusher has a simple structure, easy to manufacture, reliable, easy maintenance, small size and height advantage. So far it is still widely used in crushing hard, medium-hard, soft ore and all kinds of materials, such as a variety of ores, solvent, slag, building stone, marble and so on.
Jaw crusher working principle
Jaw crusher working principle is by means of a movable jaw periodically oscillating movement toward or away from the fixed jaw plate material entering the crushing chamber squeezed, splitting, bending and impact the role of fragmentation. Material crushed by its own weight or jaw thrust downward swing discharged from the discharge port. In accordance with the trajectory of its jaw, structure, moving jaw hanging and moving jaw toggle plate supporting different way, jaw crusher is squeezing and bending role of two jaw plates for use of materials, coarse crushing or broken in various hardness materials crushing machinery. Its crushing body from the fixed jaw plate and movable jaw plates, when the two jaws close when materials namely crushing jaw when the two left the nesting population is less than a block material discharged from the bottom. Its crushing action is carried out intermittently.
Single toggle and double toggle jaw crusher comparison
To twenty in 1980s, the size of the feed grain size of the large jaw crusher of 800 tons of material per hour has reached 1800 mm. Commonly used jaw crusher has double toggle and single toggle. The former fixed jaw at work only for simple swing arc, so called simple swing jaw crusher(single toggle jaw crusher); the latter, while the swing arc is also up and down movement, so called complex swing jaw crusher(double toggle jaw crusher).
single toggle jaw crusher:It is compact and simple, eccentric shafts and other transmission parts smaller force; the movable jaw vertical displacement is small, the processing of the material is less excessive crushed phenomenon, smaller jaw jaw plate wear. Moving jaw hanging on the mandrel, it can be used as side to side, when the eccentric shaft is rotated, the link up and down reciprocating motion. Driven by two thrust plate also reciprocate, thus promoting the moving jaw do about reciprocate achieve crushing and discharge.This machine adopts double crank linkage mechanism is crushing, while the movable jaw by a great crushing force, and the eccentric shaft and the connecting rod has less force, so the industry made more large and medium-sized machine, used for crushing hard materials.
double toggle jaw crusher:Single toggle and double toggle jaw crusher comparison, its advantages are: light quality, fewer components, more compact structure, the degree of crushing cavity full of good material block is loaded evenly crushing, mandatory introduction of the lower jaw to move finished unloading feed, so higher productivity. It is 20-30% higher than the same specifications of the double toggle jaw crusher productivity; material block in the lower portion of the movable jaw has a larger roll up and down movement, the shape of a cube easily discharged, reduced as single toggle jaw crusher product as flake ingredients.
Request for Quotation
You can get the price list and a SBM representative will contact you within one business day. | <urn:uuid:0634d911-f259-43e1-bd0f-c6af07290bbb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.portablecrusher.org/common-problem-solution/double-toggle-jaw-crusher.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00003-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908296 | 731 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Diamonds Are Forever On Jupiter And Saturn, Where They Come In Different Forms And Even Fill The Skies
Recent research shows that diamonds are scattered inside both Jupiter and Saturn, where USA Today reports that planetary experts have previously thought that Uranus and Neptune stored the precious gems, not their neighbors.
"We don't want to give people the impression that we have a Titanic-sized diamondberg floating around," says planetary scientist Mona Delitsky of California Specialty Engineering, a consulting firm. "We're thinking they're more like something you can hold in your hand."
Chunks of diamonds may actually be floating in a hydrogen and helium fluid in the atmosphere of Saturn and Jupiter, where at lower depths, extreme pressure and heat can melt them to make it actually rain diamonds.
In other words, Jupiter and Saturn may be a girl's newest best friend.
"The new data available has confirmed that at depth, diamonds may be floating around inside of Saturn, some growing so large that they could perhaps be called 'diamondbergs,'" officials from California Specialty Engineering in Pasadena, California wrote in a statement. Mona Delitsky of CSE and Kevin Baines, planetary specialists of the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted the research.
Space.com reports that diamonds form when graphite-like elemental carbons emerge from lightning storms on Saturn, falling into the atmosphere and then crushing into the gem, as Bains and Delitsky said. The diamonds move further into the planet, where they then turn into liquid near the core.
The diamonds melt at approximately 5,000 degrees on Saturn and nearly 7,000 degrees on Jupiter, much hotter than the temperatures on Earth that melts diamonds. Deputy project scientist of NASA's Cassini spacecraft Scott Edgington reports that it is also possible that there are diamonds inside of Venus and Mars.
To find out if they really have diamonds, he simply stated, "we would have to go and drill for them." | <urn:uuid:5e9713e3-bdf4-4cbd-8f63-e4ec77819e9e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.designntrend.com/articles/8446/20131009/diamonds-forever-jupiter-saturn-where-come-different-forms-even-fill-skies-nasa-space.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938966 | 399 | 3.265625 | 3 |
The Axis Reaction
The Axis was unable to react effectively against the initial Seventh Army landings. At 0430, 10 July, the first enemy planes appeared over the Allied shipping massed in front of the assault beaches. The destroyer Maddox took a direct hit and sank within two minutes, just before 0500, and a mine sweeper went down at 0615. Enemy fighters shot down several planes that were spotting targets for the cruisers' guns, and occasionally enemy bombs fell in the transport area. The air raids interfered but little with the landings.1
Axis commanders were already trying that morning to stem the American advances. To counter the Gela landings and back up the weak XVIII Coastal Brigade, General Guzzoni attached to the XVI Corps the two Italian mobile airfield defense groups intended for the defense of the Ponte Olivo and Biscari airfields, the Livorno Division, and the Hermann Goering Division (minus Group Schmalz). He wished these forces to counterattack before the Americans could consolidate a beachhead. At the same time, despite his continued apprehension over an Allied landing in the western part of the island, Guzzoni ordered the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, the larger part of which had just completed its transfer to the west, to retrace its steps and return to the Canicattì-Caltanissetta-San Cataldo area in the center of the island.2
With these new units, the XVI Corps intended to launch a co-ordinated attack against the Gela landings, the Hermann Goering Division and the two Italian mobile groups to strike from the northeast, the Livorno Division from the northwest. But since telephone communications, poor to begin with, had been almost totally severed by the scattered groups of American paratroopers and by Allied bombing raids during the night, many of the units failed to receive the corps order. They proceeded to act on their own initiative according to the established defensive
doctrine for the island.3 The broad-fronted, massive, co-ordinated push visualized against the Gela beaches would turn out to be a series of un-co-ordinated, independent thrusts by small Axis units at varying times and at various places along the center of the American front.
General Conrath, the Hermann Goering Division commander, had learned of the American landings early that morning, not from the Sixth Army headquarters but from messages relayed to him from Kesselring's headquarters in Italy and from his own reconnaissance patrols, several of which clashed with American paratroopers near Niscemi. Later, word from Colonel Schmalz reporting his commitment of troops against the British landings convinced Conrath that the time had come to carry out the predetermined defense plan. He decided to counterattack at Gela.4
The German division was not altogether unprepared. General Conrath had alerted his units at 2200 the previous night, instructing them to stand by for definite word on the expected Allied assaults. Because his communications with both Sixth Army and XVI Corps had gone out early on 10 July, and because he wished someone in authority to know of his counterattack plan, Conrath phoned General von Senger, the German liaison officer with the Sixth Army, outlined his plan, and told him he was jumping off without delay.5 He was not aware of the XVI Corps' plan for a co-ordinated attack. Nor did he know that his division was attached to the corps for the attack.
The bulk of the Hermann Goering Division was assembled in and around Caltagirone. Conrath had organized the division forces into two reinforced regiments, assembled as task forces.6 One, heavy in infantry, consisted of a two-battalion infantry regiment mounted on trucks, an armored artillery battalion, and an attached Tiger tank company of seventeen Mark VI tanks.7 The other task force, heavy in tanks, had a two-battalion tank regiment (about ninety Mark III and Mark IV tanks), two armored artillery battalions, and the bulk of the armored
reconnaissance and engineer battalions, which functioned as infantry.8
General Conrath planned to commit his task forces in a two-pronged attack toward the beaches east of Gela. The troops were to move on three secondary roads to assembly points south of Biscari and Niscemi. With the infantry-heavy force on the Biscari side, both were then to jump off in a concentric attack on the beaches. Conrath hoped to begin his attack before 0900, 10 July, for a later hour would put the sun in his men's eyes and make it easier for the Americans to locate his units. Besides, the earlier he could attack, the better his chances for success.
Both German task forces were on the move shortly after 0400. (See Map IV.) Although the roads had been previously reconnoitered and found to be passable, if mediocre, the approach march to the assembly areas turned out to be much slower than Conrath had anticipated. Allied armed reconnaissance air strikes against the columns and clashes with scattered groups of American paratroopers caused some confusion and delay. Accompanying his tank regiment, Conrath had to work hard more than once to prevent panic among his inexperienced troops and admittedly not very capable junior commanders. The task forces soon lost contact with each other, and 0900 came and went with both groups still struggling toward their assembly areas.9
Meanwhile, the Italian Mobile Group E under XVI Corps orders had started its movement south from Niscemi. Organized into two columns, one moving along the secondary road leading to Piano Lupo and Highway 115, the other turning west toward Ponte Olivo to pick up Highway 117 for a drive south on Gela the group had no contact with the Hermann Goering Division. But it was aware of a corps order to the Livorno Division to commit a battalion in an attack on Gela from the northwest. Moving by truck, this battalion approached a jump-off point near Gela for an attack in conjunction with the mobile group.
At 0900, 10 July, therefore, three Axis forces were moving against the center of Seventh Army's front. In the path of these forces lay the special force in Gela, the 26th RCT moving around Gela toward Highway 117, the 16th RCT advancing toward Piano Lupo, and the badly disorganized 180th RCT immediately east of the Acate River, with one of its battalions preparing to push from Highway 115 to Biscari. Elsewhere, there seemed to be no contest. On the right only a few static Italian defensive positions remained. On the left, the XII Corps was trying to scrape together enough units
to halt, or at least slow down, the Americans until the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division returned from the west.
At Casa del Priolo, halfway between Piano Lupo and Niscemi, where less than 100 men of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry, had, under Lt. Col. Arthur Gorham, reduced a strongpoint and set up a blocking position, an American soldier saw a column of Italian tanks and infantry heading his way. Alerted, the paratroopers allowed the point of the column, three small vehicles, to enter their lines before opening fire, killing or capturing the occupants. The sound of firing halted the main body.
After thirty minutes of hesitation, about two infantry companies shook themselves out into an extended formation and began moving toward the Americans, who waited until the Italians were 200 yards away. Then they opened a withering fire not only of rifles but of the numerous machine guns they had captured when they had taken the strongpoint. Their first fusillade pinned down the enemy troops except for a few in the rear who managed to get back to the main column.
Several minutes later, the Italians moved a mobile artillery piece into firing position on a hill just out of range of any weapon the paratroopers possessed. As the gun opened fire, a previously dispatched paratrooper patrol returned and reported to Colonel Gorham that there appeared to be no strong enemy force at the battalion's original objective. This was the road junction on Piano Lupo, where only a few Italians armed with machine guns held a dug-in position surrounded by barbed wire.
Unable to counter the artillery fire, Gorham decided to make for Piano Lupo. The move would have several advantages: it would put him on his objective and closer to the 16th RCT, which he was supposed to contact; it would probably facilitate contact with other paratroopers. Even though naval gunfire began to come in on the Italian column, Gorham had no way of controlling or directing the fire. Leaving one squad to cover the withdrawal, he started the paratroopers south, staying well east of the Niscemi-Piano Lupo road to escape the effects of the naval fire. It was then close to 0930.10
The naval gunfire had come in response to a call from observers with the 16th RCT's leading battalions, which were moving toward Piano Lupo. Because the RCT's direct support artillery unit, the 7th Field Artillery Battalion, was not yet in firing position, the destroyer Jeffers answered the call with nineteen salvos from her 5-inch guns.11 A few of the Italian tanks were hit, but the majority were unscathed.12 No Italian infantry ventured
PIANO LUPO, LOOKING DOWN THE NISCEMI ROAD to the high ground south of the crossroads
past the Piano Lupo road junction, for they preferred to take cover from the relatively flat trajectory naval fire in previously prepared defensive positions. Masked on the south by high ground that caused most of the naval fire to overshoot the junction, the Italian infantrymen reached and occupied their positions just a few minutes ahead of Gorham's paratroopers.
The Italian tanks that passed through the fire, about twenty, continued past the road junction and turned on Highway 115 toward Gela.13 They proceeded downhill only a short way. The two forward battalions of the 16th RCT, though armed only with standard infantry weapons,
knocked out two of the tanks, thoroughly disrupted the Italian thrust, and halted the column. Without infantry support, its artillery under heavy counterbattery fire from American warships, the Italian tankers broke off the fight and retired north into the foothills bordering the Gela plain on the east.14
The threat dispersed, the 16th RCT resumed its movement to the Piano Lupo road junction. But Gorham's paratroopers, approaching from the opposite direction, arrived first. After reducing one Italian strongpoint, the paratroopers made contact with scouts from the 16th RCT at 1100.15 The 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry (Lt. Col. Charles L. Denholm), then cleaned out several remaining Italian positions around the road junction, a task facilitated by a captured map, while the 2d Battalion (Lt. Col. Joseph Crawford) and the paratroopers moved across the road and occupied high ground to the northwest.
Meanwhile the heterogeneous Ranger-engineer force in Gela had observed a column of thirteen Italian tanks escorted by infantry moving south along Highway 117 toward the city--the right arm of Mobile Group E's two-pronged attack. Another column, the Livorno Division's battalion of infantry, could also be seen moving toward Gela along the Butera road. While the destroyer Shubrick started firing at the tank-infantry column on Highway 117, the Ranger-manned Italian 77-mm. guns opened up on the Livorno battalion.
The first Shubrick salvos halted the Italians in some confusion. But the tankers recovered a measure of composure; they resumed their movement, though fewer now, for several tanks were burning in the fields along the highway. Without further loss, nine or ten tanks dashed down the highway and into the city. But the same thing happened here that had happened on the Niscemi-Piano Lupo road--Italian infantrymen did not follow the tanks. And so, in the city, the Rangers and the engineers began a deadly game of hide and seek with the Italian tanks, dodging in and out of buildings, throwing hand grenades and firing rocket launchers. Colonel Darby jumped in a jeep, dashed down to the beach, commandeered a 37-mm. antitank gun, returned with it to the city and knocked out a tank. Another burned as Rangers and engineers teamed up, first to stop it and then to destroy it. After twenty minutes of this kind of fighting, the Italians started back out of the city hotly pursued by American fire. The Italian crews suffered heavily. Almost every survivor carried with him some kind of wound.16
As for the Livorno Division's battalion--in almost formal, parade ground formation, the Italian infantrymen advanced against the western side of Gela. The two Ranger companies firing their captured Italian artillery pieces took heavy toll among the closely bunched enemy soldiers. Rifles, machine guns, and mortars joined in as the range closed. Not an
AMERICAN TROOPS IN GELA ON D PLUS 1.
enemy soldier reached the city. Leaving behind numerous dead and wounded, the remnants of the Italian battalion fled.17
The Italian thrust against Gela stopped, the 26th Combat Team moved from the Gela-Farello landing ground into Gela and made contact with Darby's force by noon. Two battalions swept past the city on the east, cut Highway 117, and took high ground two miles to the north.
With the city firmly in American hands, Colonel Bowen, the 26th RCT commander, began to think of seizing the terrain overlooking Ponte Olivo airfield from the west. Yet he was not anxious to start until he had adequate field artillery and armor support. As of noon, Bowen had neither. Nor was the situation along the Piano Lupo-Niscemi axis clear.
South of Niscemi, the right column of Conrath's two-pronged counterattack, the
tank-heavy force, closed into its assembly area. The infantry-heavy force closed in the Biscari area. With all in readiness at 1400, five hours late, Conrath sent his Hermann Goering Division into its attack.
The tank regiment struck the 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry, which had prepared defensive positions on ground overlooking the road junction at the coastal highway and had sent patrols almost to Casa del Priolo.
Colonel Crawford's 2d Battalion, along with Colonel Gorham's paratroopers, bore the initial brunt of the German tank thrust, and soon Colonel Denholm's 1st Battalion was drawn into the fight. Calls for naval gunfire soon had shells dropping on the Niscemi road, but the German tanks, accompanied by reconnaissance and engineer troops in an infantry mission, rolled slowly past Casa del Priolo. Not far from Casa del Priolo the tanks slowed, sputtered, and eventually stopped. The tankers could not go on because they had nothing to cope with the five- and six-inch naval shells that came whistling in from the sea. Also, American small arms fire had knocked out the accompanying foot soldiers and had thrown the lead tanks into confusion. Then, too, no support developed from the infantry-heavy column on the left.18
Conrath ordered the tank attack renewed at 1500. But even Conrath's inspiring and hard-driving presence was not enough to furnish impetus. The attack failed to get rolling. Still uncertain about the location and the fate of the infantry-heavy task force, which was supposed to have crossed the Acate River and attacked Piano Lupo from the southeast, Conrath called off his offensive action. "The tanks are trying to withdraw," the 16th Infantry reported around 1700. And at 1845, "Tanks are withdrawing, it seems we are too much for them."19
Conrath's infantry force had jumped off at 1400, had promptly lost communications with division headquarters, and had run into the 1st Battalion, 180th Infantry, which, together with some paratroopers picked up along the way, was moving toward Biscari. Their attack blunted by the relatively small American force supported by one battery of the 171st Field Artillery Battalion, the Germans came to a halt by 1530. Though the terraced terrain was well suited for infantry operations, dense groves of olive trees interfered with the movement of the heavy Tiger tanks that were part of the column. Moreover, some of the Tigers, among the first produced, had defective steering mechanisms, and those that dropped out blocked the others. Inexperience among junior officers and some of the troop units, failure to get the Tiger tanks forward, and American tenacity on the ground stopped the German attempt.
Regaining communications later that afternoon, Conrath relieved the task force commander. After much prodding from Conrath and under a new commander, the infantry-heavy force regrouped and jumped off again. This time the German attack was better co-ordinated. The Tiger tanks led off, followed closely by foot soldiers. Breaking through the thin American lines, the Germans overran the positions of the 1st Battalion, 180th Infantry,
and took prisoner the battalion commander, Colonel Schaefer, and most of the surviving troops. The remnants of the battalion streamed south toward the coastal Highway 115.20
The way seemed open for German exploitation that would endanger the 1st Division beaches, when the 3d Battalion, 180th Infantry, suddenly appeared. Released from corps reserve to counter the German attack, this American force took defensive positions and held fast. Imminent American disaster was averted as the Germans unexpectedly panicked. German soldiers broke and ran in wild disorder, their officers finally stopping the rout just short of Biscari. The Americans were content to remain along a line paralleling the south side of Highway 115.21
Some confused fighting among combat patrols lasted until well after dark. Though strong enemy forces ringed the Gela plain and the Acate River valley, though commanders were concerned about the arrival of supporting tanks and artillery and the extent of their frontages, the troops in the center of the American beachhead had earned the right to a brief pause.
On the army left, General Truscott sent the 15th RCT, his center unit, seven miles up Highway 123 toward Campobello, holding the others ready to counter Axis thrusts. Reconnaissance pilots had picked up the movement of the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, which was returning from the western part of Sicily, and Truscott was preparing to meet the threat. Landing the 3d Division's floating reserve, General Rose's CCA, would help, and the armored command began coming ashore over the beaches east of Licata and through Licata itself. Truscott planned to send the armor to Naro, a small town fifteen miles northwest of Licata, between Palma di Montechiaro on the south and Campobello on the east. With troops at Naro and Campobello, Truscott would block an important avenue of approach to the division's beachhead from the northwest.
On the army right, General Middleton kept pushing his easternmost regiments, the 179th and 157th. By nightfall they were seven miles inland. In contrast with the 180th Infantry's rough experience in the Acate River valley, the 179th Infantry had Colonel Taylor's 3d Battalion, and some paratroopers who had joined, at the outskirts of Vittoria before 1600. A few men entered the city, but small arms fire drove them out. Unwilling to unleash his supporting artillery until city authorities had a chance to surrender, Colonel Taylor spent much time trying to persuade a civilian to go into the city to bring out the mayor or some other
municipal official. The civilian refused. Infantry attack preceded by artillery bombardment appeared the only solution.
Unknown to Taylor, negotiations for Vittoria's surrender were already taking place. Three of the ubiquitous paratroopers had been in the city since early morning, having been captured by the Italians shortly after dropping to ground. Two by this time were roaring drunk. The third, 1st Lt. William J. Harris (Headquarters Company, 3d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry), was trying to persuade the Italian commander to capitulate. The approach of Taylor's battalion strengthened Harris' arguments considerably. At 1640, as American artillery units prepared to open fire, the Italians agreed to surrender. Beckoned by the hurried display of white flags, the infantrymen outside the city marched in unopposed.
Farther to the right, where Americans were moving on the Comiso airfield, Santa Croce Camerina was taken in the early afternoon as the result of an unplanned pincer movement. Colonel Murphy's 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry, and Major Alexander's 2d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry, neither of which apparently knew of the other's presence, attacked the town about the same time. The Italian garrison, concerned with Murphy's approach from the west and totally unprepared for the paratrooper attack on the east, conceded defeat.
While Alexander's paratroopers moved off to the north and west in search of a higher parachute headquarters, Murphy outposted the town and sent a partially motorized company thirteen miles northeast to Ragusa, the 1st Canadian Division objective. With only negligible opposition, the two motorized platoons entered Ragusa at 1800. No Canadians and only a few Italian soldiers were in the city. Since they were unwilling to chance an ambush during the night, the American platoons withdrew to the western outskirts, where the remainder of the company joined them shortly before midnight.
Sliding past Santa Croce Camerina on the west, the other two battalions of the 157th Infantry overran a strongpoint at Donnafugata. A four-truck motorized patrol to high ground northeast of Comiso secured an assembly area for the leading battalion. And from that point, Hill 643, the battalion the next day would support by fire the attack planned to seize the airfield.22
By nightfall of D-day, 10 July, the Seventh Army was firmly established on Sicily. Only in the center was there cause for any immediate concern, and this stemmed from the failure of the airborne drop. The absence of paratroopers on Piano Lupo deprived the 1st Division of a reserve, put the 16th Infantry at a disadvantage, and increased the threat of enemy counterattack. The paratroopers had created confusion in enemy rear areas, but they had not seriously interfered with the movement of German and Italian units against the invasion.
The cause of failure lay with the troop carriers. As late as 20 June, three weeks before the invasion, observers had considered the 52d Troop Carrier Wing deficient in night formation flying, night navigation, and drop zone location during darkness. The wing had had only two practice missions at night under simulated combat conditions. One of these had scattered the 505th Parachute Infantry all along the flight route. Further training was impossible after 20 June because of the need to start moving troops and planes to the advanced take-off airfields.23
On the evening of 9 July, serious doubts had existed in some quarters on the ability of the troop carrier units to deliver the paratroopers to the correct drop zones; at least one commander felt that the Troop Carrier Command was far too optimistic about the proficiency of the aircraft crews.24 Late in July 1943, General Ridgway was unequivocal in stating that the operation "demonstrated beyond any doubt that the Air Force . . . cannot at present put parachute units, even as large as a battalion, within effective attack distance of a chosen drop zone at night."25
German commanders tended to minimize the effect of the American airborne operation. Col. Hellmut Bergengruen, a staff officer with the Hermann Goering Division, judged that the airdrops "were made in rear of the Italian coastal divisions, but in front of the German units and did not interfere with the conduct of the battle." He conceded only the possibility that the parachute landings might have helped cause panic among some Italian units.26 Generalmajor Walter Fries, the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division commander, was less impressed. "Since they landed in front of the Germans," he wrote later, "even if they were in rear of the Italian troops, there was little prospect of their being able to intervene decisively."27 Kesselring took a different tack. Admitting that the paratroopers "effected an extraordinary delay in the movement of our own troops and caused large losses," he was more inclined to place blame on the leadership of General Conrath and other officers of the Hermann Goering Division. The command, he said, "was not fortunate." Because the "march groups" were "incorrectly composed," the paratroopers delayed the division. "It is incorrect armor tactics," Kesselring continued, "for the tank units to march separate from the armored infantry as occurred here. With proper composition of the march groups the armored infantry riflemen would quickly have cleared out the snipers."28
General Patton's solution to the vacuum created by the unsuccessful airborne drop was to get his floating reserve ashore. In the early afternoon, as the threat of the Axis counterattack developed in the center, Patton directed General Gaffey to land his 2d Armored Division (less CCA but augmented by the 18th RCT) in the 1st Division's zone, to assemble just inland, and to prepare for commitment as later ordered. A second, reinforcing airborne drop, considered for that evening and shelved in view of the need for armor ashore, was tentatively scheduled for the following night.
Throughout the morning the armored division's headquarters aboard the transport Orizaba had been intercepting messages from the 1st Division to the Seventh Army, messages that urged the immediate landing of artillery and armor to support the assault units. By noon, not one piece of artillery, nor any of the ten tanks attached to the 1st Division had gotten ashore.29
For better information on possible plans for his commitment, Gaffey boarded the Monrovia, the naval force flagship which also carried Patton and his army headquarters. Just before 1400, Gaffey received the order to land. He was to go ashore over the 1st Division's YELLOW and BLUE Beaches, the beaches nearest Gela.
Returning to the Orizaba, General Gaffey sent ashore his chief of staff, Col. Redding L. Perry, to reconnoiter the assigned beaches and to make the necessary arrangements with the 1st Division for assembly areas, routes, and guides.
On shore, Perry discovered a picture quite different from that visualized on the Monrovia. General Allen, the 1st Division commander, expressed concern about getting armor ashore. Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, the assistant division commander who had visited all the division beaches, brought word that YELLOW and BLUE were heavily mined--both had been closed. He strongly recommended bringing in the 2d Armored Division across RED Beach 2.
Apprised of Roosevelt's recommendation upon Perry's return, Gaffey approved the change to RED 2, even though it entailed some delay in amending the previous orders.
About 1700, the command echelon of Col. I. D. White's CCB landed on RED Beach 2. After contacting General Allen and reconnoitering several possible assembly areas, White settled on a site near the Gela-Farello landing ground which was being vacated by the rearmost units of the 26th Infantry.
The first unit scheduled to land was the 18th RCT. When General Gaffey learned that the LCI's carrying the unit had remained in a cruising formation during the day instead of shifting to the planned landing formation, he nevertheless ordered debarkation from the cruising
formation, counting on subsequent reorganization on shore. Because the beach was unsuitable for LCI's, the beachmaster was expected to provide LCVP's to discharge the men from the LCI's and take them ashore. But apparently because of a failure in communications between the landing craft and the beachmaster, LCVP's were not available, so the LCI's approached as near to shore as possible and the infantrymen waded the rest of the way through the high surf. One officer and two enlisted men were drowned. Considerable equipment was lost. But the first wave was ashore by 2130; the entire regiment was on the ground soon after midnight.
Col. George A. Smith moved his regiment into an orchard near the landing ground. The dismounted riflemen of the 1st Battalion, 41st Armored Infantry Regiment, landed soon afterwards and took positions nearby. Two platoons of Company I, 67th Armored Regiment, came ashore at 0200, 11 July, and the ten medium tanks immediately stalled in the soft sand. High surf and beach congestion prevented the landing of additional armored vehicles.
By morning of 11 July, the chief result of Patton's decision to land the army's floating reserve was that four additional infantry battalions equipped with hand-carried weapons only were ashore. The ten medium tanks were still having considerable trouble getting off the beach. Difficult beach conditions had not only interfered with landing the reserve, they had impeded all the other landings.
The delay in the arrival of the 1st Division's supporting artillery and armor could be traced to enemy artillery fire, particularly in support of the various counterattacks, to enemy air raids against Allied shipping lying off the Gela beaches, and to the poor beaches themselves. Enemy air strikes had begun two hours after the invasion. After daylight, enemy batteries inland, from Ponte Olivo to Niscemi, had started pounding the beaches. By 0900, such heavy fire came in that YELLOW Beach (26th Infantry) was closed. Shipping was diverted eastward to BLUE Beach. Enemy artillery fire soon forced this beach to be closed, too, and boat traffic was again diverted eastward, this time to RED Beach 2. Soon after 1000, enemy shelling became so accurate that this beach had to be closed for twenty minutes. Only one beach, GREEN 2, was then available to receive landing craft. Though RED 2 was reopened at 1030, enemy artillery fire and intermittent enemy air attacks throughout the day greatly delayed unloadings and did considerable damage to landing craft and beach supply. Even after the enemy artillery fire slackened, both YELLOW and BLUE Beaches remained closed because numerous uncleared mine fields lay in the dune area just back from the shore.30
The closing and shifting of beaches created serious problems, particularly in getting the 1st Division's heavy equipment ashore. General Allen's calls for armor and artillery support during the morning were so pressing that Admiral Hall finally ordered in those LST's carrying the heavy equipment even though there were few places to accommodate the large landing ships. Furthermore, because of the assumption that the Gela pier would be captured intact and put to immediate use, Hall's naval task force had only three ponton causeways. One, unfortunately, was carried by one of the three LST's
that had beached by mistake in the Scoglitti area.
One causeway was finally rigged on RED Beach 2. By 1030 one LST was fully unloaded and a second was moving in to start. As other LST's began rigging the second causeway on GREEN 2 late in the afternoon, an enemy aircraft coming in low dropped a bomb directly on one of the landing ships. Loaded with elements of the 33d Field Artillery Battalion and an antiaircraft artillery battalion, the LST blew up with a horrendous roar, scattering fragments of trucks, guns, and exploding ammunition in all directions. All of the vehicles of Battery A, 33d Field Artillery, and of one section of the antiaircraft battalion were lost. Fortunately, the howitzers were already ashore, having been landed by Dukws. But what was more serious was the fact that fragments from the exploding LST knocked out the ponton causeway in operation on RED Beach 2.
By 1800, only three LST's had been unloaded over the Gela beaches. Only one field artillery battalion and four separate field artillery batteries were ashore. These were the 33d Field Artillery Battalion (minus two howitzers lost when Dukws overturned on the way to shore); two batteries of the 7th Field Artillery Battalion (the howitzers were landed in the 45th Division zone, the personnel in the 1st Division's area); and two batteries of the 5th Field Artillery Battalion (delayed in landing until late afternoon when the LST carrying the batteries made landfall off Licata and had to traverse almost the entire length of both the 3d Division and 1st Division beaches). Available all together were eighteen 105-mm. howitzers and eight 155-mm. howitzers. As for the 16th RCT's Cannon and Antitank Companies, they were unloaded in the 45th Division's zone, and were still east of the Acate River.
With RED Beach 2 receiving everything coming ashore, it became so congested with landing craft and supplies that many of the small craft had to turn away without unloading. Beach parties were completely swamped with work even before the 18th RCT started ashore. And General Allen continued to call for more artillery and armor.31
Across the Acate River, the 45th Division beach situation was little better, although more supporting units did move ashore during the day. Except for the 171st Field Artillery Battalion, the 180th RCT's direct support battalion, the division artillery landed in good fashion.32 The medium tank battalion came ashore in the 157th RCT's sector during the late afternoon.
But, in general, the 45th Division beaches presented a most deplorable picture throughout D-day. Backed by soft sand dunes and with few usable exits, the five assault beaches were cluttered with masses of stranded landing craft and milling groups of men and vehicles soon after the initial landing. Many landing craft were hung up on offshore sand bars, unable to retract. Others broached on the beaches, the sea breaking completely over some, eddying into others over lowered ramps. Scattered and disorganized shore parties were still not functioning properly as late as 0800. In the meantime, landing craft waited on the beaches for three to four hours to be unloaded. Because the efforts of the naval salvage parties to get stranded craft off the beaches were largely unsuccessful, a diminishing number were available to unload the supplies still on board the transports. An inshore movement of the transports just after 0600 helped a little, but the ever-growing shortage of landing craft soon vitiated even this slight improvement.
Because they were simply unsuitable, all the southern beaches except BLUE 2 were closed at 1050, and even though BLUE 2 was no prize, it had a good exit. North of Scoglitti, RED and GREEN Beach traffic used the exit road from YELLOW Beach, where the sandy area behind the beaches was smaller in size.
Concerned by the beach conditions and the serious loss of landing craft, Admiral Kirk sent one of his transport division commanders ashore in the middle of the morning to see what could be done to alleviate the situation. The report was pessimistic: between 150 and 200 stranded landing craft on the beaches; insufficient naval salvage parties; not enough beach exits; poor boat handling; poorer shore party work. Except for trying to get some of the stranded craft off the beaches and back into operation, there was little that could be done.
In the early afternoon, after the division shore party command post and a reinforced engineer shore company moved into Scoglitti and reconnoitered the area around the village, Admiral Kirk and General Middleton were told it was advisable to close the three northern assault beaches at noon the next day and to open six new beaches--three above Scoglitti, two at Scoglitti itself, and one just below the village. Both commanders approved the recommendation, but improvement was still almost two days away.33
Only in the 3d Division sector was the beach situation satisfactory. RED and GREEN beaches west of Licata were closed very early and all further unloadings were made over the two beaches east of the city and in the port itself.34 Enemy air attacks spilling over from the 1st Division beachhead were a nuisance, but none caused more than superficial damage to the mounting accumulation of supplies at the dumps.35
Despite formidable obstacles the invasion thus far appeared eminently successful. The next test would be whether the Allies could stand up to the inevitable Axis attempts to push them back into the sea.
1. The spotting aircraft were SOC's (Seagull scout observation float planes), Curtiss single radial engine biplanes with large single floats and two-man crews: pilot and radioman. The aircraft were used primarily for spotting gunfire and for scouting purposes and had a top speed of 126 miles per hour. Each U.S. cruiser had two catapults and carried four SOC's.
2. IT 99a; Faldella, Lo sbarco, p. 123; MS # C-077 (Rodt); MS #T-2, K 1 (Kesselring); MS #C-095 (Senger), KTB entry for 1425, 10 Jul 43. This manuscript contains certain entries from the war diary of the German liaison staff with the Armed Forces Command, Sicily; the war diary itself is not available. These war diary excerpts will be cited as follows: KTB entry, hour, and date. Parts of the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division (an infantry regiment, plus artillery and other units) were operating under Schmalz's control on the east coast; other smaller elements had not yet made the move to the west. Basically the two major units involved in moving back to the east were Group Ens and Group Fullriede.
3. Faldella, Lo sbarco, pp. 118-19.
4. MS #C-087 a, Division Hermann Goering in Sicily 1943 (Bergengruen); MS #C-087 c, Division Hermann Goering in Sicily 1943, Commentary (Conrath); MS #C-087 d, Hermann Goering Division Questionnaire, 11-12 July 1943 (Generalmajor Hellmuth Reinhardt and Col. Helmut Bergengruen); Bergengruen in MS #T-2 (Fries et al.).
5. It seems odd that Conrath could contact Senger, but not General Guzzoni or the XVI Corps. He presumably used a separate German telephone net.
6. Called Kampfgruppe, a term loosely assigned to improvised combat units of various sizes, usually named after the commander.
See MS #R-137, ch. VIII, The Counterthrust on the First Day, 10 July 1943, Axis Tactical Operations in Sicily (Bauer), pp. 4-6. For a complete order of battle of the Hermann Goering Division, see MS #R-125 (Bauer), pp. 46-49; for its tank strength, see pp. 50-51.
7. The colloquial name, Tiger, was not applied officially to this tank until 1944. This was a heavy tank, 60 tons, with a 5-man crew, an 88-mm. gun as main armament, and carried the thickest armor ever to be fitted on a German tank up to this time. The vehicle was 21 feet long, 12 feet wide, and could do 15 miles per hour on roads, 5 miles per hour cross-country.
The Tiger tank company, part of the 215th Tank Battalion, 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, had been left behind when that division moved to the west, only the forty-six Mark III and Mark IV tanks of the battalion having gone along. The Tiger tank company was attached to the Hermann Goering Division either just before or at the beginning of the operations.
8. The Mark III was a medium (24½-ton) tank, carried a 5-man crew, and was armed with a long-barreled 50-mm. or short-barreled 75-mm. gun. It was 17½ feet long, almost 10 feet wide, could do 22 miles per hour on roads, and about half that speed cross-country. The Mark IV medium (26 tons) tank also carried a 5-man crew, but was armed with the long-barreled, high-velocity (3,200 feet per second) 75-mm. gun. It was 19 feet long, about 9½ feet wide, and had roughly the same speed characteristics as the Mark III.
For an excellent description of the development of German armor, see Garrett Underhill, "Introduction to German Armor," Part I, Armored Cavalry Journal, vol. 58, No. 4 (July-August 1949), pp. 3-9, and Part II, Armored Cavalry Journal, vol. 58, No. 5 (September-October 1949), pp. 42-47.
9. Italian coastal defense troops fleeing inland from Gela and Scoglitti with confusing and alarming reports of speedy American advance, did little to help.
10. There is a brief account of this action in the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment AAR, 9-11 July 1943, and in 82d Airborne Division in Sicily and Italy, pp. 10-11. A complete account is contained in the Sayre narrative, The Operations of Company A, 505th Parachute Infantry. The material presented by General Gavin in Airborne Warfare, pp. 6-8, is drawn from Sayre's account.
11. The 7th Field Artillery Battalion managed to get its personnel ashore early on D-day, but its howitzers were aboard the LST's which veered off into the 45th Division's zone. Two batteries were unloaded during the course of 10 July east of the Acate River and were moved up the beach (northwestward) and across the river by late afternoon.
12. The cruiser Boise, at the request from the pilot of one of her scout planes, had previously fired two minutes of rapid fire with 6-inch guns at the same target. Apparently the Boise's skipper was not aware of the nature of the target, for as he said later: "Had we only known what we were shooting at, we would have cut loose with the whole fifteen-gun battery." (Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 103.)
The scout planes, continually harassed by enemy fighter planes, had to take continual evasive action as long as they were in the air and had little opportunity to keep any target in sight long enough to accurately adjust fires.
13. The 16th RCT reported twenty tanks in this attack. (1st Inf Div G-3 Jnl, entry 17, 10 Jul 43.) The exact number of tanks in this group is not known. One report indicates Mobile Group E had nearly fifty tanks when it started its movement on 10 July (Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 103). Another report (MS #R-125 (Bauer)) indicates that the Italian unit had one company (twelve to fourteen) of Renault 35 tanks; possibly sixteen 3-ton tanks; and possibly some Fiat "3,000" tanks. The Renault tanks, captured from the French in 1940, weighed two tons and were armed with 37-mm. guns. From reports contained in other American sources, the number of Italian tanks appears to have been between thirty and forty total in both Italian groups.
14. 16th Inf Regt AAR, Jun-Jul 43; ONI, Sicilian Campaign, pp. 60-61; Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 103.
15. In a letter received by OCMH 26 December 1950, Brig. Gen. George A. Taylor (Ret.), former commander of the 16th RCT, noted: "Any report that any unit of the 82d Division captured anything and turned it over to me is without foundation." But the 16th Infantry's report of action shows that paratroopers were on Piano Lupo by the time the leading elements of the RCT arrived. This is also shown in the 82d Airborne Division's records.
16. Faldella, Lo sbarco, p. 117.
17. 1st Ranger Bn AAR, 10-14 Jul 43; 4th Ranger AAR, 10-12 Jul 43; 39th Engr Combat Regt AAR, 10 Jul-18 Aug 43; Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 103-04; Lyle, Operations of Companies A and B, 1st Ranger Bn, p. 16; Altieri, Darby's Rangers, p. 50; Faldella, Lo sbarco, pp. 119, 120, 123.
18. None of the 16th RCT's AT guns (37-mm. in the battalions, 57-mm. in the regimental AT platoon) were up at this time. The guns did not arrive until later that night and early the following morning.
19. 1st Inf Div G-3 Jnl, entries 21 and 23, 10 Jul 43.
20. Maj. Gen. Stanhope B. Mason, former chief of staff of the 1st Infantry Division, a close, personal friend of Colonel Schaefer's, later had the pleasure of seeing the former 45th Division battalion commander released by American troops from the U.S. V Corps in Germany in 1945. See comments of Maj. Gen. Stanhope B. Mason on MS.
21. 180th Inf Regt AAR, 10 Jul 43; AGF Rpt 217; 171st FA Bn AAR; 45th Inf Div Arty AAR; MS #C-087 a (Bergengruen).
The wartime German record states simply that the attack mounted by the Hermann Goering Division against the Allied forces advancing from the Gela beaches to the area west of Caltagirone did not bear results. See OB SUED, Meldungen, No. 0114, 0340, 11 Jul 43, and Daily Sitrep West, 10 Jul 43, in OKH, Tagesmeldungen WEST. It was apparently the early evening advance of the German force that was used in ONI, Sicilian Campaign, page 47, to indicate withdrawal of the 180th RCT to the beaches at 2150, 10 July 1943. No doubt part of the 1st Battalion did go all the way back to the beaches, but there is no indication that any part of the 3d Battalion did the same.
22. 179th Inf Regt AAR; an account of the Sicilian Campaign (22 pages) written by Brig. Gen. Raymond S. McLain, then Commanding General, 45th Infantry Division Artillery, probably in late July or early August 1943, copy in OCMH; 45th Inf Div Arty AAR; AGF Rpt 217; 157th Inf Regt AAR; Interv, Smyth with Ankcorn, 20 Mar 51; 158th FA Bn AAR; 160th FA Bn AAR; 45th Inf Div G-3 Jnl, entries 9-10 Jul 43.
23. Warren, USAF Hist Study 74, pp. 28, 37.
24. Ibid., p. 28.
25. Ltr, Ridgway to AFHQ, 26 Jul 43, sub: Analysis of Methods of Employment of 82d AB Div, in Seventh Army 373 file labeled Parachute Air Support, KCRC.
26. Bergengruen in MS #T-2 (Fries et al.), Answer to Question 14 re Feldzug Gruppe Sizilien, p. 60.
27. See Fries in MS #T-2 (Fries et al.), p. 12.
28. MS #T-2 K 1 (Kesselring), pp. 20-21; Quotation from copy of a draft, initialed "Z," 16 Jul 43, OB SUEDWEST, Abt. 1c, 18.VI.43-23.II.44 (Heeresgruppe "C," 75138/28). A summary of the analysis is given in OKW/WFSt, KTB, 1.-31.VIII.43, 13 July 1943. This analysis of the first direct German experience against a large-scale amphibious attack was immediately transmitted by OKW to the headquarters in the other OKW theaters of war and areas under its command.
Very probably this analysis was the basis for the statement of Generaloberst Kurt Student in October 1945 that "It is my opinion that if it had not been for the Allied airborne forces blocking the Hermann Goering Armored Division from reaching the beachhead, that division would have driven the initial seaborne forces back into the sea." (Quoted in Gavin, Airborne Warfare, p. 16.) General Student was in France at the time of the Sicilian invasion, but as commander of the XI Parachute Corps he probably received the analysis.
29. The landing of the Seventh Army's floating reserve is covered in: 2d Armored Division in the Sicilian Campaign, a research report prepared at Fort Knox, 1949-50 (cited hereafter as 2d Armd Div in Sicilian Campaign), p. 20; 2d Armd Div AAR, 22 Apr-25 Jul 43; WNTF Action Rpt, p. 25; Comments of Col Redding L. Perry on MS; Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, p. 108; 18th Inf Regt AAR, Jul 43; Lt Col F. M. Muller, "2d Armored Division Combat Loading, Part Two, Sicily," Armored Cavalry Journal, vol. 56 (September-October 1947), pp. 9-13; CCB, 2d Armd Div AAR, Jul 43; Interv, Smyth with Lt Col Russel G. Spinney (former CO Co F, 18th Inf Regt), 31 Oct 50.
30. ONI, Sicilian Campaign, p. 59.
31. For a full discussion of the 1st Division's beach situation see: ONI, Sicilian Campaign, pp. 65-66; Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 105-09; 1st Inf Div Arty AAR, 9 May-9 Aug 43; 5th FA Bn AAR, Jun-Dec 43; 33d FA Bn AAR, Jun-Dec 43; 7th FA Bn AAR, Sicilian Campaign, 10 May-31 Aug 43; Comments of Col Leonard G. Robinson (former executive officer of the 5th Field Artillery Battalion) on MS; WNTF Action Rpt, pt. II, Narrative of Events, entries timed 2215 and 2350, 10 Jul 43.
32. In the 171st Field Artillery Battalion, Battery A was badly scattered in landing: some of its vehicles landed on the proper beach, but the howitzers unloaded on the 1st Division's RED Beach 2 and other battery impedimenta on the 179th RCT's beaches nearer Scoglitti. The battery was not ready to fire until 2000, and then with only three pieces. The fourth howitzer arrived near midnight. Battery B was also scattered on landing but got itself together quickly and was ready to fire at 1230. It moved to a new position at 1530 and fired its first mission fifteen minutes later in support of the 1st Battalion, 180th Infantry. Because of the shortage of landing craft, Battery C remained afloat until 11 July.
33. AGF Rpt 217; Morison, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, pp. 138-41. On 13 July, another set of beaches was opened above Scoglitti, and another beach was added to the one below Scoglitti.
Morison (page 140) states that a survey as of noon, 11 July, revealed that only 66 of the original 175 LCVP's and LCM's in this naval task force were still usable. The 18 transports left almost zoo LCVP's on the beaches, many of which were subsequently salvaged.
34. Most of the 3d Division's LST's were unloaded in Licata harbor.
35. On 10 July 1943, over the Gela beaches, 20,655 men, 1,027 vehicles, and 2,000 long tons of supplies were put ashore. Over the Licata beaches and through Licata harbor, 18,464 men, 3,310 vehicles, and 4,714 long tons of supplies were landed. (See Seventh Army Rpt of Opns, pp. E-15--E-16.) Figures for the 45th Division are lumped together for the three-day period 10-12 July 1943. | <urn:uuid:ede304c4-3b1d-460e-82c4-95cd9cf70c64> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-Sicily/USA-MTO-Sicily-7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00110-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971584 | 11,020 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Depth of Field
What it is
A photographic image is only sharp in the focus plane. The farther an object is located in front of or behind the focus plane, the more it is blurred.
However, this blur is not recognizable if it stays below a certain amount. In classical photography which has a printed image as a goal (no matter whether digital or analog) the perception of the human eye is the limiting factor.
The human eye commonly accepts an edge as sharp, if the angle of view of the blur is smaller than 1 arc minute. Hence a point blurred to that amount has the diameter of 2 arc minutes, which is the same as 1/1700 of the viewing distance.
This is the allowed diameter of the so called Circle of Confusion. The normal viewing distance in classical photography is assumed to be equivalent to the printed image diagonal. The circle of confusion is the basis for most Depth of Field calculators or tables.
Considerations for zoomable panoramas
For computer displayed panorama creation where one can zoom into the image, the limit must be the pixel distance in the viewable panorama - unless you don't allow to zoom in until 100% pixel view.
Since a pixel in an equirectangular panorama corresponds to a certain angle of view in reality, we can directly calculate the allowed angle of confusion in the shot image. It is 360° divided by the pixel width of the equirectangular image.
For a standard angle of confusion of 2 arc minutes this would result in an equirect image with 10800*5400 pixel. If zoomable panoramas are smaller in pixel size, the Depth of Field is far bigger than for classical photography and standard depth of field calculators are of no big use. Read on to see how to circumvent this.
In the increasingly popular gigapixel panoramas, where longer lenses are used, Depth of Field is a serious issue. While stopping down increases DoF, image blur due to diffraction limits the sharpness and the final resolution. Effective resolution can be calculated using the Rayleigh criterion. See the main article on Diffraction for more details.
In most cases a panorama should be sharp from the horizon to the nearest objects. Since the Depth of Field region is partly in front of and partly behind the focus plane, you sacrifice a fair amount of Depth of Field if you focus to infinity - only one part of the depth of field range is used.
However, there is a distance you can focus on, that extends the Depth of Field exactly from infinity to a nearer limit. This is the hyperfocal distance. It can be calculated, if the allowed circle of confusion (see above) on the sensor is known.
Following the above considerations on Depth of Field for zoomable panoramas we can calculate a small table with
- Width - image width in pixels
- AoC - angle of confusion in arc minutes
- CoC - Circle of Confusion on full format DSLR or analog film in mm (diagonal 43.3mm)
- CoC1.6 - Circle of Confusion on crop factor 1.6 DSLR in mm (diagonal 27mm)
Width AoC CoC C0C1.6 16000 1.4 0.017 0.011 12000 1.8 0.023 0.014 10000 2.2 0.027 0.017 8000 2.7 0.034 0.021 6000 3.6 0.045 0.028 4000 5.4 0.068 0.042
The formula for this calculation is
CoC = sin(AoC) * sensor diagonal AoC = 360 / Width
With this values you can go into any depth of field calculator where you can enter the circle of confusion like for example http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm and calculate the hyperfocal distance (and the Depth of Field if required).
In any case the near limit of the Depth of Field is half the hyperfocal distance.
Please note, that all these values for fisheye lenses are only approximations, since their focal length changes from the center to the edges as well as the effective aperture changes.
Extending depth of field in software
Rik Littlefield added functionality to the pano12 library to merge multiple exposures with different focal distances into a single image with extended depth of field. This has largely been superceded by new software, notably CombineZ5,SAR, Helicon focus and enfuse.
Some Investigations Regarding Depth of Field by Rik Littlefield:
Erik Krause 16:50, 6 Jun 2005 (EDT) | <urn:uuid:7f7dfade-be2c-4310-951a-47724f77ed64> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://wiki.panotools.org/index.php?title=Depth_of_Field&oldid=12928 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890168 | 961 | 3.734375 | 4 |
Nuclear technologyparticles and energetic photons. Another desired effect is the detection of energetic particles.
Energy is released when the nucleus of a very heavy atom splits during fission. Energy is also liberated when two very light nucleii are made to combine into one heavier nucleus (fusion). In both cases this process cannot continue beyond the production of iron.
Fission occurs spontaneously in heavy nucleii but fusion requires extreme pressure and temperature. This is why fission reactorss are much easier to create than fusion reactors. Fission events liberate neutrons, which can induce an excited state in other nucleii, resulting in further fission events. By using the correct concentrations of materials and environment where at least one subsequent fission event will result from each initial fission event (on average), one creates a fission chain reaction. The energy released by this process is vastly greater than that resulting from any chemical reaction (including burning and explosion).
Energetic particles such as protons, neutrons, electrons and alpha particles (Hydrogen nucleii without any electrons) are detected in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes. Radiac meters are used to determine the strength of radiation and to enhance safety. Some other more esoteric uses include determining a material's thickness or internal composition by measuring the level of radiation that passes through a target of known material. | <urn:uuid:82ab8338-8278-4da7-9386-220003f3f69c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://july.fixedreference.org/en/20040724/wikipedia/Nuclear_technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00086-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938729 | 273 | 3.84375 | 4 |
St. Mary's Samplings 4/27/13
Kindergarten: We worked with the letter “J” this week and also celebrated Angela Albrecht’s Wonderful Week. We got to meet her family and tour Riverview Dairy Farms where her dad works. That was really cool! We listened to the “big kids” give their speeches and we had a couple of visitors who are coming to kinder class next year—they did great.
Grade 1: We finished up our unit on the seasons in science and our unit on how things have changed in social studies. We are starting on the unit “Meeting People” in social studies in which we will learn about immigrants and different cultures. In math we continue to work with two-digit addition. In reading we worked with words with –oo, -ou, -ew, and –ue. We read the story “Olivia” and talked about reality and fantasy. We also worked with subjects and predicates. We are happy to see some spring weather.
Grade 2: In math class we are learning to make change from $1.00 and from $5.00. We are using the count up strategy, where we count up from the amount of the purchase to determine the amount of change. For science, we are learning about the stars and the moon. In studying the moon’s phases, we found out that the moon does not really change shape. On Thursday, we were very entertained by the fifth and sixth grade speeches.
Grade 3: It was great to have a full week of school again with no weather closings. In math we are making cubes, prisms, cylinders and pyramids from nets. We are building three dimensional objects from drawings and also explored circles and spheres. We realized that many objects and things we see and use every day are made up of these figures! We realized that we needed to know our multiplication facts to find a formula for volume-(length x width x height). We are completing our basic aid training with Mrs. Folkman and will take our test next week. We enjoyed the fifth and sixth graders’ speech contest on Thursday.
Grade 4: It was a full week—finally! We continue to work on mastering our long division with one digit. We also started to work with equations with variables. In English class we are learning how to make sure that our subjects and verbs agree in a sentence. In spelling we are learning how to spell words with prefixes.
Grade 5: The fifth graders have been so busy working on perfecting their speeches that they gave to the whole school on Thursday. They did such a good job, and I am so proud of all their hard work. In math class they learned how a remainder in a division problem can be interpreted in different ways. In social studies we continue to learn about the Midwest. We learned about how transportation has changed throughout the years.
Grade 6: The sixth graders have been learning about finding angle measures in polygons, perimeter and finding the circumference of a circle. Using a protractor was tricky at first because we had to make sure we placed the protractor correctly on the vertex and take the measurement from the right scale. Also this week, the sixth graders presented their speeches to their classmates on Monday and Tuesday and five individuals from our class made it to the round in the gym on Thursday. Everyone did a wonderful job on their speeches.
Upcoming Events May 4 Area Speech Contest
May 4-5 First Communion
May 8 Two Hour Late Start | <urn:uuid:babc1289-ab09-4d3b-9ad6-93b33557f370> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.morrissuntribune.com/content/st-marys-samplings-42713?qt-latest_trending_article_page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974937 | 733 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Chapter 04. Design of Structure and Track
The New York Rapid Transit Railway Extensions · Engineering News, 1914
Loadings. The subway and elevated structures are all designed in accordance with the specifications for assumed loadings, and strengths of materials and methods of calculation, as given in detail in a paper presented to the American Society of Civil Engineers by Henry B. Seaman, formerly Chief Engineer of the Public Service Commission, and under whose direction they were worked up (Trans. Am. Soc. C.E. Vol. LXXV, p.313). The principal provisions governing the design for steel structures are given below:
The railroad trains on bridges shall be estimated as required by specifications of railroad company.
Elevated or subway trains shall be estimated as a continuous load of 2000 lb. (2k) per lineal foot of each track, or a single local concentration of two adjacent motor trucks with axle loads spaced at follows:
Trolley cars shall be estimated as continuous at 1500 lb. (1.5k) per lineal foot of each track, or as a local concentration of one ash car with axle loads spaced as follows: (Note: the ash cars are special cars used by the B. R. T. for removing ashes, etc.)
The roadbed for trolley cars on bridges shall be assumed as 12 ft. wide, and shall be capable of carrying the loads specified for roadway of bridges.
The roadway load for bridges shall consist of a uniform load of 120 lb. per sq. ft. of surface, or a local concentration of 40k on one axle with a wheel gage of 8 ft. This load may be assumed to cover a space of 12 ft. wide by 40 ft. long.
The roadway load over subways shall consist of a uniform load of 600 lb. per sq. ft. of surface, or a single local concentration of 200k on four wheels, 12 ft. between axles and 1 ft. gage. These concentrated loads shall be assumed to be distributed over an area of 2x2 ft. on the pavement and thence through the earth at a slope of one-half to one. Sidewalks over subways shall be assumed as loaded at 600 lb. per sq. ft.
Footwalks for bridges and platforms of elevated R.R. stations shall be estimated as loaded at 100 lb. per sq. ft. of surface. Subway platforms shall be estimated as loaded at 150 lb. per sq. ft. of surface.
Impact. Loads due to trains or trolley cars shall be increased for impact in accordance with the following formula:
No increase shall be made for impact to horizontal loading (centrifugal or traction forces.)
Wind-provision shall be made for wind pressure acting in either direction, horizontally, of 10 lb. per sq. ft.
Traction-provision shall be made for the sudden starting or stopping of a train 100 ft. in length, estimating the coefficient of sliding friction at 10%.
Temperature-provision shall be made on bridges, for a variation in temperature at 120 degrees F.; a difference of 40 degrees in the temperature of the chords of the same truss, or in that of adjacent trusses of the same structure shall be considered in spans of more than 300 ft.
Fig. 10. Half section of B.R.T. subway on Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, built in reinforced-concrete with pipe gallery under sidewalk. (Click image to enlarge.)
The following table shows the unit stresses (1k = 1000 lb.) allowed for steel used in the structure taken in conjunction with the foregoing loadings.
|Nature of Stress||Medium Structural Steel||Cast|
|Tension (net)||20k *||16k|
|Compression (1 Diam.) (Gross)||20k||20k|
|Compression (12 Diam.) (Gross)||16.5k||...|
|Bending (Beams, outer fiber)||20k||...|
|Bending (Pins, Rivets and Bolts)||30k||...|
|Shear (Pins, Rivets, web) (Net sec.)||15k||16k|
|Bearing (Pins, Rivets and Bolts)||30k||...|
|Bearing (Roller) per lineal in.||0.75kd||...|
|Notes: l = length of column. in inches. r = least radius of gyration of cross-section, in inches. d = Diameter of roller, in inches. * Compression members in steel and iron shall not receive greater unit stress than that allowed for 12 diameters.|
When beams and girders are embedded in concrete, the concrete will be assumed to take 20% of the loading. In case of field rivets, 25% excess will be added to the number of rivets required as above. (When machine-driven this may be reduced to 20% excess.)
Preliminary Investigation. Extensive borings, both wash and core, were taken before construction to determine as nearly as possible the character of the subsoil, depth to rock, etc., although the latter is extremely irregular. All existing structures, both above and below ground, were located as well as possible so that proper provision might be made for taking care of them, though the actual final disposition of many of the small pipes, etc., was not determined, until they were all uncovered by the excavation and accurately located.
General Design. Speaking generally, the present designs are based on the use of structural-steel frames with concrete jack arches between. The use of reinforced concrete is very limited. It seems to be generally considered that the use of the structural-steel frame greatly facilitates the support of the street decking during construction, because just as soon as a bent is set up and riveted, the load may be transferred to it.
Fig. 11. B.R.T. subway on Broadway at Canal St. showing very heavy floor to resist upward pressure of water. (Click image to enlarge.)
Under the requirement that the street surfaces shall be maintained and their use for vehicular and other traffic be uninterrupted, it is generally necessary, on account of the width of the excavation, to carry this decking on timber supports, which, as will be seen later, fill up a large part of the excavated space. The construction of reinforced-concrete structures under these conditions is, therefore, somewhat difficult and liable to be patchy, but by proper care in arranging the timbering, the steel-framed bents can be erected easily.
The usual members employed in the steel-frame type of construction in these subways are small enough to be easily handled, so that reinforced concrete has little advantage in the use of small construction units. The ease of construction of the steel-frame structure, and advantages of support more than outweigh any disadvantage in the necessity of using skilled steel erectors, as against the supposed ability to use unskilled labor for reinforced concrete, even though the form work for the concrete with the steel structure is little less than it would be for ordinary reinforced concrete. Fig. 10 shows the reinforced-concrete design adopted in 1908 for the 4th Ave., Brooklyn, lines, which, however, were built mostly in open cut.
Fig. 12. Reinforced-concrete subway on Lexington Avenue. (Click image to enlarge.)
The use of the specially rolled "bulb" angles, used on the original subway, has been abandoned and only standard steel shapes are used. Usually the columns rest directly on the concrete, as shown the normal sections, Fig. 8, but in certain places I-beam grillages are provided. No stone-block footings are used. Where the ground is soft or where water pressure exists, specially designed floors are necessary. One of the most important of these places is at Canal St., where the subgrade of the lower level is 40 ft. below mean high water or normal ground-water level. The heavy girders and thick concrete floor required at this point is shown in Fig. 11. A typical floor to meet conditions below ground-water level is shown in Fig. 15, which is a cross-section of part of the Lexington Ave. subway, where the line passes over what seems to have been an old swamp. This special type was designed principally for the purpose of carrying the structure on the soft ground. Just north of this, at Lexington Ave. and 128th St., where the subgrade is considerably below the water level, a typical design (Fig. 16) of reinforced concrete, for resistance to water pressure in rock is used.
On account of the fact that the New York rock, a micaceous gneiss, is well known to present difficulties of support, that is, on account of bad seams, etc., to be "heavy" in places, it was decided to use a reinforced-concrete lining for the deep-level tunnels under Lexington Ave. It was found on opening up the work, however, that the necessary temporary supports of timber made this type of construction difficult to execute satisfactorily, and a change was, therefore, made to the design shown in Fig. 13. This, as will be seen, permits the construction of the center wall and the haunches with the steel columns and longitudinal I-beams, so that a direct center support can be built to the roof, which is generally sufficient for support of the overlying rock without timbering during the construction of the concrete arches.
Fig. 13. Alternative design for center wall using structural steel instead of reinforced-concrete. (Click image to enlarge.)
The unstable character of the rock and the variation in thickness of the cover involved some changes in the location of the tunnel portals, making it necessary to shift them back in almost every case to get sufficient depth of overlying rock cover. This contingency is of course covered by the provision in the contract for slight variations in total quantities. The heavy ground on some of the sections on Lexington Ave. necessitated the design of considerably heavier steel sections, as shown in Fig. 17, for use at these places.
Further notes in regard to the construction of special sections, such as the Harlem River Tubes, steel and reinforced concrete elevated sections, etc., will be found under their respective headings.
Cross-Sections. During the early days of the Public Service Commission (1907-1908), there was considerable discussion in regard to the desirable dimensions of the cross-section of the new lines proposed at that time as extensions and further developments of the rapid transit lines then in operation. It was not thought advisable to conclude further operating contracts on the basis of those made for the original subway, and it was found difficult to arrive at any other which was agreeable to both parties. It was then decided to go ahead with the construction of the 4th Avenue Brooklyn line and Centre St. loop, leaving the question of operation to be decided later. It was thought that if neither the Interborough nor B. R. T. would meet the views of the Commission in regard to terms of operation, a third party might be found, and as there then seemed to be a possibility that this might be one of the existing steam railroad lines, it was decided to provide clearance for standard railroad equipment and the designs of these two sections were modified accordingly to provide this. As all doubt in regard to the future operation has now, however, been eliminated, it has not been thought necessary in the design of the new lines now to be built to provide for larger equipment than it is known will be used, and the clearances decided on for the new lines are only slightly larger than those provided in the present subway, as is shown in the following table, and in more detail in the typical cross-sections which are shown.
Fig. 14. Double-deck subway on Lexington Avenue built wholly in tunnel. (Click image to enlarge.)
In Fig. 8 (of the previous article) is shown a cross-section of the 7th Ave. line of the Interborough, which is the minimum section for the new lines. Figs. 12. and 14 show the Lexington Ave. line, which is to be operated by the Interborough, but which was designed before the question of operation was definitely decided. Fig. 11 shows the cross-section of the Broadway-59th Street route of the B.R.T. The following table shows a general comparison of the dimensions of the original subway and those since adopted.
|Height above top of rail||Width *|
|Original subway||12 ft. 4 in.||12 ft. 6 in.|
|Fourth Ave. Brooklyn and Centre St. loop||14 ft. 6 in.||14
ft. 0 in.
|New subways- B.R.T.||12 ft. 8 in.||14 ft. 3 in. & 13 ft. 6
|New subway-Interborough||12 ft. 3 in.||13 ft. 6 in. & 13
ft. 0 in.
|* From center of columns between tracks to face of side wall. (Columns about 8 in.) Note: These are dimensions on tangents and are increased on curves to provide equivalent clearance.|
Fig. 15. Floor on section 12 of I-beams and concrete. (Click image to enlarge.)
As is shown on the various cross-sections, provision is made for building the conduits for the electric wires, in a side-bench wall with a walk on the top, instead of placing them in the sidewalls, as in the old subway.
The standard track spacing for four-track subways finally adopted is as follows; from the center line of the four tracks to face of sidewall:
Cross-sectional dimensions of other rapid transit subways in the United States are approximately as follows, there being many minor variations:
|Height above top of rail||Clear width|
|Boston, Tremont St., 1898||13 ft. 10 in.||12 ft.|
|Boston, Washington St., 1901||14 ft. 5 in.||12 ft. 2 in.|
|Cambridge, 1910.||14 ft. 9 in.||12 ft. 6 in. (a)|
|Philadelphia, 1907.||14 ft.||12 ft.|
|H. & M. 6th Ave., 1908.||12 ft. 10 in.||13 ft. (b)|
|Note (a)-The Cambridge subway is large enough to take standard steam railway equipment, the tracks are 12 ft. on centers. Note (b)-Sidewalk over duct bench at side.|
Fig. 16. Lexington Avenue subway at 129th Street. Double-deck steel frame construction with heavy reinforced-concrete floor. (Click image to enlarge.)
The question of cross-section is of considerable importance. It is determined largely by the size of the cars, the economic limit of which is controlled largely by the time necessary to load and unload them at express stations during the rush hours. Under present operating conditions, the splicing of trains is determined probably as much by the length of station stops as by ability to run the trains more closely together between stations. It is probably difficult to determine the exact economic dimensions of a car which will hold the maximum number of people and at the same time permit the minimum time of stopping. As has already been pointed out, the B. R. T. has decided to use a larger car, but the Interborough will probably of necessity be obliged to continue the use of equipment interchangable with that now in use, and therefore all new lines which are to be used exclusively by this latter company are designed on that basis, only very slightly larger than that now in use.
Fig. 17. Heavy steel sections in center wall, Lexington Avenue line at 59th Street. (Click image to enlarge.)
The cross-section has also, of course, an important bearing on the question of ventilation; this, however, is discussed more fully under that heading.
On some of the routes when the designs were made and construction started, it was uncertain whether they were to be operated by the B. R. T. or the Interborough; provision was therefore made as is shown in the sketch, Fig. 18, for an adjustable edge to the platforms, so that either the 9 ft. Interborough or the 10 ft. B. R. T. cars could be used.
Track Construction. A standard track construction has been adopted for all the new lines, by conference and agreement between the two operating companies and the Public Service Commission. Rails are to be 100 lb. openhearth B section of the Am. Ry. Eng. Assoc. Ties are to be yellow pine 6x6x8 untreated, with flat-bottom shoulder tieplates 7.5x9x0.5 in. and 6 in. cut spikes. In the subways, traprock ballast 0.5 to 1 in. will be used as a cushion over the concrete floor; as the headroom is limited there will be only about 6 in. of drainage provided by the drains in the concrete floor. Judging by experience with the ties in use on the present rapid transit lines it has been thought that treatment by creosote or other preservative will not be necessary.
Fig. 18. Typical cross-section of track. (Click image to enlarge.)
Guard rails are to be used on all curves of less than 2000 ft. radius; those under 700 ft. radius will also have rail braces on the guard rails, as well as for the outside rails. Rolled manganese rails are to be used practically entirely for all frogs, switches, cross-overs, etc., and on all curves less than 700 ft. radius. In regard to the necessity for the use of manganese rails, which cost about 2.5 times as much as openhearth, reference may be made to the experience of the Boston Rapid Transit lines, (Eng. News, Oct. 22, 1908, p. 458), where on a certain curve bessemer rails lasted only 60 days, a cast manganese rail had shown only about 0.5 in. wear in six years. There is of course, not only the wear of the rail to be considered, but the cost of changing due to the abnormally high cost of track work under the extremely heavy traffic and in the confined space in the subways.
At stations, in order to facilitate cleanliness and sanitation, a special type of track construction similar to that used in the Pennsylvania terminal station in New York (see Trans., Am. Soc. C. E., Vol. LXIX, p. 305) and the Detroit River tunnels (see Trans., Am. Soc. C. E., Vol. LXXIV, p. 349) is to be used. A cross-section is shown in Fig. 19.
The track material is to be bought by the Public Service Commission under contracts and at unit prices to be bid for the various items required; it is to be stored and issued on requisition to the operating companies who will install the track as part of the "equipment".
Track Layouts. The arrangement of tracks at junction points, so as to avoid crossings at grade, with the consequent delay, as well as danger, has been the subject of considerable thought and study. In the present subway there are three junction points, at Bowling Green, City Hall, and at 96th Street. The first two being merely junctions of double track lines, where only one class of trains, either local or express, has to be cared for on each route, did not present any particular difficulty, it being only necessary to depress one track under the other two. At 96th St., however, where two double-track lines come together in a four-track section, and where express and local trains have to be directed from any one line to any of the others (in the same direction), the problem is more complicated.
The present layout at 96th Street is shown diagrammatically at Fig. 20 (D); it will also be noted that the switches and slip crossings are all on the north side of the station, and that as trains from either branch may and do continue as either local or express, there is frequently some delay to trains before they can approach the crossings to enter the station on the proper track. This would not be noticeable on lines of ordinary traffic, but under the conditions existing during the morning and evening rush hours in New York, the slightest delay may be magnified into a congestion of the whole system.
The number of such junction points on the new lines has been considerably increased and typical methods of overcoming the difficulties are shown in the three diagrams, Fig. 20, (A), (B), and (C).
Fig. 20 (A) (Click image to enlarge.)
So far as possible in all the designs for the new lines the engineers have tried to avoid any slow points, such as switches, crossings. etc., in places other than close to stations where trains must stop, and to locate them on the farther side rather than on the near side where they would be reached before the train enters the station, and where in case the line is not clear the train would have to make a signal stop before reaching the switch as well as the station stop after.
Fig. 20 (B) (Click image to enlarge.)
The diagram at Fig. 20, (A) shows the track layout at 125th Street on the Lexington Ave. line. It will be noted that coming from the north, trains from either branch reach the station without crossing any switches, are both on the same level and on their same respective sides of the station. Continuing south, those trains which become expresses from this point, pass the required switches within 300 or 400 ft., while the locals have a switch, which is, of course, a slow point, at 119th St. (about 1,500 ft. beyond the station). This, however, is of little importance, so far as causing any delay in the south bound movement of the local trains is concerned, as their next station stop is at 116th St.
Fig. 20 (C) (Click image to enlarge.)
Coming from the south the expresses reach the upper level in the east side over practically a straight line with no switches, with just enough ascending grade to slow them down. Leaving, they take one or two switches as they are diverted to either the east or west branch, but both within 300 ft. of the station. The locals coming from the south have one or more switches to pass before they reach the station; this, however, is not of importance especially as they do not anywhere come in contact with the expresses. As may be seen these latter switches are not necessary for the operation of through trains, as trains from either side of the station going north reach either branch without a crossing of tracks of trains going in the opposite direction, but are put in for convenience to provide two extra side tracks for any emergencies of operation at this junction.
Fig. 20 (D) (Click image to enlarge.)
The other two diagrams are self-explanatory, except to say that at Eastern Parkway and Utica Ave., Fig. 20 (B), the arrangement is not quite so elaborate as there is not expected to be such heavy travel on this section as to warrant large expenditures to prevent short delays. | <urn:uuid:aaf26994-1bf0-4de2-92ac-637b51e4a1b3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Chapter_04._Design_of_Structure_and_Track | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953208 | 4,847 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Published: 18 April 2008(GMT+10)
The headline in the February issue of Scientific American read ‘Lovers, not fighters’.1 In the article, a team of evolutionary geneticists is said to have discovered the signature of Homo erectus in the human genome. Publishing its results in the January issue of Genetics, the University of Arizona research team believes it found evidence of interbreeding between modern humans and Homo erectus.
Focusing on the X chromosome, the geneticists utilized molecular clock analysis to date certain regions of the genome that reflect the genetic diversity of human history. Based on certain genetic fingerprints, the scientists believe that modern humans and Homo erectus may have interbred as long ago as 2.3 million years.
Competing creationist perspectives
Though this is the first study of its kind, this indirect genetic evidence challenges old-earth creation views, such as those of Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe (RTB). Such old-earth creationists argue that Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals specially created about 50,000 years ago, possibly up to 100,000 years ago. Therefore, in order to maintain any semblance of consistency with the Genesis genealogies, they propose that Homo erectus was a man-like animal created before Adam and Eve. On the other hand, young-earth creationists generally posit that Homo erectus was a fully human descendant of Adam and Eve—see Turkana boy getting past the propaganda and Putting chimpanzees, hominids, and humans in their proper place.
initial genetic evidence seems to strengthen the view that Homo erectus and modern humans were indeed the same species
Thus, old-earth creationists would not expect any genetic evidence for interbreeding between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens sapiens, while we are encouraged when such conclusions are drawn even by evolutionary scientists. Though it is premature to make any conclusive scientific judgments, the initial genetic evidence seems to strengthen the view that Homo erectus and modern humans were indeed the same species.
Direct DNA analysis
If we could obtain direct Homo erectus DNA sequences, then more conclusive inferences could be drawn from the data. Though old-earth creationists, such as RTB, believe Homo erectus specimens are likely far too old to extract actual DNA sequences,2 young-earth creationists posit much younger ages for Homo erectus. As a result, we would not be surprised if some Homo erectus fossils possess DNA for genetic analysis. There is a precedent for such a view, since many scientists were initially incredulous before obtaining legitimate DNA samples from ‘ancient’ Neanderthals.
This would be a great field for creation paleontologists and geneticists to conduct top level science without the constraint of long-age thinking. Perhaps another shock could be sent throughout the scientific community similar to the discovery of supposedly 68-million-year-old blood cells, protein sequences, and actual, soft, flexible tissue in a T. Rex fossil.
Modern humans, Homo erectus, and moral depravity
Dr. Fuz Rana, of RTB, raised a provocative issue regarding the implications of potential interbreeding between Homo erectus and modern humans. In his February 28th ‘Science News Flash’ podcast,3 Dr. Rana stated that the RTB model predicts that Homoerectus and modern humans should be biologically and behaviorally distinct from one another. But he then adds the caveat that, due to moral depravity, modern humans may have in fact interbred with the Homo erectus ‘animals’. He cites Old Testament warnings against bestiality and the depravity of mankind at the Babel dispersion.
However, this raises a number of serious questions. If they could interbreed and produce fertile offspring, then wouldn’t they be the same biological species, according to the modern-day definition? Even a number of evolutionary anthropologists, such as Milford Wolpoff and Alan Thorne, believe Homo erectus and modern humans should be classified as the same species. He finishes by stating that genetic evidence of Homo erectus and modern human interbreeding would be uncomfortable for the RTB model, but not lethal. This seems to contradict RTB’s public position that Homo erectus and modern humans are definitively distinct from one another, both biologically and anatomically. These statements appear to make the RTB model unfalsifiable in this aspect. What evidence could ever contradict their human origins model? Even definitive anatomical evidence of interbreeding between modern humans and so-called ‘hominids’ (which already exists4 ) could be dismissed as mere evidence of bestiality, despite the fact that by definition, humans cannot interbreed with other species.
According to various sources,5 the old Soviet Union’s top animal-breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, attempted multiple hybridization experiments between monkeys and humans, as well as chimpanzees and humans. All attempts failed.
Molecular clock inaccuracies
the credibility of the young-earth model of human origins has been further enhanced
Dr. Rana does raise a valid point in questioning the accuracy of molecular clock analysis. Though RTB accepts the validity of most long-age dating methods, it does realize that molecular clock dating is often unreliable, based on a number of assumptions, and at odds with fossil dates. The young-earth community is highly skeptical of molecular clock dating—obviously, because it contradicts the Bible, but also in part due to numerous acknowledged discrepancies with the fossil record and present-day mutational rates—see A shrinking date for Eve . This is why genetic research based solely on molecular clock analysis must be critically analyzed.6
Increased genetic testing is encouraged by the creation science community. The results discussed here are preliminary and don’t provide concrete resolutions, but even at this preliminary stage, the credibility of the young-earth model of human origins has been further enhanced.
- Turkana Boy-getting past the propaganda
- Putting chimpanzees, ‘hominids’, and humans in their proper place
- A shrinking date for ‘Eve’
- An open letter to old-earth creationist, Dr. Fuz Rana
- Fitting everything in on the 6th day
- The dubious apologetics of Hugh Ross
- Whitfield, John, Lovers, not fighters? Scientific American. 2008. Return to text.
- Ross, Hugh. Creation as Science. Navpress 2006. p. 153. Return to text.
- http://reasons.org/ Return to text.
- Evolutionary anthropologists have identified several Neanderthal/modern human fossil hybrids. In addition, Marvin Lubenow, renowned creationist anthropologist, has documented at least 62 fossil individuals that bear strong Homo erectus morphology, as recent as 12,000 years ago. Return to text.
- Grigg, Russell. Stalin’s ape-man superwarriors. Creation 29(1): 32–33. December 2006-February 2007. Return to text.
- However, they do not dispute the high ‘ages’ in general placed on erectus, placing them well before RTB’s dates for Adam. This is the very reason why RTB is compelled to classify such specimens as non-human. Return to text. | <urn:uuid:fd3d0f8f-837c-4f4e-b75c-d762b53a559f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://creation.com/smitten-species | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930615 | 1,499 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Can Having Pets Help Women Living With HIV/AIDS Cope?
January 31, 2012
A recent study found that women living with HIV/AIDS may find therapeutic benefits from owning pets.
The study of 48 women was conducted by Drs. Allison Webel and Patricia Higgins of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Their findings were published in the January 2012 issue of Women's Health Issues.
A Case Western Reserve news release announced that the purpose of this study was to better understand how women manage their disease day to day, adhere to their medications, and take care of their overall health. One way to do that was to see how certain roles could shape people's behaviors:
During the focus groups, six predominant social roles emerged that helped and hindered these women in managing their illness: pet owner, mother/grandmother, faith believer, advocate, stigmatized patient, and employee. All roles had a positive impact except stigmatized patient, which prevented women from revealing their illness and seeking out appropriate supports.
"Much information is available about the impact of work and family roles, but little is known about other social roles that women assume," Webel said.
What they discovered about pet owners somewhat surprised them: Having a pet helped the women cope better.
"Pets -- primarily dogs -- gave these women a sense of support and pleasure," Webel said.
When discussing the effect their pets have on their lives, the women weighed in. "She's going to be right there when I'm hurting," a cat owner said. Another said: "Dogs know when you're in a bad mood ... she knows that I'm sick, and everywhere I go, she goes. She wants to protect me."
Webel speculates these findings may be applicable for women living with other chronic diseases, too.
View the video, "Furry Friends with Benefits: Staying Healthy With Pets":
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After exploring the science of football, hockey and the Olympics, an Emmy-winning educational video effort is tackling the biggest game of all: innovation. The 11 videos in the "Science of Innovation" series are the latest fruits of a long-running partnership between the National Science Foundation and NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News.
The "Science of Innovation" series, narrated by NBC's Ann Curry, delves into the sometimes-unpredictable process that results in better technologies and products — and highlights 10 frontiers of innovation, ranging from biofuels to micro-electronic health monitors that can be worn on the skin like tattoos.
Monday's unveiling of the series was timed to coincide with the 165th birthday of Thomas Edison, one of America's best-known inventors. For this series, NSF and NBC have teamed up with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All of the scientists and engineers featured in the videos have been funded by NSF and have received U.S. patents for aspects of their work.
"America's unique system of funding innovative ideas helps them move from basic to applied research and, ultimately, into the marketplace," Judith Gan, NSF's director of legislative and public affairs, said in a news release. "NSF is proud to have participated in supporting innumerable scientific and technological innovations, which in turn have helped create millions of jobs that make our economy exceptionally competitive."
The videos are being made available to NBC affiliates, and can be downloaded freely from NSF's Science360 portal as well as the NBCLearn website. They complement lesson plans produced by the National Science Teachers Association for middle-school and high-school classes.
Teresa Stanek Rea, the patent and trademark office's acting director, said that "education is the key to encouraging today's children to become tomorrow's innovators."
"These videos and lesson plans are great tools for teachers everywhere to help students learn about intellectual property, while inspiring them to connect the process of innovation with science, technology, engineering and mathematics education." she said.
Soraya Gage, general manager of NBCLearn, said "our hope is that this special video series will engage and inspire our students to imagine the next great invention that will improve lives and transform the future."
More from the 'Science Of...' series:
- Are you ready for some football science?
- Take a shot at the science of hockey
- Jump into the science of the Winter Olympics
- Videos explore the science of Summer Olympics
- Chemistry gets its own show online
- Learn about our 'Changing Planet'
- Get the science behind the news
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. | <urn:uuid:76cd31a1-dee4-467e-8d7f-3b08fd6adc31> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nbcnews.com/science/videos-explore-science-innovation-1B8331571 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00192-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950457 | 654 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists:
de (France 1683-1757)
natural history, technology, entomology
from Wikipedia.org |Although seldom thought of today, Réaumur was
in his own time regarded--correctly--as one of the greatest of scientists.
Réaumur did productive work on a remarkable range of subjects,
including iron and steel technology, slate-working, porcelain manufacture,
egg incubation and preservation, the malleability of metals, tin-plating,
temperature measurement (he invented both the Réaumur alcohol thermometer
and the Réaumur temperature scale), locomotion in invertebrates,
insect behavior (especially of bees), parthenogenesis in aphids, lost
limb regeneration, digestion in birds (he showed digestion to be primarily
a chemical instead of mechanical process), and much more. His efforts
brought many new industries to France, where he was so well thought of
that he was made director of the French Academy of Sciences no fewer than
twelve times, and subdirector nine times. Réaumur was a forward
thinker for his period; he was convinced for example that the government
should actively fund science (at that time the pursuit of science was
generally viewed as personal avocation) and that such investments would
be repaid many times over by the results obtained. He was in fact entirely
utilitarian in his motives, and even his studies on insect behavior were
justified by looking toward their possible practical implications--for
example in pest control or various offshoot industries (silk and honey
--born in La Rochelle, France, on 28 February 1683.
--1699-1702: studies law at Bourges
--1703: moves to Paris
--1708: made a member of the French Academy of Sciences
--1710: directs the official description of useful arts and manufactures
in France which is eventually published in numerous volumes as the Description
des Arts et Métiers after his death
--1711: elected pensionnaire mécanicien of the French Academy of
--1712: presents a paper on limb regeneration in crayfish
--1713: invents spun glass fibers (such as are still used in fiber optics)
--1719: suggests that paper can be made from wood
--1720: invents the cupola furnace and develops malleable iron
--1722: publishes his L'Art
de Convertir le Fer Forgé en Acier...
--1731: invents the Réaumur thermometer and devises a temperature
scale with zero degrees corresponding to the freezing point of water and
eighty degrees its boiling point
--1734-1742: publishes his Mémoires
pour Servir à l'Histoire des Insectes, in six volumes
--1735: introduces the concept of growing degree-days
--1737: made an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
--1738: made a member of the Royal Society of London
--1740: invents an opaque form of porcelain
--1741: presents a paper on the regenerative abilities of the hydra
--1750: invents an egg incubator
--1752: isolates gastric juice and discovers the chemical process of digestion
--dies near St.-Julien-du-Terroux, Mayenne, France, on 18 October 1757.
--Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol.
--A to Z of Scientists in Weather and Climate (2003).
--Historical Metallurgy, Vol. 24(2) (1991): 89-96.
Studies, Vol. 18(4) (1985): 503-522.
--Endeavour, Vol. 16(64) (1957): 183-184.
Copyright 2005 by Charles H. Smith. All rights
Return to Home/Alphabetical Listing by Name
Return to Listing by Country
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the diet of pre-agricultural humans was derived primarily from animal based foods.
So why do we have teeth designed for a mixed diet, one which is not primarily meat? Our intestines would be shorter too if meat was our predominate food.
Predominate is the key word here--between about 50 and 60% of total calories. Our small intestines are in between the lengths of the pure carnivores and the herbivores. We are obligate omnivores.
posted on 03/08/2002 2:38:37 AM PST
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Canadian baritone and diction specialist Jason Nedecky put together this worksheet on the vowel shifts between American Standard English (AS) and British Received Pronunciation (RP). The last page includes the consonant-related shifts--medial T and D, initial WH words and the J-glide words. He uses the Canadian flag vs the British flag to differentiate between AS and RP. Please feel free to download and use in your studies!
Thank you, Jason! | <urn:uuid:08b55e5b-4efe-48ed-ad5c-89f90166e1a9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thedictionpolice.com/2012/04/17/english-diction-pronunciation-shifts-in-singing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393093.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915857 | 97 | 2.984375 | 3 |
If you have heart disease, you may understandably hope that it's only a temporary problem, one that can be cured with medicine or surgery. But heart disease is a lifelong condition: Once you have it, you'll always have it.
It may also be sobering to realize that the condition of your blood vessels will steadily worsen unless you make changes in your daily habits. Many people die of complications from heart disease or become permanently disabled. That's why it is so vital to take action to control this serious condition.
The good news, however, is that you can control heart disease with one or several different types of treatment. Treatment options for heart disease include lifestyle changes, medications, and, if necessary, procedures or surgery.
Lifestyle changes are an important part of treatment for anyone with heart disease. These changes include watching your weight, exercising, eating a healthy diet, and, if you smoke, quitting. Lifestyle changes can go a long way in helping keep your heart disease from getting worse.
Medications may also be prescribed for heart disease. These medicines are used to treat the symptoms of heart disease. Medicines can also help treat many risk factors that can make heart disease worse, such as high cholesterol, diabetes, and high blood pressure. But it is again important to know that medicines do not fix the buildup of plaque in the coronary arteries that causes heart disease.
If medications and lifestyle changes are not effective, more invasive procedures may be necessary. One example is a catheter procedure called balloon angioplasty. During angioplasty, a balloon-like device is used to expand a blockage in the artery and restore blood flow. Sometimes, a stent, which is an expandable device, may then be used. The stent is mounted on a balloon catheter, similar to the one used for the angioplasty. It supports the artery and helps it remain open for a longer period of time. Depending on the type of blockage, an atherectomy may also be done. An atherectomy is used to open hardened blockages in your coronary arteries with a special pulverizing device.
Surgery is the final option for treating heart disease. This surgery is called a coronary artery bypass graft, or a CABG. Coronary artery bypass graft surgery takes a blood vessel from somewhere else in the body and uses it to bypass a blocked vessel in the heart. This improves the blood supply to the heart and, in turn, improves the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscle.
Lifestyle changes, medications, procedures, and surgery are all important options for treating heart disease. They can help a person manage their heart condition, reduce their risk of a first or repeat heart attack, and improve their chances of living a long, rewarding life. For anyone with heart disease, the sooner they get started, the better the chances of avoiding further heart problems, feeling better, and staying well. | <urn:uuid:815f000c-c81f-467d-a691-6bf774e73f48> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://heart-disease.emedtv.com/heart-disease-video/heart-disease-treatments-video.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00101-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935999 | 599 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Language Learning & Technology
Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2005, pp. 2-3
FROM THE SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS
Paginated PDF version
The papers published in this issue of Language Learning and Technology are indicative of current research and exploratory intervention work dealing with the use of new technologies in language learning contexts involving children, teachers, and teacher education students. The range of papers represents diverse areas of interest within second and foreign language learning that is mediated by new technologies. These include new technologies as a language learning medium; sociocultural studies of new technology uses focusing on students' interactions with software interfaces and the social interactions occurring around the computer as students work; evaluative studies of ways of Internet use as a language learning resource; and students' new technology uses and purposes that are not usually associated with school-based language acquisition (e.g., gaming, text messaging, instant messaging, participating in fan-based Internet spaces).
In the opening paper, "Child-to-Child Interaction and Corrective Feedback in a Computer Mediated L2 Class," Frank Morris reports findings from a study of corrective feedback on and subsequent repairs to written target language enacted during child-to-child, computer-mediated interactions within a fifth-grade, elementary Spanish immersion class in a southeast region of the United States. This study focusses on a typical teaching-learning activity within the school computer lab where students were paired, but without being told who their partner was or where s/he was sitting in the classroom. Each pair used the discussion function of Blackboard, a Web-based commercial course management interface, to complete an off-line, hardcopy jigsaw task. Morris found that implicit, negotiated corrective feedback more often led to immediate target language error repair than did other types of feedback, such as explicit negative feedback.
Carla Meskill focuses on computer-supported classroom discourse in her article, "Scaffolding the Learning of At-Risk English Language Learners with Computers." At the center of her study is a very experienced elementary school teacher who works with beginning-level English language learners from low-income homes, in a mid-size, post-industrial city within the US. Meskill's analysis is grounded in the assumption that English is not a socially autonomous system, but is contingent on current and historical patterns of speaking and doing within socially defined contexts. The teacher explicitly recognizes the importance of not simply teaching her students to encode and decode, but how to recognize and navigate the "language of school" as well in order to help them effectively "participate in mainstream instructional activity." Meskill examines what she refers to as "triadic scaffolds," comprising teaching strategies, the computer's role in instructional scaffolding, and what is accomplished by students and their teacher within this teaching-learning context. Findings suggest that in this particular case, the target language interactions that occur between the students and their teacher while using computers may be just as important, if not more important, than the actual software-based language learning resources they are using.
The third paper, by Cameron Richards, addresses ICT-supported learning activities. It reflects the author's commitment to ensuring that children's computer uses in language learning classrooms are not approached by teachers as merely "add ons" to the curriculum. Richards reports on the trial, refinement and development within teacher education programs of what he calls, "information and communication technology-supported learning activities." These activities are deliberately learner-centred, rather than computer-driven, and frame learning as a cycle of activity, analysis, reflection, and transformation. He calls for teacher educators to encourage their pre-service teaching students to see themselves as designers of "effective and integrated learning" and not as merely transmitters of information and skills.
The issue concludes with Ravi Purushotma's account of the roles popular culture can play in supporting and enhancing foreign language learning. In "You're Not Studying, You're Just…" Purushotma argues that popular culture offers a rich range of readily-modifiable texts that can provide valuable alternatives to traditional high school classroom approaches to foreign language learning dominated by textbooks and isolated lists of vocabulary words and grammatical structures. He makes his case by reference to The Sims. This simulation game, which is popular in many countries around the world, can be modified to create a bilingual environment that provides strong, contextualized learning support for the target language while maintaining much of the pleasure to be had from gaming. He concludes by discussing similar possible benefits to be had from modifying voice-activated games, music videos, internet browser software, and from loading language lessons to one's mobile phone for language learning on the go.
Together, the four papers in this special issue trace important and useful terrain for subsequent research study. Purushomata's paper, in particular, points to important new areas of investigation. In assembling this issue we were struck by the absence of submissions reporting research into young people's language acquisition within informal, non-school contexts. A large and growing corpus of studies conducted outside the field of second language acquisition strongly suggests that children are using more sophisticated and complex digital technologies outside school settings than in their classrooms or kindergartens. Moreover, many of these studies address second language use and acquisition (cf., Marsh 2005). We recommend this corpus of studies to researchers working in the area of second and foreign language acquisition and strongly encourage the development of a similar focus within their research purview.
As guest editors of this issue we extend particular thanks to our reviewers for their time and valuable feedback. We also want to acknowledge the work of Associate Editor Irene Thompson and Managing Editor Pamela DaGrossa in supporting and overseeing the production of this issue.
Michele Knobel & Colin Lankshear
Special Issue Editors
Marsh, J. (Ed.) (2005). Popular culture, new media and digital literacy in early childhood. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Home |About LLT | Subscribe | Information for Contributors | Masthead | Archives | <urn:uuid:45000492-704e-4fee-9c25-8211094ee36c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num1/speced.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396222.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00118-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951403 | 1,226 | 3.125 | 3 |
Cost231-Hata model can be used in macro cells as the propagation model. The application range is as follows:
Frequency band: 1500 MHz to 2000 MHz
Base station height: 30 meters to 200 meters. The base station must be higher than the surrounding buildings.
Terminal antenna height: 1 meter to 10 meters
Distance between the transmitter and receiver: 1 km to 20 km
The Cost231-Hata model can be expressed by the following formula:
Total = L - a(Hss) + Cm
L = 46.3 + 33.9 × lg( f ) – 13.82 × lg(HBS) + (44.9 – 6.55 × lg(HBS)) × lg(d )
Where, f indicates the working frequency of the system. The unit is MHz.
HBS indicates the height of the base station antenna. The unit is m.
HSS indicates the height of the terminal antenna. The unit is m.
d indicates the distance between the terminal and the base station. The unit is km.
a(hss) indicates the terminal gain function. This function is related to the antenna height and working frequency of the terminal and the environment.
The value of Cm depends on the terrain type. The values of Cm in the standard Cost231-Hata are as follows:
In large cities: Cm = 3 (as defined in Urban – large city in the related protocol)
In medium-sized cities: Cm = 0 (as defined in Urban – small city in the related protocol)
In suburban areas: Cm = -2(log( f /28))2 – 5.4dB (as defined in Urban – Suburban in the related protocol)
In rural open areas: Cm = -4.78 × (lg( f ))2 + 18.33 × lg( f ) -40.94
(As defined in Rural (open) – desert in the related protocol)
In highways: Cm = -4.78 × (lg( f ))2 + 18.33 × lg( f ) -35.94
(As defined in Rural (quasi-open) – countryside where the terminal is unobstructed for 100 meters in the front in the related protocol)
Since some of the working frequencies of the LTE networks are 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz have exceeded the band range of the standard Cost 231-Hata model, that is, 150 MHz to 2000 MHz. Therefore, in the actual LTE system design, the standard Cost231-Hata model must be corrected based on the CW test result.
According to the planning experience and actual CW test results in multiple scenarios, a set of Cm has been created in the experienced model.Tags:
- cost hata model 3GHz | <urn:uuid:9a44982e-8b05-4547-a4ae-36dce6bda2d4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.teletopix.org/4g-lte/propagation-model-lte-cost231-hata-model/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.87827 | 592 | 2.6875 | 3 |
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A hormone may br defined as a specific product of an endocrine gland secreted into the blood which carries it to some part of the body where it produces a definite physiological effect. This effect may be either excitatory or inhibitory in its action. Thus, hormones are not only the "chemical messengers" that pass from the glands via the blood stream to the target organ or some process; but they are important regulating substances that control virtually every aspect of the metabolism in living cells. There are also chemical coordinators other than hormones, such as CO2 and other metabolites.
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If approved by the Food and Drug Administration, it would be the first such experiment in the U.S. Some Key West residents worry, though, that not enough research has been done to determine the risks that releasing genetically modified mosquitoes might pose to the Keys’ fragile ecosystem.
Officials are targeting the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes because they can spread dengue fever, a disease health officials thought had been eradicated in the U.S. until 93 cases originated in the Keys in 2009 and 2010.
The trial planned by mosquito control officials and the British company Oxitec would release non-biting male mosquitoes that have been genetically modified to pass along a birth defect that kill their progeny before reaching maturity. The idea is that they will mate with wild females and their children will die before reproducing. After a few generations, Key West’s Aedes aegypti population would die off, reducing the dengue fever risk without using pesticides and at relatively a low cost, the proponents say. There is no vaccine for dengue fever.
“The science of it, I think, looks fine. It’s straight from setting up experiments and collecting data,” said Michael Doyle, pointing to research Oxitec has had published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He inherited the project when he took the lead at the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District in mid-2011.
The district’s website says the modified genes will disappear from the environment after the mosquitoes carrying it die, resulting in no permanent change to the wild mosquito population. The district also says that the mosquito species isn’t native to the Keys, nor is it an integral food source for other animals.
Dengue fever is a viral disease that inflicts severe flu-like symptoms — the joint pain is so severe its nickname is “breakbone fever.” It isn’t fatal but victims are then susceptible at subsequent exposures to dengue hemorrhagic fever, which can be.
“It’s very uncomfortable. You ache all over, you have a terrible fever,” said Joel Biddle, a Key West resident whose dengue fever symptoms lasted more than a week in 2009.
Biddle is among those concerned about the Key West trial. He worries the modified genetic material will somehow be passed to humans or the ecosystem, and he wants more research done. He and other Key West residents also chafe at the fact that the project was in the works long before it was made public late last year.
Only female mosquitoes bite, so the modified genetic material wouldn’t be passed on to humans, Mosquito control and Oxitec officials said. They also say they’re being transparent about their data and the trial.
Real estate agent Mila de Mier has collected more than 117,700 signatures on a petition she posted on Change.org against the trial. Most come from outside the Keys, which de Mier says shows that tourists don’t support the mosquito control district.
“We are dependent here on our tourists, and people from all over the country have been sending the message,” de Mier said.
A University of Florida professor who studies mosquito control said Oxitec’s technology works and evidence from the company’s experiments elsewhere show it can control mosquito populations, but it’s not clear whether its methods are as effective at controlling the risk of disease transmission. Phil Lounibos of the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory also said it would take repeated releases of modified mosquitoes for the program to work, and the public outcry against genetically modified organisms, even when it’s irrational, may be insurmountable.
“The public resistance and the need to reach some agreement between mosquito control and the public, I see that as a very significant issue, outside of the (operating) costs, since this is not just a one-time thing,” Lounibos said.
The Aedes aegypti has shown resistance to pesticides used to control other species, and is the most difficult for the district to manage. Common in the Southeast and the Caribbean, it lurks in standing water around homes and businesses and can breed in containers as small as bottle caps.
District inspectors go door-to-door to remove the standing water where they breed, a time-consuming task. The district spends roughly $1 million a year to suppress Aedes aegypti, 10 to 15 percent of the agency’s budget, Doyle said.
“Unfortunately, control of Aedes aegypti is a never-ending job,” said Larry Hriber, the mosquito control district’s research director.
In the trial, thousands of male mosquitoes bred by Oxitec would be released in a handful of Key West blocks where the Aedes aegypti is known to breed; the number of mosquitoes in those neighborhoods would be measured against the numbers from similar blocks where no modified mosquitoes were released.
The state’s agriculture department oversees the mosquito control district, and Doyle said he would not expect any challenge from the state if the FDA signed off on the trial. The mosquito control district wouldn’t need any local permit for the trial, either, but officials held a public meeting earlier this year and have posted information on the agency’s website.
That trial may be years away. FDA spokeswoman Morgan Liscinsky said no genetically modified species can be released without approval.
There hasn’t been a case of dengue fever in Key West since November 2010, but two other cases were reported elsewhere in South Florida this fall.
The mosquito trial proposed for Key West wouldn’t be the first release of genetically modified insects in the U.S.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service concluded that integrating genetically modified pink bollworms, bred by Oxitec to be sterile but more competitive in mating than regular bollworms, into the agency’s plant pest control program was “the environmentally preferable alternative” to combat the cotton pest. The program was discontinued, however, after officials found that the genetically modified insects were not as hardy as pink bollworms sterilized through irradiation, and that their use in organic cotton fields would cause farmers to lose their certification.
Oxitec said the USDA’s environmental assessment is one of several examples of proof that the trial’s risks and methods are being independently evaluated. The company has trials in Brazil, the Cayman Islands and Malaysia, and it says it’s gotten positive reviews from the latter two governments. It also cites its published research in peer-reviewed journals.
But Biddle, the onetime dengue patient, wants Oxitec to continue testing the modified mosquitoes outside the U.S.
“Why the rush here?” the Key West man said. “We already have test cases in the world where we can watch what is happening and make the best studies, because wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could find out how it can be fail-safe — which it is not right now. It’s an open Pandora’s box.” | <urn:uuid:87e33fbc-716c-40c4-8328-7edcf67a9a4a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://couriernews.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Gene-altered+mosquitoes+could+be+used+vs-+dengue%20&id=21054148 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953786 | 1,504 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Unlocking the Transformative Potential of Storytelling
How storytelling lead to personal and political empowerment in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
When people connect to political issues through personal stories, they see them in a different way. They don’t just see democracy in the abstract, they see ‘my democracy.’ The transformative potential of storytelling is written into the fabric of our lives.
“Daddy, do you think that they are better than us? My answer was, there is no ‘they’, just as there is no ‘us’, not in this sense.
It is not that the people of some country are somehow better than people of our country; it is that the system they live and work in, the state they have built over the years, decades, centuries even, is better than ours. It’s not about genetics, it’s about the work that’s put into the building of a system, by everybody, on every level” (Zoran Petrović).
Each community has its own traditions of storytelling, from elders sitting around the fire to the latest story hubs on social media. We hear stories every day, and we tell them every day: to friends, partners, children and grandchildren. Stories are everywhere. It’s clear that they are used to make meaning and communicate with one another, but how do stories contribute to personal and political transformation, to democracy and social justice?
Zoran’s story comes from Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I helped to lead a collaborative process with citizens’ groups and government employees throughout 2013 as a trainer, facilitator and researcher. My role was to support a process that used technology to help people tell their stories about their experience of local governance. We called it creative citizen engagement through storytelling.
Stories can be transforming for the storyteller as well as their audience. Part of the strength of this approach lies in its deeply feminist framing: that the ‘personal is also political’, and that stories can show us this connection.
“I became a citizen with all my individual rights, obligations and responsibilities, in the true sense of the word.”
Zoran’s story, for example, moves between his own ‘colonial mentality’ and the shortage of accountable leaders in the political system of his country:
“I remember the first time I heard a term ‘colonial mentality’. I was 22, working for the United Nations in my hometown of Doboj, and I overheard a discussion of two colleagues. One of them argued that people of their country were not able to govern themselves and that they would be better off if the colonizers came back. The other one disagreed.
Looking at my country today, 15 years later, I see a country that is beautiful. Still, sometimes I have a feeling that there is something wrong with us, people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that we are not able to find politicians that can lead us properly, that we cannot change anything: that we are a colony. The feeling eventually goes away and I see this desperation as a way of putting the blame for our situation on someone else.”
The process of telling a personal story is often hard. It has corners that you cannot see around, and the ending can surprise you. In a storytelling process like this, creativity, play, movement, and expression are used to disrupt established ways of thinking and talking – to shake people up and see what comes out when everything settles back down again.
People often end up by telling a story they did not expect, and in the process they create and share a spark in the darkness – a kernel of truth that exists inside their own experience.
The storyteller combines images, sounds and their own narration using digital technology. Crucially, it is the storyteller that decides how their story will be used and where it will be shown.
Telling a story in a safe space can be cathartic, revelatory, healing and empowering. It can also be unsettling, uncomfortable, and painful. A collective process of creating and sharing stories becomes a crucible that helps to resolve these conflicting emotions.
Darjian Bilić’s story is a good example of this process at work:
“I used to be different. I’d get up in the morning, without a goal, I’d have my coffee and head to work, silent, avoiding the news, hiding from information and the truth, and I justified it with the wish to remain at least a bit normal. As if I opened myself a big enough umbrella under which I could hide, hoping that it won’t be me who’s… stabbed, mugged, beaten up, fired…
I can’t say the change happened all of a sudden, overnight, but what I do know is that I am better today, I feel better. I stopped littering, I am not quiet anymore about injustice and lies; I speak out, loud and clear, about the problems around me; I stopped blaming others for the condition of my body and soul; I took responsibility for my actions; I became a citizen with all my individual rights, obligations and responsibilities, in the true sense of the word.
When somebody asks me where it all happened… I simply say that it all started in my head. I became the change I wanted to see.”
Individual stories like this one open up a personal connection between different people. The audience can respond with empathy because the storyteller shares their emotions. When these stories concern issues of injustice, exclusion, democracy and human rights, different insights are generated – much more powerfully than when the same questions are presented in the abstract. The reader can feel the different dimensions of the issue through the head and heart of another person, and put themselves in their position, at least for a moment. Creative forms of expression can illuminate deeper democratic truths.
This can be extremely useful in policy-making processes where decision-makers are far removed from the realities they seek to address, and where the perspectives of real people are often drowned out. Stories don’t offer answers. They invite the audience to make their own meaning, and this is part of their power.
Democracy and social justice are nothing if not collective endeavors, so how are connections made between personal stories and the shared narratives of social action?
A sense of recognition and empowerment is part of what makes someone a citizen who is able to act on their own behalf. Personal storytelling can help to build these capacities. But the transition to shared narratives requires something else: a way of connecting personal stories to collective issues which are political, in the sense that they address relations of power.
“Stories may not provide all the answers, but what is gained through their telling is important for social justice and democracy.”
The people I worked with in Bosnia and Herzegovina did this by undertaking a power analysis of their stories, and using the results to choose themes for collective narratives on the future of democracy in their country. I worked with the group to use digital video and digital editing to generate these stories. The participants made short films together (like this and this), which aimed to prompt dialogue and debate around democracy in a context where both are often absent. They used the confidence and insight they gained from their own stories as the basis for telling a shared narrative targeted at those in positions of power in local authorities.
When people connect to these political issues through personal stories, they see them in a different way. They don’t just see democracy in the abstract, they see ‘my democracy’ – ‘what it means for me, in my life, and in the lives of others who I know.’
Danjiel’s story makes this clear.
“I’m a lesbian and gay rights activist and part of the association ‘Queer Montenegro’. We have proposed the initiative to draft and adopt legal solutions that would lead to recognition of same-sex families in Montenegro, marking the beginning of the struggle for the right I don’t have, for the family I don’t have.
After I had come out to my friends as gay, I told my mother as well. That sparked the first serious issues in our relationship. Soon after the everyday insults she started attacking me physically a couple of times. Instead of receiving support from her I got complete rejection. After a couple of years of us living together, one day I decided to leave our home and start a new life.
Everyone needs a place where they belong and a place where they return to every day, and where someone who loves them waits for them at home. Now I have a new family which I chose, a family made of all of my friends and the man that I love who’s with me in every moment and ready to support me and to comfort me for the anxiety generated by my work. Thank you! That is the family I must fight for.”
Stories may not provide all the answers, but what is gained through their telling is important for social justice and democracy. They connect us to issues and to one another through the power of a narrative and the experience of empathy.
Using stories to promote empowerment and social justice isn’t easy, but the transformative potential of storytelling is written into the fabric of our lives.
Over the past 17 years, Joanna Wheeler has worked consistently with a commitment to increasing the voices of those less heard through citizen action. She is a researcher, facilitator and trainer in participatory processes, including creative storytelling approaches. She is currently based in Cape Town, South Africa, with the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. | <urn:uuid:49d6e5d8-8e07-4a78-abba-ab85afb4265f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sampsoniaway.org/sw-daily/2014/03/26/unlocking-the-transformative-potential-of-storytelling/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967968 | 2,014 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Though a transportation expert disagrees with a news story that
America's aging drivers present a transportation challenge, he does
think there are implications as to how people will get around.
According to the Associated Press, baby
boomers started driving at a young age, got married, built families
and acquired multiple automobiles. They also moved out of town and
into the suburbs, while more people were moving from rural areas
into towns and cities. Meanwhile, more women began working outside
of the home, thus putting more automobiles on the roadways and
So, with thousands of boomers turning 65 each day, how long
people in this population continue to work, where they choose to
live and what methods of transportation they use will have
important ramifications for all Americans, according to AP. For
instance, if boomers stop commuting in large numbers, will rush
hours ease? As age erodes their driving skills, will there be a
greater demand for more public transportation?
Marc Scribner, fellow in land-use and transportation studies for
Enterprise Institute (CEI), discusses some of the factors
involved in this issue.
"I wouldn't necessarily say it's a challenge, but there are
definitely implications as to how people, as they age, are going to
be moving around in the future, especially given that we have so
many new technologies coming online. And we're also seeing broader
demographic shifts on where people chose to live," he tells
Scribner goes on to describes those "implications" and
how they might affect the transportation system.
"For about the past century, we've being seeing a shift from
people living in rural areas to urbanized areas, where trip
distances on average are shorter than if you're living in a rural
location," he notes. "That to the transit advocates means
opportunity for rolling out more transit services."
Though he is not opposed to expanding transit, the CEI
fellow is opposed to what most people think of as transit in
big buses and trains.
"Especially when you're talking about the elderly, I think
paratransit -- using mini-buses and jitneys can be far more
effective, and you're also allowing them access to more
personalized mobility," he remarks. "But the big
game-changer I think we're going to see is the roll-out of
truly driverless car technology. You won't even need
to be a licensed driver to take a single-person trip in a
In an unrelated announcement, the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration said in October that the federal government
would be launching a new research effort to determine
the safety and reliability of technologies that enable cars to | <urn:uuid:b33d83e7-e9b6-439a-823c-fa0fd3a30b2a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.onenewsnow.com/culture/2012/11/17/aging-drivers-changing-transportation-system | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954408 | 571 | 2.609375 | 3 |
WEDNESDAY, Feb. 23 (HealthDay News) -- A major analysis of data on potential triggers for heart attacks finds that many of the substances and activities Americans indulge in every day -- coffee, alcohol, sex, even breathing -- can all help spur an attack.
Because so many people are exposed to dirty air, air pollution while stuck in traffic topped the list of potential heart attack triggers, with the researchers pegging 7.4 percent of heart attacks to roadway smog.
But coffee was also linked to 5 percent of attacks, booze to another 5 percent, and pot smoking to just under 1 percent, the European researchers found.
Among everyday activities, exerting yourself physically was linked to 6.2 percent of heart attacks, indulging in a heavy meal was estimated to trigger 2.7 percent, and sex was linked to 2.2 percent.
The researchers stressed that the risk for heart attack from any one of these factors to a particular person at any given time is extremely small. But spread out over the population, they can add up.
For example, air pollution is a minor trigger for heart attacks, but since so many people are exposed to smog, it triggers many more heart attacks than other more potent triggers, such as alcohol and cocaine.
"Small risks can be highly relevant if they are widely distributed in the population," explained lead researcher Tim S. Nawrot, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Hasselt Centre for Environmental Sciences at Hasselt University in Diepenbeek, Belgium.
Commenting on the study, Dr. Gregg Fonarow, spokesman for the American Heart Association and professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, added that "based on these findings, improvement in air quality and reduction in traffic may not just help the environment and increase quality of life, but also substantially decrease the incidence of [heart attack]."
The report is published in the Feb. 24 online edition of The Lancet.
In their research, Nawrot's team looked at 36 studies examining environmental triggers for heart attacks. In their review, known as a meta-analysis, the researchers looked for common threads that could establish how these factors might rank in risk.
In terms of risk, the team found that air pollution increased a person's risk of having a heart attack by just under 5 percent. In contrast, coffee increased the risk by 1.5 times, alcohol tripled the risk, and cocaine use increased the odds for heart attack 23-fold.
However, because only a small number of people in the entire population are exposed to cocaine, while hundreds of millions are exposed to air pollution daily, air pollution was estimated to cause more heart attacks across the population than cocaine.
Even emotional states can sometimes trigger a heart attack, the team found. For example, negative emotions in general were linked to almost 4 percent of heart attacks while anger, specifically, was linked to just over 3 percent. Even "good" emotional states were tied to 2.4 percent of heart attacks, the study authors noted.
Although exposure to secondhand smoke was not included in the analysis, the effects are probably of the same magnitude as air pollution, the authors added. Where bans on smoking in public places exist, the rate of heart attacks has dropped an average of 17 percent, they noted.
Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, the Mark and Catherine Winkler associate professor of environmental epigenetics at the Harvard School of Public Health and coauthor of an accompanying journal editorial, said that "this work stands as a warning against overlooking the effects of moderate risks when they affect the entire population."
At the same time, the researchers show that powerful triggers such as cocaine are very detrimental for those (relatively few) subjects who are exposed to them, he said.
"However, because they are infrequent, they cause a relatively small number of [heart attacks] in the population. At the opposite, ubiquitous triggers such as air pollution affect all the subjects in a city with high air pollution levels. Although the risk due to air pollution on each individual is moderate to small, the number of events triggered by air pollution in that city will be sizable," Baccarelli said.
For more information on heart attack, visit the American Heart Association.
SOURCES: Tim S. Nawrot, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology, Hasselt, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium; Andrea Baccarelli, M.D., Ph.D., Mark and Catherine Winkler associate professor of environmental epigenetics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston; Gregg Fonarow, M.D., spokesman, American Heart Association, and professor, cardiology, University of California, Los Angeles; Feb. 24, 2011, The Lancet, online
All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:b0037e13-464e-48c3-8e83-33ff79b1e470> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Coffee--Sex--Smog-Can-All-Trigger-Heart-Attack--Study-Finds-79562-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00156-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944052 | 987 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Sock monkeys were some of the first stuffed animals created at home. They took on their distinctive red, white and gray composition when parents took worn out red-heeled socks produced by Nelson Knitting Mills to make stuffed sock monkeys. In the 1950s, they even included instructions on how to make stuffed monkeys and elephants with every pair of their red-heeled work socks. Whether you make or buy your child's sock monkey, it is a fun toy. It can be used as a companion toy, or you can leave the bottom open and use it as a puppet. Learn some tips on how to name a sock puppet monkey.
1Make or find your sock monkey. Children may feel more attachment to their sock monkey if they have a hand in making it. Visit this website to learn how to craft a sock monkey, craftbits.com/project/sock-monkey.
2Dress your sock monkey. While you can have a sock monkey without clothing, the modern trend is to include a few clothing items to make the monkey unique. Here are some ideas for dressing and decorating your monkey:
- Dress the monkey in your child's favorite color. You can even make or find a miniature version of their favorite outfit.
- Dress your sock monkey in a cowboy or cowgirl outfit. Find a little hat and vest, or make some chaps and cowboy boots.
- Make a sock monkey pirate. With an eye patch, a striped shirt and a captain's hat, your sock puppet can take on a role as a buccaneer. This is a great option for a child that likes to play dress up.
- Buy or make several changes of clothes. The sock puppet monkey can function as both a doll and a stuffed animal. Allow your child to change the monkey's clothes with their moods and preferences.
3Determine if your child will be able to name their own toy. At approximately 12 to 18 months of development, children start recognizing and naming toys. Before this point, you will need to name the puppet.
4Choose an instructive name, if you plan to use the puppet for teaching purposes. If you want the monkey to be a friendly monkey, you can choose a name like "Happy" or "Joy." If you want it to get into trouble and learn a lesson, you can choose a name like "Cheeky" or "Mischief."
5Choose a name that is easy for the child to say, if you name the monkey for your child. Pick something that is 1 or 2 syllables. Consider the words that children often say before they are 2, such as "cat," "ball and "Hello," and style the name on an easy word to learn that they can identify solely with their toy.
6Consider giving the monkey a sentimental name. If you had a sock monkey named "Bob" when you were little, perhaps "Bobby" is a good name for your baby's new toy.
7Ask your child to name their own toy. If children are over 2 and talking a lot, they will probably love to name their own objects.
- If they are under preschool age, they may need help. For instance, you may want "monkey" to be part of the name, so that they are learning about their animals. Perhaps a rhyming name like "funky monkey" will be fun for your child to say.
- If they in preschool or older, they will have experiences with names from class, family and television. After a few days or a week of thinking, they will be able to choose their own fun name. As long as it is not inappropriate, the naming process will help the child to develop their imagination. | <urn:uuid:3c89c70e-33cf-43a4-b532-bd9e72a52d1e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wikihow.com/Name-a-Sock-Puppet-Monkey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962764 | 760 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Transaction log is used for data recovery purpose of the database. A proper understanding of transaction log is very important to managing the transaction log.
Point in focus
In this article I am trying focus on the points are mentioned bellow.
1. The Physical architecture
2. What's the Problem
3. Finding the numbers of VLF in a Database
4. How we fix it
The Physical architecture
The transaction log in a database maps over one or more physical files. Internally a transaction log consists of multiple blocks, called virtual log files. Every time a transaction log grows, it is done by adding additional virtual log files. The Database Engine maintains the size of the virtual log files dynamically while it is creating or extending log files. The Database Engine tries to maintain a small number of virtual files. The size of the virtual files after a log file has been extended is the sum of the size of the existing log and the size of the new file increment.
Note that, the database administrator cannot configure the size and the number of the virtual log file.
If we make a look of the transaction log file it is a wrap-around file. To understand it properly, in our example we are taking a database contains one physical log file which is divided into four virtual log file. When our database is created the logical log file begins at the start point of the physical log file. If needed the new log are added at the end of the logical log and expand towards the end of the physical log. Log truncation frees any virtual logs whose records all appear in front of the minimum recovery log sequence number (MinLSN). The MinLSN is the log sequence number of the oldest log record that is required for a successful database-wide rollback. When the end of the logical log reaches the end of the physical log file, the new log records wrap around to the start of the physical log file.
The log file content is logically categorized into three different categories:
- Used portion: This contains log records that are written to the transaction log but can be removed
- Active portion: This is the part of the transaction log which is defined by the oldest active transaction. This information cannot be removed while the transaction is still active
- Unused portion: This is empty space
What's the Problem
When the transaction log file grows very repeatedly, it generates the thousands of virtual log files. The multiple virtual file may be scattered over the disks resulting in a seek every time a write crosses from one file to the next.
At the time the log is growing, each Chunk that is added is divided into Virtual Log File. Taking an example, if the 10 MB of Log that is extended to the 50 MB, so the 40 MB chunk is added and it divided into 4 Virtual Log File.
Here demonstrating a simple table to understand it.
Chunks>=64MB AND <=1GB
Finding the numbers of VLF in a Database
Ideally any count of VLF less than 50 is considered as good number, anything beyond 50 might affect the performance.
The bellow scripts helps to find the number of VLF in our entire database.
CREATE TABLE #MyTracker
CREATE TABLE #MyResult
EXEC sp_MSforeachdb N'Use [?];
INSERT INTO #MyTracker
EXEC sp_executeSQL N''DBCC LogInfo(?)'';
INSERT INTO #MyResult
TRUNCATE TABLE #MyTracker;'
ORDER BY VLF_count DESC;
Result set are mentioned bellow.
Database_Name VLF_count Log_File_count
msdb 10 1
master 5 1
Test 4 1
model 3 1
tempdb 2 1
How we fix it
If you come across a database with more than 50-100 VLFs then we should look to take action in order to increase the transaction log throughput. Here I am taking the example of "AdventureWorks" Database.
Step -1 [ Backup the Transaction Log ]
BACKUP LOG [AdventureWorks]
TO DISK = N'E:\db.bak'
Step-2 [ Shrink the Transaction Log ]
DBCC SHRINKFILE ('AdventureWorks_Log', TRUNCATEONLY)
Step-3 [ Alter the Database to modify the size of transaction
log and configure Auto growth ]
ALTER DATABASE [AdventureWorks]
MODIFY FILE ( NAME = N'AdventureWorks_Log',
SIZE = 1024000KB,
FILEGROWTH = 1024000KB)
Hope you like it.
Posted by: MR. JOYDEEP DAS | <urn:uuid:44cf041e-2195-4d35-b188-cb1b0ad68104> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sqlknowledgebank.blogspot.com/2012/08/transaction-log-and-vlf.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00179-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.829742 | 973 | 3.21875 | 3 |
(Hmm: the following is now a bit of an epic...)
The design of the directory on unix filesystems (which, to be pedantic, are typically but not necessarily attached to unix OSs) represents a wonderful insight, which actually reduces the number of special cases required.
A 'directory' is really just a file in the filesystem. All the actual content of files in the filesystem is in inodes (from your question, I can see that you're already aware of some of this stuff). There's no structure to the inodes on the disk -- they're just a big bunch of numbered blobs of bytes, spread like peanut-butter over the disk. This is not useful, and indeed is repellent to anyone with a shred of tidy-mindedness.
The only special inode is inode number 2 (not 0 or 1, for reasons of Tradition); inode 2 is a directory file: the root directory. When the system mounts the filesystem, it 'knows' it has to readdir inode 2, to get itself started.
A directory file is just a file, with an internal structure which is intended to be read by opendir(3) and friends. You can see its internal structure documented in dir(5) (depending on your OS); if you look at that, you'll see that the directory file entry contains almost no information about the file -- that's all in the file inode. One of the few things that's special about this file is that the open(2) function will given an error if you try to open a directory file with a mode which permits writing. Various other commands (to pick just one example,
hexdump) will refuse to act in the normal way with directory files, just because that's probably not what you want to do (but that's their special case, not the filesystem's).
A hard link is nothing more nor less than an entry in a directory file's map. You can have two (or more) entries in such a map which both map to the same inode number: that inode therefore has two (or more) hard links. This also explains why every file has at least one 'hard link'. The inode has a reference count, which records how many times that inode is mentioned in a directory file somewhere in the filesystem (this is the number which you see when you do
OK: we're getting to the point now.
The directory file is a map of strings ('filenames') to numbers (inode numbers). Those inode numbers are the numbers of the inodes of the files which are 'in' that directory. The files which are 'in' that directory might include other directory files, so their inode numbers will be amongst those listed in the directory. Thus, if you have a file
/tmp/foo/bar, then the directory file
foo includes an entry for
bar, mapping that string to the inode for that file. There's also an entry in the directory file
/tmp, for the directory file
foo which is 'in' the directory
When you create a directory with mkdir(2), that function
- creates a directory file (with some inode number) with the correct internal structure,
- adds an entry to the parent directory, mapping the new directory's name to this new inode (that accounts for one of the links),
- adds an entry to the new directory, mapping the string '.' to the same inode (this accounts for the other link), and
- adds another entry to the new directory, mapping the string '..' to the inode of the directory file it modified in step (2) (this accounts for the larger number of hard links you'll see on on directory files which contain subdirectories).
The end result is that (almost) the only special cases are:
- The open(2) function tries to make it harder to shoot yourself in the foot, by preventing you opening directory files for writing.
- The mkdir(2) function makes things nice and easy by adding a couple of extra entries ('.' and '..') to the new directory file, purely to make it convenient to move around the filesystem. I suspect that the filesystem would work perfectly well without '.' and '..', but would be a pain to use.
- The directory file is one of the few types of files which are flagged as 'special' -- this is really what tells things like open(2) to behave slightly differently. See
st_mode in stat(2).
(copied over from the stackoverflow original question, 2011-10-20) | <urn:uuid:be5012d4-aec2-4287-92fc-fa79fd1b31a8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/22664/why-is-a-hard-link-in-unix/22669 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926974 | 967 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The road to biofuel-powered airplanes is apparently a very short runway. Virgin Atlantic launched the first biofuel-powered test flight in 2008. Now Lufthansa is set to become the first airline to use biofuels on commercial flights, as early as next year.
Lufthansa's recently unveiled burnFAIR biofuel project is backed by the German government, which is ponying up $3.3 million for the $8.7 million initiative. In April 2011, Lufthansa plans to start a six-month biofuel-powered trial using an Airbus A321 on commercial flights on the Hamburg-Frankfurt-Hamburg route. The airline hopes to gauge the effect of biofuels—in this case a 50-50 mix of biofuel and traditional kerosene—on engine maintenance and lifespan.
The airline's biosynthetic kerosene, which is created in a biomass-to-liquid (BTL) process, will be produced by Neste Oil. Lufthansa hasn't revealed the source of its biomass, but the airline claims: "We ensure it originates from a sustainable supply and production process. Our licensed suppliers must provide proof of the sustainability of their processes."
There's still plenty of work to be done before next April. Lufthansa explains:
Aside from the actual research project, the acquisition of biofuel in sufficient volume and the complex logistics it involves is proving a challenge in the run-up to the trial. The aircraft, for example, will be fuelled only in Hamburg. Furthermore, an array of internal processes must be modified, since Lufthansa does not normally deploy a plane exclusively on a single route, but always in a rotation chain on flights to different destinations.
It will be difficult, in other words, for Lufthansa to expand its trial to more flights. And it will be a while until this airline—or any other airline—uses a biofuel mix for all of its trips. But judging by the speed with which airlines have gone from internal biofuel testing to commercial flights, we will be taking off shortly. | <urn:uuid:0117c9fe-9192-4d68-be68-6965ad0ef375> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fastcompany.com/1706151/lufthansa-will-use-biofuels-commercial-flights-2011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94704 | 442 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Late Quaternary Tectonics and Basin Inversion: a case from the Lower Narmada valley, India
Shortcut URL: http://serc.carleton.edu/32002
UTM coordinates and datum: none
Climate Setting: Semi-Arid
Tectonic setting: Continental Rift
Type: Process, Stratigraphy, Chronology
The Narmada River, largest in peninsular India, flows along this seismotectonically active NSF. A significant feature of the Lower Narmada valley is the deposition of a huge thickness of Tertiary and Quaternary sediments in a fault controlled basin. To the south of the NSF, the Tertiary rocks and the basaltic flows of the Deccan Trap Formation occur on the surface (Fig.1A), while to the north they lie in the subsurface and are overlain by Quaternary sediments having a maximum thickness of 800 m (Fig. 1B). The NSF is a normal fault in the subsurface and becomes markedly reverse near the surface (Fig. 1B). Reactivation of the fault in Late Cretaceous led to the formation of a depositional basin in which marine sediments were deposited. The NSF remained tectonically active since then with continuous subsidence of the northern block which accommodated 6-7 km thick Cenozoic sediments. The total displacement along the NSF exceeds 1 km within the Cenozoic section. However, the movements along this fault have not been punctuated by phases of structural and tectonic inversion. Historical and instrumental records indicate that the compressive stresses still continue to accumulate along the NSF due to continued northward movement of the Indian Plate.
The geomorphic testimony to the active tectonics in the lower Narmada valley includes the young mountain-front scarps delimiting the basaltic uplands and marking the Narmada-Son Fault, the youthful channel morphology of the Narmada and other rivers as evidenced by consistent presence of incised vertical cliffs, entrenched meanders, extensive and deep ravines, uplifted Holocene terraces, anomalous slope variations of alluvial plain surface (Fig. 2), especially to the south of the Narmada River, and remarkable correlatibilty of the drainage with structural features in the low Tertiary uplands. The present landscape of the lower Narmada valley is characterized by four distinct geomorphic surfaces (Fig. 2) termed as the alluvial plain surface, the ravine/gullied surface, the early Holocene fan sufaces and the mid-late Holocene valley fill terrace surface. These distinct surfaces evolved during the late Pleistocene-Holocene primarily due to vertical tectonic movements along the NSF in a compressive environment. The almost flat but gently sloping alluvial plain occupies a major part of the area and is extremely dissected in the vicinity of the river valley and exhibits gullies as deep as 20-30 m. The sediment succession of these surfaces comprises marine basal clay overlain by sediments deposited in an alluvial fan and the alluvial plain environment (Fig. 3). The early Holocene fan surface is a gravelly surface comprising a series of alluvial fans deposited along the mountain front scarps of the NSF and is bounded by NW-SE trending fault passing through the river Narmada on its eastern side and by a NNW-SSE trending fault on its western side (Fig. 4). The sediments of this surface comprise alluvial fan gravels formed by the coalescing of small fans deposited along the NSF. The wide flat topped terrace surface is 5-10m high occupying a deeply incised fluvial valley, show no evidence of ravine erosion and abut against the abandoned cliffs. The sediments of the valley fill terrace surface comprise two lithofacies: tidal estuarine facies in the lower reaches and the fluvial sandy facies in the upper reaches. The tidal estuarine facies is dominated by tidal carbonaceous mud with intervening sands showing parallel lamination. These terraces consist mainly of horizontally stratified fluvial silty sands. Lateral accretion surfaces are completely absent indicating aggradation of the incised valley through vertical accretion when the lower reaches of the river were undergoing tidal estuarine sedimentation. However, the change from fluvial to tidal facies is not sharply defined and appears to be transitional. The tectonically induced deformation structures such as intraformational folds and flexures, slump structures, joints (some showing small scale offsets), large vertical fractures affecting entire cliff sections are present in the late Pleistocene surfaces (Fig. 5). The elevation of these surfaces along the river and the NNW-directed tilting of the sediments, observed in areas south of Narmada, provide additional evidence for differential uplift along the NSF. However, the mid-late Holocene sediments do not show any observable offset along the NSF suggesting that the offsetting of the alluvial plain surface took place at a prior date.
The morphostratigraphy of the basin indicates two major phases of tectonic activity along the NSF. The first phase occurred during the late Pleistocene, when slow synsedimentary subsidence of the basin took place along the NSF and allowed uninterrupted sedimentation except for brief periods of pedogenesis of basal clays and the overbank sediments. Synsedimentary subsidence of the basin in a compressive tectonic setting is evidenced by the impeded alluvial fan sedimentation, the thick overbank sediments and the associated sediment deformation. The second phase that occurred during the early Holocene is marked by basin inversion due to differential uplift along the NSF. The tectonic activity during the early Holocene formed extensive ravines and a deeply incised fluvial valley followed by another phase during the late Holocene to Recent uplifted the mid-late Holocene sediments forming terraces.
The early Holocene tectonic activity recorded in the lower Narmada valley, possibly, has wider ramifications when viewed in the larger perspective of the Indian plate. This suggests a renewed phase of extreme compression of the Indian plate, which led to tectonic inversion along the NSF in the lower Narmada valley. Significant increase in compressive stresses accumulating on an intracrustal fault like the NSF can transform a previously subsiding basin into an uplifting one. The NSF has been characterized by a compressive stress regime throughout the Quaternary and variations in the degree of compression relative to the rates of plate movement are responsible for the late Pleistocene subsidence and the Holocene tectonic inversion in the lower Narmada valley.
Agarwal, G.C., 1986. Structure and tectonics of exposed Tertiary rocks between Narmada and Kim rivers in South Gujarat. J.Geol. Soc. India 27, 531-542.
Bhandari, S., Rachna Raj, S., Maurya, D.M., Chamyal, L.S., 2001. Formation and erosion of Holocene alluvial fans along the Narmada–Son Fault around Rajpipla in the lower Narmada Basin, Western India. J. Geol. Soc. Ind. 58, 519-531.
Biswas, S.K., 1987. Regional tectonic framework, structure and evolution of western marginal basins of India. Tectonophysics 135, 307-327.
Chamyal, L.S., Maurya, D.M., Bhandari S., Rachna Raj. 2002. Late Quaternary geomorphic evolution of the lower Narmada valley, Western India: implications for neotectonic activity along the Narmada-Son Fault. Geomorphology 46, 177-202.
Jones, S.J., Frostick, L.E., Tomothy, R.A., 1999. Climatic and tectoniccontrols on fluvial incision and aggradation in the Spanish Pyrenees. J. Geol. Soc. (London) 56, 761-769.
Mather, A.E., 1993. Basin inversion: some consequences for drainage evolution and alluvial architecture. Sedimentology 40, 1069-1089.
Maurya, D.M., Chamyal, L.S., Merh, S.S., 1995. Tectonic evolution of the Central Gujarat plain, Western India. Curr. Sci. 69, 610-613.
Maurya, D.M., Raj, R., Chamyal, L.S., 2000. History of tectonic evolution of Gujarat alluvial plains, western India during Quaternary: a review. J. Geol. Soc. India 55, 343-366.
Roy, T.K., 1990. Structural styles in southern Cambay basin India and role of Narmada geofracture in the formation of giant hydrocarbon accumulation. Bull. Oil Nat. Gas Comm. 27, 15-38.
Subramanya, K.R., 1996. Active intraplate deformation in south India. Tectonophysics 262, 231-241.
USGS, 1999, Understanding Plate Motions in This Dynamic Earth. USGS Publ. | <urn:uuid:875f4816-fee5-4954-8e1e-b929570c7ea0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://serc.carleton.edu/vignettes/collection/31967.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399425.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00051-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886347 | 1,965 | 2.84375 | 3 |
How to Grow Sunflower Plants
Some folk see a Sunflower as a flower. Others, see it as a vegetable. It
is, of course, both a beautiful flower, and a great vegetable! Healthy,
nutritious and attractive, Sunflowers have it all. That is probably why
sunflowers have spread from their native home in North America, and are now
grown around the world!
As homeowners, we adorn our yards and gardens with our choice of dozens of
varieties, in a wide range of sizes and colors. We use it to attract
birds to our homes. Like the birds, we also enjoy eating the seeds. They
are high in protein. Sunflowers are popular as a cooking oil, too.
Sunflowers are great for kids. The seeds are big and easy to handle, and
they require minimal attention. Kids like to grow big things, so a giant
sunflower is just perfect for a beginner gardener. The end product is not
only eye appealing, but makes a great snack. We put Sunflowers, along with
pumpkins, as the top two plants for kids to grow.
Native Americans used Sunflowers for a variety of uses. They ground
the seeds for making breads and cakes. Like today, the seed was used as a
snack. It was used to create dyes for clothing, and as body paint. The plants
were used medicinally for ointments and snake bite remedies.
Did you know?: Giant Sunflower plants can grow well over 20 feet tall,
and their blooms over two feet in diameter! Fall festivals often include
competition for the tallest sunflower and the largest head.
Giant Sunflower competitions
are a regular at many fall festivals and giant pumpkin weigh-offs.
More on Giant
Flowers and Vegetables
The most popular giant sunflower plants include:
Mammoth, American Giant and Skyscraper.
Did You Know? Sunflowers are a symbol of hope.
Varieties of Sunflowers:
There are many types of sunflowers. And, gardeners like to grow a wide variety
Sunflowers are basically separated by size. The giant varieties grow over
ten feet. Regular sunflowers typically grow from six to ten feet. Miniatures
are gaining in popularity as borders. They are very popular in Asia, and
grow two to four feet.
Some varieties of sunflowers have one big head or flower. They are usually
the giant sunflower varieties. Other large headed varieties, have a few much
smaller heads that form on lower branches. Some varieties have multiple heads.
These are typically mid sized sunflowers, and are perfect for flower gardens
in attracting birds.
Sunflower seeds are usually a dark brown to black, or large, grey and white
striped. The latter is the most popular for eating due, to their large size.
Don't worry over selection. The birds will eat ample quantities of both,
and so will you. Whether you are feeding the wildlife or not, there are plenty
of wildlife that enjoy sunflower. They include all sorts of birds of course,
squirrels, and rodents.
Giant Sunflowers - Many people
find growing these to be addicting. A giant sunflower can be either a very
tall plant, or an enormous flower head.
Tithonia, or Mexican Sunflower- Grow
4-6 feet tall, with daisy-like flowers. Blooms summer to fall.
Did you know? If you have a pet hamster, mouse, gerbil or bird, add
a few sunflower seeds in their diet, for a nice treat.
Sunflower Varieties - See
the biggest and the best varieties around.
Sowing Sunflower Seeds:
"Autumn Sun" Sunflower
Sunflower seeds are best sown outdoors directly into the garden. After planting,
cover them with a screen, as the birds and animals love to dig the seeds
out. You can also start them in a seedbed and transfer them when they are
If you plant sunflowers indoors, use individual peat pots. Start two to three
weeks before the last frost date for your area. Plant one or two seeds per
pot, thinning to one before planting outdoors.
If you grow them to feed the birds, look for seedlings growing near the base
of last year's crop. They can be left to grow, or transplanted to another
Whether you plant directly outdoors or transplant them, make the final spacing
Giants: Space three feet apart in rows three to four feet apart.
Regular/Intermediate sizes: Space two feet apart in rows three feet apart.
Miniatures: Space one foot apart in rows three feet apart.
For individual planting, put the seedling or seeds in just about any sunny
location. Plant either individual, in groups, or in patterns. Make sure they
are visible from your deck, porch and windows.
Did you know? Sunflowers always point their blooms or face to the
rising sun in the East. Keep this in mind as you determine where to plant
Tip: Miniatures make great borders or edging plants in flower gardens.
Days to Maturity:
70 to 90 days or more, depending upon the variety. Read the package for the
specific time for the variety you acquire.
How to Grow Sunflowers:
Sunflower plants grow well in average to rich soils. They need to grow their
roots deep and wide, to enable them to withstand strong winds. If you have
a choice, sandy soils are not recommended, as they are easily uprooted in
loose soil. Rich soil is important, when growing giant varieties.
Contrary to it's name, we found they will tolerate some shade as we put them
against an east wall of our house every year. However, they will grow their
best in full sun.
Deep roots help sunflowers to withstand most droughts. They will benefit
from a dose of fertilizer when you apply it to the rest of your garden. Apply
extra phosphorus and potassium when the flower bud begins to develop, to
promote bigger blooms.
Tip: If you are crowded for space, plant one or two sunflowers amidst
your vine crops. One or two will not seriously shade the vines. Make sure
not to plant them near their tap roots for the vines.
If you are growing sunflowers in a windy area and have light, loose soil,
you may want to stake taller varieties, to keep them from falling over.
Temperatures - Ideal germination temperature by vegetable
pH - by vegetable
Harvest sunflower seeds after the flower begins to die back, and most if
not all, of the petals have fallen off. Pull out a seed and open it to see
if it is full. Cut off the head, leaving a few inches of stalk. Hang the
stalks to dry in a well ventilated area. Do not stack them in a box, as mold
can develop during the drying process. As soon as the flowers have dried,
extract the seeds by rubbing two flower heads together. They should come
off of the flower head fairly easily.
Sunflowers are also used as dried flowers in vases and for craft projects.
They can be cut just before the flowers die off and dried over a few weeks.
Miniature sunflowers make lovely fresh bouquets also. For craft projects,
it is important to leave a sufficient amount of stalk.
We enjoy sharing this crop with wildlife. We also enjoy eating the seeds,
too. Birds and squirrels will begin their assault before the seeds are completely
ripe. You can protect against this annual invasion by covering the entire
flower with an old nylon stocking, a cheese cloth bag, or any other covering
that allows light and especially air to flow through. Do not use plastic
bags, as moisture buildup will rot the flower and heat buildup will scald
it. Some people will put a bag below the flower to catch any seeds that fall.
Insects and Pests:
The birds and squirrels are the primary invaders for your Sunflower crop.
Fortunately, most insects are not a problem. Occasionally, ants enjoy the
nectar from the flower. They are no real threat to the seeds.
Diseases of Sunflowers:
Sunflowers seldom have disease problems. Score another point for an easy
to grow and enjoyable plant!
Plant Problems - Diagnosis,
causes and cures for many common plant problems.
Sunflower plants are annuals. They can withstand a mild frost. However, cover
your seedlings, if a hard spring freeze is anticipated.
For More Information:
Roasted Sunflower Seeds- from
Seeds are the rage. Try this recipe from Pumpkin Nook.
Buy Sunflower Seeds for Planting | <urn:uuid:c7764f09-78a0-4588-bf06-eb426408d1ce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gardenersnet.com/vegetable/sunflowr.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398075.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9402 | 1,880 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Here's a tip that will help anyone writing about characters between the ages of four and fourteen.
A couple of years ago, I was struggling with how one of my characters should behave. I googled "eight year old development" and found a website that sells a set of pamphlets about children's behavior by age. Although it's intended for teachers, I ordered a sample set and found it really useful. For each age level, they give a quick overview, then elaborate by social, physical and cognitive characteristics. For example, my eight-year old probably loves group activities and cooperative work (social), may experience a growth spurt (physical) and is industrious, impatient and full of ideas (cognitive). This really helped me write about Clara in The Next Step (growth spurt and all!).
Of course, not every eight-year-old behaves in the same way, but knowing what the average child is doing can also help you understand when a child is an exception to the norm, and how that might affect him or her.
You can order these Child Development pamphlets, or the book that they're taken from (Yardsticks: Children in the Classroom), at www.responsiveclassroom.org/bookstore. A sample set of 9 pamphlets, from kindergarten to grade eight, is only $12. Hope your other readers find them as useful as I did!
What a great tip! It sounds like these pamphlets are a great resource, Beth, particularly if you write across several age categories. Thanks so much for letting us know about them! | <urn:uuid:feb0c4b6-483e-4eee-bf84-482a1738a57b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.literaryrambles.com/2010/10/tip-tuesday-57.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965738 | 323 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Student: Can you explain what
standard deviation means? I'm doing a project in my biology class and we have to use it, and I don't understand
Mentor: Sure. Let me think of an example that you would be familiar with...hey, your brother is a
sharpshooter for the Marines, isn't he?
Mentor: Okay, what do you think a really good sharpshooter's target would look like? Would they get
all the bullets to go into exactly the same hole?
Student: Well, no sharpshooter is perfect--you can't hold a rifle perfectly still. It's going to move
at least slightly. So their shots would be close together, but not in the same spot.
Mentor: Exactly. There is going to be a little bit of what we call "random variation". One time it
might be a little up and to the left, the next time just slightly right, and so on. You cannot
predict the next variation, but if you look at all of the variations together you can get an
idea of how skilled the shooter is with a rifle by seeing if the variation is large or small.
Student: Ok, I see.
Mentor: Good. Now, we can link this back to your original question. Standard deviation is the name
for one way of looking at how tightly (or loosely) grouped a set of data is. It lets you
describe the variation in a whole set of data with a single number. This can be useful in
finding out how similar all the parts of a group are. For instance, if you were producing
items in a factory you could tell whether or not the people, or machines, producing your
product are performing well, i.e. creating products with little variation. If the standard
deviation began to increase, it may indicate that a machine part is wearing out.
Student: Oh, that sounds useful. Now, about my biology project?
Mentor: Yes, of course. Tell me what this project was about.
Student: Well, I planted a bunch of beans, and grew one set under incandescent light and one set under
fluorescent light. And after three weeks I measured the lengths of all the stalks, and I'm
supposed to compute the mean length and the standard deviation of each group. I know how to
get the mean, just add all the lengths and then divide by the number of stalks, but I didn't
understand the formula for getting the standard deviation.
Mentor: It does look scary, but really it is just several easy steps squished into one expression.
So, as with most complex mathematical expressions, the best way to tackle this one is from the
inside out. Let's start with that funky zigzag-looking thing.
Student: My teacher told us that is was a Greek letter,
sigma, I think.
Mentor: Yes, it is. It is the Greek letter for "
S", and we use it to mean "sum", or "add up". It is telling you to add up each of the d
Student: What are the d squareds?
Mentor: For each number in your data set, d is the difference between that number and the mean. And d
squared is just d times itself. So you simply take each number, subtract it from the mean, and
square your result, then add them all up.
Students: So that takes care of the sigma. Is the next step to divide by n-1?
Mentor: Exactly, divide the sum of the d squareds by n-1, where n is the number of data points. Now,
once you have completed that, what does the big bracket tell you to do?
Student: Take the square root?
Mentor: Right! That's all there is to it. So what's your result? | <urn:uuid:1b4a5dff-3677-476d-874b-8bca605c320c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/discussions/StandardDeviation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954366 | 836 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Light Spectrum (Europe to the Stars Clip)
This 3D animation depicts how the light of a distant star is studied by astronomers. The spectrum of the light provides vital information about the composition and history of stars.
This video is part of the movie "Europe to the Stars — ESO's first 50 years of Exploring the Southern Sky".
Read more about the movie here: Europe to the StarsCredit:
About the Video
|Release date:||19 July 2012, 13:14|
About the Object | <urn:uuid:b84fc9ab-7985-46f5-b74e-19a568c0b694> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://[email protected]/public/videos/eso50spectrum/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.802963 | 106 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Nearly a decade after the coffee crisis of 2000/2001 and the subsequent introduction of several industry efforts to address its causes, consequences, and related issues, poverty and environmental degradation continue to be widespread among the 20 million smallholders for whom coffee farming is an important livelihood strategy. The challenges are immense—for example, due in part to poverty and environmental degradation, it is uncertain whether global production will keep pace with rising consumption—yet resources for addressing these challenges are relatively scarce.
For this reason, the entire coffee sector has an interest in ensuring that projects, programs, policies, and sustainability initiatives are designed to maximize impact and address the core development problems facing the sector—and that scarce resources are used in the most effective and efficient way possible.
The coffee industry recognizes that these problems exist and thus currently supports several sustainability initiatives, each employing a different approach. But how is one to determine which initiative—if any—to support? How can individual actors and the industry as a whole ensure that resources are used effectively and that the initiatives being supported are truly addressing the problems we all observe?
Underdevelopment is a complex problem that requires complex solutions. The industry can thus begin to answer these questions by increasing the level of complexity with which it engages in development, employing a high degree of introspection, analysis and critical thinking to sustainability initiatives, and involving multiple stakeholders—especially the farming households that are often the focus of development interventions—in the design and implementation of its programs. We can begin to demonstrate such introspective and critical analysis by applying it to a key stage from which all sustainability and development programs should start: problem diagnosis.
First, some definitions. Let’s define development very simply and generally as the process of improving wellbeing. This can have economic, social, environmental, psychological, and other dimensions, and can be applied to individuals, households, communities, countries, or other entities.
The fact that development is a process is also important to note. This process can either occur naturally or as a result of public policies or other external factors, but often requires those experiencing development to play a key role. Development, therefore, is empowerment: it is about local people taking control of their own lives, expressing their own demands and finding their own solutions to their problems. The goal of development interventions is thus to create conditions so that development can occur, and/or to catalyze, accelerate, or improve the process.
Problem diagnosis: why does my head hurt?
There are severe and complex problems in coffee growing communities, evident in deforested hillsides, substandard housing, low life expectancy, and low educational outcomes. In response, members of the coffee industry have developed and institutionalized initiatives to address these problems. But to what extent do these initiatives actually work towards solving these problems—and to what extent are existing initiatives even capable of solving them? Do the most common initiatives address the root causes of communities’ and individuals’ problems, or only some subsidiary cause—or worse yet, their symptoms? Have we analyzed the real needs of each community in a participatory manner, or are we just doing what seemed to work last time, what we do everywhere else, or worse, just doing what we’re good at?
Do we take Aspirin, or stop hitting our head against the wall?
Let us think of problems as having three principle components: the problem itself, the causes of that problem, and the effects or outcomes of that problem. If we want to truly solve a problem, it’s not too contentious to argue that we should attempt to address its root causes. If our problem is a headache, one solution is to take some Aspirin. But if the cause of the headache is that we’ve been hitting our head against the wall for the past hour, taking Aspirin might not be the most practical and effective solution.
The same goes for development approaches. If the problem is deforestation, and one of the primary causes is in-migration of poor populations from the highlands who clear land to plant subsistence food crops, will a reforestation initiative solve the problem? If education levels are low and one of the major causes is that households are not sending their children to school because they cannot afford school fees, will building a school solve the problem? If farmer incomes are low, and one of the principal causes is that yields are a fraction of what they could and should be, will certifying farmers Fair Trade / Utz / Rainforest Alliance / 4C solve the problem?
To better direct our efforts and resources towards really solving the industry’s most pressing development problems—and yes, determining solutions to real development problems is a lot more difficult than not hitting one’s head on things—the industry can start by more deeply analyzing the problems that we all observe. The process of determining the causes of a problem is not terribly complicated; in fact it is something we all know how to do quite well.
All it takes is asking why—over and over and over. The children of coffee farmers in Guatemala are not going to school. Why? Because their parents cannot afford school fees. Why? Because coffee farming is their most important livelihood activity, and it doesn’t provide them enough income. Why? And so on.
The complicated part comes in determining how all causes are related and subsequently identifying the root causes of a problem—and then figuring out how to adequately address those root causes in a way that has a good chance of solving the problem. For example, Guatemalan households cannot afford school fees because coffee farming does not provide them adequate income. Why? Because they have very small landholdings so can’t produce much, but also because their yields are very low and they lose a lot of production to broca. Oh and also, they are dependent on intermediaries, which itself is because they aren’t part of a functioning cooperative but also because intermediaries provide credit, and smallholder farmers have no other way to obtain small-scale loans. Oh and by the way, each household has an average of five children between whom it divides its land every generation, so landholdings are getting progressively smaller. And farmers are also being affected by climate change and major increases in the cost of fertilizers, labor, and food.
Thus it is evident that each of the causes of a problem—small landholdings, low yields, low organizational membership, limited credit access—has causes of its own. Figuring out the underlying root causes of a problem—and thus how to truly solve the problem—can take a long time. Adding further complexity is that the problems facing coffee farmers vary across space, time, and population group. In addition, theories about root causes and cause-effect relationships differ from person to person—and especially between those designing programs and those the programs are intended to benefit.
A picture is worth a thousand words
To help manage this complexity, those in the development field have designed several tools. The relevant tool for problem diagnosis is called a problem tree. This is also something that doesn’t require a PhD—one just draws a picture of a tree and considers the trunk the problem, the branches and leaves the effects or outcomes of that problem, and the roots the causes. By asking a series of why questions about each cause, one can begin to determine the nature of cause-effect relationships and eventually identify the root causes of a problem. And armed with adequate funding and qualified personnel, one can design an initiative to address those root causes.
To illustrate, let’s review one component of a problem that HRNS encountered in an ongoing project that currently benefits 2,000 small-scale farmers in Southern Tanzania, and its representation in a problem tree format.
Farmer income was low for several reasons, one of which was extremely low coffee yields. Why were yields so low? Because farmers were unaware of simple and appropriate husbandry practices that could drastically improve yields, and because trees were up to 70 years old and unproductive. Why were farmers unaware of improved production practices? Because the governmental agricultural extension service was ineffective and unable to reach thousands of independent farmers spread throughout the countryside. And why were trees old and unproductive? In part because high quality seedlings that were more productive and resistant to Coffee Berry Disease were unavailable in the project regions.
Determining limited availability of seedlings and inadequate agricultural extension to be key root causes of low productivity, HRNS responded by supporting the establishment of a network of private nurseries and the institution of a system of farmer-led agricultural extension within and among the 40 farmer field schools and four farmer organizations that it created in the project. Farmers thus received training from their peers through an inexpensive and efficient participatory extension system, and had access to high quality tree stock to rejuvenate their coffee plantations. As a consequence yields more than doubled on average—with some farmers increasing their productivity fourfold—and household income grew accordingly. Additional interventions not described here in commercialization, post-harvest treatment, and credit access allowed household income to further increase.
Let’s get complex about development
Members of the coffee industry operate with a high degree of complexity in nearly everything they do. Cuppers have determined that there are sensory properties of certain coffees that you can classify as coriander seed. Buyers and roasters have developed ways to optimize quality by manipulating varietals, post-harvest processing, blending, roast profile, grind, and brewing. Traders engage in covered call writing to hedge their inventories, and importers support triangular lending to reduce the risk of providing credit to smallholder farmer organizations. The industry is complex, yet is often painfully simplistic when it comes to development, pursuing a certified coffee = good, non-certified coffee = bad approach, or an increase coffee quality, and you increase quality of life approach, or an education is important, so let’s provide scholarships approach.
Perhaps it’s time the industry get complex about development too, applying its in-depth analysis of the determinants of quality, the optimal blend, and the optimal roast profile to combating poverty and environmental degradation in coffee growing communities. Let’s debate the optimal approach to making coffee farming more remunerative to farming families, ending food insecurity in coffee growing communities, and using development resources wisely. Let’s develop the development approach—note the singular—for coffee.
How shall we start the debate?
Based on 20 years of introspection, critical thinking, and analysis, and a willingness to question and alter our strategies, the Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung has developed a development approach that we hope will contribute to this discussion. It is our belief that development interventions in the coffee sector should simultaneously address multiple constraints to development; promote well-functioning farmer organizations as the key vehicle to empower farmers; improve knowledge, capacity, and operations at both the farm/household level and the farmer organization level; engage multiple stakeholders in all stages of projects and programs; use interventions to influence the public policies that affect the coffee sector; and base decisions on evidence, not on opinion.
A project that HRNS currently implements with 35,000 smallholder farmers in Uganda illustrates this approach.
A problem diagnosis like the one described above revealed that there were multiple constraints to the coffee livelihood, related to production, post-harvest processing, marketing, commercialization, and credit access. Productivity was low, trees were old, and disease pressure was high; farmers were drying coffee on the ground and quality was low; farmers were in a weak market position, selling unhulled cherries at the farm gate, and had no access to formal sources of credit. HRNS determined that only by addressing these multiple constraints simultaneously could it hope to make coffee farming more remunerative and reduce the incidence of poverty in project communities—and that addressing each constraint individually without addressing the others would not allow it to maximize the impact of its intervention.
We identified one of the root causes of the multiple problems facing these farmers to be the lack of a well-functioning farmer organizations that would allow farmers to more efficiently receive and disseminate production and post-harvest training, lower costs by creating economies of scale, improve market power and thus market access, and allow individual farmers to access credit. The intervention thus created nearly 600 farmer field schools and around 40 farmer organizations. It supported the establishment of internal control systems to ensure these organizations remained responsive to the needs of their members.
Knowledge and capacity was low at multiple levels in the project regions. Farmers needed support in production, post-harvest treatment, commercialization, and democratic participation. Farmer organizations needed support in management, administration, commercialization, and democratic governance. Only by focusing support at both the farm and organization levels could HRNS hope to help position farmers to confront the multiple challenges they faced.
Multiple stakeholders were involved in all stages of project design and implementation. Farmers themselves, representatives from local, regional, and national governments, foreign and domestic non-governmental organizations, locally active international institutions, and important donors contributed to the problem analysis and to steering the project intervention.
The undertaking serves as a case study to inform important public policy discussions at the national level. Representatives of the project now play a role in further developing Uganda’s national coffee policy, and the project is being used as a model for similar programs to benefit smallholder farmers in other countries and contexts.
Thorough monitoring and evaluation generated data on baseline conditions, measured incremental changes in these conditions throughout the project, and will provide HRNS and participating stakeholders with an estimate of the project’s impact once it concludes. This evidence provides a sound confirmation of the project’s original logic, and will allow the experiences generated in the project to inform other interventions and stakeholders in other contexts.
A complex intervention? Yes. Difficult to explain to the average consumer at the point of sale? Absolutely. But to devote scarce resources to initiatives that would not address the root causes of the problems facing coffee farmers and inform subsequent interventions in other contexts may leave the coffee sector facing even more dire challenges in the future.
Andrew Sargent began his coffee career as a volunteer with a cooperative union in Honduras, and subsequently worked for four years as a coffee trader in the west coast office of InterAmerican Coffee. Andrew began working in the North American office of the Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung in 2010 after a series of consulting assignments with E.D.E. Consulting, CARE International, and Oxfam America. He holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
Michael Opitz joined Neumann Kaffee Gruppe in 1992, after six years with the German Agency for Development Cooperation GTZ. For many years he was General Manager of E.D.E. Consulting, before taking over the management of Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung as Chairman of the Management Board in 2005. Michael holds an MSc in agricultural economics from Wye College, London University, UK and a degree in agriculture from the University of Göttingen, Germany.
After having managed the operations in the regional offices in Asia and Central America for almost ten years, Jan von Enden joined the Management Team of Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung in Hamburg, Germany, in 2010. Jan’s main activity consists of further developing the Monitoring & Evaluation strategies and concepts of the organization and harmonizing instruments applied in project implementation. Jan holds an MSc in Agriculture, Environment and Development from the School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK. East Anglia, UK. | <urn:uuid:4f7cf829-2bbd-4676-918d-b24adb6ab440> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scaa.org/chronicle/2011/11/04/developing-a-development-approach-for-coffee/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00106-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952506 | 3,191 | 2.84375 | 3 |
(Marmota monax Erxleben)
From: Saunders, D. A. 1988. Adirondack Mammals. State University
of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Description: The woodchuck or groundhog is the largest member of the squirrel family in the Adirondacks and has grizzled, coarse fur. Above, the fur is brown to blackish brown, tipped with buffy yellow, white or cinnamon brown, except for the top of the head and most of the tail. The underparts are yellowish orange to chestnut. The cheeks and chin are buffy white to pale brown. Black (melanistic), partially black, or more commonly, blackish brown color phases, the guard hairs glossy (and lacking light) colored tips, are common. The body is compact, the legs short and thick, the head broad, short, and flat. The bushy tail is short, about 10- 15 cm (4-6 in) in length. The short, rounded ears and eyes are located at the top of the head, enabling a woodchuck to survey the area around the burrow without exposing most of the head. Large woodchucks are approximately 60 cm (24 in) in length, and weigh 13-33 kg (6-12 lb), the heavier weight typical of individuals entering hibernation.Range and Habitat: The range is most of Canada, east-central Alaska, and much of the eastern half of the U.S. except for parts of the South and Southeast. The woodchuck is most abundant in the pastures, fields, and meadows of the Adirondack Park’s periphery, but it occurs throughout the entire region within the clearings, meadows, and edges of roadways and deciduous and mixed forests to elevations of at least 713 m (2340 ft). Roadsides and villages are places where the woodchuck is most common in the central Adirondacks.
Woodchucks live in burrows which they dig in dry, well-drained soils. Burrows may consist of simple tunnels about 15 cm (6 in) in diameter, or a series of interconnecting tunnels. The main entrance, marked by a fan-shaped mound of dirt and usually located at the edge of a large boulder or log, is about twice the diameter of a tunnels. One or more plunge holes, dug from within a tunnel and therefore lacking dirt mounds, serve as inconspicuous auxiliary entrances. Burrow systems, especially those used by succeeding generations of woodchucks, may extend 15-30 m (50-100 ft) in length, but rarely exceed 2 m (6 ft) in depth. The nest is a ball-shaped structure of plant fibers which a wood chuck builds in an underground chamber approximately 38 cm (15 in) in diameter. Woodchucks may have several burrows, generally following pathways 10-15 cm (4-6 in ) wide among them, and they may leave summer burrows in open areas to spend the winter in a burrow located in a nearby wooded area.
Food and Feeding Behavior: Herbaceous plants proved the bulk of the diet of this herbivore which may consume up to 681 g (1.5 lb) of vegetation per day. Clovers, grasses, dandelions, goldenrods, asters, and where available, alfalfa; garden crops such as corn, lettuce, peas, and beans are some of the plants the wood chuck prefers. The buds and even the barks of some deciduous shrubs and trees are spring foods, while fruits, especially raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, and apples form a part of the summer diet. Animal foods, chiefly insects, make up less than one percent of the diet. Woodchucks forage early in the morning and late in the afternoon during the summer, but mid-day in spring and autumn. Fat reserves rather than food caches supply the energy needed to sustain a woodchuck through the winter.
Activity and Movement: Contrary to the expectations of Groundhog Day, February 2, few woodchucks emerge to search for their shadows. They are more likely to leave their burrows in March, mid to late March at higher elevations. Woodchucks are mainly diurnal, i.e., active during the hours of daylight, although older males which are the first to emerge in the spring, may leave their burrows at night.
The semi-fossorial woodchuck spends most of its life in underground burrows which it excavates with stout claws, powerful legs, and sturdy incisors, the latter used to cut through roots and pry loose small stones. The extensive burrowing of this species is important in mixing the soils and in eventually providing shelters for a long list of other wildlife.
Woodchucks are conspicuous along many Adirondack roads because of the upright, alert posture they adopt periodically while active above ground, and their habit of sunbathing on logs and rocks in the spring. Woodchucks usually move by ambling along on the soles of their feet, but may run by loping or galloping at speeds of 16 km per hour (10 mph). They swim and climb well, sometimes ascending trees to heights of 15 m (50 ft), but spend most of their time on or under the ground.
Woodchucks begin hibernating in September and early October, and spend the winter curled up in the nest in an earthen chamber plugged with soil. Physiological processes slow during hibernation, e.g., the heart rate declines to 4 or 5 beats per minute from the normal rate of 80-100 beats per minute. Woodchucks lose 30-40 percent of their body weight while hibernating because of fat depletion, and emerge gaunt and thin in the spring.
Reproduction: Woodchucks breed soon after emerging in the spring and females bear one litter between late April and early June. The gestation period is 30-33 days. Females give birth to 2-9 young (average 4-5) in an underground nest. The newborn are blind, hairless, pink, each weighing 28-43 g (1.0-1.5 oz). Their eyes open at day 28, and at this age they begin to spend time outside the burrow, the females carries succulent vegetation into the burrow for her young to eat. In July and early August, the young woodchucks disperse, some digging temporary dens near the natal burrow, later establishing their home ranges in unoccupied habitat. A few may breed as yearlings, but most mature sexually as two year olds. Potential longevity is at least 6 years.
Predators: The woodchuck has many predators such as large raptors, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, raccoons, minks, black bears, and weasels.
- Social system - Woodchucks are solitary except for the family group (female and young). Males mate with one or more females, as, or soon after the females emerge from hibernation; females mate with only one male. The availability of den and feeding sites, and their respective locations influence home range size, density, and social organization. Adults defend a small territory around the burrow. Where populations are dense and portions of home ranges overlap, especially feeding sites, hierarchies may result from aggressive encounters. Thereafter, subordinates avoid dominants, and fighting is rare. Home ranges vary from 37-805 m (120-2640 ft) in diameter, the smaller ranges typical with habitat quality as well, and in optimum habitat, may reach 12.5 woodchucks per ha (5 per acre).
- Communication - Woodchucks have well-developed anal glands. Adults rub their muzzels on objects near the burrow; and adults and young press their muzzles together in “greeting” rituals. Glands located inside the corners of the mouth produce a substance with a pungent odor. Chemical cues are likely from both sets of glands. Vocalizations include “purrs”, “grunts”, “chucks”, and a shrill “whistle” given in alarm contexts (thus the colloquial names siffleur, French for whistler, and whistle-pig). Adults tooth chatter or grate their teeth in aggressive situations. Various postures serve as visual signals.
Barash, D.P. 1974. Mother-infant relations in captive woodchucks (Marmota monax). Animal Behavior, 22:446 448.
Hamilton, W.J., Jr. 1934. The life history of the rufescent woodchuck, Marmota monax rufescens Howell. Annals of the Carnegie Museum, 23:85 175.
McCarty, S.L. and D.J. Decker. 1983. Woodchuck: New York’s illustrious digger. The New York State Conservationist, 37:6 11.
Meier, H.T. 1982. Social organization and movement behavior of woodchucks (Marmota monax) in woodland and field habitats in southeast Ohio. Unpubl. M.S. Thesis, Ohio Univ. Athens. 37pp.
Merriam, H.G. 1971. Woodchuck burrow distribution and related movement patterns. Journal of Mammalogy, 52:732 746.
Walro, J.M., P.T. Meier and G.E. Svendsen. 1983. Anatomy and histology of the scent glands associated with the oral angle in woodchucks. Journal of Mammalogy, 64:701 703. | <urn:uuid:2aab636e-ab2e-43d9-a129-ebe52a919e20> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.esf.edu/aec/adks/mammals/woodchuck.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930554 | 2,018 | 3.859375 | 4 |
This course is designed to acquaint students with the field of biotechnology. Topics will include a history of the biopharmaceutical industry, the drug discovery and development processes, medical biotechnology, forensics and bioremediation. Students will learn basic techniques and instrumentation used in biotechnology labs and the fundamentals of recombinant DNA technology. Issues that impact both the industry and the general population such as the regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, stem cell research, GMO's and bioethics will be examined in this course.
Last Updated: 03/01/2016 | <urn:uuid:1babac31-7969-4b86-976d-0fa70e28ae2b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mc3.edu/course-popup?id=7309&tmpl=component | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89885 | 113 | 2.625 | 3 |
>OTHER escapes in the zoo's 22-year history:
- In 1973, a panther in transit at the zoo escaped by squeezing through the bars of its cage. It was spotted 13 months later in a drain at the Singapore Turf Club and killed.
- In 1974, a hippopotamus escaped by knocking down a wooden stockade and disappeared into the Seletar Reservoir. It was recaptured 52 days later.
- In 1974, an eland (of the antelope family) escaped into the catchment area. It returned to the enclosure on its own two weeks later.
- In 1982, Ah Meng the orang-utan climbed a tree at MacRitchie Reservoir and stayed up there for three days. Then she fell from the tree and broke her arm. She had been taken there for a film shoot. The director wanted her halfway up a tree. She had other ideas.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on Sep 5, 1996. | <urn:uuid:982a494a-b5a1-419d-a5d9-c882fe92d598> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Story/A1Story20080214-49656.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00040-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969419 | 203 | 2.75 | 3 |
The Bandit Queen LbNA # 66506
|Owner||Lone Star Quilter|
|Placed Date||Feb 16 2014|
|Location||Huntsville State Park, Huntsville, TX|
|Found By||Stepping By Faith|
|Last Found||Jun 20 2014|
|Last Edited||Dec 27 2015|
In the late 1800s, Belle Starr was known as a notorious female outlaw in America’s “Old West.” Her close friends included the legendary American outlaws Cole Younger and Frank and Jesse James. Her reputation as an outlaw, the novelty of being a woman outlaw, and her violent, mysterious death led to her being called “The Bandit Queen.” Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley near Carthage, Missouri, on February 5, 1848. Her father was John R. Shirley, a farmer who later owned a local inn. Her mother, twenty years younger than her husband, was Elizabeth (Eliza) Hatfield Shirley, who was related to the Hatfield family of the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud. As a child, Shirley attended Carthage Female Academy. She enjoyed the outdoors and horseback riding, becoming a better rider than most women of her time. Among Shirley’s childhood friends in Missouri was Cole Younger, who after the Civil War joined neighbors Frank and Jesse James in robbing trains, stagecoaches, and banks. Fleeing the law, they sometimes hid on the Shirley farm, and the teenage Shirley became influenced by their life of crime. In 1866, she married another childhood acquaintance, James C. Reed, the son of Solomon Reed, a prosperous local farmer. James and Myra Reed had two children, daughter Rosie Lee, called “Pearl,” and son James Edwin, called “Eddie.” After trying unsuccessfully to become a farmer, her husband joined with the Starr clan, an outlaw Cherokee family in Indian Territory who stole horses, rustled cattle, and bootlegged whiskey. James Reed was accused of robbery in 1874, and Myra Reed was accused of being an accomplice. They fled to Texas, and in 1874, he was killed while trying to escape the authorities. After his death, Myra Reed joined the Starr clan and lived in Indian Territory west of Fort Smith. She married one of them, Samuel Starr, in 1880, at which point she began calling herself “Belle.” She was said to act as a front for bootleggers and to harbor fugitives. On November 9, 1882, she and Sam Starr were charged in the U.S. Commissioner’s Court at Fort Smith with the larceny of two horses. On March 8, 1883, a jury returned a guilty verdict, and Judge Parker sentenced the Starrs to a year in prison. It was a surprisingly lenient sentence; Judge Parker was said to have taken into consideration the fact that it was the first conviction for both, and he expressed hope that they would “decide to become decent citizens.” After arranging the care of her children with friends and relatives, they were transported from Fort Smith to Detroit on a railroad prison car, where Belle was the only woman among nineteen other convicts. The good behavior of the Starrs in prison led to their release within nine months. After the 1886 death of Sam Starr in a gunfight, Belle and one of his relatives, Jim July Starr (also known as Bill July), began living together and announced their common-law marriage under Cherokee custom. Some sources say Belle decided to do this to maintain ownership of her property on Cherokee land. At first, she was suspected whenever neighbors’ horses and cattle turned up missing or when it was believed she was harboring criminals, but she was not convicted. She settled into a relatively quiet life, announcing that fugitives were no longer welcome at her home, and was known to help her neighbors when they were ill. She often visited Fort Smith, posed for one of her several photographs there, and told the Fort Smith Elevator, “I regard myself as a woman who has seen much of life.” Starr’s life of crime ended when she was shot in the back as she returned from a general store to her ranch. She died on February 3, 1889. Though suspects included an outlaw with whom she was feuding, a former lover, her husband, and her own son, the killer of Belle Starr was never identified. She was buried on her ranch near today’s Eufaula Dam in Oklahoma. Her tombstone was engraved with a bell, a star, her horse, and a poem by her daughter, Pearl, who lived much of the rest of her life in Fort Smith and Van Buren (Crawford County).
Go to the Prairie Branch Parking Area and park near campsite number 142. From the kiosk, take the Prairie Loop Trail to its intersection with the Dogwood Trail, which is only a short distance. Turn right onto the Dogwood Trail and take 25 steps to a pine tree on the left. Look past it to the left and find a tight group of 6 or 7 medium oak trees. Go to the back and find Belle's hideout on the ground amongst the trees under bark and such. | <urn:uuid:67206c4e-9f35-469e-952a-b013516b955f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://letterboxing.org/BoxView.php?boxnum=66506&boxname=The_Bandit_Queen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98581 | 1,092 | 2.828125 | 3 |
5.1 The Definite Integral as the Limit of a Sum
5.1.1 Integral sum: Let a function f(x) be defined on an interval a £ x £ b, and a = x0 < x1 < ··· < xn.= b an arbitrary partition of this interval into n sub-intervals (Fig. 37). A sum of the form
is called the integral sum of the function f(x) on (a, b). Geometrically speaking, Sn is the algebraic area of a step-like figure (Fig. 37).
5.1.2 The definite Integral: The limit of the sum Sn, provided that the number of subdivisions n tends to infinity and the largest of them, Dxi, to zero, is called the definite integral of the function f(x) within the limits from x = a to x = b, i.e.,
If the function f(x) is continuous on (a, b), it is integrable on [a, b], i.e., the limit of (2) exists and is independent of the mode of partition of the interval of integration [a, b] into sub-intervals and is independent of the choice of points x i in these sub-intervals. Geometrically speaking, the definite integral (2) is the algebraic sum of the areas of the figures that make up the curvilinear trapezoid aABb, in which the areas of the parts located above the x-axis are positive and those below the x-axisare negative (Fig. 37).
The definitions of integral sums and definite integrals are naturally generalized to the case of an interval [a, b], where a > b.
Example 1. Form the integral sum Sn for the function
on the interval [1, 10] by dividing the interval into n equal parts and choosing the points xi which coincide with the left end-points of the subintervals [xi, xi+l]. Find the limit
Solution: We have Dxi = (10 - 1)/n = 9/n and xi = xi = x0 + iDxi = 1 + 9i/n, whence f(xi) = 1 + 1 + 9i/n = 2 + 9i/n (Fig.38)
Example 2: Find the area bounded by an arc of the parabola y = x², the x-axis and the ordinates x=0, x = a (a > 0).
Solution: Partition the base a into n equal parts Dx = a/n. Choosing the value of the function at the beginning of each subinterval, we have
The areas of the rectangles are obtained by multiplying each yk by its base Dx = a/n (Fig, 39). Summing, we get the area of the step-like figure
Using the formula for the sum of the squares of integers
and, passing to the limit,
EXERCISES 1501 - 1507
Evaluate the following definite Integrals, treating them as limits of the appropriate integral sums:
Hints and Answers 1501 - 1507
5. 2 Evaluating Definite Integrals by Means of Indefinite Integrals
5.2.1 A definite Integral with variable upper limit:. If a function f(t) is continuous on an interval [a, b], then the function
is the anti-derivative of the function f(x), i.e.,
5.2.2 The Newton-Leibnitz formula:. If F'(x) = f(x), then
The anti-derivative F(x) is computed by finding the indefinite integral
Example 1. Find the integral
EXERCISES 1508 - 1545
Hints and Answers 1508 - 1545
5.3.1 Integrals of unbounded functions: If a function f(x) is unbounded in any neighbourhood of a point c of an interval [a,b] and is continuous for a £ x < c and c < x £ b, then, by definition, we write
If the limits on the right hand side of (1) exist and are finite, the improper integral is said to converge, otherwise it diverges. When c = a or c = b, the definition is correspondingly simplified.
If there is a continuous function F(x) on [a, b] such that F '(x) = f(x), when x ¹ c (generalized anti-derivative), then
If f(x) £ F(x) when a £ x ~J~b and
converges, then Integral (1) also converges (comparison test).
If f(x) ³ 0 and
as x ® c, then a) the integral (1) converges for m < l, b) the integral (1) diverges for m ³ l.
5.3.2. Integrals with Infinite limits:. If the function f(x) is continuous when a £ x < ¥, then we assume that
and, depending on whether there is a finite limit or not on the right hand side, the respective integral is said to converge or diverge.
If f(x) £ F(x) and the integral
converges, then Integral (3) also converges.
If f(x) ³ 0 and
as x ® ¥, then a) Integral (3) converges for m > 1, b) for m<l Integral (3) diverges for m £ 1.
and the integral diverges.
Example 3. Test the convergence of the probability integral
Solution: We set
The first of the two integrals on the right hand side is not improper, while the second one converges, since e-x² £ e-x when x £ l and
whence Integral (4) converges.
Example 4. Test the convergence of the integral
Solution: When x ® +¥ , we have
Since the integral
converges, Integral (5) likewise converges.
Example 5: Test the convergence of the elliptic integral
Solution: The point of discontinuity of the integrand is x = l. Applying Lagrange's formula, we find
where x < x1 < 1, whence, for x ® 1,
Since the integral
so does (6).
EXERCISES 1546 - 1575
Evaluate the improper Integrals or establish their divergence
1574*. Prove that the Euler integral of the first kind (beta-function)
converges when p > 0 and q > 0.
1575*. Prove that the Euler integral of the second kind (gamma-function)
converges for p > 0.
Hints and Answers 1546 - 1575
5.4 Change of Variable in a Definite Integral
If a function f(x) is continuous over a £ x £ b and x = j(t) is a function which is continuous together with its derivative j'(t) over a £ t £ b, where a = j(a) and b = j(b), and f[j(t)] is defined and continuous on the interval a £ t £ b, then
Example 1. Find
Solution. We set
Then, t = arsin x/a and, consequently, we can take a = arsin 0 = 0, b = arsin l = p/2, whence
. Exercises 1576 - 1598
1576. Can the substitution x = cos t be made in the Integral
Transform the definite integrals using the indicated substitutions:
Find an integral linear substitution
as a result of which the limits of integration will be 0 and 1, respectively. Applying the indicated substitutions, evaluate the integrals:
Evaluate by means of appropriate substitutions the integrals:
Evaluate the integrals:
1595. Prove that if f(x) is an even function, then
But, if f(x) is an odd function, then
Hints and Answers 1576 - 1598
5.5 Integration by Parts
If the functions u(x) and v(x) are continuously differentiable on the interval [a, b], then
EXERCISES 1599 - 1609
Evaluate by parts the integrals:
Hints and Answers 1599 - 1609
5.6 Mean-Value Theorem
5.6.1 Evaluation of Integrals:. If f(x) £ F(x) for a £ x £ b, then
If f(x) and j(x) are continuous for a £ x £ b and, besides, j(x) ³ 0, then
where m is the smallest and M the largest value of the function f(x) in the interval [a, b].
In particular, if j(x) = l, then
Inequalities (2) and (3) may be replaced, respectively, by the equivalent equalities
where c and x are certain numbers lying between a and b.
Example 1. Evaluate the integral
Solution: Since 0 £ sin² x £ 1, we have
5.6.2 The mean value of a function: The number
is called the mean value of the function f(x) over the interval a £ x £ b.
EXERCISES 1610 - 1622
1610*. Determine the signs of the following integrals without evaluating them:
Hints and Answers 1510 - 1622
5.7 The Areas of Plane Figures
5.7.1 Area in rectangular co-ordinates:. If a continuous curve is defined in rectangular co-ordinates by the equation
the area of the curvilinear trapezoid, bounded by this curve, by two vertical lines at the points x = a and x = b and by the segment of the x-axis a £ x £ b (Fig. 40), is given by
Example 1. Compute the area bounded by the parabola y = x²/2, the straight lines x = 1 and x = 3, and the x-axis (Fig.41).
Solution: The area is expressed by the integral
Example 2. Evaluate the area bounded by the curve x = 2 - y - y² and the y-axis (Fig. 42).
Solution: The roles of the co-ordinate axes are here interchanged and so the required area is expressed by the integral
where the of integration limits y1 = -2 and y2 = l are the ordinates of the points of intersection of the curve with the y-axis.
In the more general case, if the area S is bounded by two continuous curves y=f1(x, y=f2(x) and by two vertical lines x=a and x=b, where f1(x) £ f2(x) when a £ x £ b (Fig. 43), we will then have
Example 3. Evaluate the area S contained between the curves
Solution: Solving Equations (3} simultaneously, we find the integration limits x1= -1 and x2 = l. By (2), we obtain
If the curve is defined by equations in parametric form: x = j(t), y = y(t), the area of the curvilinear trapezoid bounded by this curve, by two vertical lines (x = a and x = b) and by a segment of the x-axis is given by the integral
where t1 and t2 are determined from the equations
Example 4. Find the area of the ellipse (Fig. 45) by using its parametric equations
Solution: Due to the symmetry, it is sufficient to compute the area of one quadrant and then multiply the result by four. If we first set x = 0 in the equation x = acost and then x = a, we get the limits of integration t1 = p/2 and t2 = 0, whence
and hence S = pab.
5.7.2 Area in polar co-ordinates:. If a curve is defined in polar co-ordinates by the equation r = f(j), then the area of the sector AOB (Fig. 46), bounded by an arc of the curve and by two radius vectors OA and OB, which correspond to the values j1 = a and j2 = b, is given by the integral
Example 5. Find the area contained inside Bernoulli's lemniscate
Solution. By virtue of the symmetry of the curve, we determine first one quadrant of the required area:
EXERCISES 1623 - 1664
Hints and Answers 1623 - 1664
5.8 Arc Length of a Curve
5.8.1. Arc length in rectangular co-ordinates: The arc length s of a curve y=f(x), contained between two points with abscissae x = a and x = b is
Example 1. Find the length of the astroid x2/3 + y2/3 = a2/3 (Fig. 49).
Solution: Differentiating the equation of the astroid, we get
whence we have for the arc length of a quarter of the astroid:
5.8.2 Arc length of a curve represented parametrically:. If a curve is represented by equations in the parametric form x=j(t), y = y(t), then the arc length s of the curve is given by
where t1 and t2 are the values of the parameter which correspond to the extremities of the arc.
Example 2. Find the length of one arc of the cycloid (Fig. 50)
Solution: We have
The limits of integration t1 = 0 and t2 = 2p correspond to the extreme points of the arc of the cycloid.
If a curve is defined by the equation r = f(j) In polar co-ordinates, then the arc length s is
where a and b are the values of the polar angle at the extreme points of the arc.
Example3. Find the length of the entire curve
It is described by a point as j ranges from 0 to 3p.
Solution: We have
whence the entire arc length of the curve is
EXERCISES 1665 - 1684
Hints and Answers 1685 - 1684 | <urn:uuid:c2325bec-63fb-4537-b608-57bfc0c189f1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mpec.sc.mahidol.ac.th/radok/physmath/mat12/sec51.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.830917 | 3,077 | 2.921875 | 3 |
At a Glance :
Region : Uttar Pradesh
Low Temperature : 12.5 Celsius
Highest Temperature : 42.5 Celsius
Variations in Climate : Moderate weather to Tropical temperature
Monsoon Month : Month of June and September
Within the northern part of the India, Uttar Pradesh is a very dominant example for the weather and climate. Uttar Pradesh state's climate is tropical monsoon climate, but because of the distinctiveness between the altitudes, the variation in the climate caused. This state face 3 different seasons like between the month of June and September it has rainy season, between the month of October and February winter season and between March and middle of the June summer season.
During the summer season, Uttar Pradesh state experience very high temperature, which goes till the forty five degree Celsius, almost from the month of April to August Uttar Pradesh state experience the summer season. While the day times the temperature goes till the forty five degree Celsius which is very high in the western part of the Uttar Pradesh. In the every part of this state dew is very much common thing.
The force of rain is distinctive in various parts of the Uttar Pradesh state like north Uttar Pradesh to Eastern Uttar Pradesh. The average rainfall of one place is always different from another place of the Uttar Pradesh. Example is like Azakgarh, Allahabad and Varanasi the average rainfall is one hundred five to one hundred ten C and different from this Merrut, Agra and Ghaziabad has rainfall is forty five to fifty C. so that’s why the average rainfall of the whole Uttar Pradesh state is sixty five to seventy C. In the places like Dadri, Firozabad and Agra humidity pressure is very high.
As per the summer temperature, winter season is also high in the Uttar Pradesh. The entire state became chilled because of the lowest temperature of two degree Celsius to four degree Celsius. In this state, winter starts in the month of middle November and it continues till the end of the February month. | <urn:uuid:66334de7-5afa-46ca-b701-a6deae1cd770> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.traveladda.com/north_india/uttar_pradesh/information/climate.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947154 | 409 | 3.09375 | 3 |
emerges from the Andes and dives into the enormity of the Pacific.
From the heart of the Andean high plateau to the unexplored territories at the end of the world, Chile invites you to live adventures in the middle of the planet’s driest desert and the pristine nature of Patagonia. Visit millennial glaciers, discover the only warm rainforest in South America and be part of the rural customs in the fertile valleys sheltered under the watchful eye of the volcanoes. Islands full of legends will captivate you with stories of authentic tradition, while the big cities open up before you with a wide variety of activities set at the fast pace of the modern world.
Under a sky with infinite stars lies the world’s driest desert waiting for the anticipated blooming.Go to North and Atacama Desert
According to NASA, Moon Valley looks like Mars on Earth.
Moon Valley, in San Pedro de Atacama, is NASA’s favorite place to carry out expeditions since it is so similar to Mars.
Older than the Egyptian mummies, Visit the mummies of Chinchorro.
Discover the mummies of Chinchorro, the oldest ones in the world that are close to 8,000 years old.
Valleys nestled between the Andes and the ocean bring life to a land of flavors that will awake your senses.Go to Central Area, Santiago and Valparaiso
Robinson Crusoe Island actually exists! Get to know it when you visit the Juan Fernandez Archipelago in Chile.
The Juan Fernandez Archipelago, declared Biosphere Reserve by Unesco, is a National Park found in the central area.
Discover the enormous Santiago Metropolitan Park at the heart of the city!
Santiago Metropolitan Park is one of the four largest urban parks in the world, with 730 hectares.
Enigmas and legends from an ancestral culture enrich the landscapes and tropical beaches at the naval of the world.Go to Easter Island
Explore one of the world’s largest cave systems on Easter Island.
Thanks to its underground lava tunnels, there are more than 7,000 meters of galleries under the island’s floor.
Visit three continents in just one country!
Chile is the only tricontinental country in Latin America, with territories in America, Antartica and Oceania.
A magical place with traditions full of wisdom, where the living ecosystem grows and develops at its own natural pace.Go to The South, Lakes and Volcanoes
Visit the open-air market that is open 365 days a year!
The market of Lota, city located in the south of Chile, actually opens every day of the year.
Discover the “hermetic” culture of Chiloé, there’s nothing like it in the world!
The people of Chiloé developed their own culture which revolves around the abundant elements on their island: wood, water, earth, religion and a complete universe of fantastical creatures.
Fjords and glaciers hidden among green landscapes that give way to the horizon that disappears at the end of the world.Go to Patagonia and Antarctica
Visit Puerto Williams, the southernmost town in the world!
Located on Navarino Island, on the southern tip of Patagonia, Puerto Williams is the southernmost administrative settlement in the world.
Learn about the airlines and direct routes that connect Chile to the rest of the world | <urn:uuid:324d72d0-64bd-4827-ae88-cf1e8591aed6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://chile.travel/en/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.872222 | 719 | 2.515625 | 3 |
If Stephen Harper still needed reasons to take action on climate change, the convening body of his "Great Game" is making a pretty compelling case.
The National Hockey League now says it is worried that climate change could have a devastating impact on the future of hockey in coming decades.
"Our sport can trace its roots to frozen freshwater ponds, to cold climates," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says in a letter accompanying the league's Sustainability Report, released Monday night. "Major environmental challenges, such as climate change and freshwater scarcity, affect opportunities for hockey players of all ages to learn and play the game outdoors."
But the NHL isn't dropping its gloves to fight climate change just because it's a worthy cause — it's also in their "vested interest" as a business.
"As a business, we rely on freshwater to make our ice, on energy to fuel our operations and on healthy communities for our athletes, employees and fans to live, work and play," Bettman explains. "To continue to stage world class outdoor hockey events like the NHL Winter Classic, NHL Heritage Classic or NHL Stadium Series, we need winter weather."
The NHL's 2014 Sustainability Report seeks to measure the league's carbon footprint and propose new benchmarks and measures aimed at decreasing its greenhouse gas emissions.
The last word in the report goes to retired Stanley Cup-winning goalie Mike Richter, who points out that the length of the Canadian skating season has decreased by 20–30% in the last 50 years. The biggest drops have occurred in Alberta, eastern British Columbia and the southern Prairies, Richter notes, while Ottawa's Rideau Canal closed a month earlier than usual in 2014.
"There is now a documented impact being felt in backyard rinks around the world," Richter concludes. "It is truly a loss when these opportunities vanish in the shifting terrain of climate change."
Here are five interesting stats the NHL released about the league's carbon footprint – and its attempts to shift to more sustainable practices.
1. Where the NHL's carbon emissions come from:
2. Here's what's driving energy consumption in NHL arenas:
3. NHL teams play 42 away games a season. On top of frequent flyer miles, they also rack up 100,000 metric tons in CO2 emissions:
4. The NHL uses a lot of water:
5. And this one might just surprise you. the NHL's market research shows hockey fans are more likely than average to be environmentally active:
The report highlights a number of innovations and new technologies the league is using to help reduce its GHG emissions.
Here in Canada, Montreal's Bell Centre has installed an LED lighting system that's brighter than the arena's previous system. It uses 60% less energy, and has an increased lifespan of 54,000 hours compared to the previous 3,000 hours (a 1,700% increase).
Meanwhile, Winnipeg is developing a process that will recapture heat generated by the MTS Centre's ice plant and reuse it to boil Zamboni water, heat the arena's underground pipes and make the its climate control more efficient.
Judging by the NHL's numbers, it looks like they have their work cut out for them. | <urn:uuid:fa1a6108-3130-4755-8fb1-684de37a154c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pressprogress.ca/en/post/nhl-just-said-climate-change-threatens-future-hockey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956089 | 655 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Cosmologist Jason Rhodes details the path he took to play a leading role in a European mission designed to learn about dark energy.
Jason Perry brings us a report on recent ground-based observations that shed new light on the most powerful of Io’s volcanic eruptions.
Will New Horizons have a mission after Pluto? Ground-based searches have failed to turn up anything that New Horizons can reach. Now Hubble is joining the search, but time is running out: a discovery must be made within the next two months.
Posted by Philip Evans on 2014/05/28 11:21 CDT
The Twittersphere has been alive with speculation about a Gamma Ray Burst in the nearby galaxy M31. The problem is, there was never a claim of such an event, and it turns out that the tentative result that triggered this story was overstated.
Discover the Universe including the Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, galaxies, life and more in this video of class 13 of Bruce Betts' Introduction to Planetary Science and Astronomy class.
Cosmos with Cosmos Episode 10: The Edge of Forever
In which we contemplate the end of all things
Carl Sagan takes us from the birth to the death of the universe. How do we reconcile our place within a universe that will die? Join us for the latest discussion on episode 10 of Cosmos.
Cosmos with Cosmos Episode 8: Journeys Through Space and Time
Are we imprisoned in both?
Sagan makes us confront the limitations of our mortality given the immensities of space and time presented to us by the cosmos.
We interview Dr. Franck Marchis from the SETI Institute about nanosats that can unfold in space to create sensitive telescopes that are orders of magnitudes cheaper than current hardware.
Astronomy Enters a New Era
Join us for a live webcast about thrilling new tools that will come online in the next decade.
A live conversation about just a few of the powerful new instruments that will revolutionize our knowledge of the cosmos once again.
This year's American Astronomical Society meeting featured tons and tons of news on exoplanets. They're everywhere! And not just planets, but also asteroids, comets, and more....
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/13 11:50 CDT
NuSTAR, the most sensitive X-ray telescope ever developed, launched successfully at 16:00 UT. This was a fun launch to watch, because the launch vehicle was a Pegasus XL air-launched rocket, dropped like a bomb from open bay doors of an L-1011 airplane.
Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/02/07 02:40 CST
The NuSTAR X-ray telescope will enable scientists to get a much-improved look at black holes and supernovae in both the Milky Way and other galaxies.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/12/29 12:14 CST
Did you know that before Bill Nye was the Planetary Guy or even the Science Guy he was an aerospace engineer, designing components for the Boeing 747?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/05/28 08:05 CDT
I wrote some time ago about the expectations for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)'s contributions to solar system science. A couple of days ago, JPL posted an image and movie documenting the progress to date. | <urn:uuid:91b05616-3cb5-431a-9314-544bc7f3fd53> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.planetary.org/blogs/blog-archive.html?keywords=astronomy-and-astrophysics-spacecraft&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922279 | 704 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Combine the number of overdose deaths caused by heroin and cocaine, and you still haven’t matched the number of deaths caused by pharmaceutical prescription medications each year in the United States. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, pharmaceutical abuse was responsible for about 23,000 deaths in 2013 — that’s more than half of the overdose deaths in the U.S. that year.
Prescription drugs have a disproportionately large effect on teenagers. A recent study published in Journal of Public Policy and Marketing sheds light on this issue, which the CDC has labeled an “epidemic.”
Over 1,000 teenagers in 40 different regions around the U.S. participated in an online survey that questioned them about their use of alcohol, tobacco, legal drugs and illegal drugs. Participants were asked if they suffer from anxiety, if they have a desire to be “popular,” how often they participate in exciting activities, and whether they consider using drugs risky.
The authors of the study — Richard Netemeyer of University of Virginia, Scot Burton of University of Arkansas, Barbara Delaney of the Partnership for Drug Free Kids, and Gina Hijjawi of American Institutes for Research — published several conclusions.
First, their results showed use of pharmaceuticals has a linear correlation with the amount of anxiety and other psychological stress a teenager experiences each day. Pharmaseutical use also increases with the amount of alcohol a teenager consumes.
Second, their results show prescription drug use increases exponentially in circumstances where a teenager is experiencing more severe anxiety, a heightened desire to be popular, a need to be a “good teen,” or is using other restricted substances.
“Teens need help before they reach these tipping points for prescription drug abuse,” write the authors. “Adults spotting teens with very high levels of anxiety and at least moderate use of other restricted substances should realize that these are students with a high likelihood of prescription abuse.
“Male teens with a high need to be popular and teens in general appear to be at exceptional risk,” write the authors. “Campaigns must target parents as well, since they clearly underestimate both the physical risks of prescription drugs and the likelihood that their children will abuse these drugs.”
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), about 20 percent of teenagers reported that they had tried prescription drugs in 2014. Drugs in this category include OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax, Valium, Adderall, and Ritalin, among others. Teenagers commonly acquire these drugs from friends or relatives who have prescriptions for them. Often, the friend or relative is unaware the teen is taking the drugs.
The study points to the ways in which approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows pharmaceuticals to escape the stigmas attached to illegal substances.
“Prescription drugs are seen as blessed by a trusted institution, the FDA, while increasingly aggressive advertising by drug companies simultaneously floods parents and children with messages that these substances are safe, popular, and beneficial,” write the authors.
In 1997, the FDA changed the rules on pharmaceutical advertising. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s website, drug companies are now only required to mention the most potent side effects of a drug rather than the entire list of side effects. Moreover, companies are allowed to list side effects while showing serene frames of a revitalized grandmother kayaking with her grandchildren across the screen.
In effect, less emphasis is placed on the dangers of prescription drug use and more is placed on its benefits. While the dangers of illegal substances are widely known, information on the dangers of prescription drugs are often confined to a three-second-long screen of fine print that pops up at the end of a thirty-second commercial.
According to an editorial published by the New York Times in 2013, pharmaceutical advertisements have helped cultivate a “pill for every ill” approach to health care in the United States. U.S. physicians, for example, prescribe drugs as treatment for ADHD 25 times more often than European physicians. It follows that U.S. teenagers have 25 times more access to ADHD medication like Ritalin and Adderall than European teenagers.
Several organizations work to educate the public on the risks of prescription drug abuse. The National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse, for example, organizes school related activities aimed at educating students about the risks of pharmaceuticals, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy is trying to implement a four-part plan to educate teenagers and monitor their use of pharmaceuticals.
Evidence from the study suggests these organizations have a long way to go. | <urn:uuid:e708b3e6-c3c8-41fe-bc80-173385d30ed0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://reset.me/study/study-pharmaceuticals-kill-more-teens-than-illegal-substances-in-the-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391519.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946026 | 967 | 2.625 | 3 |
About a week ago we posted about how ozone is made. That original post gave the fundamentals of how ozone is produced in nature and the basics of how ozone is produced within ozone generators, both UV ozone generators and corona discharge ozone generators. It was pointed out then that most (almost every) industrial ozone generator uses corona discharge to produce ozone. This 2nd installment is dedicated to informing you the reader about ozone generation from corona discharge.
The fundamentals are simple. A spark (corona discharge) is used to split the diatomic oxygen molecule into valant oxygen atoms. These oxygen atoms have a negative charge and will bond quickly with another oxygen molecule to produce ozone! For each split oxygen molecule 2 ozone molecules are produced.
Ozone Generation from Corona Discharge
A power supply is used to produce an electrical discharge across a dielectric, and an air gap. The dielectric is used to diffuse the discharge across a large area as opposed to single point like a normal spark. The oxygen molecules passing through the air gap are exposed to the electrical discharge and are split into ozone (at least that is the hope). A great deal of heat is generated from this process and is removed from the electrodes as shown.
Corona Discharge Tube
This image shows a more complete picture of a very typical ozone generation corona cell. The dielectric is a tube allowing the air gap to flow around the outside of the dielectric, with the electrode around the outside. This allows heat to be dissipated to the outside of the electrode efficiently.
This video shows a great example of ozone production from corona discharge.
There are three main factors when generating ozone from corona discharge:
- Power supply
- Operating voltage
- Operating frequency
- Corona Cell
- Tube – cylindrical style
- Flat plate
When generating ozone from corona discharge there are a few factors that will affect performance that must be evaluated.
- Cooling of the corona cell
- Water cooled
- Air cooled
- Feed gas
- Dry Air
I will try to cover some of these fundamentals and why one may be better than another for your specific application in future installments of “how ozone is made“ | <urn:uuid:b340d16d-350b-4d08-99c6-b301fd28062d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ozonesolutions.com/journal/tag/how-is-ozone-produced/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898526 | 453 | 3.75 | 4 |
What is Mandatory Access Control, and why is it better than Discretionary Access Control?
Basically, it comes down to users being able to override the access controls at their discretion. In a MAC-based system, the policy cannot be overriden by a user to allow less privileged users access to a resource. The MAC is mandatory.
In some situations, it may be necessary to have this behaviour. Typically, I've heard of MACs used in highly secure operating systems that are used in military and highly secure government installations. Until recently, no "business grade" or "consumer grade" operating system really supported MACs. Windows Vista (with the "integrity level" functionality) and SELinux both are forms of MAC.
Mandatory access control : The Access control system only allows users who have already been given a clearance level to access the resource they intend to . But how do they grant access ? This is where Levels come into action . In the further discussions , users will be addressed as Subjects and the resources would be addressed as Objects . Each object and subject in that domain is given a "Security Level " .
Time for an example :- Assume there are three security levels . A ,B ,C . Security level of A is the highest . Security level of B is lower than A . Security eve of C is lower than B . A>B>C . Now Subjects having level A will be able to access only the objects having security levels less than A . Now Subjects having level B will be able to access only the objects having security levels less than B . Now Subjects having level C will be able to access only the objects having security levels less than C Assume Natasha has security level B . Now assume files under /var have level A and files under /etc/ have level C . As per the rule I mentioned , Natasha will be able to access only files under /etc which have levels lower than her level .
Discretionary access control is downright simple . When you create a file , you are the owner of that file . And in Discretionary access control , the owners of the files have their OWN "discretion" as to select the users to which access can be given and not given .
P.S . The superuser can change the ownership of your file . So you are the owner of the file unless the superuser has not changed the ownership to someone else
And answering your second question . MAC is more secure in big companies because the whole security of the company lies in the hands of the owner of the file if they implement DAC . What if the owner decides to grant access to people to whom the access shouldn't be given . So in the case of MAC the decision is in the hands of the Architects and they make sure the file goes to the right hands .
In discretionary access control permissions are set usually by the resource owner. In mandatory access control permissions are set by fixed rules based on policies and cannot be overridden by users.
Although mandatory is believed to be more secure and is used in places where high-security is desired, it is harder to configure and maintain and you may not have the resources to do it.
Other than that, several operating systems are incorporating mandatory access controls to further harden the system. | <urn:uuid:92b01a43-f9d9-420f-933e-1f912577ae55> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://serverfault.com/questions/29192/mandatory-access-control-versus-discretionary-access-control | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949459 | 666 | 3.015625 | 3 |
The circuit breaker is an absolutely essential device in the
modern world, and one of the most important safety mechanisms in your home.
Whenever electrical wiring in a building has too much current flowing through
it, these simple machines cut the power until somebody can fix the problem.
Without circuit breakers (or the alternative, fuses), household electricity
would be impractical because of the potential for fires and other mayhem
resulting from simple wiring problems and equipment failures.
In this article, we'll find out how circuit breakers and fuses
monitor electrical current and how they cut off the power when current levels
get too high. As we'll see, the circuit breaker is an incredibly simple
solution to a potentially deadly problem.
To understand circuit breakers, it helps to know how household
Electricity is defined by three major
Voltage is the "pressure" that makes electric charge move. Current
is the charge's "flow" -- the rate at which the charge moves through the
conductor, measured at any particular point. The conductor offers a certain
amount of resistance to this flow, which varies depending on the
conductor's composition and size.
Voltage, current and resistance are all interrelated -- you can't
change one without changing another. Current is equal to voltage divided by
resistance (commonly written as I = v / r). This makes intuitive sense:
If you increase the pressure working on electric charge or decrease the
resistance, more charge will flow. If you decrease pressure or increase
resistance, less charge will flow.
3. Why You
Need a Circuit Breaker
The power distribution grid delivers electricity from a power plant to your
house. Inside your house, the electric charge moves in a large circuit, which
is composed of many smaller circuits. One end of the circuit, the hot wire,
leads to the power plant. The other end, called the neutral wire, leads
to ground. Because the hot wire connects to a high energy source, and
the neutral wire connects to an electrically neutral source (the earth), there
is a voltage across the circuit -- charge moves whenever the circuit is closed.
The current is said to be alternating current, because it rapidly
changes direction. (See How Power Distribution Grids Work for more
The power distribution grid delivers electricity at a consistent
voltage (120 and 240 volts in the United States), but resistance (and therefore
current) varies in a house. All of the different light bulbs and electrical
appliances offer a certain amount of resistance, also described as the load.
This resistance is what makes the appliance work. A light bulb, for example,
has a filament inside that is very resistant to flowing charge. The charge has
to work hard to move along, which heats up the filament, causing it to glow.
In building wiring, the hot wire and the neutral wire never touch
directly. The charge running through the circuit always passes through an
appliance, which acts as a resistor. In this way, the electrical resistance in
appliances limits how much charge can flow through a circuit (with a constant
voltage and a constant resistance, the current must also be constant).
Appliances are designed to keep current at a relatively low level for safety
purposes. Too much charge flowing through a circuit at a particular time would
heat the appliance's wires and the building's wiring to unsafe levels, possibly
causing a fire.
This keeps the electrical system running smoothly most of the
time. But occasionally, something will connect the hot wire directly to the
neutral wire or something else leading to ground. For example, a fan motor
might overheat and melt, fusing the hot and neutral wires together. Or someone
might drive a nail into the wall, accidentally puncturing one of the power
lines. When the hot wire is connected directly to ground, there is minimal
resistance in the circuit, so the voltage pushes a huge amount of charge
through the wire. If this continues, the wires can overheat and start a fire.
The circuit breaker's job is to cut off the circuit whenever the
current jumps above a safe level. In the following sections, we'll find out how
it does this.
The simplest circuit protection device is the fuse. A fuse is just a thin wire,
enclosed in a casing, that plugs into the circuit. When a circuit is closed,
all charge flows through the fuse wire -- the fuse experiences the same current
as any other point along the circuit. The fuse is designed to disintegrate
when it heats up above a certain level -- if the current climbs too high, it
burns up the wire. Destroying the fuse opens the circuit before the excess
current can damage the building wiring.
The problem with fuses is they only work once. Every time you
blow a fuse, you have to replace it with a new one. A circuit breaker does the
same thing as a fuse -- it opens a circuit as soon as current climbs to unsafe
levels -- but you can use it over and over again.
The basic circuit breaker consists of a simple switch,
connected to either a bimetallic strip or an electromagnet. The diagram below
shows a typical electromagnet design.
The hot wire in the circuit connects to the two ends of the
switch. When the switch is flipped to the on position, electricity can flow
from the bottom terminal, through the electromagnet, up to the moving contact,
across to the stationary contact and out to the upper terminal.
The electricity magnetizes the electromagnet (See How
Electromagnets Work to find out why). Increasing current boosts the
electromagnet's magnetic force, and decreasing current lowers the magnetism.
When the current jumps to unsafe levels, the electromagnet is strong enough to
pull down a metal lever connected to the switch linkage. The entire linkage
shifts, tilting the moving contact away from the stationary contact to break
the circuit. The electricity shuts off.
Click on the circuit breaker to release the switch.
A bimetallic strip design works on the same principle,
except that instead of energizing an electromagnet, the high current bends a
thin strip to move the linkage. Some circuit breakers use an explosive charge
to throw the switch. When current rises above a certain level, it ignites
explosive material, which drives a piston to open the switch.
See how the electromagnet throws the switch open and how the breaker
More advanced circuit breakers use electronic components (semiconductor
devices) to monitor current levels rather than simple electrical devices. These
elements are a lot more precise, and they shut down the circuit more quickly,
but they are also a lot more expensive. For this reason, most houses still use
conventional electric circuit breakers.
One of the newer circuit breaker devices is the ground fault
circuit interrupter, or GFCI. These sophisticated breakers are designed
to protect people from electrical shock, rather than prevent damage to a
building's wiring. The GFCI constantly monitors the current in a circuit's
neutral wire and hot wire. When everything is working correctly, the current in
both wires should be exactly the same. As soon as the hot wire connects
directly to ground (if somebody accidentally touches the hot wire, for
example), the current level surges in the hot wire, but not in the neutral
wire. The GFCI breaks the circuit as soon as this happens, preventing
electrocution. Since it doesn't have to wait for current to climb to unsafe
levels, the GFCI reacts much more quickly than a conventional breaker.
All the wiring in a house runs through a central circuit breaker
panel (or fuse box panel), usually in the basement or a closet. A
typical central panel includes about a dozen circuit breaker switches leading
to various circuits in the house. One circuit might include all of the outlets
in the living room, and another might include all of the downstairs lighting.
Larger appliances, such as a central air conditioning system or a refrigerator,
are typically on their own circuit. | <urn:uuid:66070089-725b-473d-a3d2-50b2bc2f4414> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pioneerbreaker.com/v/vspfiles/V4_Backup/Tools/howCircuitBreakersWork.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90064 | 1,716 | 4.0625 | 4 |
The celebration of Gandhi Jayanti
Different sorts of festivals are celebrated by the people in various regions according to their native place and its traditional culture. Out of these various celebrations, Gandhi Jayanti is one of the well-known festivals in India. This festival is celebrated by Indian Government on 2nd October of every year, which is the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi also known as Mahatma Gandhi. To honor the birthday anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian people celebrate this festival in October 2 and it is one of national holiday in Indian country. This festival is celebrated by the people from all Indian states as well as union territories. The duration of this Gandhi Jayanti festival is one day and it highly represents the significance role of Mahatma Gandhi in Indian freedom
Education and early life of Mahatma Gandhi
When consider about the idol of this festival Mahatma Gandhi, he is the father of Indian nation by his dedicated and benevolent service in the Independence of India. In the year of 1869, Mahatma Gandhi was born in Gujarat. The native place of Mahatma Gandhi is Porbandar, which is the coastal city of Gujarat. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is popularly known by the name of Gandhiji and he is the preeminent and most reputed leader of Indian self-governance. He has completed his schoolings in a local school of Porbandar and got married with kasturba Gandhi during the age of 13. After his marriage, Gandhi continued his studies in United Kingdom under the profession of law.
After completed the study of law in United Kingdom, he attended the law training in South Africa to enhance his knowledge and proficiency in the field of law.
During this period, he opposed the national and colonial inequity and started the disobedience activities against those discrimination aspects. After that, he came back to India in the year of 1915 to give his full support for the struggle that is planned to get the freedom of India. He guided the struggle of India’s independence in a non-violence manner. During this period, he used exceptional weapon ahimsa to battle the British rulers.
Exceptional instruments of Gandhiji
Through his unique kind of non-violence activities and his expert knowledge in laws, Gandhiji led an enormous team against the rule of British Government. By his non-violence struggle against national discrimination, Mahatma Gandhi is an inimitable preacher of ahimsa and truth without a doubt. He introduced the unusual kind of instrument in his struggles like Satyagraha, which is another weapon of Mahatma Gandhi similar to Ahimsa. These both instruments helped to bring the exciting changes for the freedom of India.
Apart from these wholehearted service for the independence of India, Mahatma Gandhi is also served his dedicated support for the poor people and he struggled against untouchability inequity by caste. He said that, everyone has equal rights to live with others without any discrimination related with caste and class. Because of these inimitable service for the independence of Indian country and wholehearted service for unfortunate people, Mahatma Gandhi is reputed by the name of Father of Indian nation and his birthday is celebrated as a festival of Gandhi Jayanti. | <urn:uuid:29067b32-c4d1-45f0-81a5-b524170282f8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mywebastrologer.com/gandhijaynti.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391634.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973553 | 665 | 3.5 | 4 |
The advent of highly resistant bacteria or superbugs was one of the issues discussed at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring Conference currently being held in Dublin between 26-29 March. An important aspect of the meet was to bring forth new research that focused on combating the advent of superbugs or drug-resistant bacterial strains.
A logic proposed was to use viruses called bacteriophages to wipe out bacterial strains that are resistant to the current crop of antibiotics. The growing menace of accelerated antibiotic resistance has added to the woes of the medical fraternity in combating bacterial diseases that remain resistant to existing antibiotics.
This has reduced the number of potent antibiotics for treating drug-resistant diseases. The novel bacteriophage therapy could be the answer to the growing superbug malady. New research has re-investigated the characteristics of bacteriophages as the potential killer virus that has the ability to infect drug-resistant bacteria by multiplying within the bacterial cells and breaking them down.
In the process, the virus itself enhances its own inner mechanism to deal better with other bacterial strains. The bacteriophages are widely present in the environment such as rivers, water, soil, the human body and sewage. The new idea is to tap these viruses.
Each bacteriophage is highly specific to a certain type of bacteria and needs the right bacterial host cell in order to multiply. The more bacterial targets there are, the quicker they grow by killing the host cells. Therefore it seems very likely that infections harboring high numbers of bacteria will benefit most from bacteriophage therapy - for example chronically infected ears, lungs and wounds, explained Dr. David Harper at the the Dublin meet. He is the Chief Scientific Officer at AmpliPhi Bioscience, Bedfordshire, that has conducted clinical trials on bacteriophages since 2005.
Continue Reading Below
For these types of infection, only a tiny dose of the virus is needed - as small as one thousandth of a millionth of a gram. This can usually be administered directly to the site of infection in a spray, drops or a cream. The major advantage to bacteriophages is that they don't infect human cells so seem likely to be very safe to use, Harper added.
Bacteriophages, discovered initially in 1915, were seen as mere anti-bacterial therapeutic agents but a lack of understanding on their mode of action failed to pave the way for future investigations as anti-bacterial agents. With the advent of new-age chemical variants of anti-bacterial drugs, the viral impact on bacteria remained ignored.
The rate of new antibiotics coming onto the market does not match the rate of increasing drug-resistance. The need for new approaches to counter such high resistance is both urgent and vital. New approaches will save lives, added Harper.
Harper is positive on the results of clinical trials and said that once regulatory issues are taken care of and enough funds are generated to secure this area of research on bacteriophages, the development of the novel viral-based antibacterial agents would be a step to curb the prevailing crisis of drug-resistant antibiotics.
FDA Warned On Antibiotic Use On Farms
In a proactive stance, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received a legal diktat to act on its 35-year-old ruling, aimed at farmers to avoid using popular antibiotics in preparing animal feed. The FDA's 1977 directive was to minimize the ever increasing crisis of drug-resistant bacteria.
The recent ruling called last Thursday directed the FDA to initiate steps in banning approval given to two antibiotics that are used routinely in animals. The ruling was in conjunction with consumer safety groups that brought a lawsuit against the FDA. Public health advocates had been putting pressure on the federal government to restrict the use of antibiotics in farms that has lead to difficulty in treating diseases caused by drug-resistant bacteria.
The FDA has 60 days to appeal to the legal ruling. Although the new court ruling will not impact the use of antibiotics instantly, it has been left to the FDA to enable drug firms to respond and schedule a public hearing.
The FDA had called for a ban on the non-medical use of penicillin and tetracycline in farm animals unless they were proven to be absolutely safe. Farming lobbies have often argued that antibiotics are essential to keep livestock and poultry healthy. This argument has been disputed by food producers who rely on natural resources to keep their cattle disease-free.
FDA's directive was never enforced due to strong resentment from members of the Congress and from lobbyists representing both farmers and pharmaceutical companies. The FDA ruling was based on a 1977 study that inferred that overuse of antibiotics in livestock damaged the potency of these drugs against bacterial-infections in humans.
A recent FDA estimate states that nearly 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in the US are administered on farm animals used in food production. | <urn:uuid:2ec76389-38fa-4c2e-8b05-688b0398ffed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ibtimes.com/new-study-explores-virus-fight-superbugs-430460 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961179 | 995 | 3.859375 | 4 |
Military History Now had a guest post from Κonstantinos Karatolios talking about the Byzantine secret weapon known as “Greek Fire”:
The thousand-year Byzantine Empire could not have survived through the centuries without its powerful military. But Constantinople’s mighty army and navy didn’t just keep enemies at bay, they also helped it to expand into new territories and ultimately dominate the whole of the Mediterranean for hundreds of years. Of course, while the Byzantines’ stunning battlefield success was in part a by-product of military knowledge inherited from the old Roman Empire, it was also born out of new tactics and weaponry. One example of this is Greek fire. Also known as thalassion pyr, skeyaston pyr and medikon elaion, this incendiary liquid, which could be squirted or hurled into the ranks of an enemy, was perhaps the most fearsome of all of the empire’s armaments. Its use, whether on land or sea, verges on legend and yet almost all we know about Greek fire remains clouded in mystery. We are sure of one thing however — it was used with devastating effect throughout the whole course of the Byzantine Empire.
Here are nine little known facts about Greek fire.
I think there’s a typo in the list, as it mentions the first recorded use of the weapon by Anastasios I in 541, which was actually the middle of the reign of Justinian I. Anastasios I reigned from 491 to 518. | <urn:uuid:2889659f-87bf-4ca4-9711-d8e8d60436d3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://quotulatiousness.ca/blog/2014/03/21/byzantiums-secret-weapon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9723 | 319 | 3.125 | 3 |
Roger D. Launius
Historical Research and Narrative
The Wright brothers taught the world to fly—without question—but who taught the Wrights how to fly? To a very considerable extent, Octave Chanute, a French-born, Chicago-based engineer, did. His personal investigations into the problems of flight measurably advanced knowledge about powered flight in the 1890s, and he shared that knowledge with the Wrights as they undertook the research that led to their successful 1903 test flights. The brothers corresponded with Chanute throughout their preliminary research, seeking his counsel and incorporating his ideas into their designs for an airplane. Chanute even visited the Wrights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, while they were testing their planes.
To understand how this transpired, one must go back and explore the biography of Octave Alexandre Chanute. Born in 1832, he was the diminutive son of a French immigrant to New Orleans. He began a successful career in railroad construction at the Hudson River Railroad in Ossining, New York, as a chainman on a survey team. A self-taught engineer, he became a legend for his novel designs and construction of complex bridges, railroad terminals, and use of unusual construction materials. His work on the preservation of building materials led to his invention of the system for pressure-treating rail ties and telephone poles with creosote, a technique still in use throughout the world. By the time he was forty-one years old, he was chief engineer of the Erie Railroad. Later as chief engineer of Illinois Central, Chanute relocated to Chicago, where he would live the rest of his life. Chanute's interest in flight began shortly after that. But he was a professional engineer, and (more often than not) people interested in flight were simply considered crazy. He kept his interest to himself for the time being.
Not until 1886, at age fifty-four, when most successful men would have rested on their laurels, did he begin a second career by devoting himself to solving the problems of flight. In typical engineering fashion of step-by-step investigation, Chanute assembled known data on the science into a single synthesis and catalogued its problems. While committed to advancing the cause of aviation, Chanute was always a hardheaded realist. He pursued aviation research as more an avocation than a true profession, much as others might pursue chess or bridge or gardening.
Very early he realized that the best means to overcome the problems of flight required numerous researchers, each engaged in dialogue with one another and kept organized by
someone with overarching vision. Chanute proved to be that person of vision, and he set about in the early 1890s to convince others to explore the problems he outlined. In August 1886 he organized the first serious professional session on the possibilities of aeronautical research in American history. Held at the Buffalo, New York, meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Chanute persuaded Israel Lancaster, an amateur naturalist and aeronautical experimenter, to address the conference on the subject of "The Soaring Bird," complete with models. Despite Chanute's best efforts, Lancaster found a room of skeptics when he made his presentation.
Aeronautics' reception in Buffalo did not dissuade Chanute. He opened correspondence with everyone he could find conducting aeronautical research, and he became fast friends and sometime financial contributor to the efforts of aviation pioneers Louis Mouillard in France and Otto Lilienthal in Germany. He also returned to the AAAS conference in 1889, this time in Toronto, and outlined his plans for aeronautical research as an engineering problem and offered an agenda for working toward a heavier-than-air flying machines capable of carrying an individual. This time the skeptics did not laugh.
Buoyed by the positive reception at the AAAS, in 1893 Chanute organized an "International Conference on Aerial Naviation" at the World's Columbian Exposition, held in his home city of Chicago on the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the "New World." He brought together the best and the brightest working in the field, including Samuel P. Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and an ardent experimenter in flight; Louis Mouillard; Thomas A. Edison; and a host of others. They spoke of glider experiments, of research in guidance and control, of engine requirements, and of materials required for construction of flying machines.
The conference was a stunning success. The meeting laid the groundwork for what Chanute believed to be the appropriate strategy for achieving flight—the elimination of the errors of experimentalists and the advance of the science of flight by making known both their successes and failures. It led directly to publication of Chanute's classic book, Progress in Flying Machines (1894), which gave the world its first compendium on flight and earned him the title of the first aero-historian because of his extensive discussion of what the various experimenters had found in their research into the problems of flight.
For years it seemed, Chanute sorted false claims about flight from valid ones. He sifted through technical journals and among various designs for knowledge that might advance the cause of aviation. He also committed some of his not inconsiderable fortune to other people's experiments, viewing his selfless labors as necessary for humanity to break the bonds of Earth and reach into the sky.
Beginning in the summer of 1896, Chanute also engaged in gliding experiments on the shores of Lake Michigan not far from Chicago. But when he finally did so, they were not truly experiments but public demonstrations of the state of the art by someone who had become the patriarch of aeronautics. He was sixty-four when he and a small band of dedicated assistants went to the sand dunes along southern Lake Michigan for these flight tests. And they were enormously successful; one of the gliders flew almost four hundred feet. Chanute collected a significant amount of aerodynamic data after performing more than seven hundred successful glider flights through 1897. And he willingly shared his information with anyone who had an interest, including the Wright brothers, in the process helping to develop more advanced flying machines.
The Chanute glider was the most stable and sophisticated of any ever built until the Wrights began their work in 1900, contributing much to flight science in the areas of control systems and stability, efficiency of materials, aircraft structural integrity, and strength. In utilizing his knowledge of braced-box structure in bridge construction, he invented the familiar strut-wire braced wing structure employed in biplane aircraft. But Chanute was not cast in the same mold of the other early pioneers of flight. He played a different kind of role, that of mentor for others seeking to crack the riddle of flight.
Chanute deeply believed that the advancement of flight science must be the work of many. He corresponded internationally and encouraged the pioneers, including the Wright brothers, of whom he was a special friend and mentor. He sought no patents on his inventions and gave his findings openly to all. The Wright brothers used his research when they designed their 1900 glider. They also opened correspondence with him, asking for technical information and advice. Chanute, for instance, advised Wilbur Wright to find a sandy place, with strong prevailing winds, to lessen the problem of moving the glider from the point of landing back to the point of takeoff. This sparked the brothers' decision to journey from their native Dayton, Ohio, to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the conditions Chanute recommended existed nearly year-round.
From then on Chanute followed the progress of the Wrights with gleeful enthusiasm. He believed that they had the opportunity to succeed where so many others had failed. He sent his own assistants to North Carolina to work with them, and he visited them at their
camp on more than one occasion. When he could not be with them, he wrote to them. Chanute's correspondence with the Wright brothers consists of several hundred letters touching on every phase and stage of aeronautical development between 1900 and 1910. This literary exchange records with clarity and candor the development of practical flight. And since the Wrights generally kept no copies of their outgoing letters, we are indebted to Chanute, who saved virtually everything he received, for enabling us to see the process by which the Wrights produced a successful airplane in 1903 when others failed.
Chanute cheered in 1902 when the Wrights started making, as a matter of course, 600-foot flights in fully controllable gliders. With the success of those gliders, a powered aircraft now appeared within reach. The next year, on December 17,1903, the Wrights' plane took off and flew under its own power. The world has not been the same since.
No one proved a more effective advocate for the Wright brothers after their famous first flight than Octave Chanute. He steadfastly supported the brothers and remained their confidants until patent disputes erupted in 1905 between them and other flyers over aeronautical technology. Chanute broke off his correspondence with them at that time because he disagreed with their desire to control the technology of flight. For him, technical information was a public commodity, and he believed that the ability to fly would usher in a new age of enlightenment and that the Wrights were thwarting it. The relationship was mending at the time that Chanute died in 1910. The brothers attended his funeral, and Wilbur Wright delivered his eulogy. He said of Chanute, "His labors had vast influence in bringing about the era of human flight." No more appropriate epitaph could have been offered.
Click Here for Curriculum Materials | <urn:uuid:37ead7d4-a7e5-45f2-8112-ef741349f3e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lib.niu.edu/2001/iht810114.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975717 | 1,974 | 3.546875 | 4 |
As the historic wave of migration from Mexico of the late 20th century slowed to a standstill, a new chapter in United States immigration history was slowly unfolding.
Early last year, census numbers from California showed that Asian Americans had eclipsed Latinos in population growth. And as California goes, so goes the nation. Now that immigration from Latin America has receded, immigration from Asia has surpassed it, according to a Pew Research Center report released today. More immigrants from Asia arrived in the United States in 2010 than from Latin America, with authorized and unauthorized migration considered.
None of this happened overnight, of course. Asian immigrant communities in the United States have very deep roots. More than a hundred years ago, Chinese Americans became the first immigrant group in the U.S. targeted by exclusionary immigration laws, at a time when migration from China was prevalent. In the last half-century, though, as more immigrants from Southeast Asia and India arrived, the Asian American population grew to a record 18.2 million in 2011, or 5.8 percent of the total population. That's more than five times what it was in 1965.
The Pew report incorporates more than population numbers, listing details that some may not know about the nation's most culturally diverse group of new immigrants ranging from the personal to the political. One interesting thing to start off with, and which lies behind some of these details: Recent Asian immigrants are about three times as likely as peers from other parts of the world to receive permanent resident status via an employer, versus family sponsorship.
Half a dozen interesting facts from the report:
- Chinese Americans are the largest individual Asian group in the U.S., followed by Filipinos. Coming in third are Indians, who also happen to be the fastest-growing Asian American group. Indians hold the most visas for highly-skilled workers in the U.S. Not surprisingly perhaps, they also lead other Asian Americans in terms of holding college degrees.
- Nearly three-quarters, or 74 percent, of Asian American adults are foreign born. Of these, about half say they speak English very well, while half say they do not.
- Much like Latinos, a majority of Asian Americans prefer to identify not with a pan-ethnic label or even as "American," but by their or their family's country of origin.
- In terms of interracial marriage, Asian Americans overall are more likely to marry into another racial/ethnic group than others. Between 2008 and 2010, close to one-third of Asian American newlyweds married out; six percent married someone with roots in a different Asian country.
- Political affiliation varies depending on country of origin; Vietnamese Americans, for example, tend to vote Republican. But 50 percent of Asian Americans overall lean Democratic, while 28 percent lean Republican and 22 percent identify as independent.
- Nearly half - 47 percent - of the Asian Americans in the United States live in the West, including Hawaii, where Asians make up the biggest racial group.
There are more complex nuances to the report, some of which I'll parse out in the coming days. The entire report can be downloaded here. | <urn:uuid:21297a2c-b937-4f9c-83e8-0062b7958753> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scpr.org/blogs/multiamerican/2012/06/20/8023/asian-america-half-a-dozen-facts-as-asians-become-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00068-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957795 | 634 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Cleistogamous plants bear flowers that fertilise themselves and set seed without ever opening. This project seeks to find out how well cleistogamous rapeseed prevents gene flow.
It is of critical importance to find out how reliably cleistogamous rapeseed reduces unwanted pollen movement. The project aim is to verify the impact of cleistogamy both on autogamy and pollen dispersal limitation under several climatic and agricultural conditions and cultivation techniques. To do this, two cleistogamous genotypes were tested in the field at five locations (two in the UK, two in Germany and one in France in WP1 of Co-Extra) and under two treatments (with and without application of a growth regulator when the growth is restarting at the end of winter). At the sites, researchers looked at the extent to which flowers stayed shut throughout the entire flowering period, and looked at the extent to which the cleistogamous rapeseed self-pollinated. Since specific cultivars and various environmental conditions could potentially have an effect on the stability and reliability of the cleistogamy trait, it is important to use different cultivars and diverse locations for such trials.
Conventional oilseed rape is a hermaphrodite plant with a highly variable autogamy rate. The autogamy rate seems mainly to depend on the plant genotype, but also depends on environmental conditions. Intraspecific and interspecific cross-pollination can occur and, according to the situation, pollen transfer partly is due to wind or to pollinating insects .
The a priori advantage of cleistogamy (closed flowers) is twofold: firstly, self-pollination is favoured by limiting allopollen deposition on the stigma; secondly, gene flow is reduced by limiting pollen dispersal. The cleistogamous trait was selected from induced mutagenesis in oilseed rape and patented (Renard and Tanguy, 1997). This trait is controlled, for the most part, by one gene (Clg1). Since 1998, several field experiments have been conducted on cleistogamous lines of rapeseed to study the effect of the trait on self- and cross-pollination. Information from these studies has been compiled, and their relevant conclusions are useful in directing new research projects.
The first experiment showed that flowers of cleistogamous lines are mostly totally closed, but a variable proportion of flowers were observed as partially open.
The second multi-site experiment showed that the environment (site x year) had an effect on the pollination, as differences among sites and years were observed.
Pollen containment by cleistogamy in oilseed rape
Public Deliverables of the Co-Extra project
|NAME / ORGANISATION||CONTACT INFORMATION|
Centre Technique Interprofessionnel des Oléagineux Métropolitains (CETIOM), France
|Jacqueline Pierre & Michel Renard|
Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France
|Joachim Schiemann and Alexandra Huesken|
BBA - Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Germany
National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), United Kingdom | <urn:uuid:2f73a7b8-b331-45b5-8a13-516cb333c1cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.coextra.eu/projects/project191.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922451 | 661 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Texas A&M researchers with team of scientists study possible new human species
Updated 1:54 pm, Tuesday, April 16, 2013
A team of scientists, including Texas A&M researchers, believe 2-million-year-old skeletal remains may be a new type of species that played a role in human evolution.
A series of six papers in the current issue of Science magazine detail the close examination of the lower jawbone, teeth and skeleton of the species Australopithecus sediba, which was discovered in 2010 by a team of scientists in South Africa and had human and ape-like characteristics.
Some researchers concluded that the new skeleton belonged to a closely related species and therefore did not represent a new species, but the scientists claim that a recent examination of the species proves conclusively that it is uniquely different from Australopithecus africanus, which was discovered before the new species, according to the recently released series of papers.
Darryl de Ruiter, Texas A&M associate anthropology professor, is the lead author or co-author in a series of six papers detailing the findings. Others connected to A&M participated in the new study, including professor Thom Dewitt, doctoral student Keely Carlson and Juliet Brophy, a recent doctoral graduate, according to a university statement.
The skeletal remains were discovered in 2010 in a South African cave about 30 miles from Johannesburg. That team, which was comprised of researchers from the United States, Africa, Europe and Australia, concluded that the bones displayed a unique arrangement of both human and ape-like characteristics.
"We looked at the jawbone area and found definitive proof that the two are not the same species," de Ruiter said of the recent findings. "Australopithecus sediba is unique in size, shape and pattern of growth, though it does share features with older australopiths."
He said it looks more like a human than any other species ever discovered. The Australopiths are an extinct species that appear ape-like in structure, but walk similar to modern humans. Generally, anthropologists believe that some form of Australopithecus eventually evolved into humans.
"We examined the remains and found several distinct individuals – possibly representing a family group. They all seemed to have died suddenly in the same event about 1.98 million years ago, but the remains are in surprisingly good shape," de Ruiter said.
He said the findings "show very strong support of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection."
Previous work from the team in 2012, including de Ruiter, proved that the Australopithecus sediba had a forest-based diet of leaves, fruits, nuts and bark, one similar to that of a present-day chimp. The diet of early Australopithecus is a key component central to the study of human origins, he said. | <urn:uuid:ec563f62-bb89-4cd7-85de-8536335f3c54> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-A-M-researchers-with-team-of-scientists-4438925.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959562 | 582 | 3.046875 | 3 |
What you can get
What it is about
The Welding Technology curriculum provides students with a sound understanding of the science, technology, and applications essential for successful employment in the welding and metalworking industry.
Courses you will take
Instruction includes consumable and non-consumable electrode welding and cutting processes. Courses may include math, print reading, metallurgy, welding inspection, and destructive and non-destructive testing providing the student with industry-standard skills developed through classroom training and practical application.
What you will gain
Graduate of the Welding Technology curriculum may be employed as entry-level technicians in welding and metalworking industries. Career opportunities also exist in construction, manufacturing, fabrication, sales, quality control, supervision, and welding-related self-employment. | <urn:uuid:086a4d2d-8676-46ad-8211-c02db955dacb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sprite.blueridge.edu/academics/advanced-manufacturing-engineering-brewing-construction/welding-technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00115-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895156 | 160 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Throughout Scripture God attaches special importance to certain 'things'. There are the trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil. There is the rainbow after the Flood and perhaps the dove's olive branch too. There is circumcision, Moses' rod, the fiery, cloudy pillar, the holy mountain, thunder and lightning, the Sabbath Day, the tabernacle, its sacrifices and its furniture, the Temple and the ark of the covenant. We could speak of the bronze snake, Samson's jawbone and Elijah's cloak.
We turn to the New Testament and think of baptismal water, of the mud and spittle in Jesus' ministry, of the bread and wine, of Peter's shadow and handkerchiefs touched by Paul. One could include too the miracles of the Lord and the apostles.
We can think of words, and the Word.
We can think of the incarnate life of the Son of God.
Now this makes an unequal collection but it is nonetheless true that in some way God uses in these cases some element of creation in a way that distiguishes it from the rest of creation - at least for a time.
We might identify the purposes for which these 'things' are used as being one or more of the following:
1. As a pointer - or sign as it is more commonly called. An earthly thing is used as a signpost to something heavenly. Our minds are not to stay on the earthly thing (sign) but look to the heavenly thing to which the sign points. It is a signpost. It is a ladder, one might say, to enable us to climb to heaven; or a glass through which to look on spiritual realities.
2. As a picture which in some way illustrates the heavenly reality. For example it is easy to see why bread and wine bring to mind the body and blood of Christ or water the cleansing and death-and-resurrection of incorporation into Christ.
3. As a pledge or as we might say a 'seal'. The thing is in some way an assurance and guarantee to the recipient of the spiritual blessing it represents, as was circumcision to Abraham of his righteousness by faith.
4. As a means of participation, so that by means of the 'thing' the recipient receives something of the heavenly reality, namely, and supremely, Christ in his presence and power and in all his fullness and his benefits. This is the highest use of 'things'.
5. Finally the thing may be an instrument by which the Lord accomplishes something, for example the rod of Moses and the weapons of Samson and the cloak of Elijah.
Now the list of 'things' above is very uneven. Some are specifically called signs such as circumcision, the rainbow and the Sabbath -signs of the covenant relationship between God and Israel. Others are signs of his saving work such as the sacrifices and the bronze serpent. Others again are signs of his presence and dwelling with men - the tabernacle, the Temple and the ark of the covenant. Yet others are signs of his sovereign working and rule over creation in the interest of redemption - the rod of Moses, for example, over a long period; or as a'one-off', like Peter's shadow.
Now where does this take us?
1. In the continuing church of the New Testament we see the simplification of the use of things by God. We have the bread and wine and the water of baptism.
What of the Word? The Word of God is also a creation which God takes up and uses. It is a unique creation as it is uniquely inspired but it is still ineffective until the Spirit of God takes it and applies it. Yet the principles above apply; it is a pointer to the things of which it speaks, an illuminator of spiritual realities, a pledge and guarantee that the recipient will receive the spiritual reality promised and the means of participation in that reality. It is also of course an instrument in God's hand to accomplish his purposes.
2.What is the relation between the created thing and the heavenly reality it represents - or as we say between the sign and the thing signified? We have to be careful not to say that God attaches himself to the thing in any way that could render the effectiveness of the thing automatic. A created thing never becomes in any sense divine. Yet we must not go to the other extreme and suggest that the only efficacy of the sign is in God's more or less arbitrary choice to render it effective in such a way now and not then, for 'him' but not for 'her', here and not there. There is a stronger link between the sign and the thing signified than that.
What that link is, is frankly a mystery and one without analogy in the natural realm. Some call it a 'sacramental union', confess it is a mystery and are content to leave it at that. Others push it in one of the two directions indicated - towards a magical ex opere operato view, or alternatively a view that renders the use of the means virtually incidental to the sovereign work of God's Spirit.
Both extremes distort the nature of the relationship God has set up between sign and thing signified.
It is the same with the Word as with the sacraments. Although we cannot say that the Word on its own is enough, or that the Word automatically accomplishes an effect, we must not give the impression either that the sovereignty of the Spirit means that there is no promise attached to the preaching of the Word other than the hope that God may use it. God uses 'mechanical' pictures from nature - rain and snow falling and producing fruitfulness on earth - to illustrate what we may expect of the word preached - Isaiah 55:10,11. The Word 'will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it'.
Further, the effect we hope for may not be that which the Word accomplishes. Paul speaks of the gospel being sometimes a fragrance of life, at other times an aroma of death (2 Cor 2:14-16). Either way, the Word is not being ineffective.
There is a relationship therefore between the created element God takes up and the effective work of God which he has established in the particular cases that we call the Word and the sacraments, which is unique. These things are different from other created things when in their proper use, as a silver coin is different from a strip of silver - it has a value given it by the minter ( yet not a value that inheres in the sign - all illustrations are dangerous!). It is neither automatic nor is it the arbitrary exercise of divine sovereignty; in asserting the essential presence of God's Spirit we must not deny this union nor in asserting the union must we deny the necessity of the Spirit.
Could God do all he wants without means or signs or 'things'? Of course; no -one doubts it. The point is , however, that normally he chooses to work, and represents himself in Scripture as working, by such means.
3. We see at least some analogy of the 'sacramental' union in the hypostatic union, the union of the divine and human in Christ. Here the union of divine and created is perfect and permanent. The taking up of creation by God reaches its zenith in the incarnation . Here is the human nature of Christ , body and soul, taken up into the person of the divine Son, to be all that creation can be in the service of God. Pointer, picture, pledge, participation and instrument of the presence of God in all his blessings and benefits are in Christ incarnate. Calvin's doctrine of the sacraments does justice to this better than any other, in insisting that the fellowship with Christ in Word and sacrament is with his body as well as in Spirit - a spiritual fellowship and a heavenly one, mediated by the Spirit, but nonetheless fellowship with his body for, as Sinclair Ferguson insists, this is the only Christ there is. A mystery? Yes, Calvin would say so. But whether in the preaching of the Word whereby people are mysteriously converted in the combination of Holy Spirit power and human instrument, or in the person of Christ himself, glorified and in heaven in his human body, God's use of 'things' to give himself to sinners is all mystery, and all glorious. | <urn:uuid:b16249cb-6add-4bc3-87b1-6d1845fa005a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://harpfromthewillows.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/gods-use-of-things-and-how-people-are.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00169-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962487 | 1,715 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Deep below the earth's surface lies a thick, rocky layer called the mantle, which makes up the majority of our planet's volume. For decades, scientists have known that most of the lower mantle is a silicate mineral with a perovskite structure that is stable under the high-pressure and high-temperature conditions found in this region. Although synthetic examples of this composition have been well studied, no naturally occurring samples had ever been found in a rock on the earth's surface. Thanks to the work of two scientists, naturally occurring silicate perovskite has been found in a meteorite, making it eligible for a formal mineral name.
The mineral, dubbed bridgmanite, is named in honor of Percy Bridgman, a physicist who won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for his fundamental contributions to high-pressure physics.
"The most abundant mineral of the earth now has an official name," says Chi Ma, a mineralogist and director of the Geological and Planetary Sciences division's Analytical Facility at Caltech.
"This finding fills a vexing gap in the taxonomy of minerals," adds Oliver Tschauner, an associate research professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas who identified the mineral together with Ma.
High-pressure and temperature experiments, as well as seismic data, strongly suggest that (Mg,Fe)SiO3-perovskite—now simply called bridgmanite—is the dominant material in the lower mantle. But since it is impossible to get to the earth's lower mantle, located some 400 miles deep within the planet, and rocks brought to the earth's surface from the lower mantle are exceedingly rare, naturally occurring examples of this material had never been fully described.
That is until Ma and Tschauner began poking around a sample from the Tenham meteorite, a space rock that fell in Australia in 1879.
Because the 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite had survived high-energy collisions with asteroids in space, parts of it were believed to have experienced the high-pressure conditions we see in the earth's mantle. That, scientists thought, made it a good candidate for containing bridgmanite.
Tschauner used synchrotron X-ray diffraction mapping to find indications of the mineral in the meteorite. Ma then examined the mineral and its surroundings with a high-resolution scanning electron microscope and determined the composition of the tiny bridgmanite crystals using an electron microprobe. Next, Tschauner analyzed the crystal structure by synchrotron diffraction. After five years and multiple experiments, the two were finally able to gather enough data to reveal bridgmanite's chemical composition and crystal structure.
"It is a really cool discovery," says Ma. "Our finding of natural bridgmanite not only provides new information on shock conditions and impact processes on small bodies in the solar system, but the tiny bridgmanite found in a meteorite could also help investigations of phase transformation mechanisms in the deep Earth. "
The mineral and the mineral name were approved on June 2 by the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification.
The researchers' findings are published in the November 28 issue of Science, in an article titled "Discovery of Bridgmanite, the Most Abundant Mineral in Earth, In a Shocked Meteorite." | <urn:uuid:d22dec4d-d0be-4f9d-8ccd-32e77b2ca18a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.caltech.edu/news/earth-building-bridgmanite-43020 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00025-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946259 | 700 | 4.3125 | 4 |
Scientists Say The Long Winter Is Because Of The Melting Arctic Ice Cap
Exposing more of the ocean to the atmosphere results in extreme weather, both hot and cold.
Climate scientists have linked the massive snowstorms and bitter spring weather now being experienced across Britain and large parts of Europe and north America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice.
Both the extent and the volume of the sea ice that forms and melts each year in the Arctic ocean fell to an historic low last autumn, and satellite records published on Monday by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, show the ice extent is close to the minimum recorded for this time of year.
“The sea ice is going rapidly. It’s 80% less than it was just 30 years ago. There has been a dramatic loss. This is a symptom of global warming and it contributes to enhanced warming of the Arctic,” said Jennifer Francis, research professor with the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science .
According to Francis and a growing body of other researchers, the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere which shifts the position of the jet stream – the high-altitude river of air that steers storm systems and governs most weather in northern hemisphere. | <urn:uuid:c9104ceb-8d84-4992-8c2c-ef07dc1b522f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.alan.com/2013/03/25/scientists-say-the-long-winter-is-because-of-the-melting-arctic-ice-cap/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918561 | 258 | 3.984375 | 4 |
WASHINGTON, D.C. | September 1, 2011 -
Charter schools empower parents to play a more active role in their child’s education, open doors for teachers to pioneer fresh teaching methods, encourage state and local innovation, and help students escape underperforming schools. Despite high demand and an estimated 420,000 students on charter school wait lists, significant barriers to quality charter school growth exist.
- Charter schools are public schools created through a contract with an authorized agency or local school district. The federal government supports the opening of public charter schools through competitive grants issued by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s Charter Schools Program.
- The current Charter School Program does not support funding for the replication or expansion of high-quality charter schools. Many charter schools also have difficulty securing financing to build or rehabilitate facilities.
- Additionally, few guidelines exist to monitor charter school quality and support successful charter schools.
As we work to improve the nation’s education system and raise student achievement levels, much can be gained from expanding access to high-quality charter schools. That’s why the House Education and the Workforce Committee introduced the Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act (H.R. 2218). This bipartisan legislation has received support from several organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Chiefs for Change, the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. H.R. 2218 was approved by the House of Representatives on September 13, 2011.
H.R. 2218 - THE EMPOWERING PARENTS THROUGH QUALITY CHARTER SCHOOLS ACT
- Encourages states to support the development and expansion of charter schools.
- Streamlines federal Charter School Program funding to reduce administrative burdens and improves funding opportunities for the replication of successful charter models and facilities assistance.
- Supports an evaluation of schools' impact on students, families, and communities, while also encouraging sharing best practices between charters and traditional public schools.
- Offers incentives to states that use charter schools to reach out to special populations, including at-risk students.
The Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act will facilitate the establishment of high-quality charter schools and further encourage choice, innovation and excellence in education. To read a bill summary, click here. To read full bill text as approved by the committee, click here.
# # # | <urn:uuid:6d954a91-cda9-4c71-b81d-ef0659585ac5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=258038 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00140-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945162 | 502 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Actinomycosis is a long-term (chronic) bacterial infection that commonly affects the face and neck.
Actinomycosis is usually caused by an anaerobic bacteria called Actinomyces israelii, which is a common and normally not disease-causing (nonpathogenic) organism found in the nose and throat.
Because of the bacteria's normal location in the nose and throat, actinomycosis most commonly appears in the face and neck. However, the infection can sometimes occur in the chest (pulmonary actinomycosis), abdomen, pelvis, or other areas of the body. The infection is not contagious.
Symptoms occur when the bacteria enters the facial tissues after trauma, surgery, or infection. Common triggers include dental abscess or oral surgery. The infection has also been seen in certain women who have had an intrauterine device (IUD) to prevent pregnancy.
Once in the tissue, it forms an abscess, producing a hard, red to reddish-purple lump, often on the jaw, from which comes the condition's common name, "lumpy jaw."
Eventually, the abscess breaks through the skin surface to produce a draining sinus tract.
See also: Neck lumps
Treatment of actinomycosis usually requires antibiotics for several months to a year. Surgical drainage or removal of the lesion may be needed. If the condition is related to an IUD, the device must be removed.
With treatment, you should recover fully.
Meningitis can rarely develop from this infection.
Call your health care provider if you develop any of the symptoms of this disorder. Beginning treatment promptly helps quicken the recovery.
Good oral hygiene and regular dentist visits may help prevent some forms of actinomycosis.
Brook I. Actinomycosis. In: Goldman L, Ausiello D, eds.Cecil Medicine. 24th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 337. | <urn:uuid:9ba0ac49-25af-4977-ae69-97232e96ae6d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.northside.com/HealthLibrary/?Path=HIE+Multimedia%5C1%5C000599.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00022-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915353 | 422 | 3.15625 | 3 |
"Decaf” is short for “decaffeinated,” a removing of caffeine from such products as coffee, tea, and soda. Nestlé marketed a product called “Decaf” instant coffee, beginning in 1953. It’s difficult to determine when “decaf” became a word that did not refer specifically to Nestlé’s brand name product. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary records “decaf” from 1961.
Decaffeination is the act of removing caffeine from coffee beans, cocoa, tea leaves and other caffeine-containing materials. (While caffeine-free soft drinks are occasionally referred to as “decaffeinated”, some are better termed “uncaffeinated”: prepared without adding caffeine during productiMerriam-Webster Online Dictionaryon.) Despite removal of most caffeine, many decaffeinated drinks still have around 1–2% of the original caffeine remaining in them, and research has found that certain decaffeinated coffee drinks can contain around 20% of the original caffeine.
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
de·caf noun \ˈdē-ˌkaf\
: coffee that does not contain caffeine : decaffeinated coffee
Origin of DECAF
short for decaffeinated
First Known Use: 1961
12 December 1953, New Castle (PA) News, pg. 28, col. 1 ad:
New Decaf Instant
Coffee ... 2 reg. jars 63c
30 April 1954, Cleveland (OH) Plain Dealer, “In the Markets: New Coffee, New Sausage,” pg. 20, col. 4:
Two foods made their appearance in the markets this week, a “decaffeinated” instant coffee, called Decaf, and Brown N’ Serve Sausage.
Decaf, produced by the Nestle Co., has a true coffee flavor, we are told, because of a revolutionary Swiss process that removes caffein before roasting. Decaf is 97% caffein free.
11 August 1954, Cleveland (OH) Plain Dealer, pg. 18, col. 6 ad:
24 September 1955, The Billboard, pg. 3, col. 1:
Decaf Coffee, Nestle Co.
15 September 1958, Life magazine, pg. 79, col. 2 ad:
Make your coffee new Decaf— the feel wonderful coffee. It’s coffee processed a new modern way, without disagreeable caffein. Fills your cup with all the goodness that’s in the coffee bean. All wonderful taste — no disagreeable caffein. Sleep? Naturally! Get a jar today.
OCLC WorldCat record
Heart Disease Worries? Watch the Decaf
Author: J. Raloff
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Science News, v140 n11 (19910914): 165
Database: JSTOR Life Sciences Collection
,a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/who-needs-decaf/oclc/53897343&referer=brief_results">OCLC WorldCat record
“Who needs decaf?”
Author: Tanya Michaels
Publisher: Toronto : Harlequin, ©2003.
Series: Harlequin flipside, 06.
Edition/Format: Book : Fiction : English
OCLC WorldCat record
Regular & decaf : one friend with schizophrenia, one friend with bipolar, one ongoing conversation, one cup at a time
Author: Andrew D Gadtke
Publisher: Edina, Minn. : Risen Man Publishing, LLC ; 2008.
Edition/Format: Book : English
Word Mark NESTLE’S DECAF
Goods and Services (EXPIRED) IC 030. US 046. G & S: DECAFFEINATED INSTANT COFFEE. FIRST USE: 19550908. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19550908
Mark Drawing Code (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM
Serial Number 71697117
Filing Date October 25, 1955
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Registration Number 0633758
Registration Date August 28, 1956
Owner (REGISTRANT) NESTLE COMPANY, INC., THE CORPORATION NEW YORK 2 WILLIAM ST. WHITE PLAINS NEW YORK
Prior Registrations 0357353;0605903;AND OTHERS
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Affidavit Text SECT 15.
Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 19760828
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While kids are focused on planning their costumes and candy collecting routes, many parents are worried about sugar content and how to manage their youngsters’ appetite for sweets. I have written about ways to handle candy in the past, but today I am targeting food dyes. From cereal to yogurt, food dyes are infused in countless items in our food supply. In the candy category, it’s usually off the charts.
Satisfaction with one’s physical appearance is at an all-time low among today’s adolescents, and eating disorders are on the rise at an ever-younger age. Much of the blame goes to the media and fashion industry and their standards of beauty and fitness that are nearly impossible to reach for normal mortals. On the other hand, too many young people don’t take warnings about overweight and obesity seriously enough and underestimate the health risks they will be facing as adults.
As childhood obesity rates continue to rise worldwide, we are now approaching the level of a major public health crisis. While that is common knowledge among experts, the alarming news doesn’t seem to reach millions upon millions of parents who keep overfeeding their offspring with unhealthy meals and fattening treats. In fact, many of those whose children have been diagnosed as overweight or obese insist that there is nothing wrong with a little chubbiness at a young age.
For some teenagers, putting on some extra weight can be a normal part of their development. For others, weight gain is a sign that eating habits and physical activity are getting off track. As a parent, there’s a fine line to walk when your teen starts to show signs of gaining too many pounds. What should you do? Should you do anything at all?
Childhood obesity remains a serious health threat, and it is not surprising that parents and schools take much of the blame for their kids’ poor diets. But while there is no one cause for weight problems affecting children, food outlets may not be getting enough attention when it comes to food choices families make. In fact, grocery stores could play a much larger role in the fight against childhood obesity in their communities.
Insufficient Calcium and Vitamin D intake during childhood and adolescence increases the risk of osteoporosis later in life, according to a new study by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Unfortunately, many youngsters don’t get enough of these important nutrients in their diet, and sedentary lifestyles and indoor activities like watching television or playing video games don’t help. | <urn:uuid:5c812177-e638-4cfb-bd72-a82407ad4bd6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.timigustafson.com/category/kids-health/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96376 | 513 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Watch Chris Fleet, the National Library of Scotland's Senior Map Curator, talk about the history of mapping in Scotland to help get you started.
Video transcript (215 KB; 2 pages)
Welcome to Mapping History – a guide to using historical maps.
Whether you're a teacher interested in finding out about how to use maps in the classroom or a community group looking to do a local history project, this site is for you.
We've created a range of activities and a simple step-by-step guide which shows you how to read and use a wide range of maps including historical maps.
These activities which will help you learn more about the history of your area using maps. The 'Go further' downloadable activity sheets will help you extend your knowledge of using maps in the field.
Start using Mapping History | <urn:uuid:fb6ee299-3dd6-4ab2-8b7d-a821e279b0b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://digital.nls.uk/mapping-history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00141-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900992 | 168 | 3.390625 | 3 |
What is depression?
Depression is a real illness that impacts the brain. Anyone suffering from depression will tell you, it’s not imaginary or “all in your head.” Depression is more than just feeling “down.” It is a serious illness caused by changes in brain chemistry. Research tells us that other factors contribute to the onset of depression, including genetics, changes in hormone levels, certain medical conditions, stress, grief or difficult life circumstances. Any of these factors alone or in combination can precipitate changes in brain chemistry that lead to depression’s many symptoms.
Depression is a serious condition. It’s also, unfortunately, a common one. The World Health Organization characterizes depression as one of the most disabling disorders in the world, affecting roughly one in five women and one in ten men at some point in their lifetime. It is estimated that 21% of women and 12% of men in the U.S will experience an episode of depression at some point in their lifetime.
Depression does not discriminate. Men and women of every age, educational level, and social and economic background suffer from depression. There is no area of life that does not suffer when depression is present. Marriage, parenting, friendships, careers, finances – every aspect of daily living is compromised by this disease. Once an episode of depression occurs, it is also quite likely that it will recur. And the impact of depression can be even more severe when it occurs in combination with other medical illnesses such as diabetes, stroke, or cardiovascular disease, or with related disorders such as anxiety or substance abuse.
The problems caused by depression are made worse by the fact that most people suffering from the disease are never diagnosed, let alone treated. The good news is that when depression is promptly identified and treated, its symptoms are manageable and there are many effective strategies for living with the disease. Depression and bipolar disorder are both treated most effectively in their earliest stages when symptoms are less severe.
What causes depression?
Although scientists agree that depression is a brain disorder, the debate continues about exact causes. Many factors may contribute to the onset of depression, including genetic characteristics, changes in hormone levels, certain medical illnesses, stress, grief, or substance abuse. Any of these factors alone or in combination can bring about the specific changes in brain chemistry that lead to the many symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder and related conditions.
Depression commonly affects your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviors and your overall physical health. Here are some of the most common symptoms that point to the presence of depression:
- Angry outbursts
- Loss of interest in friends, family and favorite activities, including sex
- Trouble concentrating
- Trouble making decisions
- Trouble remembering
- Thoughts of harming yourself
- Delusions and/or hallucinations can also occur in cases of severe depression
- Withdrawing from people
- Substance abuse
- Missing work, school or other commitments
- Attempts to harm yourself
- Tiredness or lack of energy
- Unexplained aches and pains
- Changes in appetite
- Weight loss
- Weight gain
- Changes in sleep – sleeping too little or too much (Note: if you are concerned about your sleep, Click here to take a simple quiz that can help you determine whether your current sleep patterns may be causing you problems.)
- Sexual problems
Of course, all of us can expect to experience one or more of these symptoms on occasion. An occurrence of any one of these symptoms on its own does not constitute depression. When healthcare professionals suspect depression, they commonly look for clusters of these symptoms occurring regularly for two weeks or longer, and impacting functional aspects of the person’s life.
Could you be suffering from depression?
Together with a healthcare provider, you can find out whether what you are experiencing is depression or bipolar disorder, and chart a course to feeling and functioning better. This website provides tips and tools for starting that conversation with your primary care physician or nurse practitioner, or with a community health professional. See Talking with your healthcare provider.
Prior to engaging your doctor or healthcare provider, you may find it helpful to know more about how depression and bipolar disorder are diagnosed. Experts commonly employ a series of questions called a screening tool to identify depression. To walk yourself through the same questions, click on Are you depressed?. Once you have completed the questionnaire, you can share your answers with a professional to determine the best course of action.
How is depression treated?
There are several strategies for treating depression. Depending upon each individual’s characteristics and symptoms, healthcare professionals may employ one or more types of psychotherapy that rely upon a sequence of interpersonal treatment sessions with a trained professional. In addition, clinicians may suggest that a patient try one of a number of different medications. Lifestyle changes, including improvements in sleeping and eating habits, physical activity and stress reduction have also proven very helpful in managing symptoms. To learn more about the many options available for treating depression, click on Know your treatment options and Take care of yourself. | <urn:uuid:741a471e-1c02-4146-bebc-c6d94384c824> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.depressiontoolkit.org/aboutyourdiagnosis/depression.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942008 | 1,032 | 3.265625 | 3 |
International Journal of Epidemiology – obesity special
Children could be the key to halting the obesity epidemic1. Children could be the key to halting the obesity epidemic
Attempts to treat established obesity in adulthood may be too late to have important impacts on disease prevention or health improvements as there is evidence that obesity in children and adolescents has already resulted in long-lasting metabolic and vascular abnormalities, write Dr Debbie Lawlor (Bristol University) and Dr Nish Chaturvedi (Imperial College, London) .
They argue that targeting the prevention of obesity during key periods of a child's development could be the way to reduce subsequent risks of adult obesity and associated chronic disease.
The perinatal period and puberty/adolescence could be two critical periods during which interventions might have long-term effects.
There is increasing evidence that intrauterine over-nutrition predicts life-long obesity. High maternal glucose, free fatty acid and amino acid plasma concentrations result in over-nutrition of the foetus which, through permanent changes in appetite control, neuroendocrine functioning or energy metabolism in the developing foetus, leads to obesity in later life. Strict glycaemic control during pregnancy could held to prevent this.
Adolescence may also offer a unique opportunity to modify the risk of future obesity, perhaps via short-term interventions as behaviours such as dietary patterns and levels of physical activity are largely formed in adolescence and persist into adulthood.
Dr Lawlor said: "New behavioural, environmental and pharmacological approaches for the prevention and treatment of obesity in children are needed. However, the epidemic of childhood obesity is unlikely to be resolved without concerted political action."
Debbie A Lawlor and Nish Chaturved: Commentary: Treatment and prevention of obesity – are there critical periods for intervention? Int J Epidemiol., doi: 10.1093/ije/dyi309
2. Smoking during pregnancy increases risk of overweight offspring
Maternal smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of overweight in children before the age of eight years, according to a new study by Dr Aimin Chen and colleagues at the US National Institutes of Health.
Using data for 34,866 children enrolled in the US Collaborative Perinatal Project, the researchers examined maternal pregnancy smoking in relation to weight, height and body mass index (BMI) in offspring at ages one, three, four, seven and eight years.
Although children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy were found to weigh less at birth, their weight quickly equalled or exceeded that of other children. In the period up to eight years old, the children of smokers were more likely to be overweight, particularly the girls. Maternal smoking in the third trimester of pregnancy was more strongly associated with child overweight than maternal smoking in the first trimester.
Dr Chen said: "Lower birth weight among infants of prenatal smokers results in greater post-natal catch-up growth which is associated with increased risk of diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases.
"In addition, maternal smoking during pregnancy may be associated with poor appetite control in offspring. Just as adults who stop smoking can experience weight gain, babies who experience withdrawal from in utero smoking exposure after birth may also be susceptible to increased weight gain."
Aimin Chen, Michael L Pennell, Mark A Klebanoff, Walter J Rogan and Matthew P Longnecker: Maternal smoking during pregnancy in relation to child overweight: follow-up to age 8 years Int J Epidemiol., doi: 10.1093/ije/dyi218
3. Tackling obesity in the developing world
Obesity will continue to spread in the developing world where governments and health services have few effective public health levers with which to arrest the trend, writes Andrew Prentice of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Profound alterations in the structure and composition of diets across the globe, coupled with very rapidly changing patterns in physical activity have resulted in a macro-environment that is highly conducive to obesity.
The recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases placed obesity at the top of the public health agenda. Its argument for action is based partly on the economic consequences of inaction, for example heart disease, stroke and diabetes could cost China $4556 billion in the period 2005-15.
Dr Prentice said: "Major new initiatives by governments worldwide are needed to combat the external factors that contribute to the obesity pandemic such as the low cost of highly refined oils and carbohydrates, the encouragement towards motorized transport and the growth of sedentary forms of employment. These aspects of globalisation are infiltrating traditional lifestyles even in the poorest of developing countries.
"However, the prospects of halting the obesity pandemic within the foreseeable future appear remote as most countries will not be able to afford any measures to tackle the problem beyond public education campaigns warning of the health consequences of very high levels of body fat."
Andrew M Prentice: The emerging epidemic of obesity in developing countries Int J Epidemiol., doi: 10.1093/ije/dyi272
Notes to Editors
This issue of the IJE was overseen by associate editors, Dr Debbie Lawlor (Bristol University) and Dr Nish Chaturvedi (Imperial College, London).
For copies of the papers, please contact [email protected]
Contact details for Dr Debbie Lawlor: 0117 928 7267, [email protected]
The International Journal of Epidemiology is a key journal in the field of epidemiology and public health, published six times per year by Oxford University Press. It is edited at the Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, which is a leading centre for epidemiology, health services research and public health in the UK and was one of only three to be awarded the top 5* grade in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise.
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Examination of religion’s place in American political radicalism.
McKanan (Theology/Harvard Divinity School; The Catholic Worker after Dorothy: Christian Communities Transforming Society, 2008, etc.) explores the role of faith communities in movements ranging from abolitionism to environmentalism. He documents the individuals and organizations across the history of American radicalism, identifying and explaining links that may not be obvious to casual readers. Protestant Christianity necessarily plays the major role here, but McKanan goes to great lengths to discuss the radical aspects of Catholicism, Judaism and even such belief systems as Wicca. He begins with the nation-dividing anti-slavery question, illustrating not only white church involvement in the abolition movement but also the rise of historically black churches during this era. The author moves on to discuss the fight for women’s rights, a decades-long process that witnessed a great deal of change in American Christianity. The energy of the suffragist and temperance movements, combined with mini-revolutions within the late-19th-century church, gave way to a new radical emphasis on urban needs and the labor movement. McKanan explores American socialism and especially its tie to immigrant Catholics in the era before the Great Depression and World War II. After the war, American radicals of faith turned their attentions to race relations and the civil-rights movement. With the deflation of mainstream Protestantism, the post-1960s era provides a new and changing template for faith involvement in radical politics.
“Radicalism thrives in times of crisis,” writes the author. So too does religion. An illuminating book. | <urn:uuid:4a13802b-4d3e-476d-8723-7e2e28545199> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/dan-mckanan/prophetic-encounters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00067-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923749 | 335 | 2.984375 | 3 |
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|This figure shows 50 nm carboxylated polystyrene nanoparticles (green) interacting with a cell culture model of the intestinal epithelium (red). Oral exposure to these particles was shown to affect iron transport.
Credit: Nature Nanotechnology
Nanoparticles are everywhere. From cosmetics and clothes, to soda and snacks. But as versatile as they are, nanoparticles also have a downside, say researchers at Binghamton University and Cornell University in a recent paper published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. These tiny particles, even in low doses, could have a big impact on our long-term health.
According to lead author of the article, Gretchen Mahler, assistant professor of bioengineering at Binghamton University, much of the existing research on the safety of nanoparticles has been on the direct health effects. But what Mahler, Michael L. Shuler of Cornell University and a team of researchers really wanted to know was what happens when someone gets constant exposure in small doses - the kind you'd get if you were taken a drug or supplement that included nanoparticles in some form.
"We thought that the best way to measure the more subtle effects of this kind of intake was to monitor the reaction of intestinal cells," said Mahler. "And we did this in two ways - in vitro, through human intestinal-lining cells that we had cultured in the lab; and in vivo, through the intestinal linings of live chickens. Both sets of results pointed to the same thing - that exposure to nanoparticles influences the absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream."
The uptake of iron, an essential nutrient, was of particular interest due to the way it is absorbed and processed through the intestines. The way Mahler and the team tested this was to use polystyrene nanoparticles because of its easily traceable fluorescent properties.
"What we found was that for brief exposures, iron absorption dropped by about 50 percent," said Mahler. "But when we extended that period of time, absorption actually increased by about 200 percent. It was very clear - nanoparticles definitely affects iron uptake and transport."
While acute oral exposure caused disruptions to intestinal iron transport, chronic exposure caused a remodeling of the intestinal villi - the tiny, finger-like projections that are vital to the intestine's ability to absorb nutrients - making them larger and broader, thus allowing iron to enter the bloodstream much faster.
"The intestinal cells are a gateway that ingested nanoparticles must go through to get to the body," said Mahler. "We monitored iron absorption both in vivo and in vitro and found that the polystyrene nanoparticles affected the absorption process and caused a physiological response."
The next step for Mahler and the team is to take a look at whether similar disruptions in nutrient absorption could be possible in other inorganic elements such as calcium, copper and zinc. Also on the research agenda is the reaction of other nutrients such as fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. And chickens and their intestines will definitely be part of this next phase of the study.
"The gastrointestinal tract of chickens have very similar features to that of humans," said Mahler. "We can learn a great deal from the way chicken tissue works which means we can make better predictions about how humans will react."
And humans certainly consume enough nanoparticles - about 100 trillion of them every day. Their ultra-small size and amazing qualities makes them increasingly common in food and pharmaceutical products. Although the impact of chronic exposure remains somewhat unknown, the ingestion of dietary particles is thought to promote a range of diseases, including Crohn's disease. With so many nanomaterials under development and with so much yet to be learned about nanoparticle toxicity and potential human tissue reactivity, Mahler and the team are hoping that their work, particularly the in vitro model, will provide an effective low-cost screening tool.
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Soft decoupling of organic molecules on metal June 23rd, 2016
FEI and University of Liverpool Announce QEMSCAN Research Initiative: University of Liverpool will utilize FEIís QEMSCAN technology to gain a better insight into oil and gas reserves & potentially change the approach to evaluating them June 22nd, 2016 | <urn:uuid:e4b0bc20-dc5e-4b4a-af01-893cd0248879> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nanotech-now.com/news.cgi?story_id=44670 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944031 | 943 | 2.75 | 3 |
Make a Square!
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|Geometry, difficulty level 3. Make two cuts in the given figure and rearrange the pieces to make a square.|
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Welcome on the RETA homepage
Reta is a abbreviation RETA for Radiation Exposure in The Atmosphere. The scientific goal of the project is to measure the altitude dependence of the radiation dose in the Earth's atmosphere.
For this investigation the paticle detector FRED (Flight Radiation Environment Detektor) was developed at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel This project is in progress by 4 PhD studens from the department of Extraterrestrial Physics at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. The spacecraft which will be used is a Bexus balloon. THis balloons can reach an altitude of 35Km and the launch side is in Esrange near Kiruna in north Sweden.Now you can find us on Facebook. | <urn:uuid:0d42a04b-81bd-4596-8f7a-a87972023d6d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ieap.uni-kiel.de/et/reta/en/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00187-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.823966 | 166 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Most caves in Texas are known as solution caves, formed through the interactions between limestone, gypsum and groundwater. Central Texas, thanks to its soluble bedrock and the presence of the Edwards Aquifer, claims the vast majority of Texas’ caves. People in Dallas need to drive south to explore an area chock-full of subterranean Texas wonders, while neighboring Oklahoma contains one cave within a reasonable distance.
The nearest cave to Dallas lies right off Interstate 35 near the city of Georgetown, 170 miles from the Metroplex. Discovered in 1963, Inner Space Cavern features exquisite cave formations such as the Soda Straw Balcony and Flowing Stone of Time, in addition to an underground lake. Inner Space Cavern offers tours of varying degrees of difficulty through the 72-degree confines of the cavern complex. Guests can pan for minerals and gems at the Inner Space Mine, learn about the cave's genesis in the Adventures Tour and explore intricate formations on the Hidden Passages Tour. Adventurous visitors can join a Wild Cave Tour, which takes guests off-trail into the cave's undeveloped recesses.
Cave With Tales to Tell
Longhorn Cavern, located 200 miles from Dallas near Marble Falls, has a colorful history and distinction as one of the only river-formed cave complexes in Texas. Longhorn Cavern once provided a home for prehistoric animals and Comanche Indians. During the Civil War, Confederates manufactured gunpowder there, and outlaw Sam Bass supposedly used Longhorn Cavern as a hideout. Longhorn Cavern State Park offers visitors several tours, including an after-hours paranormal tour where guests can bring recording equipment to capture supernatural phenomena. The Geology Tour instructs guests on the intricate processes behind the cave's formation, while the Wild Caves Tour follows routes charted by professional spelunkers.
Subterranean Adventures in Education
Located 220 miles from Dallas, Westcave Discovery Center near Austin comprises a 75-acre nature preserve. At the heart of the preserve is Westcave, a limestone grotto with a 40-foot waterfall that empties into an emerald pool. Professional tour guides lead visitors through a canyon to reach this cave. Westcave features the on-site Warren Skaaren Environmental Learning Center, which has a solar observatory and exhibits that show how natural cycles formed Westcave. Guests can also enjoy a variety of seasonal special events, including star viewing parties, a fall nature festival and the Christmas Bird Count, where guests can develop their birding skills.
Hideout of Jesse James
Robbers Cave State Park, located in Oklahoma 200 miles northeast of Dallas, features an underground bandit den. Famed outlaws Belle Starr and Jesse James employed Robbers Cave as a hideout, and visitors to the park can access it via a hike into the park’s sandstone hills. Robbers Cave State Park covers more than 8,200 acres of scenic woodland in the San Bois Mountains, with ample recreational opportunities such as hunting, fishing, cliff climbing and equestrian trails. After a day spent in exploration of Robbers Cave and its environs, guests can bed down for the night at a selection of cabins and campsites.
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IBM demonstrates nanometre scale 3D printing
28 April 2014Tweet
IBM has demonstrated a technology that could lead to transistors being made from graphene -- by creating the smallest magazine cover in the world.
IBM used nanometre-scale 3D printing or nanomilling to create the cover for National Geographic Kids. The cover won National Geographic its ninth Guinness World Record.
IBM's advances in very small-scale 3D printing can be used for the the prototyping and manufacture of new transistor devices, including tunnelling field-effect transistors -- making possible more energy-efficient and faster electronics for anything from cloud data centres to smartphones. By the end of the year, IBM hopes to begin exploring the use of this technology in prototype transistor designs made of graphene like materials.
‘To create more energy-efficient clouds and crunch big data faster, we need a new generation of technologies including novel transistors. But before we can put these future technologies into mass production, we need new techniques for prototyping below 30 nanometres,’ said Dr Armin Knoll, a physicist at IBM Research. ‘With our novel technique, we can achieve very a high resolution at 10 nanometres at greatly reduced cost and complexity. In particular, by controlling the amount of material evaporated, we can also produce 3D relief patterns at the unprecedented accuracy of merely one nanometre in a vertical direction. Now it’s up to the imagination of scientists and engineers to apply this technique to real-world challenges.’
This technology has other applications, including nano-sized security tags to prevent the forgery of documents such as passports and works of art and in the emerging field of quantum computing.
Scientists at IBM invented a tiny ‘chisel’ with a heatable silicon tip 100,000 times smaller than a sharpened pencil point. Using this nano-sized tip, which creates patterns and structures on a microscopic scale, it took scientists just 10 minutes to etch the magazine cover onto a polymer. The resulting magazine cover measures 11×14 micrometres.
The tip is attached to a bendable cantilever that scans the surface of the substrate and, by applying heat and force, it can remove material based on predefined patterns, thus operating like a ‘nanomilling’ machine with ultrahigh precision. Complex 3D structures can be created -- in a manner analogous to the results from a 3D printer -- by removing more material with nanometre precision by modulating the force or by readdressing individual spots.
IBM has licensed the technology to a startup based in Switzerland called SwissLitho, which is bringing the technology to market under the name NanoFrazor. The firm has already shipped its first NanoFrazor to McGill University’s Nanotools Microfab in Canada. To celebrate the tool’s arrival, the university created a nano-sized map of Canada measuring 30 micrometres or 0.030 millimetres wide. | <urn:uuid:a43cb2a5-aff3-4012-b758-5790427ac164> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.scientific-computing.com/news/news_story.php?news_id=2442 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916936 | 619 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Health Consultations - Newark, CA
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Division of Health Assessment and Consultation
Foreword: ATSDR's National Asbestos Exposure Review
Vermiculite was mined and processed in Libby, Montana, from the early 1920s until 1990. We now know that this vermiculite, which was shipped to many locations around the U.S. for processing, contained asbestos.
The National Asbestos Exposure Review (NAER) is a project of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). ATSDR is working with other federal, state, and local environmental and public health agencies to evaluate public health impacts at sites that processed Libby vermiculite.
The evaluations focus on the processing sites and on human health effects that might be associated with possible past or current exposures. They do not consider commercial or consumer use of the products of these facilities.
The sites that processed Libby vermiculite will be evaluated by (1) identifying ways people could have been exposed to asbestos in the past and ways that people could be exposed now and (2) determining whether the exposures represent a public health hazard. ATSDR will use the information gained from the site-specific investigations to recommend further public health actions as needed. Site evaluations are progressing in two phases:
Phase 1: ATSDR has selected 28 sites for the first phase of reviews on the basis of the following criteria:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated further action at the site based upon contamination in place
- or -
The site was an exfoliation facility that processed more than 100,000 tons of vermiculite ore from Libby mine. Exfoliation, a processing method in which ore is heated and 'popped,' is expected to have released more asbestos than other processing methods.
The following document is one of the site-specific health consultations ATSDR and its state health partners are developing for each of the 28 Phase 1 sites. A future report will summarize findings at the Phase 1 sites and include recommendations for evaluating the more than 200 remaining sites nationwide that received Libby vermiculite.
Phase 2: ATSDR will continue to evaluate former Libby vermiculite processing sites in accordance with the findings and recommendations contained in the summary report. ATSDR will also identify further actions as necessary to protect public health.
From 1966 until 1993, the W. R. Grace & Company plant in Newark, California, located at 6851 Smith Avenue, processed approximately 300,000 tons of vermiculite from the Zonolite mine in Libby, Montana . At one time the plant employed about 18 to 24 persons, including 10 local residents (unpublished information from EPA's database of W.R. Grace documents)a. Over time, it became known that the vermiculite from the Libby mine was contaminated with naturally occurring asbestos fibers. Vermiculite from Libby was found to contain several types of asbestos fibers including the amphibole asbestos varieties tremolite and actinolite and the related fibrous asbestiform minerals winchite, richterite, and ferro-edenite . In this report we will use the term Libby asbestos to refer to the characteristic composition of asbestos contaminating the Libby vermiculite. The Newark plant produced typical vermiculite-based products such as vermiculite concentrate, gypsum, perlite, and peat moss (unpublished information from EPA's database of W.R. Grace documents)b.
The plant is now owned by a building supply company, and vermiculite is no longer processed at the site. The facility is on the southeast edge of San Francisco Bay, approximately 30 miles south of San Francisco. The site is in an area of mixed commercial, industrial, and residential use. Residential housing is on the west side of Smith Avenue. Industrial properties are across Smith Avenue, east of the site. A railroad spur on the west of the site connects to the Union Pacific Railroad, which is approximately 1/8 -mile south of the site . Exfoliation operations at the plant ceased in 1993, and the plant was sold to the present owners in 1997 .
Site Demographic Information
1990 US census data indicate that approximately 10,000 people lived within one mile of the site. Demographic information is included in a map of the site (see Appendix A, Figure 1). 1990 US census data also indicate that the majority of homes in the surrounding census tracts were built either before or during the time that the plant was processing vermiculite (see Appendix A, Figure 2).
Site Environmental Data
On February 21, 2001, EPA representatives conducted a facility tour, interviewed current employees, and collected samples of soil, dust, and air at the site . They observed vermiculite in the soil along the rail spur, particularly near the place where the conveyor system was located and along the west wall of the production building. They also noted a sprayed-on fireproofing material which was suspected to contain asbestos in the attic above the sales office and in the ceilings of the building used as a sales office.
EPA representatives selected 13 soil sample locations on the site, and 10 composite and 4 grab samples were collected from these locations. Soil samples were processed in accordance with soil sample procedure ISSI-Libby-01 . Samples were analyzed by polarized light microscopy (PLM) according to method 9002 of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Sample results reported as tremolite-actinolite indicate the presence of Libby asbestos. Results of the analysis of the samples are shown in Table 1, Appendix B. Eight of the soil samples contained detectible levels of tremolite-actinolite and/or chrysotile asbestos. Samples of vermiculite products found on the site were also sampled and analyzed using NIOSH method 9002. Results of this analysis are shown in Table 2 of Appendix B. Three soil samples and three vermiculite product samples contained between 2% to 4% tremolite-actinolite. Material from the attic of the sales office contained 15% chrysotile.
EPA contractors sampled dust from four horizontal areas inside buildings that had formerly been used for processing or storing vermiculite. Approximately 100 square centimeters per area were sampled by microvacuum dust sampling, a technique that samples settled dust and fibers by drawing air through a 0.45-micrometer pore-size, mixed cellulose esterase filter at a flow rate of 2.0 liter per minute. Sampling was performed for 2 minutes at each location. Air was pulled through the cassettes by battery-powered sampling pumps. Locations sampled included dusty areas such as window sills and the tops of equipment cabinets. Samples were analyzed using method 10312 of the International Standards Organization (ISO). This method uses transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to determine the type of asbestos fibers present, as well as the lengths, widths, and aspect ratios of asbestos structures. Results of the analysis of the dust samples are shown in Table 3, Appendix B. Tremolite-actinolite indicates the presence of Libby asbestos. All four of the microvacuum samples were found to contain asbestos structures. The largest amount of asbestos in dust found at the site came from the machine shop. Sixty-nine tremolite-actinolite structures (1,761,143 asbestos structures per square centimeter (s/cm2) and 2 chrysotile structures (51,408 s/cm2) were detected in the machine shop dust sample.c
Indoor air samples were collected by drawing air through a mixed cellulose esterase filter (0.45 micrometer pore size) over a 7- to 8-hour period. Samples were collected at a height of 5 feet above the floor. Air was pulled through the cassettes by electric sampling pumps. Five air samples were collected in the building in which vermiculite had been processed. Samples were analyzed by ISO method 10312. Results of air sampling are shown in Appendix B, Table 4. Sample results reported as tremolite-actinolite indicate the presence of Libby asbestos. Tremolite-actinolite asbestos fibers were detected in air samples from the warehouse and from the office area in the warehouse at concentration of 0.0019 asbestos structures per cubic centimeter (s/cc), and 0.0046 s/cc, respectively. Airborne chrysotile fibers were detected in the sales office building and in the office area of the warehouse at concentrations of 0.0018 s/cc and 0.0104 s/cc, respectively.
EPA representatives had noted materials that appeared to contain vermiculite in the ceilings of the sales office building and inside the west wall of the production building. This material could also be a source of the chrysotile fibers detected in the air samples. The operations manager at the site told EPA that when the property was purchased by the present owner (Steeler, Incorporated, Drywall Construction Supply), the only W.R. Grace equipment that was left on the site were two air compressors, a couple of air conditioning units, a couple of fork lifts, a sweeper machine, and some hand scales. The manager also said that the company fabricates and distributes steel products for the construction industry and does not use vermiculite. Other employees reported that a brick dumpster with asbestos warning signs was on the site and said that when the yard dust got really bad in the summer, many of them complained often about sore throats, coughing, and difficulty breathing.
ATSDR Site Visit
On August 12, 2003, staff members from ATSDR and the California Department of Health Services Environmental Health Investigations Branch (EHIB) visited the Newark site. ATSDR and EHIB staff reported observations similar to those noted by EPA's contractors. There are two permanent structures are on the site, a sales office building at the southeast corner and a large production building on the southwestern edge of the site. Both buildings are steel-framed structures with roofs and siding of corrugated sheet metal. The entrance and the southeastern portion of the site (up to the production building) are paved. Unpaved areas are located along the northern portion of the site and along a railroad spur that runs north-to-south along the western portion of the site. Although the spur is not used now, employees mentioned that it might be used in the future. The railroad spur originates from the Union Pacific railroad tracks approximately 1/8 mile south of the site.
Remnants of a former conveyor system are located on the rail spur near the production building. The current owner representatives stated that the conveyor system was removed after acquisition of the site. Footprints of 4 silos were evident on a concrete pad near the main building. Near the concrete pad was a sign reading "Vermiculite Concentrate." There was no evidence of any other vermiculite processing equipment at the site.
No evidence of vermiculite, exfoliated vermiculite, or vermiculite waste materials in bulk quantities was observed at the site. Vermiculite flakes were observed in the soil along the railroad spur. According to the site owner representative, Union Pacific sprayed an encapsulant over the soil in this area to temporarily control the potential release of asbestos fibers until the ownership of the spur could be determined and the required soil removal completed.
An inspection of the area surrounding the facility confirmed the census data that indicated that residential housing existed in an area northeast of the site during the time vermiculite was processed on the site. The houses appeared to have been built in the 1950s or 1960s.
The vermiculite processed at this site originated from the mine in Libby, Montana, now known to be contaminated with asbestos. Studies conducted in the Libby community indicate health impacts that are associated with exposure to asbestos [2,3]. The findings at Libby provided the impetus for investigating this site, as well as other sites across the nation that received asbestos-contaminated vermiculite from the Libby mine. It is important to recognize, however, that the asbestos exposures documented in the Libby community are in many ways unique and will not collectively be present at other sites that processed or handled Libby vermiculite. The site investigation at the Newark plant is part of a national effort to identify and evaluate potential exposure to asbestos at these other sites.
Exposure Assessment and Toxicologic Evaluation
Evaluating the health effects of exposure to Libby asbestos requires extensive knowledge of both exposure pathways and toxicity data. The toxicologic information about asbestos that is currently available is limited, and the exact level of health concern for exposure to different sizes and types of asbestos remains controversial. In addition, information is limited or unavailable on some specific exposure pathways at this site for the following reasons.
- Information is limited concerning past concentrations of Libby asbestos in air in and around the plant. In addition, significant uncertainties and conflicts exist concerning the methods used to analyze asbestos. This makes it hard to estimate the levels of Libby asbestos to which people may have been exposed.
- Most exposure occurred long ago. Little information is available about how people who did not work at the plant came into contact with Libby asbestos and how long they were exposed. This information is necessary to estimate quantitative exposure doses.
- We do not know how some vermiculite materials, such as waste rock, were handled or disposed of. Not knowing whether this material was made available for people in the community to use makes it difficult to identify and assess both past and present potential exposures.
Given these difficulties, the public health implications of past operations at this site are evaluated qualitatively. Current health implications are likewise evaluated qualitatively. The following sections describe the various types of evidence we used to evaluate exposure pathways and reach conclusions about the site. Definitions for the hazard category terminology used to characterize the pathways is presented in Appendix C. Appendix D provides a review of tremolite asbestos toxicity and standards.
Exposure Pathway Analysis
An exposure pathway describes how a person comes into contact with chemicals originating from a source of contamination. Every exposure pathway consists of the following five elements: (1) a source of contamination; (2) an environmental medium (such as air or soil) through which the contaminant is transported; (3) a point of exposure, the place where a person can come into contact with the contaminant; (4) a route of exposure, the way the contaminant enters or comes into contact with the body; and (5) a receptor population. A pathway is considered complete if all five elements are present and connected. Potential exposure pathways indicate that exposure to a contaminant could have occurred in the past, could be occurring currently, or could occur in the future. A potential exposure exists when information about one or more of the five elements of an exposure pathway is missing or uncertain. An incomplete pathway is missing one or more of the pathway elements; it is likely that the elements were never present, and that they are not likely to be present at a later point in time. An eliminated pathway was a potential or completed pathway in the past, but to prevent present and future exposures has had one or more of the pathway elements removed.
After reviewing information from Libby, Montana, and from facilities that processed vermiculite from Libby, the National Asbestos Exposure Review team identified likely exposure pathways for vermiculite processing facilities. All pathways have a common source—vermiculite from Libby contaminated with Libby asbestos—and a common route of exposure—inhalation. Although asbestos ingestion and dermal exposure pathways could exist, health risks from these pathways are minor in comparison to those resulting from inhalation exposure to asbestos, and therefore will not be evaluated.
The exposure pathways considered for each site are listed in the following table. Not every pathway identified will be a significant source of exposure for a particular site. An evaluation of the pathways for this site is presented in the following text.
Table 1. Summary of Pathways Considered for the Newark Plant
Occupational (former W.R. Grace employees) — The occupational exposure pathway for people who worked at the Newark plant prior to 1994 is considered complete. Former W.R. Grace workers were exposed to airborne levels of asbestos that posed a public health hazard. W.R. Grace records indicate that workers were exposed to high indoor levels of Libby asbestos in the air. Employee air sample results for the years 1975 to 1987 (unpublished information from EPA’s database of W.R. Grace documents) are shown in Appendix A, Figure 3. For the personal air monitor samples for which sampling times were provided, the duration of the sampling period ranged from 12 to 120 minutes. Three 8-hour time-weighted-averages were reported in a 1987 industrial hygiene audit of the plant. However, these results were below the analytic limit of detection.
Because total sampled duration for most of the samples was below the total work shift, these samples do not directly represent 8-hour time-weighted-averages. However, based on field observations of two active vermiculite exfoliation facilities, employee job tasks are similar throughout the workday. Therefore, for purposes of evaluating potential exposure concentrations from these data, ATSDR took an overall average for employee exposure data per sampling event.
Individual sample results ranged from non-detect to 11.50 fibers per cubic centimeter (f/cc). Average fiber sample results from personal sampling ranged from a high of 4.34 f/cc in 1977 to 0.03 f/cc in 1987. According to information obtained from W.R. Grace records, efforts were underway to control fiber levels inside the plant through local exhaust ventilation systems in 1976. Accordingly, fiber levels appear to have decreased after 1976. According to these sampling data, by 1987 indoor fiber levels inside the plant were probably compliant with the present OSHA permissible exposure limit of 0.1 f/cc. Area samples collected by W.R. Grace show that concentrations of fibers up to 23 f/cc were generated by plant operations. These levels declined through 1987, as shown in Appendix A, Figure 4.
While no specific health data are available for this particular plant, two studies indicate that Libby vermiculite exfoliation workers are at risk for developing lung disease related to asbestos exposure. The first is a report of a person developing fatal asbestosis as a result of working two summers in a vermiculite exfoliation facility . The second report is a study that was conducted in response to a report of 12 cases of pleural effusion within a 12-year period in an Ohio fertilizer plant that expanded and used Libby vermiculite . The study of this cohort demonstrated cumulative tremolite-actinolite fiber exposure was correlated with dyspenea and pleuritic chest pain, and on chest radiographs pleural changes (thickening and/or plaques with and without calcification) . Inhalation of airborne asbestos above the OSHA PEL would increase the risk for asbestos-related disease and therefore would have posed a public health hazard to former employees. Employee interviews conducted at other W.R. Grace sites by EPA and internal W.R. Grace documents indicate that a respiratory protection program was in place at least by 1986. Depending on the date the program started, the areas where respiratory protection was required, and the effectiveness of this program, the hazard to the employees could have been reduced significantly.
Occupational (past, current, and future employees) — From 1997 until 2002, workers at the plant were exposed to residual asbestos which may have come from vermiculite. Internal documents indicate that W.R. Grace conducted air sampling in 1994 (after plant operations had ceased) to determine whether airborne fibers remained in the building. Although the W.R. Grace 1994 samples did not find airborne asbestos inside the building, residual sources of asbestos remained in the building, as shown by the EPA air and surface sampling. EIHB wrote a health consultation concerning the air levels of asbestos reported by EPA in the remedial assessment and determined that the highest level of asbestos detected might pose an increased cancer incidence risk, but did not pose an “immediate” threat to public health. Because only a limited amount of air sampling results was available, EIHB concluded that the asbestos exposure at the site was an indeterminate public health hazard. EIHB recommended further air monitoring or evaluation and elimination of the sources of the asbestos exposure . EPA ordered a removal action that included remediation of the horizontal surfaces inside the warehouse area and any exposed contaminated soil on the site; this was completed in 2002 . However, confirmatory performed . We therefore believe there is a potential for present and future exposures until such confirmatory sampling is completed.
Household contacts — The pathway for exposure of household members to airborne Libby asbestos brought home inadvertently by former workers (persons who worked at the plant before 1993) is considered complete. If workers did not shower and change clothes before leaving work, members of the workers’ families or other household contacts could have been exposed to asbestos fibers brought home on workers’ bodies or clothing. Family or other household contacts could have come into contact with Libby asbestos by direct contact with the worker, by laundering the worker’s clothing, or by the resuspension of dust during cleaning activities. Exposures to household contacts cannot be estimated without information concerning Libby asbestos levels on worker clothing and behavior-specific factors (for example, worker practices, household laundering practices). ATSDR does not know whether procedures to reduce the amount of fibers that workers took home were implemented at this plant. However, exposure to asbestos resulting in asbestos-related disease in family members of persons who worked in the asbestos industry has been well-documented . Inhalation of Libby asbestos fibers by household contacts because of worker take-home contamination is therefore considered a past public health hazard.
The exposure pathway is considered complete for household contacts of persons who worked at the site after vermiculite production stopped but before EPA’s removal action in 2002. However, the overall low levels of airborne asbestos detected by EPA indicate that exposure from contaminants brought home by workers would be minimal. Therefore, ATSDR considers this exposure of household contacts of these workers to present no apparent public health hazard.
Waste piles — Persons who disturbed vermiculite waste piles could have been exposed to airborne asbestos. Stoner rock (the waste rock created in the exfoliation process) contains up to 10% asbestos by weight (personal communication with James Kelly and Jean Small-Johnson of the Minnesota Department of Health). At other exfoliation sites, waste rock was a significant exposure pathway to the community. For instance, at the Western Minerals plant in Minneapolis, children played in the waste piles and waste rock was given to the surrounding community for fill material and other uses .
An internal W.R. Grace document indicates that the Durham Road Landfill, Freemont, California, may have received waste from the Newark plant that contained asbestos. Waste manifests for the asbestos waste from the plant were supplied to ATSDR for the years 1985 and 1990. Steeler employees told EPA that when they took possession of the property, a dumpster with an asbestos warning label on it was on the site .
Because information about waste handling procedures at the plant is available for only a period of the plant’s operations, exposure to waste piles at the site before 1985 was determined to be an indeterminate public health hazard. After 1985, community exposure to on-site waste piles appears to have been eliminated.
The facility no longer processes vermiculite, and EPA and ATSDR representatives did not find evidence of waste piles on the site during their site visits. Current and future exposure to waste rock at the site has been eliminated.
On-Site Soil — The exposure pathway concerning current workers or contractors disturbing contaminated soil on the site—including residual contamination or buried waste—is considered an eliminated pathway for both the present and future. EPA sampling showed residual vermiculite contaminated with Libby asbestos in the soil around the plant. Soil with the highest levels of contamination was covered with grass or railroad ballast . EPA required encapsulation and eventual removal of the soil containing Libby asbestos from the spur and the back lot of the plant. Some areas of the site have trace amounts of asbestos. Disturbing soil containing trace amounts of Libby asbestos can result in airborne levels of Libby asbestos fibers . However, the trace amounts of asbestos were located in areas that were not accessible (for example, under asphalt), and EPA was negotiating institutional controls to prevent disturbance of the soil in a manner that would generate airborne asbestos. Because the EPA removal action required either encapsulation or removal of the asbestos-contaminated soil, ATSDR considers the future and current exposure pathways to be eliminated. ATSDR considers past exposure from on-site soil to be no apparent public health hazard assuming no significant disturbances of the soil occurred.
Ambient air — Past exposure to airborne fibers from plant emissions is considered a potential exposure pathway for the community surrounding the site as well as for nearby workers. This exposure was categorized as an indeterminate public health hazard because the asbestos fiber concentration that was present is unknown. Specific information concerning historical emissions from the exfoliation processes at the plant is not available; therefore, an estimate of the health effects from this exposure cannot be made. It is likely that emissions occurred from ore handling activities, exfoliation units, and local exhaust ventilation. Figure 5 in Appendix A shows the wind rose from a meteorological station located 21 miles from the site. An analysis of this wind rose indicates that predominant wind direction is toward the east. However, an individual’s exposure will be driven by factors other than wind direction, factors such as the plant’s operational cycles and the times and locations where people would have been exposed. Community members and area workers could have been exposed to Libby asbestos fibers released into the ambient air from fugitive dusts or the furnace stack while the plant was running. Exposure of the public to airborne emissions downwind of the site would have been at much lower concentrations than that experienced by the W.R. Grace workers. Some contamination of nearby businesses may have occurred from the airborne dispersal of asbestos fibers.
Residential outdoor — Some vermiculite processing facilities in the United States allowed or encouraged workers and nearby community members to take stoner rock, vermiculite, or other process materials for personal use . Some vermiculite sites have disposed of waste rock by burying it on site as fill material . Available documentation dating back to 1985 indicated waste from the facility was shipped to various landfills for disposal. Actual quantities of waste generated and disposed of could not be verified from this information. Because the facility processed a high tonnage of Libby vermiculite in the past and insufficient information is available concerning historical waste disposal, the past, present, and future community exposures to waste rock brought home for personal use are considered to present an indeterminate public health hazard.
Residential indoor — Insufficient information is available concerning past air emissions and community use of waste rock. Therefore, residential indoor exposure to Libby asbestos fibers presents an indeterminate past public health hazard.
The facility does not currently process Libby vermiculite, therefore facility emissions are not currently a source for Libby asbestos contamination in nearby homes. Residual Libby asbestos (from potential past sources) is possible, though housekeeping (particularly wet cleaning methods) over the past 10 years would probably have removed most residual fibers. As discussed in the residential outdoor pathway section, not enough information is available to know whether waste rock was used at homes in the community. Exposure to Libby asbestos from waste rock in the community would primarily be an outdoor exposure concern; the waste rock alone would not be expected to significantly contribute to residential indoor exposures. Therefore the residential indoor exposure pathway is considered no apparent public health hazard for community members now or in the future.
Consumer Products — People who purchased and used company products that contain Libby asbestos may be exposed to asbestos fibers by using those products in and around their homes. At this time, determining the public health implication of commercial or consumer use of company products (such as home insulation or vermiculite gardening products) that contain Libby vermiculite is beyond the scope of this evaluation. Additional information for consumers of vermiculite products has been developed by EPA, ATSDR, and NIOSH and provided to the public (see www.epa.gov/asbestos/insulation.html).
Contaminated vermiculite insulation in homes and in soil could pose an inhalation hazard if it were disturbed. Therefore, exposure to asbestos in vermiculite insulation in an uninhabited attic or behind walls should be negligible provided the materials are not disturbed. Exposure to asbestos in soil is less likely if the soil is covered by asphalt, concrete, or vegetation. Asbestos fibers do not break down in the environment, and asbestos in soil may remain for decades .
Health Outcome Data
As a separate project, ATSDR’s Division of Health Studies has funded states to perform health statistics reviews around sites that have received vermiculite from Libby. The California Department of Health Services’ Environmental Health Investigation Branch has performed a review of cancer incidence data for the Newark site. The results of the health statistics review are presented and discussed in Appendix E.
Summary of Removal and Remedial Actions
- Completed and Proposed EPA has overseen a removal action at this site that included
- Remediation of the horizontal surfaces inside buildings (April 8–12, 2002)
- Remediation of highly contaminated soil (>1% asbestos content) on the site and along the railroad spur (October 21–November 11, 2002)
- Institutional controls to prevent disturbance of soil contaminated with asbestos (proposed and being negotiated by EPA).
Child Health Considerations
ATSDR recognizes that infants and children may be more vulnerable than adults to exposures in communities faced with environmental contamination. Because children depend completely on adults for risk identification and management decisions, ATSDR is committed to evaluating their special interests at the site as part of the ATSDR Child Health Initiative.
The effects of asbestos on children are thought to be similar to the effects on adults. However, children could be especially vulnerable to asbestos exposures because they are more likely to disturb fiber-laden soil or indoor dust while playing. Children also breathe air that is closer to the ground and may thus be more likely to inhale airborne fibers from contaminated soil or dust.
Furthermore, children who are exposed could be more at risk of actually developing asbestos-related disease than people exposed later in life because of the long latency period between exposure and onset of asbestos-related respiratory disease.
Because of the limited amount of information regarding the exposure pathways at this site, the health implications for children are difficult to determine. During the time the facility exfoliated Libby vermiculite, the most at-risk children were those who were household contacts of former workers while the plant was expanding vermiculite. Other exposure pathways (ambient air, residential outdoor, waste piles) may also have affected children, but ATSDR does not have information at this time to determine whether these pathways were completed or not. We do not know if the facility gave vermiculite waste materials to the community for use. If this practice occurred, it could represent an ongoing exposure to children in the community.
Occupational Exposure Pathways
- People who worked at the Newark plant from 1966 to 1993 were exposed to airborne levels of Libby asbestos above current occupational standards. Repeated exposure to airborne Libby asbestos at these elevated levels increased a worker’s risk for asbestos-related disease and therefore posed a public health hazard to former employees.
- Workplace exposures at the site from 1997 until the presentd are an indeterminate public health hazard due to incomplete data.
Persons who lived in a household with someone who worked at the plant before 1994 may have been exposed to asbestos fibers brought into the home on workers’ bodies or clothing. This past exposure represents a public health hazard to household contacts of former workers. No apparent public health hazard exists for household contacts of person who worked at this site between 1997 and the completion of the remedial action in 2002.
- Community exposure to waste piles at the site in the past posed an indeterminate public health hazard. Available information regarding the waste practices at this site is inadequate to determine whether the public had access to the waste piles.
- Currently, the facility does not process vermiculite from Libby, and no waste piles were observed at the site. Therefore, no exposure pathway exists for community members to be exposed to contaminated waste piles at the site now or in the future and therefore no public health hazard exists for present and future exposure.
- Under current conditions, and even assuming occasional contact with areas that may contain Libby asbestos, on-site exposure of workers and contractors to Libby asbestos-contaminated soils poses no apparent public health hazard. If asbestos-contaminated soil is disturbed as a result of changes in site conditions or use of the property, a public health hazard could be created.
- Insufficient data exist to evaluate past asbestos exposure to the community from air emissions of asbestos from the plant. Therefore, past exposure to ambient air presents an indeterminate public health hazard.
- Present and future community exposure to Libby asbestos in air has been eliminated because the facility no longer processes vermiculite from Libby.
- Because the facility processed a high tonnage of Libby vermiculite in the past and insufficient information is available concerning historical waste disposal practices, exposure to persons in the community from waste rock brought home for personal use has been categorized as an indeterminate public health hazard for past, present, and future exposures.
- Insufficient information is available to evaluate past indoor residential exposures, therefore this pathway poses an indeterminate public health hazard to the community.
- Because this site stopped processing vermiculite in 1993, current indoor residential exposures pose no apparent public health hazard to the community.
Occupational and Household Contacts Exposure
- Promote awareness of past asbestos exposure among former workers and members of their households.
- Encourage former workers and their household contacts to inform their regular physician about their exposure to asbestos. If former workers or their household contacts are concerned or symptomatic, they should be encouraged to see a physician who specializes in asbestos-related lung diseases.
- Conduct air and dust confirmation sampling inside the former processing building to verify the effectiveness of the EPA removal action.
Waste Piles and Residential Outdoor Exposure
- Promote awareness of potential past asbestos exposure among community members who lived near the facility from1966 to 1993. Provide these people with easily accessible materials that will assist them in identifying their own potential for exposure.
- Encourage persons who lived in the community in the past and feel they were exposed to inform their regular physician about their potential asbestos exposure.
On-Site Soil Exposure
- Develop plans to ensure that adequate controls are in place to protect workers from asbestos exposure during excavation or disturbance of on-site soil, including soil beneath the asphalt parking areas.
Public Health Action Plan
The purpose of the public health action plan is to ensure that public health hazards are not only identified, but also addressed. The public health action plan for this site describes actions that ATSDR and/or other government agencies plan to take at the site to mitigate and prevent adverse human health effects resulting from exposure to hazardous substances in the environment. ATSDR will also follow up on the plan to ensure implementation of the public health actions.
- EPA conducted a site visit in February 2001.
- EPA completed a removal action in 2002.
- ATSDR visited the site in August 2002.
- ATSDR is developing a site-specific communication and education plan for the former W.R. Grace & Company site in Newark; the primary goal of the plan is to promote knowledge and awareness of the health effects of asbestos among exposed individuals and concerned community members.
- ATSDR is available to provide consultative services regarding confirmation sampling inside the buildings.
- ATSDR, in cooperation with state partners, is researching and determining the feasibility of conducting additional worker and household contact follow-up activities.
- ATSDR will notify the current site owner that we recommend confirmation sampling inside the building to verify the effectiveness of clean-up activities. ATSDR is available to provide consultative services to the owner regarding confirmation sampling.
- ATSDR will notify the current site owner, as well as local permitting authorities, that management plans should be developed to protect workers from asbestos exposure during excavation or disturbance of on-site soil, including soil beneath the asphalt parking areas.
- ATSDR will combine the findings from this health consultation with findings from other sites nationwide that received Libby vermiculite to create a comprehensive report outlining overall conclusions and strategies for addressing public health implications.
James T. Durant, MSPH, CIH
Environmental Health Scientist
Exposure Investigations and Consultation Branch (EICB)
Division of Health Assessment and Consultation (DHAC)
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
Technical Assistance/Project Coordination
Barbara Anderson MS, PE
Environmental Health Scientist, Consultation Team
EICB, DHAC, ATSDR
Health Statistics Review
Jackie Schwartz, MPH
Epidemiologist, Environmental Health Investigations Branch
California Department of Health Services
Kevin Horton, MSPH
Division of Health Studies, Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, ATSDR
Environmental Health Specialist
Office of Regional Operations, Region 9
John Wheeler, PhD, DABT
EICB, DHAC, ATSDR
Susan Moore, M.S.
Branch Chief EICB, DHAC, ATSDR
1. US Environmental Protection Agency. Focused removal assessment report for Steeler Incorporated (former W.R. Grace facility): CDM for US Environmental Protection Agency; 2001.
2. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Health consultation on mortality in Libby, Montana. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; August 2002.
3. Peipins LA, Lewin M, Campolucci, Lybarger JA, Miller A, Middleton D, et al. Radiographic abnormalities and exposure to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in the community of Libby, Montana. Environ Health Perspect 11:1753-9. Also doi:10.1289/ehp.6346 (online July 2, 2003) at http://dx.doi.org/
4. Wright R, Abraham J, Harper P, Burnett B, Morris P, West P. Fatal asbestos 50 years after brief high intensity exposure in a vermiculite expansion plant. Am J Respir Crit Care Med 165:1145-9.
5. Lockey JE, Brooks SM, Jarabek AM, Khoury PR, McKay RT, Carson A, et al. Pulmonary changes after exposure to vermiculite contaminated with fibrous tremolite. Am Rev Respir Dis 129(6):952-8.
6. California Department of Health Services, under a cooperative agreement with ATSDR. Steeler, Incorporated, Drywall Construction Supply. Atlanta: US Department of Health and Human Services; July 2002.
7. US Environmental Protection Agency. Pollution report concerning Steeler, Inc., removal action. San Francisco; November 14, 2002.
8. Coffman MA, Singh J. Asbestos management in buildings. In: Patty’s industrial hygiene th edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2000.
9. Powell C, Cohrssen B. Asbestos. In: Bingham E, Cohrssen B, Powell C, editors. Patty's toxicology 5th edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2001.
10. Minnesota Department of Health, under cooperative agreement with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Health consultation for Western Mineral Products site (a/k/a Western Mineral Products), City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; May 2001.
11. Weis CP (EPA). Memorandum to P. Peronard of EPA. Amphibole mineral fibers in source materials in residential and commercial areas of Libby pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health. Denver: EPA; December 20, 2001.
12. Scott R Smith Environmental Management Consultants, Inc. Site investigation former W.R. Grace & Co—Conn Property, Wilder, Campbell County, Kentucky; July 5, 2000.
13. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Toxicological profile for asbestos (update). Atlanta: US Department of Health and Human Services; September 2001.
Appendix A - Figures
Figure 2. Census Data on Age of Houses
Figure 3. Asbestos Levels Detected in Air Samples From Personal Air Monitors of Workers at the W. R. Grace Plant in Newark. Collected by W. R. Grace.
Figure 4. Asbestos Levels Detected in Air Samples From Personal Air Monitors of Workers at the W. R. Grace Plant in Newark. Collected by W. R. Grace.
Figure 5. Wind Rose From Oakland International Airport
a Unpublished data from an EPA database of W.R. Grace invoices for shipments of vermiculite from the Libby mine from 1964 to 1990.
b Unpublished data from a database of W.R. Grace documents that EPA Region 8 obtained through legal means during the Libby mine investigation. This document database contains confidential business information as well as private information that is not available to the public.
c See Appendix B for conversions of TEM results to s/cm.2
- Page last reviewed: January 20, 2009
- Page last updated: January 20, 2009
- Content source: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry | <urn:uuid:fda18c2a-a50f-4933-90e5-bc2f78a93f85> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/asbestos/sites/health_consultations/newarkca.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00084-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943164 | 8,752 | 2.5625 | 3 |
As the rate of obesity in the U.S. population has risen dramatically, more and more children are becoming overweight at younger and younger ages. Understanding the factors that contribute to childhood obesity and identifying ways to prevent its development are critical to stemming the historically high prevalence of childhood obesity and of associated health problems like type 2 diabetes. Two articles receiving online publication in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine describe systematic reviews of the results of studies investigating either risk factors that contribute to childhood obesity or interventions that could prevent it during the first 1,000 days of life - from conception to age 2.
"We know that obesity is notoriously difficult to treat, and evidence suggests that reducing risk factors for childhood obesity during pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood could prevent children from becoming overweight in the first place," says Elsie Taveras, MD, MPH, chief of General Academic Pediatrics at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and senior author of both papers. "While our reviews were able to identify a few early-lifetime risk factors and interventions that appear to have some effectiveness, the studies we found were quite limited in both the factors that were examined and the interventions that were tested."
The childhood obesity risk-factors review led by Jennifer Woo Baidal who is an assistant professor of Pediatrics at Columbia, MD, MPH - previously an MGHfC General Academic Pediatrics research fellow and now with the division of Pediatric Gastroenterology at Columbia University Medical Center - analyzed the results of 282 studies published from 1980 through 2014. Across all of the studies, only a few factors were consistently associated with an increased risk of a child being overweight or obese at the end of the study periods, which ranged from age 6 months to 18 years. Maternal factors were smoking, elevated prepregnancy weight and excess weight gain during pregnancy; factors applying to children were high birth weight and rapid weight gain during the first months after birth. While the largest number of studies focused on breastfeeding, evidence for any impact on obesity risk was inconsistent.
The review of intervention studies was led by Tiffany Blake-Lamb, MD, MSc, an obstetrician in the Massachusetts General Hospital Vincent Memorial Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and examined 34 articles published during the same time period that reported on the outcomes of 26 unique interventions. Neither of two prenatal interventions - one that included dietary advice, coaching, and exercise during pregnancy, and one focused on treating women with mild gestational diabetes - appeared to alter the incidence of obesity among offspring.
Two of six interventions that began during pregnancy and continued into infancy, both of which involved home visits focusing on the mother's diet and infant feeding, reduced the risk of overweight in later years. Other interventions that had some success focused on the mother's physical activity and diet, parenting practices related to the feeding of children, and behavioral counseling. Interventions featuring the use of high-protein and enriched formulas actually increased the risk of obesity, while the use of formulas with hydrolyzed protein, which is believed to promote infant satiety, stemmed infants' rate of growth during the first year of life.
The authors were surprised that none of the studied interventions targeted helping mothers achieve a healthy weight before the start of their pregnancy, preventing prenatal and early-life tobacco exposure, or reducing the introduction of sugary beverages. Many interventions related to infant feeding focused solely on breastfeeding and did not include strategies to prevent obesity in formula-fed infants. Although the effective interventions were applied in settings ranging from the home to the community, the complexity of factors contributing to obesity risk suggests that interventions need to extend beyond simply the diet and activity levels of individual children and mothers.
"While most interventions that have been completed to date focus on individual behavioral change, it is clear that multiple and overlapping factors contribute to obesity risk," says Blake-Lamb, who is also a fellow with the Kraft Center for Community Health Leadership at Partners HealthCare. "The limited success of these interventions suggests that many, and possibly more influential, factors related to social influences and the community environment - including food subsidies and fast-food marketing - may have a powerful impact on the risk of childhood obesity. Future interventions should address multiple obesity risk factors and be based on conceptual frameworks that recognize the multi-layered and inter-generational complexity of factors contributing to obesity risk."
Taveras adds, "Future research focused on risk factors during pregnancy should examine the mechanisms through which those factors lead to obesity risk and how successful interventions alter those mechanisms. A broader investigation of the impact of diet and feeding practices, and perhaps their effects on the infant microbiome, could identify new targets for intervention, and while maternal risk factors are clearly important, future studies also should examine the role of fathers and other caretakers in obesity risk. Studies also need to include populations that are more diverse in terms of both racial/ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic status."
To address these needs, Taveras, Blake-Lamb and their team are leading a new intervention study, "The First 1,000 Days," to be conducted at the MGH Health Centers in Chelsea and Revere, Mass and funded by The Boston Foundation. | <urn:uuid:9d5bfd50-f963-472d-b560-04dc3e22635b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/306864.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969207 | 1,042 | 3.203125 | 3 |
In a result just published, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope report the discovery of a ring of dark matter in the cluster ZwCl0024+1652. The ring’s discovery is among the strongest evidence yet that dark matter exists.
Credit: NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)
"This is the first time we have detected dark matter as having a unique structure that is different from the gas and galaxies in the cluster," said astronomer M. James Jee of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, a member of the team that spotted the dark matter ring.
The ring, which measures 2.6 million light-years across, was found in the cluster ZwCl0024+1652, located 5 billion light-years away from Earth. The team found the ring unexpectedly while they were mapping the distribution of dark matter within the cluster. Although astronomers cannot see dark matter, they can infer its existence in galaxy clusters by observing how its gravity bends the light of more distant background galaxies.
"Although the invisible matter has been found before in other galaxy clusters, it has never been detected to be so largely separated from the hot gas and the galaxies that make up galaxy clusters," Jee continued. “By seeing a dark matter structure that is not traced by galaxies and hot gas, we can study how it behaves differently from normal matter.”
During the team’s dark-matter analysis, they noticed a ripple in the mysterious substance, somewhat like the ripples created in a pond from a stone plopping into the water.
"I was annoyed when I saw the ring because I thought it was an artifact, which would have implied a flaw in our data reduction," Jee explained. "I couldn't believe my result. But the more I tried to remove the ring, the more it showed up. It took more than a year to convince myself that the ring was real. I've looked at a number of clusters and I haven't seen anything like this."
Curious about why the ring was in the cluster and how it had formed, Jee found previous research that suggested the cluster had collided with another cluster 1 to 2 billion years ago. The research, published in 2002 by Oliver Czoske of the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie at Bonn University, was based on spectroscopic observations of the cluster’s three-dimensional structure. The study revealed two distinct groupings of galaxies clusters, indicating a collision between both clusters.
Astronomers have a head-on view of the collision because it occurred fortuitously along Earth’s line of sight. From this perspective, the dark-matter structure looks like a ring.
The team created computer simulations showing what happens when galaxy clusters collide. As the two clusters smash together, the dark matter falls to the centre of the combined cluster and sloshes back out. As the dark matter moves outward, it begins to slow down under the pull of gravity and pile up, like cars bunched up on a highway.
"By studying this collision, we are seeing how dark matter responds to gravity," said team member Holland Ford, also of Johns Hopkins University. "Nature is doing an experiment for us that we can't do in a lab, and it agrees with our theoretical models."
Dark matter makes up most of the Universe’s material. Ordinary matter, which makes up stars and planets, comprises only a few percent of the Universe’s matter.
Tracing dark matter is not an easy task, because it does not shine or reflect light. Astronomers can only detect its influence by how its gravity affects light. To find it, astronomers study how faint light from more distant galaxies is distorted and smeared into arcs and streaks by the gravity of the dark matter in the foreground galaxy cluster, a powerful trick called gravitational lensing. By mapping the distorted light, astronomers can deduce the cluster’s mass and trace how dark matter is distributed in the cluster.
"The collision between the two galaxy clusters created a ripple of dark matter which left distinct footprints in the shapes of the background galaxies," Jee explained. "It's like looking at the pebbles on the bottom of a pond with ripples on the surface. The pebbles' shapes appear to change as the ripples pass over them. So, too, the background galaxies behind the ring show coherent changes in their shapes due to the presence of the dense ring."
Jee and his colleagues used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to detect the faint, distorted, faraway galaxies behind the cluster that cannot be resolved with ground-based telescopes. "Hubble's exquisite images and unparalleled sensitivity to faint galaxies make it the only tool for this measurement," said team member Richard White of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, USA.
Previous observations of another cluster, the Bullet Cluster, with Hubble and the Chandra X-ray Observatory presented a sideways view of a similar encounter between two galaxy clusters. In that collision, the dark matter was pulled apart from the hot cluster gas, but the dark matter still followed the distribution of cluster galaxies. ZwCl0024+1652 is the first cluster to show a dark matter distribution that differs significantly from the distribution of both the galaxies and the hot gas. | <urn:uuid:47880af3-b2fb-4306-91d4-8ffec59bbf71> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.science20.com/news/hubble_finds_ring_of_dark_matter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950767 | 1,098 | 3.65625 | 4 |
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