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Urban domestic cat (Felis catus) populations can attain exceedingly high densities and are not limited by natural prey availability. This has generated concerns that they may negatively affect prey populations, leading to calls for management. We enlisted cat-owners to record prey returned home to estimate patterns of predation by free-roaming pets in different localities within the town of Reading, UK and questionnaire surveys were used to quantify attitudes to different possible management strategies. Prey return rates were highly variable: only 20% of cats returned ≥4 dead prey annually. Consequently, approximately 65% of owners received no prey in a given season, but this declined to 22% after eight seasons. The estimated mean predation rate was 18.3 prey cat−1 year−1 but this varied markedly both spatially and temporally: per capita predation rates declined with increasing cat density. Comparisons with estimates of the density of six common bird prey species indicated that cats killed numbers equivalent to adult density on c. 39% of occasions. Population modeling studies suggest that such predation rates could significantly reduce the size of local bird populations for common urban species. Conversely, most urban residents did not consider cat predation to be a significant problem. Collar-mounted anti-predation devices were the only management action acceptable to the majority of urban residents (65%), but were less acceptable to cat-owners because of perceived risks to their pets; only 24% of cats were fitted with such devices. Overall, cat predation did appear to be of sufficient magnitude to affect some prey populations, although further investigation of some key aspects of cat predation is warranted. Management of the predation behavior of urban cat populations in the UK is likely to be challenging and achieving this would require considerable engagement with cat owners.
Citation: Thomas RL, Fellowes MDE, Baker PJ (2012) Spatio-Temporal Variation in Predation by Urban Domestic Cats (Felis catus) and the Acceptability of Possible Management Actions in the UK. PLoS ONE 7(11): e49369. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049369
Editor: Matt Hayward, Australian Wildlife Conservancy, Australia
Received: July 5, 2012; Accepted: October 9, 2012; Published: November 16, 2012
Copyright: © 2012 Thomas et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This work was funded by NERC (www.nerc.ac.uk). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Introduction
Owing to its close association with humans, the domestic cat (Felis catus) has one of the largest geographical distributions of any terrestrial carnivore , . Within this range, feral populations are known to have caused the decline or extirpation of numerous species –. In many developed countries, most individuals are free-roaming pets or semi-feral and receive some or all of their nutrition from humans . Consequently, unlike other predators , , their abundance is not limited by natural prey availability and densities can be very high, particularly in urban areas (200–2000 km−2 , , ). Yet, despite being fed, pet cats do frequently kill wild prey – and, given their high numbers, the cumulative sum of wildlife killed in urban areas could be substantial, even if individual predation rates are low. Consequently, there has been considerable debate surrounding the possible effect of urban cat populations and whether and/or how they should be managed , –.
Definitive demonstration of the effect (or not) of urban cats on prey populations has proven problematic as their numbers cannot be manipulated as in conventional predator-prey studies , –. To date, only two studies have quantified prey responses to altered cat abundance in urban areas, with contrasting results: the first recorded significant declines of several avian species in the urbanised landscape of southern California , whereas the second reported little or no effect of banning/collaring cats on the abundance of native mammalian prey in Armadale, Western Australia . These studies highlight that direct comparisons of studies of predation by urban cats are problematic because of national differences in the definition and application of the term “urban”, variation in available prey bases and differences in cat-owning behaviours. For example, the Californian study mentioned above focussed on predation of habitat specialists within remnant fragments of sage-scrub, whereas within many other countries most predation occurs within gardens in the urban matrix itself.
Given the difficulties associated with manipulating cat numbers experimentally, most authors have instead estimated predation rates from prey returned home –. Although relatively common, many of these studies are of limited use for estimating effects on prey populations. For example, those conducted for short periods do not account for intra-annual variation and most have been conducted in seasons where predation is inherently greater , –, , ; these would over-estimate predation rates. Similarly, studies investigating the effectiveness of anti-predation devices , , , , have tended to recruit cats known to be proficient hunters, leading to over-estimates of the average for the population as a whole. Despite these caveats, those data available indicate that prey return rates in urban areas are highly variable (e.g. 4–36 prey cat−1 year−1 –). Converting these to predation rates is further complicated by limited information on the proportion of prey killed that are returned home , , and the survival rates of prey released alive.
Predation rates, however, are only meaningful in the context of prey availability. At present, annual predation rates in relation to prey availability have been estimated in only five major cities in three countries –, . Collectively, these studies have indicated that predation rates can be substantial relative to the breeding density and/or productivity of some prey species. However, most have been conducted in cities in Australia and New Zealand –, where domestic cats were only introduced approximately 200–400 years ago , and prey species evolved in the absence of placental mammalian predators. Patterns of predation have been quantified in just one major urban conurbation in the Northern Hemisphere (Bristol, UK: , ) where cats have been present for 1000–2000 years , .
Furthermore, predation rates are not substantial for all prey species or in all locations within the same city . At a general level, this inter- and intra-city variation is likely to be associated with differences in the general abundance of major prey groups but also because of the properties of this rather unusual predator-prey system. For example, the spatial distribution and abundance of cats in the UK is known to be affected by housing density and householder characteristics , whereas the abundance of individual prey species may increase, decline or peak at intermediate levels of housing density , . Further complexity may also arise through differences in owner behaviour (e.g. restrictions on the time(s) of day or night that cats are allowed outside, the fitting of cats with anti-predation devices) and variation in the hunting tendencies of individual cats , , , especially as wild prey are not typically needed for nutritional purposes. In addition, individual cats may also compete with one another as density increases affecting per capita predation rates. As a consequence, effects of free-roaming cats on the population size of individual prey species are likely to be varied and may not necessarily simply reflect cat density . At present, there are very few data on how patterns of predation vary spatially, intra-annually and, in particular, inter-annually within urban areas (but see , ).
Despite the relative paucity of unequivocal evidence of a negative effect on prey populations, some authorities have suggested that “precautionary” management of urban cats should be implemented now while further studies are undertaken , . Although pet cats are potentially more amenable to management than any other mammalian carnivore, it is important to note that there are marked inter-national differences in attitudes towards cats, the acceptability of different management strategies , , and the likelihood of using legislative actions to effect change. For example, any approach within the UK would need to be adopted voluntarily as it is not conceivable that local or national government agencies would consider enacting any form of cat control given that cats do not need to be licensed and they are not perceived to be involved in any major zoonoses.
Potential strategies for reducing cat density within the UK include an outright ban on owning cats, banning ownership in the vicinity of ecologically sensitive areas , , limitations on the number of cats an individual can keep and the imposition of a license or registration fee to increase the costs associated with ownership. All four measures are potentially controversial, as they may be seen as restricting personal liberty. Furthermore, license or registration fees could be seen as a form of tax on the poorest members of society, who could be “priced out” of receiving possible health benefits associated with pet ownership . Strategies for manipulating cat behaviour to limit predation rates include restricting their ranging behaviour spatially and/or temporally through curfews or temporary confinement in the owner’s home, and/or the use of collar-mounted anti-predation devices , , , , . Ultrasonic devices and chemicals may also be used to deter cats. The most controversial method for reducing hunting efficiency is onychectomy (de-clawing) , , although this is banned in many countries except on medical grounds.
−1 season−1). Means and medians are represented by solid squares and open triangles respectively: boxes denote inter-quartile ranges; lines denote minimum and maximum values. Sample sizes are: spring 2008, N = 6 squares; summer 2008 to spring 2009, N = 9; summer 2009 to winter 2009, N = 12.
In summary, although there is a growing body of evidence that cats can affect prey populations in urban areas, this is currently limited to a relatively small number of studies that have been conducted primarily in the Southern Hemisphere where cats are a relatively new introduction. Furthermore, there are currently no data within the UK relating to the public acceptability of possible management strategies. Therefore, in this study we aimed to quantify cat density and individual predation rates within selected areas within the town of Reading, UK, to investigate (i) how the numbers of prey killed varies spatially within a single conurbation, (ii) whether per capita predation rates vary with cat density and (iii) to what degree predation rates vary intra-and inter-annually. Estimates of the numbers of prey killed were compared with the density and productivity of selected prey species to gauge (iv) whether predation by pet cats could be influencing the dynamics of prey populations in different locations. We then used a questionnaire survey to examine (v) current perceptions of the importance of predation by cats on urban birds, (vi) the acceptability of possible methods for managing pet cats in urban areas and (vii) how current cat-owning practices reflect these management practices and perceptions.
Diamond symbols & large dashed line denote relationship with mammals: triangles & small dashed line denote relationship with birds. Solid line denotes relationship with both groups combined; for clarity, symbols for both groups combined have been omitted. Solid symbols denote means for survey squares studied over two years; open symbols denote squares studied in one year only.
Materials and Methods
The study was conducted in Reading, UK (51°27′N, 0°58′W) during 2008–2010. The town covers c. 55 km2 and has a population of 230,000 people. Data on cat density, predation rates and attitudes to management strategies were collected from randomly selected Ordnance Survey 1-km squares covering a range of housing densities and socio-economic classes.
The solid line denotes the total population (proportion = 1): the lower and upper dashed lines indicate the proportion of adults and juveniles in the population respectively. Open and closed symbols denote the estimated minimum and maximum number killed expressed as a proportion of the population.
Predation Study
To maximize the number of volunteers recruited into the predation study, leaflets were hand-delivered to every house in nine survey squares requesting information on: the number of cats owned; whether they had been neutered, wore a bell or other anti-predation device; whether they were allowed out during the day only, night only, or both; and whether they would record prey brought home by their pet(s). Householders were asked to leave the completed form on their doorstep for collection (“original” phase). As this approach may provide a biased sample of cat-owners, the proportion of cat-owning households in non-responding houses was estimated by contacting 50–100 randomly selected addresses in each square (“follow-up” phase), this number having been shown to be sufficient to estimate abundance across a broad range of densities . Density in each square was estimated as the product of the number of unsurveyed households, the proportion of households containing cats in the follow-up phase and the mean number of cats per cat-owning household identified in both phases plus the number of individual cats identified in the original and follow-up phases. Although the number of cats per household is typically not normally distributed, mean values have tended to be used in similar studies since medians would intrinsically underestimate cat density: we present estimates of cat density derived using both mean and median values.
In addition to these nine survey squares, the methodology used to survey residents about their attitudes to management options (see below) permitted cat density to be estimated in seven further squares. In these, ≥50 randomly selected householders were interviewed face-to-face. Cat density was estimated as the product of the total number of houses, the proportion of households containing cats and the mean number of cats per cat-owning household. Since the proportion of households owning cats and the number of cats per cat-owning household may vary with socioeconomic status, correlation analysis was used to investigate whether housing density was associated with the proportion of cat-owning households, the mean number of cats per cat-owning household and total cat density across the 16 survey squares.
Return Rates
Predation patterns were estimated in 12 squares during 2008–2009. Individual squares were studied for 8 (N = 6), 7 (N = 6) or 3 (N = 3) seasons. Seasons were defined as: spring (March-May); summer (June-August); autumn (September-November); winter (December-February). Data were recorded for six weeks each season to maximize participation rates. Mean seasonal return rates were calculated in each square as the sum of dead and live prey returned divided by the number of cats under study. Live prey have been incorporated into estimates of mortality as most are likely to have perished. For example, one study reported that c. 40% of cat-caught birds entering Dutch wildlife hospitals died from their injuries with the remainder subsequently perishing from infections .
Prey returns were used to examine the frequency with which householders received no prey each season (“zero return”) because owners often cite the fact that their cats do not return prey as evidence against an effect on wildlife. Three measures were considered within each season and in relation to the cumulative length of time under study: the proportion of (i) single-cat households and (ii) multiple-cat households receiving no prey; and (iii) the minimum number of cats in multiple-cat households delivering no prey. The latter was derived by assuming that individuals within multiple-cat households contributed equally to returning prey i.e. if three prey items were returned to a household containing five cats, we assumed that two cats did not return any prey that season.
Predation Rates
Predation rates were calculated by multiplying return rates by 2.17 (because householders recorded returns for only six weeks each 13-week season) and a conversion factor relating to the proportion of prey killed that were returned home. Estimates for the latter vary from 50% , to 30% and 12.5% . However, in this was derived as the proportion returned both to the author’s home and to a “delivery area” observed through a window: as our study relied on prey brought into the owner’s home, applying this figure would tend to under-estimate predation rates. Therefore, we have elected to use a return rate of 30% (i.e. a conversion factor of 3.3), as this would generate minimum estimates of predation rates.
As not all cats were studied in all seasons due to differences in the timing of recruitment, pet mortality and volunteer drop-out, predation rates were calculated seasonally to maximize sample sizes. Mean predation rates within each square each season were multiplied by cat density to estimate the total number killed, and summed across seasons to estimate the number killed annually. Seasonal differences in predation rates were quantified using data from those cats from single-cat households studied for ≥4 seasons; where an individual had been studied in the same season for two years, predation rates for that season were averaged. Data were analysed using a repeated-measures ANOVA, with the Greenhouse-Geisser correction for lack of sphericity.
Although participants were asked to keep all dead animals for identification, two groups of unidentified prey were commonly recorded that needed to be accounted for when estimating predation rates on individual species: unidentified small mammals (taken to be mice, voles and shrews) and unidentified birds (taken to be passerines as householders did record other groups as e.g. pigeons, ducks). Estimates of minimum numbers killed in each square used only those returns which had been identified definitively i.e. assuming that unidentified prey were species other than those in the list of identified prey. However, previous studies where owners were asked to identify dead prey have indicated that householders are often not able to distinguish even common species , , . Estimates of maximum numbers killed were therefore derived assuming that unidentified prey were species in the list of identified prey. Unidentified prey were redistributed in direct proportion to the distribution of identified prey i.e. if species×represented 50% of identified small mammals, then 50% of unidentified small mammals were assumed to be species X.
Potential Effect of Cat Predation
The breeding density of six species was estimated in six squares using distance sampling : blackbird (Turdus merula), blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), dunnock (Prunella modularis), great tit (Parus major), house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and robin (Erithacus rubecula). Point counts were conducted during May–July 2008 from 16 pseudo-random locations within each square; locations were >200 m apart to minimize the chance of double-counting. One square was surveyed each day: locations within the square were visited in a random order. Each square was visited three times. Surveys commenced 30 min after sunrise. Birds were recorded within five distance bands (0–10 m, 10–20 m, 20–30 m, 30–40 m, 40–50 m) from the observer for 5 min, after allowing for a 5 minute settling down period. Birds were identified visually and acoustically. Data were analysed using Distance 5 Release 2 ; global detection functions were calculated for each species across the six squares. Akaike’s Information Criterion was used to select the best of several candidate models fitted to each species’ data. Estimated density was divided by two to derive the number of breeding pairs, as there is no evidence of sex bias in the likelihood of detection within the species surveyed . Annual juvenile production per breeding pair was estimated from published data: blackbird, 3.8; blue tit, 6.0; dunnock, 3.6; great tit, 4.3; house sparrow, 6.0; robin, 9.0 .
Spearman’s rank order correlations were used to compare the relationship between total bird density and the estimated maximum number of each species killed. Although there was slight variation in the relative ranking of estimated minimum and maximum numbers (due to the number of unidentified passerines returned in each square and how these were partitioned to estimate maximum numbers killed), these did not affect the pattern of results. Consequently, for brevity, we have reported only those results for maximum estimates.
Cat Management Study
Attitudes to management options were quantified using face-to-face interviews of ≥50 randomly selected householders within ten 1-km squares. Householders were asked to indicate the acceptability of eight management options on a five-point Likert scale in response to the introductory statement: “If it was shown that cats were having a severe impact on garden birds and some form of management solution was considered necessary, please indicate whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree or have no opinion about each of the following”: (a) people living in ecologically sensitive areas should not be allowed to own a cat; (b) no one living in a town or city should be allowed to own a cat; (c) all cats should be fitted with a bell or other anti-predation device; (d) cats should not be allowed to roam outside their owner’s garden; (e) cats should not be allowed out during the day; (f) cats should be registered with the local council; (g) cats should undergo compulsory sterilisation; (h) cats should be de-clawed.” Statements (f) and (g) were included partly to investigate attitudes towards aspects of pet ownership/management that have previously been implemented within the UK, or that have been the subject of campaigns by animal welfare organisations. We focussed on the possible effect on birds as this is the taxonomic group for which cat management is most widely discussed by the national media in the UK.
Because of relatively low samples for some combinations of variables, respondents were grouped into two categories for statistical analysis: those that strongly agreed, agreed or had no opinion were combined (“acceptable”) and compared with those replying that they disagreed or strongly disagreed (“not acceptable”). The effect of survey square (SITE), gender (SEX), age (<40 years, ≥40 years) and whether the interviewee owned a cat or not (CAT) on the acceptability of each management option was quantified using binary logistic regression. These two age groups were selected to represent people that would have had some experience or memory of licensing pets (dog licenses were abolished in the UK in 1987) versus those that did not. Initial models included all two-way interaction terms where possible; models were simplified using a backwards stepwise elimination procedure (α = 0.05).
Perceived effects of cats on wildlife were assessed using two data sets. First, those people interviewed in the management survey were asked whether they considered cats to be a nuisance and why: interviewees were not given prompts and were allowed to list multiple reasons; differences between these divisions were compared using chi-squared tests. Second, a postal survey of the cat owners participating in the predation study were asked whether they thought that cats have no, small, moderate, large or very large negative influence on local bird populations.
Patterns of sterilisation, wearing of collar-mounted anti-predation devices and temporal ranging behaviour (day only, night only, day and night) were quantified from original and follow-up surveys used to estimate cat density. Reasons for not wearing bells were examined in the postal survey of cat owners: respondents were asked whether their cats wore a bell and, if not, to indicate why not; multiple responses were permitted. As the original and follow-up surveys had been used to recruit cat owners for the predation study, there is some overlap between these two samples.
All statistical analyses were conducted in Minitab (v.15; Minitab, Inc., State College, PA). Data were checked to ensure that they conformed to the assumptions of each test. As not all questions were asked during each questionnaire survey and because not all interviewees answered all questions, sample sizes vary accordingly. This project has been subject to ethical review according to the procedures specified by the School of Biological Sciences Ethics and Research Committee, University of Reading and has been given a favourable ethical opinion for conduct.
Results
There was a significant difference between original and follow-up houses in the proportion of householders owning cats (paired t test: t8 = 6.17, P<0.001; N = 9 squares: Table 1) but there was no significant difference in the mean number of cats per cat-owning household (paired t test: t8 = 0.92, P = 0.385) or the number of households owning one, two or ≥three cats (chi-squared test: χ230 = 27.55, N = 16 squares, P = 0.594). Overall, 23±7% of householders within each square owned cats (range: 10–34%), with a mean of 1.54 cats per cat-owning household (range: 1.30–1.91).
Estimates of cat density based on mean values (463±208 cats km−2) were markedly greater than those based on medians (324±130 cats km−2: Table 1). House density was not correlated with the proportion of households owning cats (r = 0.039, N = 16, P = 0.887) or the mean number of cats per household (r = −0.263, N = 16, P = 0.325), but was significantly positively correlated with total cat density (r = 0.727, N = 16, P = 0.001). Cat density, therefore, increased predominantly as a function of housing density.
Return Rates
Data were collected from 348 cats from 211 households in 12 squares. On average, households were studied for 5.4 seasons (range: 3–8) with a mean of 24.3 cats (range: 11–45) studied per square each season. Eleven mammal, 21 bird, one amphibian and two reptile species were recorded (N = 988 dead and N = 162 living prey: see Figure S1). Mammals accounted for 65% of prey returned, with the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) contributing 40% of all records; birds contributed 30% of records.
Individual return rates were highly variable (Figure 1). In single-cat households, 41% of householders received no prey and only 22% returned ≥4 prey (range: 1–28). Comparable figures for multiple-cat households were 34 and 47% (range: 1–68), respectively. There was a significant positive correlation between the total number of prey received each season by households studied in both years (spring: N = 77 households, r = 0.499, P<0.001; summer: N = 115, r = 0.670, P<0.001; autumn: N = 116, r = 0.573, P<0.001; winter: N = 112, r = 0.628, P<0.001).
Zero returns to single-cat households were lowest in summer (61% of households) and highest in winter (88%), with values being slightly higher in 2009 (Figure 2); on average, 78% of householders received no prey each season. The pattern for multiple-cat households was markedly different, being lowest in autumn and with substantial inter-annual variation in the summer season: the pattern in these houses was much more similar to that observed in single-cat households if it was assumed that prey were delivered evenly by individual cats (Figure 2). Combining data from both household types, the approximate minimum number of cats not returning prey each season was: spring, 58%; summer, 58%, autumn, 73%; and winter, 76%. But there was a substantial decline in the likelihood that cats did not deliver any prey with increasing length of time studied: 66% of cats in single-cat households did not return any prey in their first season; this declined to 44% and 25% after four and eight seasons, respectively (Figure 3). Comparable figures for cats in multi-cat households were 58, 33 and 24%, respectively. This would suggest that the majority of cats did kill prey to some degree.
Predation Rates
Mean seasonal predation rates based on all cats studied ranged from 1.9–6.2 prey cat−1, being highest in summer and lowest in winter (Figure 4). This pattern was also evident for those cats (N = 73) studied for ≥4 seasons (repeated-measures ANOVA: F1.93, 139.15 = 8.88, P<0.01; post hoc groups: summer >spring = autumn = winter). However, there was marked differences in seasonal predation rates both amongst squares and/or between years. For those nine squares surveyed for four seasons in 2008 and/or 2009, the mean annual predation rate was 18.3 prey cat−1 year−1 (range: 5.6–47.7).
There was a significant negative correlation between housing density and annual predation rates on birds (r = −0.699, P = 0.036: N = 3 squares studied in one year only and 6 squares averaged over two years of study) and mammals (r = −0.719, P = 0.029), and mammals and birds combined (r = −0.732, P = 0.026: Figure 5a). Similarly, there was a negative relationship with cat density (Figure 5b) but these were not significant (mammals: r = −0.394, P = 0.294; birds: r = −0.281, P = 0.465; total: r = −0.363, P = 0.336). As a consequence, there was a marginal decline in the total numbers of mammals and birds killed with increasing cat density (Figure 5c). There was, however, no significant correlation in predation rates between years for mammals (r = 0.501, P = 0.311), birds (r = 0.389, P = 0.446) or both groups combined (r = 0.559, P = 0.249) for those six squares studied in 2008 and 2009.
There was no significant correlation between total cat density and the estimated maximum number of prey killed for blackbirds (rS = 0.314, P = 0.544), blue tits (rS = 0.664, P = 0.150), dunnocks (rS = 0.541, P = 0.268), great tits (rS = −0.058, P = 0.913) or house sparrows (rS = 0.464, P = 0.354), in part because predation on these species was often not recorded in the squares surveyed, but there was a significant correlation for robins (rS = 0.820, P = 0.046). The maximum numbers killed exceeded a number equivalent to the proportion of adults for blackbirds in four survey squares, for house sparrows and robins in three squares, and for dunnocks and great tits in two squares; rates for blue tits did not exceed this value in any survey square (Figure 6).
Cat Management
Including individuals that expressed no opinion, the acceptability of management techniques ranged from 15.7% (daytime curfew) to 65.1% (wearing of anti-predation devices) of interviewees (Figure 7). Registration with the council (54.3%) and compulsory sterilisation (60.9%) were the only other options acceptable to the majority of people surveyed (Figure 7). However, cat-owners were significantly less likely to accept most management options (Table 2).
Cats were considered to be a nuisance by 19% of cat-owners (N = 248) and 46% of non-owners (N = 420). The most commonly given reason was defaecating in their garden, but this was less frequently cited by owners (44% versus 68%: χ21 = 15.03, P<0.001). Digging (17% versus 33%: χ21 = 4.30, P = 0.038) and urinating (22% versus 29%: χ21 = 1.06, P = 0.303) were also common complaints. There was no significant difference between owners and non-owners in terms of a perceived effect on wildlife (37 versus 27%: χ21 = 1.91, P = 0.168), these figures equating to 7 and 12% of all owners and non-owners, respectively. In comparison, 16% of cat-owners in the postal survey (N = 110) stated that they thought cats had no effect on local bird populations whereas 51, 25, 5 and 2% thought they had a small, moderate, large or very large effect, respectively.
Ninety-six per cent of cats were neutered (N = 728 cats, 457 households): 2, 27 and 71% were allowed out during the day only, night only or day and night, respectively; 24% wore a bell or sonic device. In the postal survey (N = 205 cats, 113 households), 71% did not wear a collar, 9% wore a collar with no bell and 20% wore a collar with a bell. Seventy-four owners indicated why their cats did not wear a collar: 28% expressed concerns over the cat’s safety; 28% said that they had failed to replace a shed collar; and 26% had removed the collar because of injury or signs of distress.
Discussion
Cat densities and the general patterns of predation recorded in this study were broadly comparable to those observed in other studies: (i) cat density increased with housing density ; (ii) marked variation in the numbers of prey returned by individual cats (range 0–28, with only 22% of cats returning ≥4 prey annually); (iii) most householders did not receive any prey each season, although the proportion of householders receiving zero prey declined from 66% after one season to 25% after eight seasons indicating that the majority of cats did return prey at some point in their lifetime; (iv) small mammals were the commonest prey group, accounting for 65% and 49% of dead and live prey respectively; and (v) the highest predation rates were observed in spring and summer when prey were breeding. However, even assuming that prey returned alive would have perished, the mean predation rate (18 prey cat−1 year−1) is among the lowest recorded to date (14–302 prey cat−1 year−1: –).
In addition, annual per capita predation rates declined with increasing cat density, ultimately resulting in a reduction in the total number of birds and especially mammals killed annually. In contrast, avian density within the UK has been shown to increase generally within the range 620–3201 houses km−2 , which was the range present in the current study (Figure 5). This would suggest that the proportion of total avian prey killed by cats would decline marginally as housing density increases beyond ∼1,500 house km−2. However, the pattern of change of individual species within this range is variable, with many reducing in density . Consequently, the effect on individual species will very much depend upon their pattern of changing abundance and concomitant changes in the functional response of pet cats.
The estimated numbers of the six focal bird species killed were greater than the proportion of adults in the corresponding prey population on 14 of 36 occasions. Gauging the influence of this level of mortality on prey populations is problematic. For example, simulation modelling approaches , have relied upon creating population growth models onto which observed levels of cat predation are imposed to determine whether populations persist or decline. However, due to a paucity of data on the demographics of urban bird populations, such studies have had to use data from a wide range of countries and populations that could have already been subject to cat predation. Despite these limitations, the “half-predation level” model developed for blackbirds in Dunedin, New Zealand is based on a mortality rate ((10,255/15,497)*0.5 = 0.33) broadly comparable to those observed for blackbirds in several of our sites, and which indicated that such predation levels are likely to result in long-term declines. Similarly, although there are certainly differences between urban and rural populations with respect to density and productivity , some of the mortality rates observed for were also broadly comparable with annual mortality rates derived from models for declining populations of the same species in farmland habitats (e.g. blackbird: 0.37–0.46; dunnock: 0.53–0.65; house sparrow: 0.50–0.67; ).
Furthermore, our estimates are based on some assumptions that could have under-estimated predation rates. For example, the bird surveys were conducted at a time where it is plausible that some individuals may have already bred: dividing bird density by two to derive the number of breeding pairs would, therefore, have overestimated productivity; consequently the estimated number of birds killed would have been a greater proportion of the prey population. Similarly, assuming that cats returned 30% of the prey killed may be a significant over-estimate , , again suggesting that actual predation rates were substantially higher. These results are, therefore, consistent with the notion that the mortality caused by free-ranging pet cats can be substantial for some prey species in some circumstances –, , . The marked spatial variation observed would also suggest that using data at the spatial scale utilised in this study to extrapolate city-wide predation rates are likely to be equivocal without much greater information about the relationships between cat density, prey density and predator functional responses.
In addition to spatial variation, there was also marked temporal variation in the numbers of prey killed. For example, the relative distribution of seasonal predation rates within the same survey square was not consistent between years and these frequently differed two-fold between years, although this variation was not consistent with chronological year. As a result, there was no significant correlation between annual predation rates for those squares surveyed for two years. Such variation could have arisen for a number of reasons, but one possible explanation is that because pet cats are not reliant on wild prey for their survival, predation is predominantly stochastic and particularly influenced by factors at a localised scale. These could include fine-scale changes in the distribution of both prey (e.g. in response to artificial feeding stations and nesting sites within the ranges of individual cats) and cats (e.g. as a consequence of turn-over in house ownership, purchase of new pets) and variation in factors that affect the propensity (e.g. age, neuter status: , ) and opportunity (e.g. localised weather patterns) of cats to hunt. Given that the numbers of prey killed by individual cats are typically low, even small-scale changes in the numbers killed would have a substantial influence on estimated predation rates. As a consequence, predation rates, and the method employed to estimate them, would be very sensitive to a range of processes operating on individual animals at very fine scales within a very heterogeneous landscape. Furthermore, the implicit assumption of studies of this sort is that prey returned home accurately reflects patterns of predation in the wider environment. This certainly requires further investigation given the marked variation in reported values for the proportion of prey returned home , , and that cats undoubtedly preferentially consume some species and return others . These facets of cat behavior could be quantified using animal-mounted video systems .
These caveats aside, this study and others , , suggest that consideration of methods for managing urban cat populations within the UK would be appropriate at this time. Given that any management action(s) introduced in the UK would have to be adopted voluntarily, their uptake would be dependent on whether urban residents perceive cat predation as a factor warranting management and the acceptability of different actions to owners in particular but also the wider public as a whole.
Public perceptions of the effect of cats were somewhat contradictory. Few cat-owners (7%) and non-owners (12%) listed consequences for wildlife as a nuisance value in response to open-ended questions in face-to-face surveys, but 32% of owners in the predation study considered cats had a moderate or greater effect on wildlife when asked to specifically consider this question. These differences are potentially associated with the different question forms, but would appear to indicate that most householders do not believe predation is currently a significant problem and also that cat-owners may be willing to overlook the “fact” that their pets may be affecting local wildlife. One possible reason for the latter is that most owners only get to see a small part of a much bigger picture i.e. they receive little or no prey from their own pets, and do not appreciate the possible combined effect of the pet population as a whole, although in one study owners tended to over-estimate their pets’ predation rates . Furthermore, these percentages are substantially lower than comparable figures on the proportion of respondents that considered urban cat predation to be a problem in both Western Australia (63–95% ; 77% ) and Texas (73–77% ), indicating that the perception of the role of cats as predators is markedly different at an international level.
The most popular option for potentially managing cat predation was fitting pets with a collar-mounted anti-predation device. These have been shown to be effective in lowering predation rates , , , , , , although the reduction may not be of sufficient magnitude to prevent prey declines in all circumstances . Furthermore, there was a significant difference in acceptability between cat-owners (52%) and non-owners (73%) which was reflected in current patterns of collaring; <25% of cats were fitted with a collar and bell. In part, this reflected perceived risks from collars. For example, 28% of owners of uncollared cats were concerned about it getting caught and 26% had removed one because their pet had been distressed or injured. Achieving high levels of collaring would pose some logistical problems, but the targeting of those individual cats that kill large numbers of prey might be an effective measure.
Few interviewees considered an outright ban on cat ownership (16%), a daytime curfew (16%) or confining animals to their owner’s garden (36%) acceptable, but a greater proportion stated that a ban on ownership near ecologically sensitive areas was reasonable (45%). Despite this aversion to curfews, they do potentially represent an effective way to manage cat activity and some owners already restrict their pet’s ranging behaviour, e.g. 28% are confined at night but most (70%) are allowed to roam freely day and night. From a conservation perspective, curfews would most likely be effective at dawn and dusk (i.e. during the day) as this is when birds are most likely to be taken but would probably have little influence on predation of small mammals. Given the low level of acceptability, however, daytime curfews are unlikely to be adopted voluntarily within the UK without additional publicity of their potential benefits.
In summary, our data suggest that the numbers of birds killed by pet cats in some localities within urban areas may be sufficiently large that they could be negatively affecting prey populations. In comparison, most urban residents did not consider cat predation to be a significant problem. Of the management actions explored, only fitting with collars was identified as acceptable to the majority of the general public, but it was less acceptable to cat-owners probably because of the perceived risk of getting caught and the distress/injury caused by collars. Curfews, which are possibly the easiest way to manage cat predation, were acceptable to only a small minority of people. However, there are a number of methodological issues which require further investigation and validation, most notably determining the proportion of different prey species returned home and its sensitivity to fine-scale factors affecting individual cats.
Supporting Information
Table S1.
Latin names of species listed in the manuscript and a summary of the number of animals returned dead and alive during the study. The majority of animals returned dead were retained for positive identification; those released alive were identified by householders, so identifications may not always have been accurate.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049369.s001
(DOCX)
Acknowledgments
We are very grateful to all of the householders who participated in this study, to the undergraduate and postgraduate students that helped collect data and to three anonymous referees who provided comments on the manuscript.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: RLT PJB. Performed the experiments: RLT. Analyzed the data: RLT PJB. Wrote the paper: RLT MDEF PJB.
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HARLINGEN — The girls in their colorful costumes leaped into the air, arms waving, bodies twisting in a sort of feline spell, hands out like paws swatting each other.
Another leap and they fell flat on their feet in classical cat fashion, crouching, eyeing each other.
It was a magical moment of aggression and grace as the 10 high school girls practiced the “Cat Fight” number for their performance of “Jellicle” tonight.
This is the first dance performance presented by students in the dance track of the Harlingen Performing Arts Conservatory. The performance consists of music from the Broadway musical “Cats.”
Faculty and students all seemed excited about the performance.
“We have great artists here,” said MarKeith Scott, director.
“The students are learning how to become the feline cats that we need in this show with projects and lighting in the set,” he said. “We put all that together and create an experience the family can enjoy.”
The students have been working on this for only a month. How did they get it so quickly?
“We’ve been watching cats and just knowing what we’ve seen in movies and the actual musical,” said Adonai Martinez, 17, a senior at Harlingen High School South.
“I think for most of us we’ve really just been trying to find a balance between slow and soft movements and aggressive movements,” she said.
The students also had the advantage of three guest artists working with all the dancers at the conservatory: Jamie Thompson and Eddy Cavazos from New York City and Reegan Haynes from Los Angeles. Thompson and Haynes also gave two-hour master classes on a Saturday and those were open to the public.
“How it works is we bring them in and they work with the dancers Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays,” said Lee Ann Ince, instructional coach for Speech, Drama and Debate for the Harlingen school district.
The guest artists helped the dancers with style and technique, exposing them to more dance moves to expand their talent. And the music from “Cats” has accommodated that exposure.
“Cat Fight is one number, then there’ll be another number ‘Memory,’ which is a beautiful ballad from Cats, and they’re going to do a pointe routine with that, a ballet,” Ince said. “And there’s some more, too, Glamour, Mischief, Playful, Nine Lives. Those are all different pieces.”
McKenna Burns, 14, was enjoying the experience.
“I like the characters and the acting,” said McKenna, a student at the Dr. Abraham P. Cano Freshman Academy.
Even so, it has presented its challenges. How did she learn to move like a cat?
“Definitely, just like studying cats and understanding, learning different ways to act like a cat, not just clawing,” she said. “Just learning the choreography and putting it together was definitely difficult but I think we worked as a team. It’s definitely a lot of trial and error, seeing what works, what doesn’t.”
The students have become better dancers through this challenge, said Jellicle choreographer Eleann Villarreal.
“They’re growing as artists, and they’re getting to exercise and relate it to their activity,” Villarreal said. “They’re getting to find ways to portray different characters, in this case a cat. So maybe they’ve never had to do that before.”
If You Go
WHAT: Jellicle
WHEN: Today, 8 p.m. | https://www.valleymorningstar.com/2019/09/19/night-of-the-cats/ |
Spaying and neutering pets to prevent unwanted pregnancies is the very foundation of effective animal control and The City of Windsor is pleased to once again offer its Spay/Neuter Voucher Program for cats. This year’s $20,000 program was approved by City Council in the 2019 Operating Budget.
In an effort to reduce the number of homeless cats and number of cats euthanized in the city, 260 vouchers will be issued to sterilize cats. The vouchers are valued at $75 each and will be once again issued through the City’s 311 service. Interested residents should call 311 to inquire no earlier than 11:00 a.m. on April 16, 2019, and those who meet the eligibility criteria will receive their vouchers in the mail.
Vouchers for owned cats are reserved for low-income families. A declaration of income will be required. A maximum of 2 vouchers per household will be issued where the cats are owned. For feral cat caregivers, a maximum of 2 vouchers per household will be issued with no income restrictions. In both cases, the applicant must be over the age of 18.
Vouchers are non-transferrable and will expire 90 days after issue. They may be redeemed at any participating veterinary clinic (list to be provided upon successful application). Recipients must call and book appointments for spay/neuter services in advance.
For general information, please call 311. For detailed inquiries, call Katherine Donaldson at 519-255-6100 ext. 6533. | https://www.citywindsor.ca/cityhall/licensingandregistration/Pages/Spay-Neuter-Voucher-Program-for-Cats.aspx |
The Cool Cats NFT hosts an informative Town Hall meeting every Friday at 5 p.m. EST. Below is a summary of the event that took place on March 4, 2022.
Key Takeaways: communication issues, $MILK accumulation, Polygon concerns, the status of the game, what's next for the team, SXSW meet up
For last week's Cool Cats Town Hall summary, click here.
For everything you need to know about Cool Pets, click here.
Communication With the Community
- The team is acknowledging that they have made mistakes over the last two months.
- Communication fell apart, but the team is curating key questions each week to answer during Town Halls or in Medium articles.
- Weekly Town Halls are back moving forward with all four founders (ELU, Lynqoid, xtremetom, and clon).
$MILK Accumulation
- Cool Cats NFT holders will continue to accrue $MILK and will be able to claim that $MILK when the game goes live.
- Cool Cats holders will obviously get to egg hatching and final form before Cool Pets holders.
- There is no in-game benefit to reach the final form before anyone else.
- $MILK is a utility token designed to be used within the system, and the tokens must be spent to get to final form.
- The absorption of $MILK within the system should be nearly the same as if the game launched on time.
- There are a maximum number of pet interactions that can take place per day, so there will still be a delay between egg hatching and final form.
- $MILK accumulation will always continue even if the game comes down again at any point in time.
Polygon Issues
- Polygon forked and created a number of issues with providers like Alchemy.
- There has been a lot of consistent forking and de-syncing of information.
- This is impacting the team, and the game will not launch until Polygon and Alchemy say it is okay to release it.
- The team is not currently looking to move to another network.
- They do not want to run the risk of coming into contact with volume-related issues on chains like Harmony.
- They do have the ability to move to another L2 rather easily, if necessary.
Status of the Game
- The game has seen significant improvements since January.
- Both front-end and back-end developers made the infrastructure much more smooth.
- The team will continue to optimize and battle test the gaming experience.
- New features are coming soon but at the mercy of Polygon currently.
What's Next?
- The team is gearing up for a sizable live beta test.
- They're looking to get hundreds of people testing the game at the same time.
- The team wants to see how the system handles a huge volume of transactions.
- The end result will be that the entire community can make sure the experience will be the best it can be.
South by Southwest (SXSW)
- The team is taking over a pizza shop.
- There will be a Cool Cats and Cool Pets meetup.
- This will be open to everyone, but Cool Cats and Cool Pets holders will be able to claim merchandise and other prizes.
- The team is working on the logistics of streaming some of the events.
Q&A Session
In this section, Q indicates a question and A indicates an answer (speaker in parenthesis).
This is a summary, not verbatim. | https://luckytrader.com/articles/cool-cats-town-hall-march-4-2022 |
the gravity is still there, you just don't notice it, the net effect is cancelled but gravity is still there.
You would be able to detect the time dilation by simply having a very accurate clock at that position and see how it has changed relative to a clock outside, the clock on the inside would run slower showing less time had passed there.
Photons has no age, in their perspective everything is instant as they move at the speed of light (where time stops).
The first experiments to measure the constant g (I believe), were by having two massive objects brought near and measure the attracting of each other. So: why not bring a clock into the middle and see whether it slows down, or, take it to Fort Knox? Surely somebody should have proved that assertion by now? where would the experiment be recorded?
The Shell Theorem is invalid in relativity?
ou would be able to detect the time dilation by simply having a very accurate clock at that position and see how it has changed relative to a clock outside, the clock on the inside would run slower showing less time had passed there.
The OP was about the force, the potential, not the slowing of travel through time. Even then, there is much more travel through time going on outside an entity than inside too.
With all that force pulling back in toward the surface ( or curvature of spacetime), no wonder we have high outer orbital velocities, compared to inside movements.
I can not believe that the warping, curving and tensioning of spacetime , the slowing of travel through time , is dealt with twice in an environment where there is balanced forces, like inside an entity. The effect is on the total, or the resultant of the competing masses. imho.
Please , some one show otherwise.
Maybe if that sphere of mass would expand at an accelerated rate..then it might be like negative acceleration for anything within that sphere..then time would move faster, cancelling the slowdown that mass caused. The sphere would have to have a mass in the middle though to cancel the outward expansion so that it accelerates without actually moving anywhere.
When applying the formula for surface of a sphere to origin's "2R, 1/4 g" dotted line, you can see that in the space surrounding a sphere, at 2 R there is 64 times the total gravity of the inside, although at any given individual point on the outside at 2R there is the same g potential as the inside .25 R, but from there it is downhill endlessly to infinity. Thinking of an elliptical galaxy or globular star clusters.
If no force is acting on a object it moves through time at constant velocity which is a straight line, if spacetime is curved though time appears to slow down (while in actuality it is just following what to the object is a straight line or constant rate).
Can you relate that in a meaningful way to the subject at hand, namely, the amount, and strength of gravity inside and/or outside an entity?
I only have some understanding of curvature and how objects behave while traversing curvature, my knowledge of what happens on the inside on, say a sphere, is limited to that. I'm sure you know that stuff better than I, I just want to point out what I saw as inconsistencies when viewed from the standpoint of general relativity. Mainly that there is more gravity outside as if you could add it together somehow. In other words; if you have a massive body in spacetime it would curve it, if that body were to suddenly disappear there wouldn't be more energy created from curvature relaxing than was there due to the object.
Mainly that there is more gravity outside as if you could add it together somehow. In other words; if you have a massive body in spacetime it would curve it, if that body were to suddenly disappear there wouldn't be more energy created from curvature relaxing than was there due to the object.
Well, I just took your word for it, gravity seems to be subtracting in an empty shell, not adding in the outside, but the same gravity strength, side by side spread over such a bigger surface adding up in total. I f a body would disappear where to? if converted to energy, that would be an immense increase in volume, but overall the same gravity or space warp? You have a point about the cancelling or not of gravity, in an orbiting satellite, the two accelerations, from velocity and gravity are balance, yet there are two opposing relativistic effects, less gravity out there, so: faster travel through time, and higher velocity so slower travel through the 4st dimension, they have figured that out for the GPS.
Time aside though, there are no forces inside a hollow or at the centre of a sphere. In the ALMA expanding model, all the action, energy is outside, in the future too.
re-posting these curves from origin's post#15. and looking at his diagram, at 3R is the same gravitational strength as at 1/8 R (ignoring that Black hole in the centre that has zero gravity at it's centre too). For a globular cluster or an elliptical, there would be the same strength in the interior at 1/8 R as at 3 R out, but in total 576 times the gravity everywhere at the distance. It takes a lot of velocity to counteract gravity at that radius. The solar system has such low orbital velocities near Pluto, because the Sun is a virtual mass point source, a luminous disk or globe is not.
if gravity were a waves, by interference they would cancel in the centre, a really calm area the way waves go. or?
i think science doesnt know yet.
probably wont for a long time.
musing... gravitational field properties for a cluster of orbs would not be the same for single orb.
micro-gravity fields constantly exist(over lapping each other) so mathamatically your results would be speculative.
could it be said that 1 gravitational field cancels out another ?
i have been pondering it.
soo... can you say there is 0 gravity when 1 field is cancelling out the other ? or... are both fields acting equally on the mass ?
e.g does the mass gain more mass ?
I just pondered that question too, and replied on another thread: that if you consider gravity a wave, waves can interfere and cancel out, so in the centre of gravity between two masses, one could be in a zero gravity position, while the overall picture is one energized as seen by the waves.
In microgravity generated by the cancellation of gravity and centrifugal "forces", does the angular momentum acts as kind of a shield against gravity (to use picturesque language ) ?
In zero, micro gravity, your accelerations cancel out, you are in harmony with the universe, but your stomach might not agree.
maybe for ponderance, what if mass as a relationship to gravity is a vector force of gravity by its ability to create or cascade a higgs boson(for example).
maybe higgs bosons only exist inside a singular gravity field as a vector of force by the mass so when you apply force to the force you do not get any extra mass, thus making it a single equation.
unles someone has shown how newton explains dark energy.
there must be something quite different to basic understandings going on.
These low velocities have been observed. Vera Rubin's legacy. The added question now, how or whether overlapping gravity in the centre is suppressed, is beyond the field of Keplerian and Newtonian thinking. why do you not start a discussion on that? | http://www.sciforums.com/threads/where-is-most-gravity-inside-or-out.155498/page-10 |
I was thinking about the relationship between spacetime and gravity, and how time as a dimension is completely unlike the three spacial dimensions, and I had a thought.
Speed through the spacial dimensions influences speed through the time dimension, but gravity also influences the time dimension, doesn't it?
Could it be feasible, or even sensible, to regard gravity of "5th" dimension of sorts? Would such a viewpoint even be compatible with current theories of the Universe, like Relativity and such?
From what I understand, the search for a theory of everything is incomplete due to gravity, including the debate as to whether it's caused by the curvature of spacetime itself or is the result of force carrier particles? Could treating gravity as a dimension overly complicate matters, or would it be practical for removing gravity as a factor in this search?
Or is the idea making me sound slightly cranky? | http://www.thescienceforum.com/personal-theories-alternative-ideas/39171-notion-gravity-dimension.html |
Quotes with Page Numbers
Through the characters and the events of her novel, Harper Lee gives a many-sided prospect of the important social and moral issues. She questions racism, class prejudices, moral ambiguity, and justice. What makes the book special, is that the author considers these questions from the child’s perspective. It reminds the reader about the challenges of the child’s understanding of the world of adults.
We have prepared the guide on the important quotes that reveal the key themes discussed in the book. For your convenience, we’ve pointed out the quotes about racism, the central issue of the story. Since the characters of the book say a lot of things that challenges important subjects, we’ve decided also to give the collections of the protagonists’ quotes. In particular of Scout Finch and her father Atticus.
Enjoy the reading!
The edition cited: Lee, H. (1962). To Kill a Mockingbird. Popular Library Edition, New York.
Racism quotes
Concerning the issue of racism, the following quotes reveal how deep Maycomb has drawn into racist prejudices and ignorance:
Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand...
(Chapter 9, p. 93)
In this quote, Atticus shares his confusion with his brother, admitting that the case of Tom Robinson is about to raise the storm of meanness and anger among the town people. With these words, he shows that such a situation is not new or unpredictable. The southern states haven’t changed much in their moods regarding African Americans. However, Atticus stands firm resisting the traditionally racist views in his town.
Scout," said Atticus, "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.
(Chapter 11, p. 113)
According to Atticus, the word ‘nigger-lover’ is used just to abuse people who don’t share the racist views. It labels not the people to whom it is said, but rather those who say it. It marks the people who feel the supremacy towards African Americans. To be a nigger-lover means to treat blacks as equal, while it goes against the public idea of what is right.
Lula stopped, but she said, "You ain't got no business bringin' white chillun here—they got their church, we got our'n. It is our church, ain't it, Miss Cal?
(Chapter 12, p. 121)
The character’s quote indicates the racial division that works against both sides: white people don’t belong to the black people’s places either. Being discriminated, the black community also developed a form of racist views that target white inhabitant of the town. Jem and Scout for the first time face the reverse racism in the church of a black parish where Calpurnia has brought them. Yet, it turns out to be fragmentary, while most of the black people in the church welcome the kids.
She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterward.
(Chapter 20, p. 206)
These words Atticus proclaims in the court, trying to convince the jury to find Tom Robinson not guilty. He shows the motives of the Ewells lie, demonstrating that Mayella is ready to see Tom’s death rather than to admit that she was trying to tempt him. At the same time, Atticus questions the public code, according to which to feel a temptation to the black man is the disgrace that the person cannot live with.
Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.
(Chapter 20, p. 207)
This is the fragment of the Atticus’s closing speech in the court. He appeals to the jury, trying to bring them to senses. He emphasizes that there is not a drastic difference between the people of different skin color. Yes, there are black men with vicious intentions, but they are not determined by their race. That’s just the questions of every particular person and his or her qualities. To stress the thought he says that there are basically no saint people, among the whites as well. So there is no reason to think that the white people are better than the blacks in any way.
There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.
(Chapter 23, p. 223)
These words Atticus says to his son, explaining why he thinks he doesn’t have many chances to win Tom’s case. He shows Jem, how things are, without trying to hide something from him. What is important for Atticus is to make Jem understand how ugly and tragic the prejudices can turn to be. People who share the racist views don’t leave them at home, no. They keep influencing on everything they do. The same is applicable to the people who work in a court.
As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash .
(Chapter 23, p. 223)
This 'prejudice quote' expresses one of the key agendas of the book. No matter what social status you have, if you take advantage of the weakness and vulnerability of other people, it shows that in fact, you are worth nothing. Scout notices that it is not usual for Atticus to call somebody trash. Yet, he finds the everyday racism totally unacceptable and he allows himself to be downright saying this. | https://studentshare.org/study-guides/to-kill-a-mockingbird/main-quotes |
"Remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.
"Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy." (Chapter 10)
Racism, Prejudice
"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." (Chapter 11)
Courage, Truth
"Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed."(Chapter 25)
All 5 themes (Prejudice, Judgement, Racism, Courage, Truth)
"Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough." (Chapter 31)
Judgement & Prejudice
"Atticus, he was real nice. . . ."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."
He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night..." (Chapter 31)
Judgement & Prejudice
"It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived." (Chapter 11)
Courage
"It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." (Chapter 11)
Courage
"Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks" (Scout, Chapter 23)
Truth, Judgement, & Prejudice
" I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time . . . it's because he wants to stay inside." (Jem, Chapter 23)
Judgement & Prejudice
"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. " (Atticus, Chapter 11)
Truth & Courage
"When it is a white man's word against a black man's, the white man will always win" (Chapter 23)
Truth & Racism
"You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you" (Atticus, Chapter 8)
Courage & Prejudice
"It's not time to worry yet" (Atticus, Chapter 11)
Courage
"So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human." (Atticus, Chapter 16)
Courage & Racism
"The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow" (Atticus, Chapter 23)
Racism & Courage-
RACE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN JUSTICE AND LAW!
"Some Negroes lie, are immoral, and cannot be trusted around women, black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men." (Atticus' jury speech, Chapter 20)
Courage, Racism & Prejudice
"Atticus said Calpurnia had more education than most coloured folks" (Chapter 3)
Racism & Truth & Prejudice
"Hush your mouth!... Don't let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you so high and mighty!" (Calpurnia, Chapter 3)
Prejudice & Judgement
"There are just some kind of men who—who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results." (Chapter 5)
Prejudice
"Atticus, you must be wrong...."
"How's that?" | https://quizlet.com/348668875/tkam-quotes-and-their-themes-flash-cards/ |
Set during the 1930’s, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird explores the events which occur in the southern county/town of Maycomb, Alabama. Through the eyes of a young girl names Scout, the narrative discusses the fundamental issue of prejudice. However, there are a myriad of ways in which this is shown; not only is it the characters which display outright contemptuousness but the major events that show the damage that can be done once inflicted with biased opinions. The tale also incorporates many hidden symbols which show the extent of the injustice in Maycomb.
During the mad dog incident, Atticus is the only person who is able to shoot the dog in order to save the people of Maycomb. However, later on in the novel when he again faces the dilemma of Tom Robinson’s Trial, he is not able to do the same. Watching Atticus during the trial Scout sees that it is like “watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty” even Atticus’ skill for shooting is no use if the gun isn’t loaded. Though Atticus is the only person who is able to take a stance against Maycomb;s prejudice ways, racism will still pertain and be “just as dangerous dead as alive.” It is these symbols which Harper Lee utilises that draw attention to the bigoted beliefs of the people of Maycomb.
Find Another Essay On How does Harper Lee highlight the prejudices of 1930's Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird? | https://brightkite.com/essay-on/how-does-harper-lee-highlight-the-prejudices-of-1930-s-maycomb-in-to-kill-a-mockingbird |
We the Session hereby adopt the following resolution on behalf of Eastminster Presbyterian Church of Stone Mountain:
We grieve the unjustified deaths of our Black, Brown, and Indigenous brothers and sisters, and the racial inequities they have suffered during more than 400 years of our nation’s history.
We grieve for their suffering and their unanswered cries to address systemic racism in our church, our community, and our world as a result of these injustices.
We stand in support of racial equality and against deeply ingrained prejudices against Black Americans and other people of color simply because of the color of their skin.
We commit to efforts to recognize and break down racism in all its forms.
We reject racism because we believe that any form of racism is contrary to the good news of Jesus Christ.
We affirm that, according to the teachings of Jesus Christ, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We acknowledge it is our responsibility to examine our own hearts for biases and prejudices and to ask forgiveness for any harmful actions as a result of these beliefs.
We commit to learning more about white privilege and its harmful effects.
We commit to listen, learn, and work against all systems that place barriers to equality and justice.
We believe that in God all things are possible, and we share hope for a world where racism no longer exists.
For resources on racial equality, please download the Anti-Racism Committee's bibliography of resources. | https://www.eastminster.us/racialequality |
Give an example of when Atticus demonstrates honesty in To Kill a Mockingbird. How does this show that he's a wise parent?
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One of the best examples of Atticus showing honesty and integrity is on the night his two children are attacked by Bob Ewell. As Sheriff Tate explains the evidence that he finds, Atticus thinks that Jem is the one who kills Mr. Ewell. Atticus is fully prepared to defend Jem in court on the basis of self-defense because he isn't the type of person to cover up the truth, even if his own son is involved. When Sheriff Tate suggests that Mr. Ewell died by falling on his knife, Atticus thinks it's an offer to cover up the situation, and he says the following:
"Thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I don't want my boy starting out with something like this over his head. Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open. Let the county come and bring sandwiches. I don't want him growing up with a whisper about him, I don't want anybody saying, 'Jem Finch . . . his daddy paid a mint to get him out of that'" (273).
Atticus is a wise parent in the above passage because he leads his children by example. If Jem were not in bed with a broken arm during this discussion, he would have heard his father planning to stand him up before the whole town and taking responsibility for the death of Mr. Ewell. Atticus is not the kind to keep secrets or cover up information because that is not the way to lead a happy and fulfilling life. Furthermore, Atticus knows how the people of Maycomb gossip, never forget, and hold grudges; therefore, if the town knows the truth from the beginning, then Atticus hopes that Jem will be safe from future allegations. By facing the situation head on, and walking Jem through the judicial process, Atticus would teach by example that facing one's problems is the right thing to do even if it is the most difficult thing he has to do. Fortunately, neither Atticus nor Jem has to face anything because Jem didn't kill Mr. Ewell. If he had, though, Atticus would have faced it with Jem with honesty and integrity.
Atticus always tries to answer his children's questions honestly, even when it pains him to do so. When Scout asks if him if he will ever get paid by Mr. Cunningham, Atticus tells her that he will, but "not in money," and then he explains about how the Depression has hit people like the Cunninghams the hardest. When Scout asks him if he saw Boo when he visited the Radley House, Atticus answered, "I did not," without revealing any further information that might compromise Boo's privacy. When Scout asks her father "Do you defend niggers?" Atticus answers, "Of course I do," and then lectures her on the "common" nature of a person who uses the "N" word. When Scout asks if he was going to win the Tom Robinson trial, Atticus replies, "No, honey," explaining that even though "we were licked... before we started is no reason for us not to try to win." And, when Scout asks him, "What's rape?", Atticus tells her the truth--even if it is in a way that Scout still does not fully understand.
Atticus looked around from behind his paper... He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent.
Atticus hopes that his children will always come to him for answers
"instead of listening to the town. I just hope they trust me enough..." | https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/give-an-example-when-atticus-demonstrates-honesty-290259 |
ITV have commissioned Fash, an unflinching, vital and deeply thought-provoking drama series from playwright, writer and director Kwame Kwei-Armah for airing on ITV1 and ITVX.
John Fashanu is closely involved in the drama, serving as consultant on the series alongside Peter Tatchell and a number of other contributors. In 1981, at 20 years old, Justin Fashanu signs to Nottingham Forest, becoming the first black British footballer to be sold for £1 million, becoming one of the most celebrated men in British sport.
In 1990, he is the first professional footballer to publicly come out as gay. In 1998, with his football career in tatters and ostracised by his family, Justin commits suicide. In 1981, Justin’s younger brother John signs to Norwich City, the same club at which his brother made his name.
Over the next few years, as his younger brother’s star fades and life becomes mired by pitch-side rumour and front-page tabloid exposés, John supersedes Justin as the famous Fashanu. In 1998, when Justin dies, the two are wholly estranged.
Fash is the unvarnished, unflinchingly honest and heart-breaking story of two young men each trapped in their own damaging and dangerous notions of masculinity that traverses back and forth across their eventful lives, from a childhood spent in Dr Barnado’s care homes in the care of a white foster family.
When they had nobody to rely on but each other amid an overwhelmingly white community which always saw them as “other”, to their tragic and irreconcilable estrangement that played out across the national media.
But Fash is more than simply a modern Cain and Abel tale. In this series Kwei-Armah skilfully, powerfully and resolutely exposes the toxic prejudices that ran to the heart of Britain at the time – both socially and institutionally – which catalysed the breakdown of these two brothers’ relationship, from the entrenched racism and homophobia ingrained in sport, and in football in particular, to the dangerously intrusive and relentless tabloid media which stoked such hate.
In Fash, Kwei-Armah has crafted a potent and arresting drama that reveals not just a shameful moment in our national history where to be yourself was to condemn yourself, but also lays bare the continued pain, damage and torment that those self-same prejudices inflict on individuals in the sport to this day.
John Fashanu says: “I’m so pleased to be working with Kwame and Happy Prince on this project. Much has been said and written about the relationship Justin and I shared over the years, but drama of this type has an ability to delve right to the beating heart and truth of events in a way other media can’t. I feel privileged to play a part in bringing it to the screen.”
Kwame Kwei-Armah says: “I grew up watching the Fashanu brothers. I was fascinated by them. Inspired by them. As an adult, my heart breaks for them. ‘The past is a foreign land’, the saying goes, ‘they do things differently there’. In Fash, I wanted to dive into that past, particularly one that has so many resonances with today.”
Peter Tatchell adds: “This is a powerful, moving life story that needs to be told. I am very honoured to act as a consultant to the production team, based on my friendship with Justin Fashanu in the 1980s.”
Commented Polly Hill: “Kwame’s scripts are brilliant and tell a story that is heart-breaking and sadly still relevant today. It is always a huge responsibility telling a true story, and Kwame and the team at Happy Prince tell Justin and John’s story with all the truth, passion and sensitivity it deserves. I’m delighted it’s found a home on ITV.”
Alexander Lamb, Executive Producer at Happy Prince, adds: “Fash is a truly important story that myself, Dominic and the Happy Prince team are desperate to tell; and its significance and timeliness rings even truer as football and sexuality currently dominate the news...
"It’s an honour to work with the brilliant Kwame Kwei-Armah as he brings Justin and John’s incredibly tough, beautifully moving, and often heart-breaking tragedy alive.”
Fash will premiere on ITV1 and will be available as a boxset on ITVX once the first episode has aired. | https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/itv-fashann2 |
How Aaron Sorkin killed 'Mockingbird'
A few months ago I saw the Broadway version of To Kill a Mockingbird, a much-lauded production that, as shaped by playwright Aaron (“The West Wing”) Sorkin, significantly alters the tenor of the 1960 Harper Lee novel.
There’s a lot about the play I liked. The seemingly weird decision to cast an adult as Scout, the novel’s child narrator, worked spectacularly. But ultimately, I think, Sorkin’s rendering of the story drives home this sad fact: If you want to get much lauded for a Broadway production, the safest route is to affirm the prejudices and moral blind spots of your time rather than challenge them.
And here’s the irony: If Sorkin had wanted to challenge the prejudices and moral blind spots of our time, all he would have had to do is leave Harper Lee’s version of the story alone. In an important sense, the novel is actually more subversive now than it was in its original milieu. Sorkin, in trying to make the story edgier, has taken the edge off it. In trying to make it politically progressive, he has made it morally regressive.
To put a finer point on it: Sorkin has written a play for the #Resistance, injecting the story with a subtext about Trumpism and how we should handle it. And that message reflects and reinforces some of the least enlightened and most counterproductive tendencies in the liberal reaction against Trump.
One of the most famous lines in To Kill a Mockingbird comes during a conversation between Scout and her father, the lawyer Atticus Finch. He says to her: "If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
In other words, Atticus is a fan of “cognitive empathy”—not necessarily sharing people’s feelings (that’s emotional empathy), but just understanding how they view the world: “perspective taking.” In fact, Atticus is a fan of radical cognitive empathy—trying to understand the perspective of even the characters you find most repugnant, the people whose perspectives you are least naturally inclined to explore.
He tries to understand what motivates a lynch mob that aims to kill his client, Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape. He tries to see things from the perspective of the man who not only did the false accusing, but threatens to harm Atticus’s family. He wants to understand the jurors who convict Robinson on the basis of dubious evidence.
I’m with Atticus on this one. It seems to me that if you want to reduce the incidence of objectionable behavior, the first step is to understand how it came to be—what view of the world motivates it, and what circumstances gave rise to that world view.
Aaron Sorkin, apparently, doesn’t think so. In Harper Lee’s novel, Atticus’s radical cognitive empathy—his effort to understand people whose behavior he deplores—comes off as laudable. But in Sorkin’s play, it doesn’t. Here is an exchange between Atticus and his son Jem that appears in the play but not the novel:
JEM: You’re trying to excuse those jurors.
ATTICUS: Explain. I’m trying to explain why they—so you can understand—I’m trying—
JEM: They don’t deserve an explanation and I already understand.
Other characters, most powerfully (and most understandably) the Finches’ African-American housekeeper, Calpurnia, also subject Atticus’s cognitive empathy to challenge if not ridicule. And there can be no doubt that they’re speaking for Sorkin.
Don’t take my word for it. Just listen to what Sorkin himself said before the play opened.
In a piece designed to pre-empt complaints about his meddling with Mockingbird (which is, after all, a nearly sacred text in America), he explained that he would be turning Atticus, depicted in the book as a paragon of virtue, into a more complex figure. Which, he said, didn’t involve changing Atticus’s character so much as putting it in a new light. “I didn’t have to give Atticus a flaw because, to my mind, he already had one; it’s just that we’d always considered it a virtue. Atticus believes that you can’t really know someone unless you ‘climb into someone’s skin and walk around in it.’ ”
And why does Sorkin think cognitive empathy is a bad thing? Because if you exercise it broadly, pretty soon you’ll be extending it to bigots of the worst kind. Sorkin continued, “He [Atticus] believes that Bob Ewell [Robinson’s accuser] should be understood as a man who lost his job. He believes Mrs. Dubose [a crotchety racist who is mean to Atticus’s kids] should be understood as a woman who recently stopped taking her medication and lives in physical pain. He believes in the fundamental goodness in everyone, even homicidal white supremacists. He believes … that there are fine people on both sides?”
That last line, of course, is an allusion to Trump’s comment on the 2017 white nationalist march in Charlottesville. Apparently Sorkin feels about white nationalists the way Jem felt about the jurors: They don’t deserve an explanation.
Think about the implications of that: When people do very bad things, we shouldn’t try to figure out what made them do what they did. If you imagine us taking Sorkin’s advice every time anyone does something bad, then you’re imagining a future in which humankind makes zero progress in understanding why people do bad things. And the reason for this continued ignorance is that people who do bad things “don’t deserve” an explanation.
Sorkin’s rejection of radical cognitive empathy isn’t his only morally significant departure from Harper Lee’s version of the story. He makes the story’s antagonists, the father and daughter who falsely accuse Tom Robinson of rape, almost cartoonishly bad. In courtroom rants, both of them express their racism much more overtly and crudely than in the novel—and more crudely than even flat-out racists generally express their racism in public.
So there is no danger of people in Sorkin’s audience seeing bigotry as a subtle, insidious thing, something people may not admit to themselves—and thus no danger of them asking whether they themselves might sometimes be guilty of it. In Aaron Sorkin’s world, the good guys are always us, and the bad guys are always them.
Sorkin’s embrace of this quasi-Manichaean world view works synergistically with his rejection of radical cognitive empathy. When you consider people purely and unambiguously bad, you’re less likely to try to explore their perspective, and when you don’t explore their perspective, you’re more likely to keep thinking they’re purely and unambiguously bad.
It would be one thing if the people thus excluded from our understanding were just the worst of the worst—lynch mobs, white nationalists, etc. I’d still be against the exclusion, but at least the damage would be limited. Unfortunately, there’s a tendency in the #Resistance to exclude a much larger group from our understanding—people who voted for Trump. Lots of liberals (though, I like to think, fewer than three years ago) talk about Trump supporters as if they’re all bigots or all idiots or all bigoted idiots.
Among the problems with this attitude: (1) it blinds you to the variety of people who support Trump and the variety of motivations for supporting him (three of my siblings voted for Trump, and their motivations vary); (2) this blindness keeps you from thinking clearly about short-term politics—like what tactics might help a Democrat win the White House; (3) this blindness keeps you from thinking clearly about long-term policy—like what policies might reduce support for Trumpism over time.
In Sorkin’s defense, his concern about doing people a favor by understanding the roots of their misdeeds isn’t crazy. Understanding, say, the impoverished upbringing and unwholesome peer group that helped turn someone into a criminal can indeed make us more sympathetic toward them, even more forgiving of them. The French aphorism tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner—to know all is to forgive all—captures a deeply engrained human moral intuition.
And of course, forgiving all has its perils. A world in which you don’t put criminals in jail, or don’t subject bigots to moral sanction, is a dangerous place. So if we’re going to try to understand why people do bad things, we need to be wary of the natural conflation of explanation and exoneration, the intuition that to understand is to forgive. We need to be able to explore why people do bad things without concluding that they’re “fine people.”
Or, alternatively, we can try to hang on to the idea that they are in a sense fine people; we can try to “love the sinner, hate the sin,” mindful that if any of us had been born in their exact circumstances—with their genes, in their environment—we presumably would have turned out as they did. If we take that path, we need to learn to see punishment as a regrettable necessity, something that miscreants may in some sense not deserve, but something we have to administer for the greater good.
But I digress. How best to disentangle explanation from exoneration, so that we can hold people accountable for bad behavior even as we come to understand its roots, is a big and subtle challenge—a subject for another day.
Meanwhile, I’ll say one more thing in Sorkin’s defense: the Harper Lee version of Mockingbird does in some ways feed fears that understanding the roots of bad behavior could be a slippery slope toward excusing it. There are places where Atticus seems to suggest as much. “She’s old and ill,” he says of Mrs. Dubose. “You can’t hold her responsible for what she says and does.”
By my lights, this is a sign that Atticus hasn’t fully thought through the implications of his radical cognitive empathy—hasn’t wholly reckoned with the practical need to hold people accountable for wrongdoing even when we understand why they did wrong. But that’s the way moral progress works—one step at a time. Atticus has at least taken the first step. I don’t think we should follow Sorkin’s guidance and take a step backward, even though we’re living in a political age when doing that is a good way to win applause.
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The novel To Kill a Mockingbird begins with narrator, Scout Finch, introducing to the reader her brother Jem, her father Atticus, and her town, Maycomb, Alabama. She tells us a little of her family history, and then begins her story : It is the summer of 1933. Scout is five, and Jem is nine. They pass the summer happily with their new friend Dill, a six-year-old boy who has moved into their neighborhood for the summer. They are very curious about one of their neighbors, Boo Radley, who hasn't been seen by any one for years.
The next winter, Jem and Scout find more presents in the tree, presumably left by the mysterious Boo. Nathan Radley eventually plugs the knothole with cement. Shortly thereafter, a fire breaks out in another neighbor's house, and during the fire someone slips a blanket on Scout's shoulders as she watches the blaze. Convinced that Boo did it, Jem tells Atticus about the mended pants and the presents. To the consternation of Maycomb's racist white community, Atticus agrees to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman.
Atticus wouldn’t teach Jem and Scout how to shoot, but he instructs them to, “…shoot all the bluejays you want [with the air rifles that the children received], if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 90). Atticus understands that mockingbirds provide no harm to humans. All they do is sing their heart out and give people pleasure, giving these species the symbol of peace. The novel's title, To Kill a Mockingbird, emphasizes on the theme of innocence, which is symbolized through mockingbirds. In addition to Atticus’s viewpoint, he believes that people should not judge a ... ... middle of paper ... ...t warmth, Atticus tells her, “Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him [Boo Radley] for covering her up…[and putting] the blanket around you” (72).
His mindset is to never give up, even when you know and everyone else knows you are not going to succeed at what you are doing. I agree with Atticus Finch’s definition of courage of that even though all odds are against you, you have to follow through and persevere. Real courage is when you fight for what is right regardless of whether you win or lose. For example, while Jem and Atticus converse about Mrs. Dubose and her fight against morphine addiction, Atticus states, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what” (112).
It takes a greater deal of courage to stand up for others. Heros are the ones that stand up to others. A hero must need courage. In To KIll A Mockingbird, Atticus shows a great deal of courage. In a conversation Atticus has with Scout, he says, “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,” (pg.82-83) In this quote Atticus is admitting that he will lose, but is also saying there is no reason not to try.
Basically, Atticus believes that just because it is unlikely that he will win, it does not mean that he should just give up without trying. Throughout all the discrimination, Atticus remains tough and tries to achieve his goal, no matter how hard it is. This was an example of moral courage. Even Scout knows how hard her father is trying by comparing Atticus’ efforts to “watching Atticus walk down the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but... ... middle of paper ... ...o, or not, you should at least respect his life lessons taught throughout To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch was a true hero, in my eyes.
In words of advice to his son, Jem, Atticus explains: “ ‘I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what’ ” (Lee 149). Atticus shows his children true courage by taking on Tom Robinson’s case, even though he knows with absolute certainty that he won’t succeed. Atticus’s ability to remain strong in the face of racial adversity earns him not only his reputation in the community, but also the hard-won respect of his children. Scout and Jem are finally able to appreciate Atticus as a father figure because he has proven to them that he is a true hero, even though he is not the most popular or athletic father in town.
He wanted the people of Maycomb to know the truth about what happened to Mayella Ewell, but even the truth would not free Tom Robinson. "That boy might go to the chair, but he's not going till the truth's told." (Lee, 146) Atticus showed true courage in going against Maycomb, a mostly prejudice town. He was given names like “nigger lover” and was looked down upon heavily but that did not stop him. On the other hand, Mayella Ewell decided to lie about the case because othe... ... middle of paper ... ...ack home, Scout puts her arm around his arm to signify to the neighbors that Boo is a friend, not an enemy.
The children did not understand, so by asking another adult neighbor they figured out that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird because they do not do anything bad for anyone, all they do is “make music for us to enjoy” (90). When the children learn this information, it is the first time we see Atticus protecting innocence, which reveals his characteristics and what kind of person he is. It also sets the theme of the book of protecting innocence, since this is the first we see of it. Shortly after Christmas, the children decided to go exploring when the neighbor’s dog, Tim Johnson started slowly walking towards them. The children got scared and returned to the house when Atticus and the town police officer were called to kill the dog because he had gone mad.
This demonstrates Jem’s bravery because he was willing to accept any dare even if it scared him or concerned his safety. Another way this displays Jem’s bravery is that he wasn’t afraid of his father getting angry at h... ... middle of paper ... ...to lynch Tom Robinson, Atticus in not willing to move. Atticus is willing to fight in order to protect Tom Robinson and he is not afraid of the mob. Mr. Underwood having to cover Atticus with a shotgun shows us the seriousness of the issue. This event overall displays to us the true physical bravery of Atticus. | https://www.123helpme.com/essay/Short-Summary-and-Quote-Analysis-in-To-151155 |
In the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch clearly states “All men are created equal” (KM). Throughout the preceding scenes of the film, Atticus appears to reflect this belief—at least to some degree. However, other viewers have a different take on him entirely. For instance, Katherine Nichols published an article on Jezebel titled “Atticus Was Always a Racist: Why Go Set a Watchman Is No Surprise.” There, she provides a detailed description of how she viewed Atticus in both To Kill a Mockingbird (book version) and Go Set a Watchman. She does a brilliant job providing examples that clearly validate her understanding of Atticus as a racist, and concludes the article with a strong statement saying, “Mockingbird Atticus is too easy to read as virtuous—a brave individual, not strong enough on his own to make any headway against inequality. The truth is that he never meant to” and she’s right. With that being said, I must admit that prior to reading Nichols’s article, I too was guilty of seeing Atticus as an almighty do-gooder of his time; somehow being a noble, virtue-driven egalitarian while surrounded by individuals of lesser quality than he. While that is no longer my exact interpretation of him, I still believe the man deserves an immense amount of credit. So who is Atticus Finch really? If he is racist, can he still be perceived as a role-model?
I’ll start with the latter. Can Atticus still be viewed as a role-model? The answer is yes, but a better question would be: how? Well, because everyone is prejudice. Some clearly more than others, and most may not even be aware that they are at all. I’m not saying that’s how it ought to be, but I am saying that’s how it is. Gail Price-Wise, a graduate from Harvard School of Public Health appears to agree, as she also says, “We all have prejudice” (McAteer). The reason Atticus’s prejudice isn’t so apparent in To Kill a Mockingbird is at least in part because the film is being filtered through Scout’s perspective. What that tells us is not only that Atticus must be exceedingly diligent as a parent to have shielded his children from the obscene racist norms that take place within the town at this time, but he also made sure his own prejudicial beliefs aren’t intruding on his children’s ability to form their own perspective of the world. In contrast, we can clearly see how the Ewell family differs on these principles.
The bottom line is—and I think Price-Wise says it best—“…Individuals differ based on how they were raised, their personal life experiences, their education, socio-economic status, whether they have traveled, and the personality they were born with” (McAteer). Yes, Atticus is a flawed man. No, Atticus is not the epitome of all that is good. But, given the time-period and norms of Maycomb, Atticus still deserves to be a role-model, and he has been, especially to Jean. Even in chapter seventeen of Go Set a Watchman, when Jean verbally lashes out at Atticus; he simply chooses to accommodate her by staying calm and polite. He doesn’t raise his voice to her, and he surely doesn’t strike her (as Bob Ewell has done to his daughter). It takes immense self-control not to retaliate in someway, but he neglects to make the matter worse. So who is Atticus Finch? He is an imperfect man, with imperfect beliefs, but he may just be—a perfect father.
Works Cited
Lee, Harper. Go Set a Watchman. New York: Harper Collins, 2015. Print.
McAteer, Ollie. “Actor Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch in the film ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, 1962.”Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images, 19 Feb. 2016, http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/19/to-kill-a-mockingbird-author-nelle-harper-lee-dies-aged-89-5706822/. Accessed 24 October 2016.
Mitchell, Robert. “Fighting Prejudice by Admitting It.” Harvardgazette, 05 Nov. 2013, http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/11/fighting-prejudice-by-admitting-it/. Accessed 24 October 2016.
Movieclips. “All Men Are Created Equal – To Kill a Mockingbird (6/10) Movie CLIP (1962) HD.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 16 June 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x6njs-cGUE. Web. 24 October 2016.
Nichols, Katherine. “Atticus Was Always a Racist: Why Go Set a Watchman Is No Surprise.” Jezebel, 20 July 2015, http://jezebel.com/atticus-was-always-a-racist-why-go-set-a-watchman-is-n-1718996096. Accessed 24 October 2016.
To Kill a Mockingbird. Dir. Robert Mulligan. By Horton Foote. Perf. Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, and Phillip Alford. Universal-International, 1962. | http://blogs.rochester.edu/feelinggood1/2016/10/25/dear-harper-lee-who-is-atticus-finch/ |
Figurative language is language not meant to be taken literally. It is used in To Kill a Mockingbird to describe how prejudice causes blindness and intolerance.
When Jem questions Atticus about the lynch mob that tried to kill Tom Robinson, Atticus responds figuratively, using the metaphor of a blind spot.
"Mr. Cunningham's basically a good man," he said, "he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us." (ch 16)
Atticus figuratively compares Mr. Cunningham’s racism to a blind spot, or an area where a person cannot see. Mr. Cunningham is mostly a good person, he argues, but when it comes to race he is blinded by prejudice that he has learned from the community.
Another example is the incident of Mr. Raymond’s Coca-cola. The children assume, as everyone does, that he is drunk most of the time. He is married to a black woman and lives among the blacks instead of the whites. Mr. Raymond explains why to Scout, Jem, and Dill.
"[It's] mighty helpful to folks. Secretly, Miss Finch, I'm not much of a drinker, but you see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live." (ch 20)
Mr. Raymond uses the metaphor “I live like I do” to explain living a life without racism. Other people cannot understand or appreciate this, so he pretends to be drunk to make it easier for them to accept.
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- In To Kill a Mockingbird, I need literary devices from Chapter 1 to Chapter 11. | https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-some-quotes-using-both-literary-device-371918 |
Truth of the Shadows by Slade Templeton is a psychological thriller/horror fiction that revolves around Dr. Joseph Hoffman. He was a head psychiatrist at Cottage Grove Hospital who relied on logic and his vast knowledge seconded by science. In front of his patients, who talked about furniture moving at its own will, their dead son coming back to be with her, hallucinations of angels, etc., Joseph was the calm and composed psychiatrist who had a logical explanation for their delusional paranoia. However, underneath his confident demeanor resided an ever-consuming guilt and sorrow. | https://mojitowithatwist.com/tag/psychiatrist/ |
The chapter proposes to consider the problems of control of asynchronous machines with dual power supply, as a nonlinear structure, the transfer functions of which depend on the frequency of the stator voltage and the relative slip. The authors cite the results of research confirming the high efficiency of control of asynchronous electric motors, using cross-dynamic connections on the developed torque or a signal close to it (active component of the motor stator current). The proposed correction operates in a wide range of changes in the rotation and sliding speeds of the asynchronous electric generator. This is especially important for wind turbines that need to remain efficient at different speeds. As a justification, the results of experiments, modeling and industrial application of control algorithms with positive torque coupling are presented. Research results suggest that such algorithms will improve the efficiency of wind power by 5–10%.
Part of the book: Emerging Electric Machines
The article offers the results of experimental studies of asynchronous electric 10 motors with “squirrel cage” rotor with frequency control. The results of bench tests of the modes of parrying stepwise changes in the load created by a similar frequency-controlled electric drive are presented. A preliminary qualitative analysis of the known control methods is carried out and it is shown that the assumptions made when creating their algorithms in the modes of countering the load become too significant. The reasons for this are the fundamental inaccuracies of the vector equations of asynchronous electric motors with frequency regulation. The proposed interpretation of asynchronous electric motors by nonlinear continuous transfer functions, outlined in the articles written by the same authors earlier, and the corrections they proposed turned out to be more accurate for the operating modes under consideration than the traditional methods of interpretation and correction of the frequency control of asynchronous electric motors This made it possible to assess as objectively as possible the effectiveness of the interpretation of asynchronous electric drives and methods of their regulation. Numerous articles on this topic over the past 25–30 years have not provided such results. | https://www.intechopen.com/profiles/250820 |
MISSISSAUGA, ON, CANADA | Film and sheet extrusion systems supplier Macro Engineering & Technology reports it has developed a universal winder that can wind either wide sheeting or narrow films on center, a configuration said to be ideal for winding materials produced on geomembrane/agricultural film swing lines.
The winder is a center-turret type with two winding modes: a fully automatic mode for agricultural films and a semi-automatic mode for geomembranes where operators need to manually attach the sheet to the core.
The machine accommodates webs with thicknesses between 30 and 2,500 microns and widths between 1.0 m and 6.2 m. It winds rolls to 800 mm in diameter on 150-mm cores. The winder operates at speeds to 120 mpm, can wind slit rolls (multiple ups), folded films, and gusseted films (up to 8 folds). Rolls are automatically removed from the winder with an unloading cart. | https://pffc-online.com/news/12591-macro-winder-suited-for-geomembranes-and-agricultural-films |
What is a Wind Rose?
A wind rose gives a succinct view of how wind speed and direction are typically distributed at a particular location. Presented in a circular format, the wind rose shows the frequency of winds blowing from particular directions. The length of each "spoke" around the circle is related to the frequency of time that the wind blows from a particular direction. Each concentric circle represents a different frequency, emanating from zero at the center to increasing frequencies at the outer circles. Wind rose example
Wind rose for July, Des Moines, Iowa. Select image to enlarge.
About the Dataset
The National Water and Climate Center provides a dataset of wind rose plot images in .gif format. The images are organized by state, by city within each state, and then by month. The wind roses are based on hourly data from NOAA's Solar and Meteorological Surface Observation Network (SAMSON) dataset. The period of record is 1961-1990.
The wind roses in this dataset contain additional information, in that each spoke is broken down into discrete frequency categories that show the percentage of time that winds blow from a particular direction and at certain speed ranges. All wind roses shown in the dataset use 16 cardinal directions: north (N), north-northeast (NNE), northeast (NE), etc. The legend at the bottom of the wind rose gives additional information such as the unit (m/sec), the average wind speed for the month over all hours, the percentage of time that the winds are calm, and the years, months, and hours of data on which each rose was constructed. All hours of the day (24 readings per day) are used to construct the wind roses.
Note: Wind speeds shown in the plots are in meters per second. To convert meters per second into miles per hour, multiply by 2.237. For example, a 5 m/sec wind converts to a 11.19 mph wind, and a 10 m/sec wind converts to 22.37 mph. In addition, anemometer heights were not adjusted to a common height in the SAMSON dataset. For more information, a spreadsheet containing the anemometer height history in meters and feet at each station is available here.
Other Wind Rose Resources
WRPLOT View™ Wind Rose Plots for Meteorological Data. Free software download.
Iowa Environmental Mesonet Wind Rose Plots. Select State and Station to display plots. | https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/wcc/home/climateSupport/windRoseResources/ |
The IBTRACS world database of tropical cyclone (TC) tracks was analysed to determine potential historical trends in TC characteristics for the west Pacific basin. Trends are then related to the characteristics of Typhoon Yolanda to see if this individual event constitutes as a data outlier or is part of a trend that can be related to climate change. In terms of TC frequency, it is deduced that there is a decreasing pattern in tropical cyclone formation starting in 1970. It is also noted that while there is no trend in the annual mean maximum wind speed observed, a decrease in the number of high wind speed TCs is measured for the months of November and December. The location of TC formation has also been changing towards a higher latitude but closer to the Philippines in terms of longitude. Lastly, typhoons making landfall in the Visayas and Mindanao region have also become slightly more frequent in the last decade. Except for the last finding, the 2013 typhoon season does not fit in these general trends. This year may be the start of a new trend or shift in TC characteristics (which we will only know after a few more years) but is most likely part of the inherent annual variability of typhoon characteristics. Yolanda goes against perceived trends but its occurrence signifies that there is still much to learn about tropical cyclones and the impending impacts of climate change in general.
On November 8, 2013, Super Typhoon Yolanda (International Name: Haiyan) made landfall in Guiuan, Eastern Samar. It was, by many accounts, the most powerful tropical cyclone (TC) that made landfall ever recorded in history. According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) the recorded maximum 10-minute sustained winds of Yolanda was 230 kilometers per hour (kph) with gustiness reaching 250kph shortly after landfall. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) calculated 1-minute maximum sustained wind speed of 315kph with gustiness reaching 380kph. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) report dated December 16, 2013 reported 6,069 individuals perished (5,087 from the province of Leyte) while 1,779 are still missing because of Super Typhoon Yolanda. More than 5,000 casualties came from the province of Leyte and this was mainly due to the storm surge that affected its coastline. The estimated total worth of damages is pegged at PhP 35.5 billion.
One question that often arises during discussions in the aftermath of the disaster is whether this extreme event can be considered to be the “new normal” and therefore attributable to climate change. A consensus from meteorologists have deduced that the warming of ocean waters due to climate change will theoretically influence cyclogenesis but the high level of uncertainty in results preclude any definitive cause-effect relationship (WMO, 2006). The intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) report conceded that the resolution of coupled ocean and atmospheric modelling is still too coarse to completely resolve climate change-related changes to tropical cyclone characteristics (IPCC, 2007). Still, based on various modelling studies, the IPCC report projected a decrease in mid-latitude storms globally per year but an increase in average wind intensity. This statement was slightly revised in its Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2013) wherein it said that current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century. Conflicting results were provided by McDonald et al. (2005) wherein they report an almost insignificant decrease in the number of typhoons (6% decrease) but an increase in wind intensity. Still, Emori et al. (2005) reported a projected decrease in both the number and intensity of cyclones in the northern Pacific basin but related precipitation will increase. One of the more recent works on tropical cyclone modelling was done by Knutson et al. (2010) wherein they project a 6-34% global decrease in the number of tropical cyclones but an increase by about 20% in the number of very intense cyclones by 2100. The same paper suggested a poleward shift in tropical cyclone formation.
Considering the apparent uncertainty of TC frequency and intensity trends from global climate models, the other technique that can be used in figuring out tropical cyclone trends is to analyse historical archives and looking at a single event, such as Yolanda, in relation to a typhoon database. This work aims to contribute to this form of analysis by looking at not only annual frequency and intensity trends but also other typhoon metrics by dissecting typhoon characteristics on a month by month scale.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains a database that assimilates all recorded tropical cyclones by various weather agencies. The International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTRACS) boasts of more than 300,000 tropical cyclone-related entries, one-third of which are western Pacific cyclones (Knapp et al., 2010). It includes TC tracks (6-hourly), calculated wind speed and barometric pressure among other information and that the dataset covers the years 1884-2012. The IBTRACS has been endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization as an official archiving program for tropical cyclone information. The 2013 TC data from JTWC whenever applicable is included for completeness.
The IBTRACS data is parsed using the Python programming language and Microsoft Excel and plotted using ESRI’s ArcGIS. In many of the interpreted data, a 10-year moving average is employed to reduce annual variability and highlight the longer term changes in the parameters measured. Statistical analysis is performed to confirm any possible trends from the dataset.
Figure 1 shows tropical cyclone formation in the west Pacific basin on an annual basis. Evident in this plot is the increase in TCs recorded from the start of the dataset until around the 1970s wherein the highest total number of typhoons recorded was 61 in 1971; the 10-yr moving average in 1971 was 47.7 typhoons per year. The apparent 300% increase over the 86-year period is partly due to incomplete tropical cyclone reporting as these were based on data dependent on the density of shipping vessels reporting such weather disturbances (Knuttson et al., 2010). Higher ship density started in the 1960s and satellite-based reporting only became operational in 1966. Starting in 1970, a decreasing trend spanning 43 years is recorded in the 10-year moving average. The current 10-year average stands at 28.4 typhoons per year.
Figure 1. Number of tropical cyclones recorded annually in the west Pacific Basin. The black line is the 10-yr moving average.
Typhoon Yolanda was the 34th of 35 tropical cyclones that formed in the west Pacific basin in 2013, seven more than the 10-year average. This is the highest recorded number of TCs in the last 12 years and constitutes a 3-year increasing trend starting in 2010.
Tropical cyclone intensity is measured via the maximum wind speed each TC system has attained during its lifetime. The IBTRACS data has a record of historical wind speeds between the years 1977 and 2012. It is based on the 10-minute maximum sustained winds which is similar to PAGASA’s signal system but different from the Storm category system used in the United States which is based on a 1-minute maximum sustained winds measurement. Figure 2 shows the annual maximum wind dataset. Average annual maximum wind speeds do not show any definite trend; if at all there is a slight decrease in mean typhoon intensity in the 25th to 75th percentile of annual typhoons since 2007. Typhoon Yolanda’s 230kph matches 2010’s Typhoon Juan (International Name: Megi) wind speed. The 2013 maximum wind speed average falls within historical range despite recording five typhoons that exceeded 185kph maximum wind speeds (two made landfall in the Philippines: Odette and Yolanda).
Figure 2. Maximum wind speed data. The dashed line shows the range of wind speeds per year, the box denotes the range of typhoons falling within the 25th to 75th percentile (interquartile range) and the horizontal line inside the box represents the mean of the annual maximum wind speeds.
The IBTRACS dataset is further analysed to look at monthly trends for typhoon intensity. Table 1 shows the average number of significant typhoons (>150kph) that formed in the west Pacific basin for each month per decade. August and September record the most number of significant typhoons and that these are increasing throughout the decades. Significant typhoons in November and December show a decreasing trend.
Table 1. Average frequency of significant typhoons per decade (>150kph).
The location of tropical cyclone formation will indirectly have bearing on whether typhoons will make landfall in the Philippines. With a general west-northwest typhoon track, the higher the formation latitude and further east longitude, the lower the chance of the typhoon passing by our country. The Philippines is located from latitude 5⁰N to 20⁰N and longitude 117⁰E to 127⁰E. This latitude range is roughly the same range as western Pacific typhoon formation. Figure 3a shows a definite shift in annual mean latitude of formation from about 17⁰N to as low as 12⁰N in the mid-1990s. This is coupled with an increase in annual mean formation longitude (farther east from the Philippines) from 125⁰E to 145⁰E (Figure 3b). Since then, however, a shift back to higher latitudes but closer longitude of formation is recorded in the last 18 years. This means that on average, typhoons have been more recently forming nearer the Philippines but at a higher latitude equivalent to Metro Manila. This is despite the fact that significant typhoons within the recent past have originated from very near the equator. Typhoon Sendong (International Name: Washi) became a tropical depression at 6⁰ north, Typhoon Pablo (International Name: Bopha) at 5⁰ north and that Typhoon Yolanda formed at 7⁰N of the equator.
Figure 3a and 3b. Mean latitude and longitude of typhoon formation per year.
Figure 4a shows that annually a range of 8-76% of TCs that form in the west Pacific basin make landfall in the Philippines. The historical average is 30.3% with the highest recorded percentage happening in 1991 and culminating to the highest 10-yr average of 37.7% in 1995. However, since then, this percentage has gone down to 28% with 2013 recording only 31.4% of the TCs making landfall in the country. To determine whether typhoon tracks are changing through time, the number of TCs making landfall in Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon-Bicol, and Visayas-Mindanao are plotted (Figures 4b-d). Northern Luzon still accounts for most TCs making landfall (20.2% of all TCs formed), followed by Visayas-Mindanao (9.8%) and Southern Luzon-Bicol (8.4%). However, noticeable in these plots is the slight decrease in TCs entering Luzon and Bicol and increase in the percent of TCs entering Visayas-Mindanao which is up by 0.8% to 10.6%. The peak occurred in the 1990s when 12-15% of TCs passed by Visayas-Mindanao. The 2013 typhoon season recorded 7 of 11 tropical cyclones made landfall in Visayas or Mindanao. This also constitutes 20% of all TCs that formed in the west Pacific basin, double the 10.6% average for the region.
Figures 4a-d. Percent of tropical cyclones formed that made landfall in the Philippines. The dark line shows the 10-year moving average for the dataset.
There are evident tropical cyclone trends as shown by the analyses of the IBTRACS database. This includes: the decreasing number of TCs forming in the west Pacific basin, the increase in latitude (and decrease in longitude) of mean TC formation, the decrease in the number of significant storms in November and December, and the increase in TCs entering Visayas and Mindanao. Further analyses of the IBTRACS database are already underway including the separation of apparent linear trends relatable to climate change with possible inter annual cyclical occurrences such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation.
This study is funded through a research project of the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD-DOST) and a professorial chair award from the Oscar M. Lopez (OML) Center for Climate Change.
IPCC, 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
IPCC, 2013. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Knapp, K. R., M. C. Kruk, D. H. Levinson, H. J. Diamond, and C. J. Neumann, 2010. The International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS): Unifying tropical cyclone best track data. Bulletin American Meteor. Society, 91, 363-376.
Knutson, T.R., McBride, J.L., Chan, J., Emmanuel, K., Holland, G., Landsea, C., Held, I., Kossin, J.P., Srivastava, A.K., and Sugi, M. 2010. Tropical cyclones and climate change. Nature Geosci. DOI 10.1038/NGEO779.
World Meteorological Organization, 2006. WMO International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones Statement on Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change.
Dr. Carlos Primo David, Bernard Alan Racoma, and Mark Vincent Clutario are the project leader, science research analyst, and project staff respectively of FloodNET, a component of Project NOAH. This project aims to gather all flooding related data and bridge the gaps between data, modelling, and information output. They are also behind the rainfall prediction website ClimateX, which provides the rainfall probability data in the Project NOAH website. | https://center.noah.up.edu.ph/a-manifestation-of-climate-change-a-look-at-typhoon-yolanda-in-relation-to-the-historical-tropical-cyclone-archive/ |
Motion Control: How Do We Synchronize Motor Speeds?
Home / Articles / 2002 / How do we synchronize motor speeds?
We use DC motors in our load-sharing conveyor installations. The motors are connected in parallel to a DC drive and split the output current equally so they run at the same speed. We have a customer specification to do this with AC motors instead. It appears we'll have to use a variable frequency drive for each motor and are not certain we know how to guarantee they will all run at the same speed. Help.
ALSO READ: How do I synchronize conveyor speeds?
Multiple AC induction motors can be operated from a single inverter provided that the inverter is sized correctly for the number of motors and their respective operating loads. The problem with this method is that the speed of a standard induction motor tends to slip somewhat with respect to the line frequency as the motor's load varies, so speeds will not be synchronous. The solution to this is to use three-phase, inverter-duty synchronous induction motors to ensure that the motor speeds remain synchronous with the line frequency.
We have implemented load sharing with both AC and DC drives successfully for many years. Both technologies work equally well but for the topic of this discussion we will concentrate on the AC solution. Taking for granted the motors are mechanically coupled we use two VFDs and configure one unit in speed or frequency control as the master. The slave unit will run in torque control and gets its torque set point from the master. To accomplish this the torque setpoint from the master can be sent to the slave via an analog I/O, but we recommend a peer-to-peer serial communication for greater precision.
If the motors are not mechanically coupled, we need to decide what is more important for the application: load sharing or speed matching. If speed matching is the goal, run each VFD in a closed loop vector mode. If load sharing is the goal, use a comparator to bias the speed of one VFD to equalize the loads.
The answer is first a question of output. What is needed or expected as the output of the conveyor equipment? What resolution is needed to produce perfect product? Inches of conveyor travel equals revolutions of the motor equals pulses of feedback on an encoder either with or without an index pulse. For example, sheetrock is very sensitive and is manufactured good side down. It "moves" as it is in process. This will cost plenty in waste and handling expenses if the individual conveyor belt speeds are not controlled and easily adjusted by regular plant electrical personnel.
What are the variables? Are belts that stretch with age involved and does this growth need to be accounted for? Is the product stable or does it move as it cures? The answer can only be determined after these questions are answered, unless a synchronizer is used on each variable-speed AC or DC drive in the application.
For the retrofit of an existing line, trying not to break the bank, the following has worked with documented, fantastic results for many continuous output process lines.
A master speed control with encoder feedback to close the loop is given a command to achieve a process speed. This controller then controls one of the VSD units to smoothly run a link in the process line. Any number of additional motors with a VSD are then fed a signal from a synchronizer controller that has just one job: "follow with the strength needed to produce perfect product." The only shared signals are the master control signal and an encoder signal. The synchronizer gets a feedback encoder signal from the motor it is controlling to ensure the proper dialed-in digital ratio, 9.9999 to 0.0001, is maintained. Each motor needs a synchronizer control of its own.
The one most important thing to remember is that the conveyor system will tell you which piece of equipment will in fact be the master. This master will be the hardest to start, stop, and maintain smooth motion on. If each other link in the system is driven to synchronize speed with this "slug," the product will move smoothly from belt to belt as in sheetrock, or on parallel pin conveyors as in light bulb manufacturing. The design of master/follower motors in the system may be series, branch, or mixed. Again the system and its product will determine what piece of equipment is directly synched or digitally ratioed to each other piece of equipment.
Please consider the E-stop circuit, too. E-stop the master and let the entire drive system follow it down in a controlled motion. Removing AC power from today's microprocessor-based equipment is at times the worst, most damage-causing way to stop.
You have options here. With one drive per motor, you can configure the drives in series and tie the analog output (programmed to monitor the output frequency) of the first drive to the analog input of the second, and so on until all the drives and motors are connected. They will follow the reference given the master drive if the analog inputs are tuned properly to provide the correct output frequency. You could use this configuration if the speed control tolerance is reasonably loose or if cost is a concern. Be aware that there may be some time lag between speed changes at the first drive and the last if several drives are connected together.
To gain a higher degree of precision, use closed-loop flux vector drives in parallel. The closed-loop method adds cost but provides the best speed and torque control. In parallel, each drive would receive its own speed reference. Load-sharing would not be a problem because the closed-loop system inherently ensures high degrees of speed regulation that are comparable or superior to DC drives.
For the highest degree of precision, use a closed-loop flux vector drive system with electronic line shafting software built into the drive, or into a PLC. This software will virtually guarantee that all of the motor shafts will rotate at the same speed at the same time.
This also could be done using multiple AC motors in parallel with a single AC drive. If the performance of the DC parallel configuration is acceptable, then an AC solution would work as well. This would have to be done using an open-loop volts/hertz drive, but the performance would be comparable to that of the DC system.
Connecting multiple AC motors to one AC variable frequency drive will achieve the same result. Since both motors, assuming same number of motor poles, are driven at the same frequency by a single VFD, the motor's speed will be the same at no load. Because asynchronous motors have inherent slip, if one motor has a greater load than the other motor(s) in parallel, its speed will slip more (decline), therefore, transferring more of the load to the other motor(s), essentially, load sharing.
Key applications notes: The inverter should be sized using the following formula: (Motor 1 FLA + Motor 2 FLA + etc.) x 1.1 must be less than or equal to the VFD-rated continuous current. This is because the parallel reactance of multiple motors is less than the reactance of one motor of the same total HP. Working into a lower reactance results in higher current peaks to the drive.
Also, external motor overload devices must be supplied for each motor. The VFD cannot protect individual motors when they're connected in parallel. | https://www.controldesign.com/articles/2002/235/ |
Ultrashort optical pulses are becoming more and more relevant in a number of applications including distance measurement, molecular fingerprinting and ultrafast sampling. Many of these applications rely not only on a single stream of pulses of optical frequency combs but require two or even three of them. Nonetheless, these multi-comb approaches significantly speed up acquisition time over conventional techniques.
These trains of short optical pulses are typically produced by large pulsed laser sources. Multi-comb applications therefore require several such lasers, often at prohibitive costs and complexity. Furthermore, the relative timing of pulse trains and their phases must be very well synchronized, which requires active electronics that synchronize the lasers. Now, the research team of Tobias J. Kippenberg at EPFL, together with the group of Michael Gorodetsky at the Russian Quantum Centre, has developed a much simpler method to generate multiple frequency combs. The technology uses small optical microresonators to create optical frequency combs instead of conventional pulsed lasers.
The microresonator consists of a crystalline disk of a few millimeters in diameter. The disk traps a continuous laser light and converts it into ultrashort soliton pulses thanks to the special nonlinear properties of the device. The solitons travel around the microresonator 12 billion times per second. At every round, a part of the soliton exits the resonator, producing a stream of optical pulses.
The microresonator the researchers used here has a special property in that it allows the light to travel in the disk in multiple spatial modes of the resonator. By launching continuous lightwaves in several modes at the same time, multiple different soliton states can be obtained simultaneously. In this way, the scientists were able to generate up to three frequency combs at the same time. The working principle is the same as spatial multiplexing used in optical fiber communication: the information can be sent in parallel on different spatial modes of a multimode fiber. Here, the combs are generated in distinct spatial modes of the microresonator.
The method has several advantages, but the primary one is that it does not require complex synchronization electronics. “All the pulses are circulating in the same physical object, which reduces potential timing drift, as encountered with two independent pulsed lasers,” explains Erwan Lucas. “We also derive all the continuous waves from the same initial laser by using a modulator, which removes the need for phase synchronization.” Using this multiplexing scheme, the team demonstrated several applications, such as dual-comb spectroscopy, or rapid optical sampling. The acquisition time could be adjusted between a fraction of a millisecond to 100 nanoseconds. | http://www.photonicsviews.com/generating-multiple-frequency-combs/ |
The quality of dataset measured and collected by wireless sensor networks (WSN) is often affected by noise and error that are inherent to resource-constrained sensor nodes. The affected data points deviating from the normal pattern are termed as outlier(s). However, detected outlier can be a result of the occurrence of an actual event. Outlier detection techniques developed for WSNs perform binary labelling of the data points and does not indicate the context stating whether the outlier is the result of an actual event or the noise/error. This paper proposes a contextual outlier detection framework specifically designed for WSNs named as in-network contextual outlier detection on edge (INCODE). The proposed framework also estimates the degree of outlierness associated with the detected outlier(s) to provide better insight into the measured data point. Algorithms used in INCODE are designed around the edge computing concept to minimize the communication and computational complexities to make it suitable for resource-constrained WSN. The results suggest an impressive 98% accuracy in identifying the context of the outlier(s). The low communication and computational complexity suggest INCODE’s suitability for resource constrained WSNs.
KeywordsWireless sensor networks Contextual outlier detection Edge computing
Notes
Acknowledgements
We thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions that helped improve the quality of this manuscript. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12652-019-01194-5 |
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Improving the Online Teaching of STEM Educators in Higher Education through Knowledge Mining from Pedagogy Literature
The Centre for Data Science is inviting applications from suitably-qualified graduates for a self-funded full-time PhD studentship.
Machine Learning to Improve Groebner Basis Construction
CSM is offering a new project applying Machine Learning Technology to improve a key algorithm of Computer Algebra Systems.
Novel wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol design using a machine learning approach
This project will investigate and seek to innovate a novel collaborative cognitive radio approach between a multi-learning intelligent agent system.
Effect on society of gendered embodied and gendered virtual AIs and Robots with embedded emotion and conversational capacity
Coventry University is inviting applications from suitably qualified graduates for a self-funded PhD studentship for individual research supervised by a team to investigate the effect on society of gendered robots.
Effectiveness of the Maximum Satisfiability formulation of the set covering problem and its variants
The Maximum Satisfiability (MaxSAT) problem is to determine the maximum number of clauses from a given Boolean formula in conjunctive normal form that can be made true by an assignment to the variables.
Object Detecting and Tracking in Medical X-ray Images
The proposer has developed a new concept of embedding machine learning methods into image filter algorithms, which could dramatically improve the accuracy and efficiency of real-time detection and tracking methods for surgical instruments. | https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-opportunities/research-students/research-studentships/non-funded-studentships/?var2=1342 |
In Example 7.2 the airline model, ARIMA , was seen to be a good fit to the unmodified log-transformed airline passenger series. The preliminary identification steps (not shown) again suggest the airline model as a suitable initial model for the modified data. The following statements specify the airline model and request an outlier search.
The outlier detection output is shown in Output 7.7.1.
You can now refine the previous model by including these regressors, as follows. Note that the differencing order of the dependent series is matched to the differencing orders of the outlier regressors to get the correct "effective" outlier signatures.
The outlier detection results are shown in Output 7.7.2.
The output shows that a few outliers still remain to be accounted for and that the model could be refined further. | http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/etsug/67525/HTML/default/etsug_arima_examples07.htm |
Abstract: In this paper, a memory-efficient outlier detection (MEOD) approach for streaming data is proposed. The approach uses a local correlation integral (LOCI) algorithm for outlier detection, finding the outlier based on the density of neighboring points defined by a given radius. The radius value detection problem is converted into an optimization problem. The radius value is determined using a particle swarm optimization (PSO)-based approach. The results of the MEOD technique application are compared with existing approaches in terms of memory, time, and accuracy, such as the memory-efficient incremental local outlier factor (MiLOF) detection technique. The MEOD technique finds outlier points similar to MiLOF with nearly equal accuracy but requires less memory for processing.
References
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Цитирания (Citation/s): | http://e-university.tu-sofia.bg/e-publ/search-det.php?id=7504 |
Outlier detection helps to improve results of a clustering process by identifying noisy, anomalous data points in a dataset. However, lots of techniques for outlier detection require a density estimation of the data points, which cannot be computed exactly. To deal with this problem, spatially adaptive sparse grids can be used to learn and approximate the underlying density function of a multi-dimensional dataset. After this learning process, also known as sparse grids density estimation, the obtained approximated function can be evaluated at every data point to receive a corresponding density value. In this thesis, several outlier detection techniques including the Local Outlier Factor and the Local Density Factor are presented. Furthermore, a new density- based approach to obtain a factor for the outlierness of a data point is introduced. The purpose of this thesis is to assess whether outlier detection is a suitable field of application for sparse grids density estimation. To this end, this approach is integrated into an outlier detection framework allowing comparison to other known methods. To validate the results of the presented outlier detection techniques, several artificial datasets with a certain percentage of outliers are tested. Additionally, real datasets are used for further expirements and analysis of the studied detection methods.
Keywords: Sparse Grids, Density Estimation
Philipp Zetterer: Investigation of Cluster Analysis Algorithms Using Radio Measurement Data of Public Mobile Networks
This is an external Master's Thesis submission talk advised by Michael Obersteiner and Paul Sarbu
This master thesis deals with cluster analysis of mobile network data. This data is normally broadcasted by the infrastructure of the mobile networks e.g. GSM, UMTS or LTE. The goal is to show that this data can be clustered in order to find commonalities inside those data. Therefore, several algorithms are implemented which are able to detect clusters as well as outliers. They are of particular interest for various companies since they can be from different origin e.g. test cells or unregulated ones. In order to achieve that goal, different algorithms will be tested including partitioning approaches, hierarchical ones and density-based ones. | https://www5.in.tum.de/wiki/index.php/SC%C2%B2S_Colloquium_-_Oct_11,_2018 |
Support Vector Machine for Outlier Detection in Breast Cancer Survivability Prediction
- Publisher:
- Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
- Publication Type:
- Conference Proceeding
- Citation:
- Advanced Web and NetworkTechnologies, and Applications Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008, 4977 pp. 99 - 109
- Issue Date:
- 2008-01
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Finding and removing misclassified instances are important steps in data mining and machine learning that affect the performance of the data mining algorithm in general. In this paper, we propose a C-Support Vector Classification Filter (C-SVCF) to identify and remove the misclassified instances (outliers) in breast cancer survivability samples collected from Srinagarind hospital in Thai- land, to improve the accuracy of the prediction models. Only instances that are correctly classified by the filter are passed to the learning algorithm. Perform- ance of the proposed technique is measured with accuracy and area under the re- ceiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), as well as compared with several popular ensemble filter approaches including AdaBoost, Bagging and ensemble of SVM with AdaBoost and Bagging filters. Our empirical results indicate that C-SVCF is an effective method for identifying misclassified outliers. This ap- proach significantly benefits ongoing research of developing accurate and robust prediction models for breast cancer survivability.
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: | https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/handle/10453/29300 |
Non-Recurrent Congestion events (NRCs) frustrate commuters, companies and traffic operators because they cause unexpected delays. Most existing studies consider NRCs to be an outcome of incidents on motorways. The differences ...
Defining Dynamic Spatio-Temporal Neighbourhood Of Network Data
(Copernicus Gesellschaft Mbh, 2010)
To improve the accuracy and efficiency of space-time analysis, spatio-temporal neighbourhoods (STNs) should be investigated and analysed in the classification, prediction and outlier detection of space-time data. So far ... | http://www.openaccess.hacettepe.edu.tr:8080/xmlui/handle/11655/80/discover?filtertype=author&filter_relational_operator=equals&filter=Anbaroglu%2C+Berk |
Cellular technology is an integral part of everyday life throughout the world. Since the adoption in the U.S. of the E911 Standard in 2003, the accuracy of cell phone location has remained within 75 meters at 67% of cases and 150 meters at 95% of cases. By using different statistical methods with the significant amount of data available, accuracy certainly can be improved.
This study presents algorithms which we developed for mapping linear networks, such as transportation networks, precisely with the use of multiple tracks of cell phone location data that exist within the cellular networks which support location functionality.
The cell phone location data suffers from three kinds of statistical errors: random, bias and outlier. Filtering the outlier errors and smoothing the random errors is essential for the first step of mapping. A Geometric-Statistic (GS) method was developed to deal with the errors. After using the geometric-statistic method, filtered locations of the cell phones and an approximate route in about ?10 meters accuracy were acquired.
In order to improve the level of accuracy, we relied on matching polynomials curves techniques. The approximate route is cut into shorter segments and the linear and the non-linear segments are separated. A polynomial curve is matched for each segment in a fitted degree to its geometric type by using the filtered locations data of the cell phones. The matched polynomial curves are simply connected by linear lines to fill the gaps between the segments into a continuous route. At the end of the process the route is smoothed in order to receive a better representation of the mapped route which is achieved in about ?5 meters accuracy.
This study presents an innovative approach to cell phone location data. Such technology is being used to calculate real time traffic information and other location based applications, but has yet to be used to actually acquire the coordinates and nodes of linear networks. This study presents for the first time algorithms which can precisely and rapidly map wide areas without the need for more energy investment in data collection.
The range of the effectiveness of these algorithms includes areas which have cellular coverage but no mapping infrastructure (developing countries) or constantly updated mapping infrastructure in near real time (developed countries). These algorithms can also be applied on more accurate location data available in devices which have GPS receivers, and thus allow even higher mapping quality. | http://www.graduate.technion.ac.il/Theses/Abstracts.asp?Id=25655 |
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The rapid development and integration of Information Technologies over the last decades influenced all areas of our life, including the business world. Yet not only the modern enterprises become digitalised, but also security and criminal threats move into the digital sphere. To withstand these threats, modern companies must be aware of all activities within their computer networks.
The keystone for such continuous security monitoring is a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system that collects and processes all security-related log messages from the entire enterprise network. However, digital transformations and technologies, such as network virtualisation and widespread usage of mobile communications, lead to a constantly increasing number of monitored devices and systems. As a result, the amount of data that has to be processed by a SIEM system is increasing rapidly. Besides that, in-depth security analysis of the captured data requires the application of rather sophisticated outlier detection algorithms that have a high computational complexity. Existing outlier detection methods often suffer from performance issues and are not directly applicable for high-speed and high-volume analysis of heterogeneous security-related events, which becomes a major challenge for modern SIEM systems nowadays.
This thesis provides a number of solutions for the mentioned challenges. First, it proposes a new SIEM system architecture for high-speed processing of security events, implementing parallel, in-memory and in-database processing principles. The proposed architecture also utilises the most efficient log format for high-speed data normalisation. Next, the thesis offers several novel high-speed outlier detection methods, including generic Hybrid Outlier Detection that can efficiently be used for Big Data analysis. Finally, the special User Behaviour Outlier Detection is proposed for better threat detection and analysis of particular user behaviour cases. The proposed architecture and methods were evaluated in terms of both performance and accuracy, as well as compared with classical architecture and existing algorithms. These evaluations were performed on multiple data sets, including simulated data, well-known public intrusion detection data set, and real data from the large multinational enterprise. The evaluation results have proved the high performance and efficacy of the developed methods.
All concepts proposed in this thesis were integrated into the prototype of the SIEM system, capable of high-speed analysis of Big Security Data, which makes this integrated SIEM platform highly relevant for modern enterprise security applications.
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The “HPI Future SOC Lab” is a cooperation of the Hasso-Plattner-Institut (HPI) and industrial partners. Its mission is to enable and promote exchange and interaction between the research community and the industrial partners.
The HPI Research School for "Service-Oriented Systems Engineering" is the HPI graduate school, founded in 2005. The branches of the graduate school are in Cape Town, Haifa and Nanjing.
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The HPI-Stanford Design Thinking Research Program strives to apply rigorous academic methods to understand how and why Design Thinking innovation works and fails. | https://hpi.de/en/research/publications/dissertations/dissertation-andrey-sapegin.html |
Introduction:
Digital Industry Division of Siemens China is looking for the hands-on Data Analyst to join the innovative Advanced Data and Business Analytics team, based in Beijing. This is a critical role supporting other functions in the business by data driven approach. The successful candidate will work with other members in the team as internal consultant to deliver data analysis service and leverage decision making process to help the Division improve the business performance.
What are my responsibilities?
• Be creative with the data to boost data utilization
• Communicate with internal customers to underhand the needs and queries of data
• Design, establish and maintain data tools and dashboards for stakeholders
• Extract relevant data from various database, prepare the dataset for advanced analysis and modeling
• Control data quality and conduct data investigations to understand logic that is required to use for reliable analysis
• Conduct the statistic analysis and implement data mining and machine learning models in ad-hoc project and business case
• Deliver the interpretation of analysis and model results
What do I need to qualify for this job?
Basic Requirements:
• Degree in Mathematics, Statistics, Operational research, Business Analytics or other quantitative field.
• Proficient in application of statistics, hypotheses test
• Familiar with data clear and refine process; knowledge in outlier detection and sampling methods
• Familiar with machine learning methods especially regression, classification models and cluster analysis, such as logistic regression, decision tree, SVM, K-mean.
• Familiar with the model assembling methods and relevant models, such as Random forest, XGBM
• Experience in developing the data mining or machine learning models for business or academic issues, and interpreting the results
• Knowledge in forecasting methods, especially time series
• Hands on experience in analytic package such as R, Python
• Good SQL skills
• Good MS Excel skills
• Business level in written English
Desired Skills and Experience:
• 1-2 year work experience of data analysis in business application, especially in FMCG, retailer, digital business or consultancy. | https://jobs.siemens.com/jobs/243588?lang=en-us |
In this paper we propose a novel methodology to construct Optimal Classification Trees that takes into account that noisy labels may occur in the training sample. The motivation of this new methodology is based on the superaditive effect of combining together margin based classifiers and outlier detection techniques. Our approach rests on two main elements: (1) the splitting rules for the classification trees are designed to maximize the separation margin between classes applying the paradigm of SVM; and (2) some of the labels of the training sample are allowed to be changed during the construction of the tree trying to detect the label noise. Both features are considered and integrated together to design the resulting Optimal Classification Tree.We present a Mixed Integer Non Linear Programming formulation for the problem, suitable to be solved using any of the available off-the-shelf solvers. The model is analyzed and tested on a battery of standard datasets taken from UCI Machine Learning repository, showing the effectiveness of our approach. Our computational results show that in most cases the new methodology outperforms both in accuracy and AUC the results of the benchmarks provided by OCT and OCT-H. | https://digibug.ugr.es/handle/10481/71316 |
- Journal:
- The Journal of Supercomputing > Issue 6/2020
Abstract
Assessment of huge amount of data is the difficult task in the health care industry. Hence, it here brings the important need of the data mining in identifying the relationship between the data attributes. In this research work, an assessment model for the health care analysis is developed with the preprocessing steps of performing data cleaning by applying normalization with outlier detection by applying the k-means clustering. Then, the preprocessed data are subjected to the dimensionality reduction process by performing the Feature Selection task. Then, the selected features are analyzed by the wrapper model named SVM-based improved recursive feature selection, and its accuracy is evaluated and compared with the other traditional classifiers such as Naïve Bayes. The analysis demonstrates that the planned perfect has accomplished a regular correctness of 98.79% of health care dataset such as Pima Indians diabetes. It demonstrates that the planned technique has achieved improved consequences. | https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/health-care-data-analysis-using-evolutionary-algorithm/15562466 |
The world is experiencing an unprecedented, enduring, and pervasive aging process. More and more elderly will be staying alone at home, especially in the daytime, and need to handle daily living activities by themselves. It is important to have effective measures of their self-caring abilities and to minimize accident risks. For example, an efficient fall detection method for the elderly, tracking their daily activities, is desirable. In this chapter, we discuss how to apply the latest intelligent sensor technologies to track the common indoor activities performed by an elderly person in his or her living quarters, which could be used fall detection. Through the introduction of our system SmartMind, we first show how Kinect, a 3D depth camera, can be applied for effective activity tracking of the user within a predefined environment. In the design of SmartMind, in order to improve accuracy in activity detection, we adopt a context-based approach to model the activities. Since Kinect has a privacy concerns problem, in the second part of the chapter, we introduce another system, called ActiveLife, in which simple motion sensors are adopted to measure changes in motion for indoor activity estimation. To improve its accuracy in activity estimation, we need a good model the living environment of the user and his/her activities within the living environment. Experimental results have shown the effectiveness of using a machine learning method, support vector machines, for improving its accuracy in activity estimation. | https://scholars.hkbu.edu.hk/en/publications/indoor-activity-tracking-for-elderly-using-intelligent-sensors-2 |
Inspection of welds is difficult and it takes time to train inspectors. If you increase the number of inspectors in order to train them, inspection results will vary and quality will not be stable. In addition, a lot of time is required for inspection, and production cannot keep up. Therefore, if welding inspection equipment is introduced, quality inspections can be performed faster and more accurately than human inspections. In addition, it is possible to inspect during welding and inside the weld, which stabilizes and improves quality. In this article, we will explain the types ......
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Dimensional inspection to confirm that products and parts are finished to the specified dimensions is an important process in manufacturing. In the past, human visual inspection was the mainstream, but it was time-consuming and time-consuming, and inspection errors occurred. Currently, automation using dimensional inspection equipment is progressing, and it is becoming possible to realize dimensional inspection efficiently and without mistakes. In this column, we will introduce the mechanism and merits of dimensional inspection by dimensional inspection equipment, and points to consi......
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An adequate internal audit management offers security and effectiveness for the evaluated Management System, for example, Quality Management, a standardized system with greater implementation at international level. Let us remember that the audit has among its objectives to identify problems that prevent the system from meeting the needs of stakeholders and the achievement of corporate objectives. That is why internal auditing is the engine that drives the continuous improvement of the system. But this does not mean that performing many audits will lead to much more improvement. It i......
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Measurement System Analysis (MSA) is one of the five tools of quality management, why it is applied, and what statistical characteristics it has? What is Measurement System Analysis (MSA)? A measurement system is a collection of instruments or measuring tools, standards, operations, fixtures, software, personnel, environment, and assumptions used for quantitative measurement or qualitative evaluation of the measured characteristics. The whole process used to obtain the measurement results is called the measurement process or measurement system. Measurement System Analysis re......
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To strengthen their advantages in the market, manufacturers should not only continuously improve product quality but also constantly improve the efficiency of production. The automatic and intelligent surface defect detection method is helpful. Technical Difficulties & Challenges in Surface Detect Detection 1) Difficulties caused by defectsThe complexity of different types of defects and the great difference between the same type of defects bring a great difficulty to detection. The complexity of different defects is mainly reflected in three aspects. First of all, there ar......
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An automobile is a hybrid complex system that is composed of a huge number of parts, each playing its own unique role in the whole car. However, similar to other components, quality control, and inspection is essential for the car parts after manufacturing to ensure their quality and function. So let’s see what automotive parts need to be inspected and what tests are included. Types of Automotive Parts The quality of car parts matters directly to safety. It is necessary to ensure their performance. The auto parts are mainly composed of the following eight sections. Aut......
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Inspection is an important step in the maintenance of machine parts in the mechanical industry. What items need to be checked and how to inspect them? Inspection Items of Mechanical Components During the quality inspection and maintenance of the machine parts, a lot of characteristics need to be inspected and verified. 1) Geometric accuracy Geometric accuracy includes dimensional accuracy and shape and position accuracy, but sometimes the maintenance work is not to pursue the geometric size of a single part but to require relative fitting accuracy, which is often an important p...... | https://www.ipqcco.com/blog/page/2 |
The term exploitation as used in ecology refers to the extraction of wild living resources by humans. Fishing, hunting, and forestry are common forms of exploitation in the ecological sense. These activities have profoundly affected ecosystems worldwide. They now have to be considered as one of the dominant ecological factors when studying the dynamics of many populations or the structure of ecological communities. This article outlines some of the known effects of exploitation on populations, communities, and ecosystems. The historical trajectory of exploitation and cumulative effects with other ecological factors are also highlighted.
Exploitation of natural resources is an essential condition of the human existence. This refers primarily to food supply, but fibers, timber, furs, and other natural goods are also extracted. Note that in the social sciences, exploitation refers to an economic or social relationship in which human beings are treated as a resource without consideration for their well-being. In ecology such value judgments are usually not applied. However, exploitation that is carried out in a nonsustainable way or that threatens a resource with extinction would commonly be labeled overexploitation in the ecological sciences. When does exploitation become overexploitation? This question has occupied humanity for centuries, and is causing increasing concern, as the nonsustainable exploitation of natural resources ultimately threatens human existence.
Worm Farming
Do You Want To Learn More About Green Living That Can Save You Money? Discover How To Create A Worm Farm From Scratch! Recycling has caught on with a more people as the years go by. Well, now theres another way to recycle that may seem unconventional at first, but it can save you money down the road. | https://www.ecologycenter.us/population-dynamics-2/introduction-amp.html |
Overexploitation is one of the main pressures driving wildlife closer to extinction, yet broad-scale data to evaluate species’ declines are limited. Using African pangolins (Family: Pholidota) as a case study, we demonstrate that collating local-scale data can provide crucial information on regional trends in exploitation of threatened species to inform conservation actions and policy. We estimate that 0.4-2.7 million pangolins are hunted annually in Central African forests. The number of pangolins hunted has increased by ∼150% and the proportion of pangolins of all vertebrates hunted increased from 0.04% to 1.83% over the past four decades. However, there were no trends in pangolins observed at markets, suggesting use of alternative supply chains. We found evidence that the price of giant (Smutsia gigantea) and arboreal (Phataginus sp.) pangolins in urban markets has increased, mirroring trends in Asian pangolins. Efforts and resources are needed to increase law enforcement and population monitoring, and investigate linkages between subsistence hunting and illegal wildlife trade. | https://development.science.ku.dk/development-news/news/assessing-africa-wide-pangolin-exploitation-by-scaling-local-data/ |
Dear Constituent,
Thank you for contacting me about trophy hunting.
I appreciate the strength of feeling around this issue. The Government is committed to doing all it can to support wildlife and the environment, both in the UK and internationally, and I welcome ministers’ plans to deliver one of the toughest bans in the world on the import of hunting trophies from nearly seven thousand endangered and threatened species, including lions, rhinos, elephants, and polar bears.
Climate change and global biodiversity decline are interlinked threats for wildlife and people. Biodiversity is declining at a dangerous and unprecedented speed, and species extinction rates are accelerating, with up to a million species threatened. Overexploitation is one of the drivers of species extinction and additional pressures on vulnerable species can result from unsustainable or inappropriately managed activity.
In the 25 Year Environment Plan, the Government committed to providing international leadership in protecting biodiversity and endangered species and ensuring that the UK’s domestic policy does not threaten the conservation of species abroad. The proposed ban on imports of hunting trophies goes beyond the manifesto commitment and, with no exemptions, means that the UK will be leading the way in protecting endangered animals and to strengthening and supporting long-term conservation.
I welcome that the Government is firmly committed to introducing the ban on hunting trophies, and I am assured that this will be brought forward as soon as parliamentary time allows. Ministers are also looking at further measures to protect animals abroad, including banning the import and export of detached fins, and acting against low welfare animal experiences.
The consultation on controls on the import and export of hunting trophies, which closed in February 2020, allowed respondents to offer views on which species they considered needed further restrictions. I understand that the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the publication of the Government response to this consultation and accompanying call for evidence. However, I would like to assure you that the approach on hunting trophies will be comprehensive, robust and effective and will deliver the change promised to help protect thousands of species worldwide.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Sincerely, | https://www.richardfuller.co.uk/campaigns/trophy-hunting-may-2022 |
Barreto, L. & Klaassen, G. (2004). Emission trading and the role of learning-by-doing spillovers in the "bottom-up" energy-systems ERIS model. International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy 2 (1) 70-95. 10.1504/IJETP.2004.004588.Full text not available from this repository.
Abstract
In this paper, using the ''bottom-up'' energy-system optimisation ERIS model, we examine the effects of emission trading on technology deployment, emphasising the role of technology learning spillovers. That is, the possibility that the learning accumulated in a particular technology in a given region may spill to other regions as well, leading to cost reductions there also. The effects of different configurations of interregional spillovers of learning in ERIS and the impact of the emission trading mechanism under those different circumstances are analysed. Including spatial spillovers of learning allows capturing the possibility that the imposition of greenhouse gas emission constraints in a given region may induce technological change in other regions, such as developing countries, even if the latter regions do not face emission constraints. Our stylised results point out the potential benefits of sound international cooperation between industrialised and developing regions on research, development, demonstration and deployment (RD3) of clean energy technologies and on the implementation of emission trading schemes. | http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/7094/ |
Funcom's slant on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian is fast approaching its January 31 Early Access launch. Its latest developer diary explores how you'll go about staying alive in the incoming open-world survival game, teasing some new in-game footage along the way.
The game kicks off with your character cut down from a cross and left for dead in the desert, we're told in the following video. From there you'll want to find water, craft shelter and survival tools, and then set off hunting.
"Some of these creatures are obvious and somewhat mundane, like elephants which you'll be hunting for ivory," explains the game's creative director Joel Bylos below. "But then there's creatures that you'll need silver to defeat, and you'll need to go hunt those in the dark in the haunted places of Hyboria."
As you'll see there, capturing, torturing and enslaving Thralls is another big part of Conan Exiles' survival requirements—where detainees are strangely inclined to defend your headquarters in your absence thereafter. Imprisoning Thralls with specific traits means you become privy to their expertise; capturing blacksmiths, for example, means you gain access to that particular smith's weapon and armour sets.
Upon release, I hope this system is more sophisticated than simply collecting as many foot soldiers as possible, however how religion ties to the wider world does sound interesting at this stage.
I guess we'll find out either way come January 31 onwards, when Conan Exiles lands in Early Access. | https://www.pcgamer.com/conan-exiles-dev-diary-talks-survival-tactics-teases-new-footage/ |
Executive Summary:
Ocean life is a critical component of humanity’s life support system, generating half of the oxygen we breath, providing food for billions, and capturing much of our carbon pollution, among many other benefits. But we’re destroying its ability to provide for us because of overexploitation, and global warming. Yet only 5% of the ocean is currently protected. Fully protected marine reserves have been shown to restore ocean life and all the benefits it provides to people, including food, economic revenue (e.g., ecotourism and enhanced fishing), and human well-being. Working with local partners and governments, National Geographic Pristine Seas has helped to protect 21 areas covering 5.3 million km2 (over half the size of the U.S.) since 2008. We’ll scale up our change model to help double the ocean area that is presently fully protected, to protect biodiversity, improve food provision, carbon storage, and other key ecosystem services for people worldwide. | https://solutions.leverforchange.org/100-change-2020/pristine-seas-safeguarding-and-restoring-the-oceans-health-and-productivity/ |
A pair of cougars were caught on camera playing around on the grounds of a winery in Sonoma County. Read full report.
Wild Cat News
PICS: Meet the gorgeous Mozambique lion cubs
A leading lion project in Mozambique has taken the groundbreaking step of getting the local community to name the latest lion cubs born in the park. Read full report.
Snow leopards: Numbers decline due to 'retaliation'
Hundreds of snow leopards are being killed by poachers every year across the high mountain ranges of Asia, according to a new report. It's estimated there are just 4,000 of these elegant but elusive creatures now surviving in the wild. Read full report.
A Major Step Forward For Lion Conservation In Africa
Ensuring that healthy, wild lion populations continue to roam Africa’s savannas has become increasingly challenging, as southern Africa’s expanding human population comes into ever greater conflict with lions across much of their range. Read full report.
The Sound of our Griffith Park Mountain Lion: P-22 and the Mysteries of Puma Communication
What comes to mind when you imagine the call of P-22, L.A.'s famous urban mountain lion (Puma concolor)? Do you imagine a roar or violent hiss? If so, you are not alone because that is what people most often see and hear in the movies. Read full report.
New Jersey “mountain lion” identified as a house cat
Was it a mountain lion, or a house cat? That was the question after a winery in a Hammonton, New Jersey posted a brief video appearing to show a puma strolling through the vineyard. Read full report.
New UNH Bobcat Research Aims to Understand Why Wildcats Are Rebounding
New Hampshire’s bobcats are rebounding despite increased development and human activities in their natural habitats and decreases in the availability of their prey. A new research project funded by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of New Hampshire aims to understand why. Read full report.
The world's fastest animal is in a race for survival in Iran
The three-acre hilltop park overlooking Iran’s smog-blanketed capital might seem like a nice spot for romance. But the couple has not been in the mood. Delbar, a 4-year-old female Asiatic cheetah, was brought to the fenced enclosure at Tehran’s Pardisan park by conservation officials who hoped she would mate with Koshki, a 10-year-old male. Read full report.
Hunting as a management tool? Cougar-human conflict is positively related to trophy hunting
Overexploitation and persecution of large carnivores resulting from conflict with humans comprise major causes of declines worldwide. Read full report.
2 Upper Peninsula cougars likely from population east of Rockies, DNR says
Genetic tests showed that two cougars poached in the Upper Peninsula likely originated from a population typically found in South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska, the state Department of Natural Resources said. Read full report. | http://www.felidaefund.org/?q=wild-cat-news |
What is a good deer hunting with bow?
In case you're new to bow hunting, here are the elements you'll need to think about when choosing a bow for deer chasing. We'll begin with the first and maybe most significant questions: Choosing Your...
What Are The Most Deadliest Creatures In The World?
Sharks may consider a star, and spiders take over the department of phobia, but when you observe the facts, you come to know that these creatures are dangerous and even close to being the...
Wild Animals And Coronavirus Pandemic
Coronavirus lockdown globally has given the opportunity to the natural world to experience a life without any humans around. Wild Animals Are Enjoying Freedom Of A Quieter During Coronavirus Pandemic In urban areas, animals are exploring...
Effects of Species Extinction on The Ecosystem
Species Extinction imposes a major threat to the planet and its ecosystems. Endangered animals effects not only the planet but other species related to them also. The results of extinction of many species of... | https://wildliferisk.org/wild-animals/ |
Globally, the overexploitation of wildlife presents one of the greatest challenges for biodiversity conservation and sustainable rural livelihoods. Research on the human dimensions of hunting is critical for identifying potential levers for behavioral change interventions. This is especially true in China where hunting threatens to extirpate avian species such as the green peafowl (Pavo muticus) and great hornbill (Buceros bicornis). Nevertheless, regulations restricting gun ownership and hunting have made interviews on this topic highly sensitive. Direct questions about conservation non-compliance are often affected by response bias such as refusals to answer or self-protective denials. We used the randomized response technique (RRT) to estimate the prevalence and drivers of illegal hunting targeting four focal bird taxa (barbets, bulbuls, partridges, and pheasants). Furthermore, we used statistical models that have recently been introduced to the conservation science literature to perform multivariate analyses for RRT data. We measured economic, demographic, and attitudinal covariates that could be associated with hunting. We found high awareness of laws banning hunting in Southwest China, but we also observed that 29.2% of the adult male population may have hunted birds in the past year. Contrary to previous findings highlighting subsistence and finance as major factors driving hunting, the most important predictors of hunting activity in this landscape were related to attitudes regarding the enjoyment of hunting. Extra-economic motivations, such as the entertainment value of hunting, may be underappreciated drivers of hunting behavior. Behavioral change interventions such as pride campaigns may be a promising approach to regulate bird hunting in Xishuangbanna in collaboration with local communities. | https://collaborate.princeton.edu/en/publications/perceived-entertainment-and-recreational-value-motivate-illegal-h |
ABSTRACT: Aquifer overexploitation is widely used to describe negative effects on groundwater resources but has no agreed scientific definition. Usually viewed as a situation where average aquifer abstraction exceeds average recharge, a diagnosis of groundwater overdraft calls upon specific hydrogeological instruments, based on the groundwater balance approach. An analytical method for assessing changes in water flows and stocks through time and space, groundwater balance is also a tool for the investigation of knowledge construction and its embeddedness within power relations. We propose to discuss the politics of groundwater overexploitation diagnoses in Syria and more specifically the Orontes River Basin prior to the 2011 uprising and subsequent conflict. Groundwater overdraft at the national level became a matter of concern in official discourse in the late 1990s as diagnoses of groundwater overexploitation became commonplace in international reports. The steady increase in groundwater abstraction in relation to Syria’s centralised agricultural planning from the 1960s onward had undeniable consequences on the hydro-social system. However, the way diagnoses of groundwater overexploitation – in particular groundwater balances – were constructed and used to support water policies implemented from the mid-1990s onwards question the rationalities and interests lying behind technical arguments and actions. | http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/alldoc/articles/vol11/v11issue3/459-a11-3-12 |
New research has suggested that wolves in Canada prefer to eat salmon to hunting deer.
A four-year study of prey remains in wolf droppings and chemical analysis of shed hair shows the predators exclusively eating salmon when the fish was available. Researchers found that wolves in British Columbia hunted deer for the majority of the year, but switched to salmon in the autumn.
“One might expect that wolves would move on to salmon only if their mainstay deer were in short supply,” the study’s authors, publishing their findings in the BMC Ecology journal, said.
Chris Darimont from the University of Victoria and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation said the switch to salmon was down to safety, nutrition and energy levels.
“Selecting benign prey such as salmon makes sense from a safety point of view,” he said.
But the wolf expert added that the predator-prey relationship between wolves and salmon could be imperilled. “There are multiple threats to salmon systems, including overexploitation by fisheries and the destruction of spawning habitats, as well as diseases from exotic salmon aquaculture that collectively have led to coast-wide declines of up to 90 per cent over the last century,” he said. | https://www.raincoast.org/2008/09/whose-afraid-of-the-big-bad-wolf-salmon-are/ |
The disappearance of the walrus from the shores of Iceland has long been a scientific puzzle. Walruses existed on the island for thousands of years, then disappeared. Using DNA analyses and carbon dating of walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) remains in museum collections, researchers believe they have an answer. In what they call one of the earliest examples of commercial overexploitation of marine life, they believe walrus hunting and ivory trade by Norse settlers 1,100 years ago drove this unique population to extinction. A coveted luxury good, walrus ivory was traded across medieval Europe, with ornamented tusks documented as far as the Middle East and India.
“We show that already in the Viking Age, more than 1,000 years ago, commercial hunting, economic incentives and trade networks were of sufficient scale and intensity to result in significant, irreversible ecological impacts on the marine environment,” says lead author Xénia Keighley.
Read the study in Molecular Biology and Evolution, and watch the video below. | https://wildlife.org/vanished-walrus-population-linked-to-viking-trade/ |
For over twenty years, Christopher has designed and created monsters for the entertainment industries. Beginning with special makeup effects, Christoper was involved in every level of producing creature effects for numerous television and film projects, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. Since 2005, Christopher has worked in tabletop gaming, where he has specialized in monsters. From book illustrations, trading cards, to miniatures, Christopher's work can be found in Magic the Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and many of the Star Wars games. For the past several years, Christopher has been focusing his attentions on his first book of monsters and stories. Set in a world conceived in 1998, The Grand Bazaar of Ethra VanDalia explores the many creatures and beings that call the Grand Bazaar their home. The book will be making its debut in 2020. | https://www.infectedbyart.com/galleryowner.asp?gcat=214 |
To Lorekeeper Matteo,
I hope my report finds you well. Our expedition has arrived safely at the gates of Assena in Sehdegere Steppes and the men you assigned to me are in good spirits. The journey was uneventful, encumbered only by a bit of rain.
I am happy to report that finding more information about these mysterious “raknar” creatures should prove to be no great challenge. Already several samples have been acquired from the locals. They do not leave the remains whole, however, preferring to break them down into usable parts rather quickly.
The rumors we have heard in the north of “giant spiders” have proven to be only partially accurate. While these creatures are the size of a large bull and most certainly in the arachnid family, they are not technically spiders. Both have eight obvious limbs, but unlike true spiders, these raknar do not have the smaller pedipalp limbs that spiders use for capturing and holding their prey. Instead their frontal leg pair has evolved to a larger size than the rest of their limbs with an incredibly dense chitin grown over the terminus into rather vicious points. I can theorize that these are used as tools for their hunting and perhaps for mating or dominance displays. Speaking of the limbs, these creatures seem to lack the seventh leg segment that spiders possess. Unfortunately, I cannot hypothesize which segment is missing without an intact specimen.
The raknar also differ from spiders in that their cephalothorax is proportionally smaller in relation to their abdomen. Truly in this regard they are more akin to opiliones, ricinulei and scorpions. Their bodies are also encased in more of the heavy chitin that covers their frontal limbs. The chitin plate that covers their vulnerable abdomen is especially popular here with the locals, who have fashioned them into a variety of goods.
Tomorrow, I hope to recover an intact corpse to dissect, so that I might learn more about these magnificent creatures. I will send you my next report as soon as possible.
Your Faithful Servant, | https://www.trialsofascension.com/lore/science-letter-1/ |
During the second stage of development, between the ages of 2 and 7, children are likely to show signs of egocentric behavior. They have a perspective of looking at things, and by their own observation they derive different contexts from different situations. A child does not understand that someone else’s opinions can be different from his perceptions. If a child believes in something and thinks that everyone else should also believe in it, then this type of thinking is called egocentric.
Ego-centrism is when one thinks about himself, and only cares about his own need, desire and view. This type of behavior is vastly found in children but can also be observed in adults. Egocentric children have a tendency to be self-centered, self-serving and self-focused.
Between the ages of 2 and 7, egocentric behavior raises its head in children, and it subsides gradually as the child grows older. Ego-centrism has effects on the child’s perception. A egocentric person finds it difficult to absorb or acknowledge others perspective or in simple terms we can say he fails to see other’s view.
An egocentric child’s vocabulary would be dominated with the expressions of “No”, “Me”, “Mine” and “My”. Ego-centrism in a child is the process of loving of discovering himself through the love of others – when he is the center of universe for everyone else. If a child likes strawberries more than oranges, he or she will perceive that everyone else also likes strawberries more than any other fruit. If anyone says that they like oranges or bananas instead of strawberries than this may feel completely absurd and incorrect to him.
Egocentric nature of a child is his natural behavior. As time passes one understands others perspective too. Following very innocent example of egocentric behavior in children. You might have played peek-a-boo or hide and seek as a child or with your children. If your child hides in a blanket over the bed and thinks that he is hidden from you as he can’t see you, then this is an example of egocentric behavior. As the child is unable to understand that you can see him hidden inside the blanket. Ego-centrism is a trouble if this behavior governs important actions of a child.
A child with egocentric thinking will have a bossy attitude, and will also be possessive about his belongings. The difficulty in sharing is also egocentric. Such children are mostly in disagreement. You may find your child pushing others out of the way to be at the first position in a line. He may also demand different foods offered to him or grab a toy from another child’s hands. Some children also express ego-centrism by being loud and distracting in a public place.
With patience, serenity and consistence, egocentric nature in toddlers can be and must be managed very well. Though it is a developmental phase, it cannot be ignored. As a parent you should look to it that all his rational demands are fulfilled and irrational ones are not attended. Do not encourage the bossy attitude of your child. Talking and sharing your feelings with children and listening to their views can be very helpful for dealing with egocentric nature. Human beings do not need to learn loving others, it comes naturally. A parent must try that this natural ability to love is not hindered in him, and his feelings towards others are addressed properly.
• Set the limits: Setting the limits can be hard for a parent, but there is no escape from it. Giving in to temper tantrums of your toddler is not the right approach, and there has to be a firm “No” for things that are not right or not required.
• Encourage decision making: Let your toddler participate in discussions and do ask his opinion for things that concern him and his environment.
• Engage your child in friendships and play: Do let your preschooler get in touch with other kids and build relations. Children tend to lose ego-centrism when they see their friends having different views and thus are forced to have an understanding of reality.
• Observe and listen to their self-talks: This will give you an insight of their thinking, and you will be more equipped with steps to deal with it.
• Encourage open talks: Give your child ample opportunities, to explore, discuss, and exchange ideas. Also, welcome open ended conversations with them.
If you believe egocentric is not as common in adults as it is in children then you are wrong. Egocentric behavior in adults can be easily sighted through daily life examples. If you are well versed with computers and find it very easy to handle new technology you might think that everyone else is also good with computers. If your grandparents request you to teach them computers and have difficulty in sighting letters on key board, it may easily frustrate you. Losing patience in such a situation is a type of egocentric behavior. The person with egocentric behavior is not aware that his actions are hurting others. | https://www.beingtheparent.com/understanding-ego-centrism-in-children/ |
Have you always been aware of the beliefs of others or did you just grow that way?
With an inhibited Right Temporo-Parietal Junction (RTPJ) would you struggle to understand that others can have beliefs different to yours? Would this inhibition cloud your ability to make moral judgements? Current neuroscientific research using fMRI suggests increased activity in this small brain region when volunteers are tasked with thinking about various situations from the point of view of another human being.
Studies by Rebecca Saxe and others see the RTPJ as being key to the morality aspects central to a cohesive "theory-of-mind". Her studies have found that the abilities of children to reason out and judge scenarios of "people thinking about thinking people" develop markedly and rapidly between the ages of approximately three and seven years old.
An example would be where a child, with the aid of props, was asked to envision a man putting a sandwich down on a box. The man then leaves and the sandwich gets blown off the box by the wind. A second man comes along and puts his sandwich down on the box, not seeing the one on the ground, then leaves. The child, once given the scenario, is asked which sandwich the first man will take when he returns. According to the Saxe studies the children would respond thus:
Other work, such as that of JP Mitchell does not appear to directly contradict the Saxe papers but does, again, bring up the issue of "localisation". He appears to be saying there is no current conclusive proof that the RTPJ is solely responsible for this kind of reasoning, despite the fact it lights up under fMRI when these judgement tasks are undertaken.
It must be very tempting for neuroscientists to fit specific cognitive functions to specific brain regions, especially now that fMRI studies seem to corroborate some of these theories. It's also much easier to explain to laypeople than telling them that fMRI studies suggest increased blood flow in areas that might be associated with a particular function when subjects undertake cognitive tasks that might stimulate blood flow to the region in question. While the "localisations" may be broadly correct there seems to be a bit too much "shoehorning" going on in some of these studies.
There are, of course, ethical issues connected to the potential ability to disrupt a person's ability to make reasoned moral judgements; or to actually change their beliefs by electro-mechanical means! This ability doesn't appear to be on the horizon any time soon. I have no fear of and can see a lot of value in this kind of work and, unlike Ms Saxe, I do think that this will help us to understand "the hard problem" of consciousness.
This is me signing off thinking about me thinking about you thinking about your beliefs about how you think about the thoughts of thinking people. | http://www.futurehead.com/index.php/Blog/hows-my-rtpj.html |
According to Piaget, young children go through two distinct phases or sub-stages in cognitive development. During the Symbolic Function sub-stage, children master the ability to picture, remember, understand, and replicate objects in their minds that are not immediately in front of them. Children’s play will move from simple make-believe to plots involving more characters and scenarios, games with sophisticated rules, etc. According to Piagset, playing isn’t just fun; it is an important part of brain development.
These new cognitive abilities are helpful to young children’s everyday experiences. Children can talk about people who are traveling, or who live somewhere else, like Grandma. Piaget suggests that their thinking is rather rigid, limited to one aspect of a situation at a time. This style of thinking leads to characteristic errors, he says.
Conservation is a person’s ability to understand that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even if their appearance has changed. To demonstrate the concept of Conservation, Piaget showed young children two identical cups filled with identical volumes of water. To these children, the taller cup looked like it had more volume even though the same amount of fluid filled both cups. Transformation is a young person’s able to understand how certain physical characteristics change while others remain the Same in a logical, cause and effect sequence. According to Piagets, Preoperational Children do not readily understand how things can change from one form to another. The concept of conservation can apply to numbers as well, such as rearranging six keys to make a different formation does not change the number of items present.
Piaget: Preoperational children have a style of thinking characterized by Egocentrism. Piaget believes that children under the age of 4 can’t organize things into hierarchical categories. Young children are unable to group items in larger sub-groups and smaller sub- Groups based on similarities and differences, he says. PreOperational children also believe that things are alive or have human characteristics because they grow or move, a type of thinking called Animism.
Research suggests that Piaget’s ideas about Preoperational children were not entirely correct. When young children are tested using ideas and objects that are familiar to their everyday lives, they are better able to demonstrate their abilities. Psychologists think that animism is a way that children express their imagination and process how objects work in a fashion that’s easy for them to understand. Most children know that inanimate objects aren’t alive, and can group their toys into hierarchies. In the preoperational stage children often display egocentric thought, particularly toward the end of this stage.
The next sub-stage in Piaget’s Preoperational cognitive development is the “Intuitive Thought” which spans ages 4-7 years. Children in this stage of development learn by asking questions such as, “Why?” and “How come?” These children typically hone in on one characteristic of someone or something and base their decisions or judgment on that one characteristic. De-centering, combined with the concept of conservation are prerequisites to more sophisticated logical thinking abilities.
Children in the Intuitive Thought sub-stage show many advances in cognitive skills. They shift from depending on magical beliefs to using rational beliefs to explain situations. Very young children may explain that a new house “grew out of the ground”. | https://ekvastra.in/Cognitive+development+of+children |
Research on the capacity to understand others’ minds has tended to focus on representations of beliefs, which are widely taken to be among the most central and basic theory of mind representations. Representations of knowledge, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention and have often been understood as depending on prior representations of belief. After all, how could one represent someone as knowing something if one doesn't even represent them as believing it? Drawing on a wide range of methods across cognitive science, we ask whether belief or knowledge is the more basic kind of representation. The evidence indicates that non-human primates attribute knowledge but not belief, that knowledge representations arise earlier in human development than belief representations, that the capacity to represent knowledge may remain intact in patient populations even when belief representation is disrupted, that knowledge attributions are likely automatic, and that explicit knowledge attributions are made more quickly than equivalent belief attributions. Critically, the theory of mind representations uncovered by these various methods exhibit a set of signature features clearly indicative of knowledge: they are not modality-specific, they are factive, they are not just true belief, and they allow for representations of egocentric ignorance. We argue that these signature features elucidate the primary function of knowledge representation: facilitating learning from others about the external world. This suggests a new way of understanding theory of mind—one that is focused on understanding others’ minds in relation to the actual world, rather than independent from it.
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Dear readers,
I am sharing this post because there has been a tragedy in my home town of Ottawa. The community has been hit hard and like most parents, I’ve been struggling with how to talk to my children about these three deaths.
Krista Gray-Donald, a friend of mine who works with victims of violent crime, offered to put together some tips and resources for me. In speaking with her, she also offered to share this information here on Coffee with Julie as well as on her own personal blog Life in the Hutch in case there are others looking for some guidance or additional resources.
If this topic is not relevant to you, then I encourage you to move on to something far more joyful (may I suggest Fluevog shoes, perhaps?). For anyone else, you can read more after the jump.
Thinking of you and yours,
Julie xo
*****************************************
A guest post by Krista Gray-Donald
It is so hard to try and explain something to our children when we cannot comprehend it ourselves. In my opinion, the most important thing is that you talk to your children. They need to hear the information from you, someone that they love and trust. This also lets you know they are getting the facts, and not rumours and guesses.
When someone dies from homicide, it is different from a natural or accidental death in that there is the knowledge that someone directly sought to bring harm to a person. That knowledge, coupled with the trauma of the sudden (and violent) death make it very difficult to understand, and even more difficult to explain to adults, let alone children.
It is best if you limit your child’s exposure to media coverage of the tragedy, especially anything that sensationalizes the deaths. Still, children, even those as young as four or five, may be hearing things in the media or in the school yard, and this will lead to questions.
It is important that you take the time to talk to the children in terms that they understand, and answer the questions as honestly as you can (without revealing more information than they are seeking). Don’t be afraid to ask questions of your own if you are not certain what they know or where their questions are coming from. Homicide Survivors, Inc. has an extensive list of tips for talking to children about homicide, found by clicking here.
TALK
- As soon as possible after the death, set aside time to talk with the child.
- Give the child the facts as simply as possible. Do not go into to much detail; the child will ask more questions if they come to mind.
- If you can not answer the child’s questions, it is okay to say, “I don’t know how to answer that, but perhaps we can find someone to help us”.
- Use the correct language, i.e., “dead”, “murdered”, etc. Do not use such phrases as “S/He is sleeping”, “God took him/her to heaven”, “S/He went away”, etc.
- Ask questions. “What are you feeling?”, “What have you heard from your friends?”, “What do you think happened?”, etc.
- Discuss your feelings with the child, especially if you are crying. This gives the child permission to cry too.
- Adults are children’s role models, and it is good for children to see our sadness and to share mutual feelings of sadness.
- Use the deceased’s name.
- Talk about a variety of feelings, e.g., sadness, anger, fear, depression, wishing to die, feeling responsible, etc.
- Talk about the wake/funeral, explain what happens, and ask the child if s/he wants to go. Include him/her, if possible.
- Talk with the child about your family’s spiritual beliefs, including what happens to people after they die.
- Talk about memories of the deceased, both good and bad.
THINGS TO DO
- Read to the child about death. There are many good children’s books available (see list at the end of this post)
- Read a book about children’s grief so you have a better understanding what your child is experiencing.
- Help the child write a letter to the deceased.
- Help the child keep a diary of his/her feelings.
- Invite your child and his/her friends, family members, etc. to plan a memorial for the deceased.
- Discuss rumors, media reports, etc., with the child so that s/he can clarify information regularly.
- Be alert for reports or observations of “bad dreams”. Talk about them with the child. Dreams are sometimes a way to discharge stress.
- Be alert for behavioral changes in your child. If they concern you, seek professional help.
- Understand your child’s level of comprehension and speak at that level.
- It may take some time for your child to understand the concept, “gone forever”, especially if s/he is very young.
- Your child may think that s/he caused the death because s/he had been thinking bad thoughts or had been angry with the deceased just before the death.
- The sudden and unexpected death of a peer is especially difficult for a child to comprehend; children tend to feel invulnerable.
As the child processes the information that you give them, they may repeat questions again and again, or exhibit other unexpected behaviours. Some common behaviours to watch for include; shock, anger, terror, guilt, emotional outbursts, intense sadness, and irritability. They may also display some physical symptoms such as fatigue, insomnia, digestive upset, chills, headaches, change in appetite and other symptoms. These reactions are quite normal, and should diminish in time. If you are concerned about your child’s changing behaviour, or if the changes persist or intensify, you should talk to your family doctor.
Each child will deal with this knowledge differently, but there are some common reactions based on their developmental age (from Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime).
Preschool Children: Three to Five Years of Age: Preschool children have a limited understanding of death. They may believe that death is temporary and can be reversed, or perceive a dead person as asleep, gone away or broken. There is no understanding of personal death.
School Age Children: Six to Nine Years of Age: Children in this age group have a clearer understanding of death although they may still believe that it will not happen to them. Children at this age may be interested in the physical and biological aspects of death. Dealing with grief is difficult as school age children alternately confront and deny their grief. They may also be unprepared for the length of the grieving process. It is common for children in this age group to experience:
- Denial
- Difficulty expressing their strong feelings of loss
- Difficulty eating and sleeping
- Physical ailments such as stomachaches and headaches
- Fearfulness
- Decrease in school performance
- Inability to concentrate
- Anger directed towards teachers or classmates
- Inappropriate classroom behaviour
Pre-adolescent and Adolescent: 10 to 18 Years of Age: Children in this age category have a more mature understanding of death and mortality. They understand that it is irreversible. They also understand personal death, although they may view themselves as immortal. These children may experience guilt, confusion, depression, shock, crying, stomachaches, headaches, insomnia, exhaustion, dramatic reactions such as not sleeping or eating, decrease in school performance, change in peer group, possible drug use and/or sexual promiscuity.
There is no right answer about how to talk to your children about traumatic death, just as there is no typical reaction – by any child or adult – to a tragic loss. Talk to your child’s school, a counsellor, or your family doctor if you are concerned about how your child is responding to the the trauma, or if you want help supporting them at this time. | http://www.julieharrison.ca/living/how-to-talk-to-your-child-about-murder-guest-post/comment-page-1/ |
The Importance of Nurturing Social Emotional Skills in Preschool
You have probably heard of the term social emotional skills and the importance of integrating them into daycare and early learning centers. However, in all honesty, many of us are not really sure what social emotional skills actually are.
Early childhood and social and emotional skills
Social emotional development helps a child to learn important skills, such as how to be empathetic, kind, how to communicate with others, how to self-regulate and how to resolve a conflict. It is clear to see that these skills are very important and need to be developed in early childhood. These skills also help a child to get prepared for school. If a child, for example, does not have these skills, they will struggle to learn in a daycare or preschool classroom setting. They are more likely to have trouble following directions and may be more disruptive. It is clear to see the importance of these skills so below we will take a look at how social and emotional skills and nurtured in preschool.
- Playing with othersIn order for a child to develop and improve their emotional regulation, they need to be able to play with other children. It is important that preschools provide experiences where children need to work with each other and solve problems together.
- A social emotional basisA child needs an environment that is sensitive, attentive and responsive. This environment enables a child to learn skills such as self-regulation and self-control. These skills are important in order for a child to be able to become autonomous and make choices. While in preschool, children learn to develop skills such as taking turns. This skill, for example, encourages other skills related to sharing and caring for others.
- Mixing with children of similar agesWhen children are able to mix with other children in preschool, for example, they have the opportunity to develop what is known as a theory of mind. This allows children to understand that everyone has different feelings and thoughts, which may be different from theirs. It is important for children to develop a theory of mind as it enables them to feel compassion, empathy and kindness. Adults, in a preschool, as well as at home can help a child to develop their theory of mind by talking about how someone may be feeling or thinking, especially if an issue has arisen.
- Social problem solvingChildren encounter social problem solving many times in a day. For instance, it could be how to comfort a child who may be feeling upset or deciding on who gets to play with a toy that us popular. These situations provide children with the opportunity to come up with a solution with their peers. A child who resorts to hitting or has an aggressive approach may only be able to look at a situation from their own perspective and struggle to understand and deal with such conflict.
It is clear to see that the preschool environment provides endless opportunities for a child to develop those important social emotional skills. | https://mtelizabeth.com/the-importance-of-nurturing-social-emotional-skills-in-preschool/ |
At the same time, powerful emotions or desires influence our thinking, help or hinder how well we think in a situation. At any given moment, our minds (that complex of inner thoughts, feelings and desires) can be under the sway of our native irrationality or our potential reasonability. When we are ruled by our irrational tendencies, we see the world from a narrow self-serving perspective. We are not truly concerned with how our behavior affects others. We are fundamentally concerned with getting what we want and/or with validating our beliefs and views.
The key to understanding human thought then, is, to understand its essential duality: its capacity for irrationality (being trapped in egocentric and/or sociocentric thought with its attendant self-deception, self-delusion, rationalization, and so forth)) and its capacity for reasonability (freeing itself from self-delusion, myth, and illusion). Though thinking, feeling and wanting are, in principle, equally important, it is only through thinking that we take command of our minds. It is through thinking that we figure out what is going wrong with our thinking. It is through thinking that we figure out how to deal with destructive emotions. It is through thinking that we change unproductive desires to productive ones. It is fairminded reasonability that frees us from intellectual slavery and conformity. If we understand our mind and its functions, if we face the barriers to our development caused by egocentric and sociocentric thought, if we work upon our mind in a daily regimen, we can take the steps that lead to our empowerment as thinkers.
To learn more about the relationship between thoughts, feelings and desires, read The Thinker’s Guide to Taking Charge of the Human Mind , pp. 3-10.
There is an intimate, dynamic interrelation between thinking, feeling, and wanting. Each is continually influencing the other two. | https://community.criticalthinking.org/triangleOfThinking.php |
This article examines the complex nature of the prosecutor's broad obligation to seek justice through a consideration of the similarly broad directive in Jewish law requiring that "in all [of] your ways acknowledge [God]." While many have critiqued the broad directives governing a prosecutor's ethical duties, through this comparative analytical framework it can be seen that the prosecutor's broad ethical directive to seek justice serves as a workable and appropriate standard for prosecutorial ethics. In many ways, a prosecutor faces an ethical obligation unlike other attorneys. Ethical obligations require that a prosecutor forgo conduct that would increase the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, such as engaging in a method of cross-examination that would impugn the credibility of a truthful defense witness, in favor of conduct that will increase the likelihood of obtaining justice.
Both Jewish law and the regulation of prosecutorial ethics can address only a limited number of scenarios. As such, there exist scenarios that may be categorized as presenting ethical or legal dilemmas that require appeal to metaprinciples of decision making and application. Comparing scenarios under the broad directives of Jewish law to the broad directives of prosecutorial ethics can help consider the implications of justice in a variety of situations.
Comments
The Yale Rosenberg Memorial Lecture
Recommended Citation
41 Houston L. Rev. 1337 (2004-2005). | https://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/scholarlyworks/234/ |
2020's Easy Money Making Strategies - Register now!
https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2020-69507-001.html
Abstract
Due to physical distancing guidelines, the closure of nonessential businesses, and the closure of public schools, the role of telehealth for the delivery of psychological services for children has never been more debated. However, the transition to teleassessment is more complicated for some types of assessment than others. For instance, the remote administration of achievement and intelligence testsis a relatively recent adaptation of telehealth, and despite recommendations for rapid adoption by some policymakers and publishing companies, caution and careful consideration of individual and contextual variables and the existing research literature, as well as measurement, cultural and linguistic, and legal and ethical issues, is warranted. The decision to use remotely administered achievement and intelligence tests is best made on a case-by-case basis after consideration of these factors. We discuss each of these issues as well as implications for practice and policy, as well as issue provisional guidance for consideration for publishing companies interested in these endeavors moving forward.
Public Significance Statement
The current review describes a number of factors that may reduce the accuracy of standardized tests, like intelligence tests, when they are given remotely. Additionally, it highlights the importance of considering the purpose of assessment, client cultural and linguistic background, as well as ethical and legal decision making, on the use and interpretation of standardized test results
Source link
2020's Easy Money Making Strategies - Register now! | https://earn8online.com/index.php/120799/iqs-corner-teleassessment-with-children-and-adolescents-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-and-beyond-practice-and-policy-implications/ |
Public Interest Law
Northeastern is one of the top public interest law schools in the nation. We encourage, support and require our students to grapples with real social issues — dealing with the legal, intellectual and emotional demands of creating a just society.
Our public interest focus permeates virtually every class, where students and faculty regularly debate the ethical and societal implications of legal issues and decisions. Many students come to Northeastern for the chance to collaborate with faculty working on the forefront of legal change, from tackling public health legal issues to researching cold cases from the civil rights era.
Whether or not you choose to pursue a career in public interest, your experience at Northeastern will help you become a better lawyer; you’ll have ability to evaluate legal issues through a social justice lens and make a positive difference for your clients, community and society. | https://nuslblogs.org/2013/07/18/social-justice/ |
We are doing this through basic research into theoretical scientific problems, and through applying our cutting-edge science to real-world problems, and with recognition of the important legal, ethical and societal implications of these technologies.
We channel our research around a number of ambitious challenges which represent areas in which AI and data science can have a game-changing impact for science, society, and the economy. These challenges will not be led by the Turing alone, but depend on significant collaboration and partnerships.
Read about our vision (PDF) for growing the national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. | https://www.turing.ac.uk/research?page=%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C%2C0%2C%2C%2C4%2C0%2C%2C0%2C0 |
Employers and employees will require detailed government guidance if so-called covid-19 vaccination passports are introduced in the UK, lawyers’ leaders have warned.
The warning follows the Cabinet Office’s call for evidence on covid-status certification, a process where vaccination data or testing is used to indicate whether individuals have a lower risk of getting sick with or transmitting the novel coronavirus to others.
Ministers are reportedly drawing up a list of “essential” places where vaccine passports would not be required, including hospitals, GP surgeries, and supermarkets, The Times reports, with the prime minister expected to provide an update on the proposals next Monday.
Legal and ethical debate continues around the globe over the potential mandating of employee vaccinations so employers can return their staff to traditional workplaces.
Although US employers appear wary of forcing their staff to vaccinate, recent reports suggest UK companies are seeking legal advice on vaccination-dependent employment contracts, while the Italian government announced plans this week to ensure all health workers are vaccinated.
The Law Society of England and Wales has now published its response to the Cabinet Office consultation, focusing on the potential impact the proposals would have on law firm workplaces.
If the guidance is not comprehensive, there is a risk the objectives of the scheme will not be fulfilled
Chancery Lane said the government should consider what implications the passports would have on existing covid guidance, such as social distancing and workplace testing, and how ministers will ensure workers are not unduly disadvantaged if they do not have instant access to a vaccine.
In evaluating risks to their employees, law firms will wish to understand the arrangements in place for settings in which lawyers regularly work, such as courts, police stations, and places of detention, added the Law Society.
In developing the scheme, the government should take heed of the Equality Act’s prohibition on discriminating against employees for age, race, disability, pregnancy, and religious belief. Carefully consideration must, therefore, be given to the potential impacts on people sharing different protected characteristics and how those impacts could be mitigated, said the solicitors’ representative body.
The Law Society also raised the issue of data protection, stating employers required to check vaccine passports will need to ensure high levels of data security.
“The more detailed the government guidance on how to use the proposed scheme, the more clarity employers and employees will have,” said Law Society president I. Stephanie Boyce. | https://www.internationalemploymentlawyer.com/news/employers-and-workers-need-clear-guidance-vaccine-passports |
As Austinites, SxSW has a special place in our heart. In addition, we are so grateful to SxSW for demonstrating their commitment to accessibility by supporting our OpenAIR program for the last few years (thanks, SxSW!).
Members of our team, board, and community have submitted talks and panels on accessibility and design because we want to teach SxSW 2019 attendees how to create delightful, inclusive experiences for everyone. Below is a listing of sessions submitted by our team and board members. If you think accessibility is important, please take a minute to vote for the following sessions. Be sure to leave a comment if you have questions.
Digital Accessibility Master Class – Sharron Rush, Robert Jolly, Becky Gibson
Learn practical accessibility design and development skills. Practice techniques with deeply experienced programmers, developers, designers, and content providers. Instructors participate at the W3C, developing global web standards and implementation techniques, including those that define accessibility. We will teach you to assess existing sites and applications, remediate for accessibility, plan for accessibility in future products, integrate inclusive design thinking into your processes and product development life cycles, distribute accessibility responsibility across roles, and manage your products to meet and sustain accessibility goals. We introduce free and low-cost accessibility validation tools and connect you to a global community of best practice.
Accessible or SUX, it’s YOUR choice! – Robert Jolly
You made a thing. A digital thing! That’s great. But, is it accessible to all? People with disabilities are shut out of our apps, services, and sites on a daily basis. Often, as UX teams building awesome digital things, we don’t realize that our users’ experience is only some users’ experience and that SUX. This session will highlight accessibility user stories and use cases to first enlighten and then inform us what we can do to ensure our work is inclusive to all. Robert will dive into common accessibility pitfalls via real-world examples and help attendees understand both broad concepts and specific tasks that each person can put into practice immediately.
A11Y Rules Podcast Recording with Special Guest – Nic Steenhout
Accessibility is a very important topic. It is not, or should not be, just about compliance, nor about completing a checklist. Accessibility is about people. Also, we don’t know very much about most of the people who make accessibility happen. The A11y Rules Podcast is a show where Nicolas Steenhout and a guest have a conversation about web accessibility. Listeners get to know the weekly guests better: What got them involved with accessibility, their motivations, their successes, and frustrations.
This session would be a live recording of the A11y Rules Podcast with either Vint Cerf (invited), or Sarah Herrlinger (agreed in principle). An opportunity for attendees to hear from important people in accessibility.
Inclusive Presentations – Becky Gibson
Have you ever been in the back of a large presentation space and struggled to see the slides and understand any charts or visualizations? The presenter mentions that the red line shows the upward trend but you can’t tell which line is red nor see the scale so you can’t understand the point he is trying to make. That is what someone with low vision may experience, even if they have a better seat than you. And what if an audience member can’t see at all? Or has difficulty hearing. When presenting we all forget that not everyone one in the audience has the same capabilities that we do. This panel will review common mistakes when presenting to a diverse audience. It will provide methods to ensure your presentation includes and engages your entire audience.
Add Accessibility to Your Process the Easy-ish Way – James Green
Finding Accessibility Not-That-Accessible to your team? Are you feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or not even sure where to start? If you are hungry for help then look no further and get yourself some heaping platefuls of knowledge, tips, best practices, and inspiration! We’ll cover the basics of how people with disabilities use technology, what the basic requirements are, and how to find qualified help (how to avoid the fakers!). We’ll discuss how to evaluate YOUR users, (i.e., the members of your organization) and build a process they’ll want to adopt, as well as learn how to write custom requirements and tests that minimize stress on your team but cover all the bases (or use ours, they are done and free!). We’ll also teach you how to inspire your team and make sure they are prepared.
Moving the Needle on K12 Accessibility – Jan McSorley & Ron Lucey
We must view digital educational materials through an accessibility lens if students with disabilities are to have equal access to the general curriculum. What does that mean in today’s classroom? What do teachers, administrators, procurement staff, and direct service providers need to know to comply with the law and most importantly, meet student needs? This overview session provides up to date information and a toolkit to ensure we are more able to meet the needs of all our students.
Authentic Inclusion™ Drives Disruptive Innovation – Frances West
Authentic Inclusion™, an idea originated by Frances West, former IBM Chief Accessibility Officer, is defined as the institutional insight that human diversity is at the core of disruptive innovation. It calls for holistic actions across an institution to respect an individual’s ability to make a difference despite being different. Frances describes how her personal and professional journey led her to this thinking and work. The book addresses the diversity issues and proposes new ways that business leaders can think about inclusion as human first. A human first mindset is critical as the tech industry grapples with human impact technologies such as of AI. By focusing on human first and Authentic Inclusion™, institutions can bring principles, purpose and profit into harmonious alignment. | https://knowbility.org/blog/2018/vote-for-sxsw-2019 |
What Is Digital Accessibility?
By “accessibility,” we mean the design and development of a website that allows everyone, including people with disabilities, to independently use and interact with it.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) specifies that people should be able to:
Why Is Inclusive Digital Design Important?
Accessibility broadens the potential audience that can explore a digital archive:
But there are additional compelling reasons to make a digital historical archive meet the highest accessibility standards:
Most importantly, inclusive digital design is simply the right thing to do. (Plus, there’s no visually discernible difference between websites or mobile apps with accessible designs!) When a web page is properly coded, following W3C standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), users who are blind or deafblind can use their own technology to access the site independently, via magnification, synthetic speech, or refreshable braille devices. As such, the careful transcription of all materials in the Helen Keller Archive was essential to making these primary sources accessible to all.
Why Was the Digital Helen Keller Archive So Groundbreaking?
The Helen Keller Archive’s commitment to accessibility was a groundbreaking project in three ways:
Accessible Content Means:
Accessible Interface Means:
Testing for Usability:
This project is a constant work in progress. We still have many handwritten documents to transcribe, and we continue to be in communication with the academic and disability community on best practices for meta-tagging and annotation. Any mistakes are ours alone, and we commit to remedying them. Please let us know if you find any issues! You can write to [email protected]. | https://www.afb.org/HelenKellerArchive?a=p&p=dynamicwordpresslesson&wordpressurl=accessibility-statement&e=-------en-20--1--txt--helen+speaking--51-1000---3-7-6-5-3-------Hayes%2C+Charles+B.-Irwin%2C+Robert+B.-USA+%252D+New+York---Gage%2C+Mrs.+Homer--0-1 |
The Law Society of Ontario is committed to ensuring equal access for people with disabilities and treating people with disabilities in a way that allows them to maintain their dignity and independence and embodies the principles of integration and equal opportunity.
The Law Society is committed to be a barrier-free environment for persons with disabilities in employment, in its communications and information, in the delivery of goods and services and in its built environment. We will do so by removing and preventing barriers to accessibility and meeting our accessibility requirements under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and Ontario’s accessibility laws in a timely manner.
The Law Society is committed to ensuring that all its employees are aware of their responsibilities to foster an accessible and inclusive environment with, and for, persons with disabilities.
In accordance with the Customer Service Standards and the Integrated Accessibility Standards under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, the Law Society maintains policies, practices, procedures and documentation with respect to the following:
The following documents about Accessibility describe the Law Society’s practices in more detail:
The Law Society is committed to meeting accessibility requirements and continuously taking steps to improve its services and website to comply with the AODA and its regulations. We will continue to identify and correct barriers which prevent access to our goods, services, websites and content.
To help us do this, the Law Society welcomes your comments and suggestions. Feedback can be provided to the Executive Director, Client & People Services: | https://lso.ca/aoda-commitment |
The PMA elevates the Pilates profession, helping our members build more effective and successful practices, and educating the public about the lifelong benefits of Pilates, so that everyone in the world can move better.
Our Core Values
The PMA core values speak to who we are as an organization and how we interact and engage with our members, staff, board, partners, and the broader community.
The PMA is committed to building a professional association that is Diverse, Equitable and Inclusive.
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We are open and welcome to all. We seek to cultivate an inclusive space for all dimensions of diversity.
- We embrace accessibility for every body and we actively engage with the broader Pilates community and industry stakeholders.
- We respect one another. We foster a judgment free zone and expect our members to operate by the PMA Code of Ethics.
The PMA is committed to creating a Positive Member Experience in every way.
- We are transparent in our interactions with members and always model authentic leadership.
- We cultivate community by 1) creating intentional opportunities for community connection and 2) creating a culturally competent association that is sensitive to all.
- We always strive for excellence in response to the needs of all of our stakeholders.
The PMA is dedicated to Education and Advocacy and believe both are critical to the professionalism of Pilates practice.
- We support the development of research practices for the science of Pilates.
- We disseminate and encourage the use of research findings to promote evidence-based practice.
- We educate Pilates professionals on best practices in the profession.
- We elevate the standards of the Pilates industry by: 1) supporting third-party Pilates certification for teachers and teacher trainers; 2) creating strategic partnerships with other fitness and health associations, and 3) promoting best practices in Pilates education through the International Teacher Training Program Accreditation for Pilates (ITTAP).
- We support, influence and inform legislative and regulatory issues affecting Pilates professionals.
Our Goals
- To support and advocate for Pilates professionals
- To serve as a unifying body for all lineages and schools of Pilates
- To foster community, integrity, and respect within the Pilates industry
- To facilitate opportunity, credibility, and professionalism
- To encourage professional development and lifelong learning
- To serve the evolving needs of our community
- To promote the benefits of Pilates to the public and allied professionals
- To serve as an information resource for all Pilates constituents
Contact Us
Phone Number:
(305)-573-4946
Email:
Become a member today! | https://pilatesmethodalliance.org/about/ |
The technology of the web and the numerous ways information is communicated is changing constantly, which means it’s important to keep abreast of developments in order to maintain good practice and a professional viewpoint.
We were incredibly impressed with Colin’s knowledge in a continuously evolving market place.
Graeme Merifield, Managing Director, Tribe Festivals Ltd
Half of my working life is spent on research and learning, something I expect is true of most practitioners in the web and software industry, but I believe it is time well spent, as it helps inform the benefits I aim to bring to a client’s project.
I have been building web-based software since 2002 and my work is driven by the mantra: keep it simple, but make it elegant.
I continue to be inspired by prescribed engineering best practices and my aim always is to produce software which is clean, modular, extensible and stable. I care about the finer details.
Interested to learn how I might assist with your project? Get in touch
My guiding principles, practices and tools
- Website/Web app development:
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- Content and users first
- Web standards compliance
- Accessibility guidelines and best practice WAI and WCAG
- Responsive Web Design (RWD)
- Progressive enhancement
- Performance optimisation
- Software development:
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- Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY)
- Law of Demeter
- Design by Contract
- Design patterns
- Object Oriented Programming (OOP)
- Test-driven development (TDD)
- My skill set stack includes:
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- HTML, XML, SVG
- CSS, SASS
- PHP, Python, Node.js
- MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
- REST, GraphQL, JWT
- JSON, YAML
- Mustache, Handlebars
- Tinkering currently with:
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- Golang, Google Cloud Platform, AWS
- Kubernetes, MiniKube
- Elixir, Elm
- Web Components
- Tools I use regularly:
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- Git, Github
- Docker
- Bash, npm, webpack, Grunt
- Babel, Jasmine, Karma
- VS Code, Vi
- Photoshop, Illustrator
- ssh, rsync
- Used in the past/Very familiar with:
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- Subversion
- JQuery, Prototype
- Actionscript
- Reference materials on my bookshelf include:
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- Resources available online that I have found to be invaluable:
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- I listen to many Podcasts and would recommend the following: | https://www.colintester.com/about |
This site has been created in accordance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA). The site will continue to be updated to meet web accessibility standards as they progress.
The Centre for Inclusive Design website has been optimised to be as inclusive as possible. The platform and its content are constantly evolving, and efforts have been made to ensure usability across all aspects however this site is new and has been built using an accessible template. As at 5 May 2020 there are some issues with WAI-ARIA Landmarks that we are working to resolve. | https://centreforinclusivedesign.org.au/index.php/accessibility/ |
At Burberry, we believe creativity opens spaces. Our purpose is to unlock the power of imagination to push boundaries and open new possibilities for our people, our customers and our communities. This is the core belief that has guided Burberry since it was founded in 1856 and is central to how we operate as a company today.
We aim to provide an environment for creative minds from different backgrounds to thrive, bringing a wide range of skills and experiences to everything we do. As a purposeful, values-driven brand, we are committed to being a force for good in the world as well, creating the next generation of sustainable luxury for customers, driving industry change and championing our communities.
JOB PURPOSE
Burberry are looking for a UX Designer to help us create unparalleled customer experiences, within the Burberry Digital team. You will be based in our Westminster office, working with a talented team of Designers in making our product useful, usable and delightful for the Burberry customer, across our Web and Mobile platforms. We are looking to find someone who is a specialist in delivering great intuitive experiences, which solve real problems through being inclusive in your design approach. You have a passion for emerging technologies and pride yourself on being up to date with the latest digital product design trends and practices. As a key member of the Digital team, you will be using your talents in a collaborative and agile environment where you are empowered to challenge and progress our thinking and working methods. You will be collaborating with our developers and delivery partners to ensure we maintain the good working practices and exploit the best and latest technology. You’ll have a broad skill set and being conformable with customer journey mapping, conducting user research/testing, information architecture, product wireframes, interactive prototypes, workshopping and working within a design system based framework.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Responsibilities
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You will solve complex customer and business problems by applying methodical thinking, logic and pragmatism
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You will be challenging established thinking and championing new ideas to stakeholders in the business
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You will be someone who puts rigour into everything you touch to ensure it is comprehensive
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You must support your ideas and crafting designs with input from customer insight, analytics, brand, and validated with real users
PERSONAL PROFILE
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Deep understanding of best practice UX approaches and how to apply them
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Experience in problem solving design which follows accessibility guidelines
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A solid understanding and passion for detailed interaction and information design
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You are structured in your approach to understanding users, and frame design decisions around your findings
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Working with brand and style guidelines to design and prototype to a high resolution that go beyond wireframes is essential
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Experience working in an agile process
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Worked with cross-functional teams across multiple time zones effectively
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Have a familiarity and at least a high-level understanding of the relevant technology (i.e HTML, CSS…)
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Experience crafting experiences with tools such as Figma, Principle, Sketch or the Adobe suite
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Familiar in user testing tools and other methods such as AB/MVT
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Must have a portfolio featuring examples of end to end design solutions
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Experience of developing eCommerce experiences across different connected devices
FOOTER
Burberry is an Equal Opportunities Employer and as such, treats all applications equally and recruits purely on the basis of skills and experience. | https://jobs4disability.com/job/user-experience-designer/ |
The government of South Carolina recognizes that “Disabilities come in many forms, including but not limited to hearing impairment, visual impairment, and cognitive disorders.” In order to make South Carolina more inclusive, they have committed to staying up to date on the latest practices and standards in web accessibility. The state strives to provide equal web access to state government information and services for all members of the public regardless of ability.
Several tools, such as Wave and Cynthia Says are utilized to test and confirm SC.GOV’s compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Vast efforts have been made to ensure that the site is accessible in accordance with the state of South Carolina’s standards, made up of Section 508 and the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0.
In addition to the compliance guidelines, a network committed to accessibility has evolved in South Carolina. This network, Access South Carolina Information Technology, focuses on the accessibility of electronic and information technology in South Carolina, specifically in state government.
Section 508
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that:
- A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided. This can be done by alt text, longdesc, or in element content.
- Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup
- Documents shall be organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style sheet
- Redundant text links shall be provided for each active region of a server-side image map
- Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape
- Row and column headers shall be identified for data tables
- Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers
- Frames shall be titled with text that facilitates frame identification and navigation
- Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz
WCAG 1.0 Guidelines
- Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
- Don’t rely on color alone.
- Use markup and style sheets and so so properly.
- Clarify natural language usage.
- Create tables that transform gracefully.
- Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully.
- Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes.
- Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.
- Design for device-independence.
- Use interim solutions.
- Use W3C technologies and guidelines.
- Provide context and orientation information.
- Provide clear navigation mechanisms.
- Ensure that documents are clear and simple.
Access South Carolina IT
Access South Carolina Information Technology (ASCIT) was started in 2000. Since its start, ASCIT has continued to develop as a network, and achieve their mission “to provide statewide leadership in providing education, developing accessible resources, and sustaining initiatives related to electronic and information technology accessibility for South Carolinians.” ASCIT has outlined the following goals to work toward their mission:
- Provide leadership in offering education, training and networking opportunities for agencies, education institutions, consumers, and other public/private entities
- Communicate information about ASCIT and other activities/resources via the website, listerv, and social media in an accessible format
- Develop and implement a plan for sustaining ASCIT’s Web Testers Program
- Ensure sustainability of ASCIT and its programs
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Learn About Other U.S. State Accessibility Laws
Click on the map below to learn more about captioning and web accessibility laws in other states.
[us_map]
Further Reading
How to View Captions on Your Smartphone
Given that a quarter of people watch movies and TV shows on their smartphones daily, it’s worthwhile to learn how you can enable closed captions on your smartphone or other mobile device. Millions of Americans have some form of hearing loss, and…
The Benefits of In-Player Captions
When streaming your next live event, you’ll want to ensure it’s live captioned. Live captions not only make your live streams more accessible, but they also make them more engaging for viewers. Innovative technology has made it easier to include captions on…
AODA Video Requirements & Canadian Accessibility Standards
Ontario offers some of the most comprehensive web accessibility standards in the world. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) was instated in 2005 with the intention of creating a barrier-free Ontario by 2025. The AODA regulates accessibility standards across government,…
Subscribe to the Blog Digest
Sign up to receive our blog digest and other information on this topic. You can unsubscribe anytime. | https://www.3playmedia.com/blog/south-carolina-state-web-accessibility-laws/ |
For Higher Education institutions, having an inclusive and accessible digital estate is not a choice, it is a legal requirement.
Here we talk through the EU Web Accessibility Directive, what this means for your institution and how to map out your accessibility journey.
What is digital accessibility?
The word accessibility is used to describe whether something can be used by everyone, regardless of ability. Digital accessibility is referring to websites, apps and digital tools, ensuring that people with disabilities (permanent, temporary or situational) find them easy to use.
Why is it important?
At least 15% of the world’s population - one billion people - have a recognised disability. There are many ways in which a person’s disability may affect the way they perceive information online, and how they navigate within pages. A commitment to accessibility ensures an inclusive experience for everyone visiting your digital channels.
Having become a staple within business strategy, disability inclusion is increasingly becoming a key component of an organisation’s digital strategy. For some sectors however, it is not a choice, it is a legal responsibility.
With the Higher Education sector challenged by the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be increasingly important for institutions to provide information and resources that appeal to and can be accessed by the broadest catchment of potential students. Social distancing is making remote learning options more important than ever. With a substantial amount of teaching set to continue online, it’s vitally important that courses are taught in a way that is inclusive and does not disadvantage those with specific accessibility requirements.
Your legal requirements
The UK government state:
Your service must be accessible to everyone who needs it. You may be breaking the law if you do not make it accessible.
Legislation from the government means that all public sector websites must comply with the EU Web Accessibility Directive.
What is the EU Web Accessibility Directive?
The EU Web Accessibility Directive is a piece of legislation which aims to consolidate accessibility standards, making web accessibility a legal requirement.
The Directive requires that member states (and yes, this directive will remain as law when we are no longer a member state) have processes in place to “ensure that public sector bodies take the necessary measures to make their websites and mobile applications more accessible”.
Unlike the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the Directive does not include rules about how to make websites and mobile applications accessible. However, the four WCAG principles which provide the foundation for accessibility (perceivable, operable, understandable and robust) are present throughout. This begins to unify the digital accessibility standards for EU member states, by putting WCAG at the core.
How does this affect higher education?
Any new websites launched after 23rd September 2019 must meet accessibility standards and must have an accessibility statement.
If a public sector organisation (including Higher Education institutions) launched a website before 23rd September 2019, the website must meet the accessibility standards by 23rd September 2020. Improving accessibility for an existing website is notoriously more difficult than building with accessibility in mind from the beginning. Organisations with older sites therefore have slightly longer to meet the required standards.
Accessibility standards also apply to mobile apps, however, organisations have until 23rd June 2021 to meet that deadline.
If you’d like to read more on the EU Web Accessibility Directive, take a look at these:
- The EU Web Accessibility Directive: What it means for the UK public sector
- The EU Web Accessibility Directive: A practical guide
How do you meet accessibility standards?
Accessibility isn’t a one-off task, but an ongoing commitment. We highly recommend that accessibility is a core part of your digital strategy, if not your overall business strategy. Assessing your current state is a good place to start, but to maintain high accessibility standards, you may want to consider internal accessibility training, and quarterly audits and usability testing to ensure they continue.
If you are considering a new website design, a move from one CMS to another, or have a Drupal 7 site (see Planning your Drupal roadmap for more on this), we strongly advise you to prioritise accessibility as part of this rebuild. Improving the accessibility of an existing website is notoriously more difficult than building with accessibility in mind from the beginning of a project.
Here’s an overview of next steps you can take to kick start your commitment to accessibility:
Accessibility audit
An accessibility audit is an in-depth review of your website against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. An audit will highlight where there are problems in terms of accessibility and how to address them. An accessibility audit can help you both establish your current state of accessibility, and then can be used as a tool to check in as your site grows and evolves.
Usability testing
Usability testing with people with disabilities involves a user experience practitioner taking a user through common journeys on the website. Doing this with people with a range of disabilities will reveal issues that they face, and can enable you to feed this back into the design, user experience or structure of your website.
Accessibility remediation
Accessibility remediation is about making your website or codebase as accessible as possible within the technical constraints of your existing platform. Our team can help you identify, prioritise and fix accessibility issues to ensure your website is inclusive, engaging and easy for everyone to use.
Accessibility strategy
An accessibility strategy will ensure that your organisation is committed to providing an inclusive experience for all. The formation of a strategy creates a shared understanding of accessibility, and will put steps in place to achieve and maintain excellent standards.
A new website build
If you are embarking upon a new website build, ensure that accessibility is baked into your project from the get-go. Ensure you select a development partner with a team experienced in developing to high accessibility standards.
Your next steps
It is imperative that higher education institutions address accessibility and meet legislation as per the EU Web Accessibility Directive or they could be open to legal ramifications.
Each organisation’s accessibility journey is different. We can work with you to define a bespoke programme of work to establish the level of accessibility you currently hold, and define the work needed to meet and uphold high accessibility standards going forward. Get in touch today to discuss your programme of work. | https://microserve.io/blogs/digital-accessibility-requirements-higher-education |
Liberalism and Marxism are two cardinal and polar concepts in Political Science. Both have their own views of Politics. Both these ideologies perceive politics in a different manner. Whereas liberalism evolved after the breakdown of feudalism and nurtured by the Renaissance era, it gives primacy to the ‘individual’. Liberalism views individuals as the macrocosm of political activities. Classical liberalists believe in the concept of ‘abstract individualism’ where individuals are thought to be autonomous, atomic, asocial, self-reliant and self-sufficient beings.
On the other hand, developed through the writings of Marx and Engels, Marxism view class as the basic unit of the socio-political community. Marxism prioritizes class/community over individuals and is critical to the liberal concept of abstract individualism./ Marxists are of a view that the prevailing political ideology, the institution of State and individual notions, emotion and intellection are controlled and nourished by the economic base formed by the nature and mode of production. They believe that individuals live under a ‘false conscience’ where the means of production influence human behaviour, thoughts and actions, thus refuting the claim of autonomous individuality. They believe that there exists no autonomous individual and the substructure or the economic base force them to make choices. This idea further developed into the concept of ideological hegemony by Gramsci and the concept of ‘soft power’ by Joseph Nye.
Whereas liberals view politics as an instrument of reconciliation and conflict settlement, Marxists use politics to politicize conflicts. According to liberals, self-interested individuals constitute the society and are prone to conflict of opinion and choices. On the other hand, Marxists view conflicts as the beginning of social change. According to them, conflicts mirror the fact that the oppressed, suppressed and the depressed became free from the ‘false consciousness’ by gaining ‘class consciousness’ of themselves being exploited by the elites. They become aware of their exploitation and reverts to revolution. The revolution alters the economic base and consequently, changes the superstructure.
Moreover, Liberals view the institution of State as an anthropogenic product or created by human beings similar to roads, buildings and billboards. They believe that a balanced and free society will never develop as the individuals are self-interested and a sovereign state is required to protect them and their rights. John Locke once remarked that ‘where there’s no law, there’s no freedom’. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau further developed this concept of State and devised a social contract theory explaining the origin and function of the State constituted by the people. Thomas Paine calls State a ‘necessary evil’. While classical liberals or hardcore libertarians argue for a non-interventionist state confined to maintaining law and order and defence saying that the government that governs the least is the best, the welfare liberals are in favour of affirmative actions and welfare State empowered to and obliged to ensure social good by protecting individual rights. Hobbes is of the view that the State is required to prevent a state of war between self-interested, crooked and violent individuals. Locke argues for a State that protects three basic rights of its citizens: life, liberty and property. Rousseau is of the view that a sovereign State is necessary to bring social harmony.
On the other hand, the Marxists have a dual opinion on the role of a capitalist State. It is well-reflected in the legendary Miliband-Poulantza’s debate. Marxist view the capitalist State as the oppressor of the proletariat. While Miliband proposed an instrumentalist view of the capital State arguing that the State functions to serve the capitalist class owing to the social origins of the members of the government and their personal and familial ties with the capitalist bourgeoisie. Poulantzas proposes a structural model of the Capitalist State where it is argued that the State is an objectively capitalistic entity that will serve the interests of the capitalists irrespective of the personal ties or familial relations with the bourgeoisie. It’s further argued that the institution of State strives to protect capitalism. In addition to that, Poulantzas are of the view that if the members of the Government coincide with the bourgeoisie, it’s nothing but sheer coincidence.
The fifth stage in dialectical materialism as proposed by Marx is called ‘communism’. Whereas he gives two stages of communism- the first phase or lower communism and the second phase or higher communism. The lower communism is characterised by workers governing themselves through democratically elected communes. Marx considers this as a temporary stage that will be replaced by higher communism. Lower communism is associated with socialism by Lenin and the communes took the form of the Communist party. Although the Communist party was supposed to be a temporary one in the original view of Marx and even Lenin, it became a permanent, totalitarian and repressive police state under Stalin. However, Marx claimed that the communes are temporary bodies and will cease to exist when higher communism is achieved. According to Marx, the State will ‘wither away’ and he envisages a classless, stateless, moneyless and ideology less society. Hence, Marx views the State as an ‘unnecessary evil’.
While liberals argue for a capitalist economy with private ownership in line with the famous aphorism, ‘laissez-faire is the only fair’, Marxists envisages a socialist economy with collective ownership of the means of production. Also, the higher communism urges for a money-less society. | https://track2training.com/2021/04/08/a-glimpse-of-the-liberal-and-marxist-view-of-politics/ |
The U.S. Forest Service announced via the attached FEDERAL REGISTER notice that it is renewing the charter of the Forest Resource Coordinating Committee and seeking nominations for a member representing Indian tribes to serve on the Committee. Nominations must be received by August 14, 2015.
The Committee consists of up to 20 members who represent different categories of stakeholders. Committee members are appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture from nominations submitted by any individual or organization and serve for staggered terms of up to three years. The Committee is responsible for:
1) Providing direction and coordination of actions within the USDA, State Agencies, and the private sector to effectively address the national priorities with a specific focus on non-industrial private forest land;
2) Clarifying the responsibilities of each agency represented on the Committee regarding the national priorities;
3) Providing advice on the allocation of funds, including funding for the Competitive Allocation of Funds Innovation Projects; and
4) Assisting the Secretary in developing and reviewing the report to Congress.
The national priorities include:
1) Conserving and managing working forest landscapes for multiple values and use;
2) Protecting forests from threats and restoring forests in response to threats; and
3) Enhancing public benefits from private forests.
Please let us know if we may provide additional information regarding the Forest Service’s request for nominations to the Forest Resource Coordinating Committee. | https://hobbsstraus.com/general_memo/general-memorandum-15-052/ |
Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007: Code of Practice
This revised Code of Practice aims to reflect the developments in policy, practice and legislation both in the overall context of adult support and protection and in day-to-day activity. It provides information and detail to support practical application of the 2007 Act.
Chapter 3: Duties and powers of the council and other agencies, the role of the council officer and the independent and third sectors, and cooperation and information sharing across organisations and professionals.
What are a council's duties under the Act?
The Act places duties upon the council to:
- make inquiries if it knows or believes that a person is an adult at risk of harm and that it might need to intervene under the Act or otherwise to protect the person's wellbeing, property or financial affairs (Section 4);
- undertake investigative activity, as part of its inquiries, involving council officers who have certain powers under the Act (Sections 7-10);
- co-operate with other councils and other listed (or specified) bodies and office holders (Section 5);
- have regard to the importance of the provision of appropriate services (including, in particular, independent advocacy services), where the council considers that it needs to intervene in order to protect an adult at risk of harm (Section 6);
- make visits, with right of entry, for the purpose of conducting interviews and arranging medical examinations (sections 7, 8, 9 & 36 - 40);
- protect property owned or controlled by an adult who is removed from a place under a removal order (Section 18);
- set up an Adult Protection Committee to carry out various functions in relation to adult protection in its area, and to review procedures under the Act (Section 42).
What are a council's powers under the Act?
Where it is known or believed that an adult is at risk from harm and the council might need to intervene, the Act places a duty on the council to make the necessary inquiries to establish whether or not action is required to stop or prevent harm occurring.
The Act makes frequent reference to actions that can be taken where a council 'knows or believes' that an adult is at risk of harm. It is clear that 'know'and 'believe' are not intended to be used interchangeably, and that the intention is to allow for engagement with people where it has yet to be determined whether they are an adult at risk. Partnerships should ensure that their procedures are clear that inquiries will often take place before a determination has been made that the adult is at risk of harm.
The Act enables a council to:
- through the offices of a council officer, visit any place necessary to assist with inquiries under section 4. Council officers may interview, in private, any adult found at the place being visited, and may arrange for a medical examination of an adult known or believed to be at risk to be carried out by a health professional. Health, financial and other records relating to an adult at risk may be requested and examined. Note that the Council Officer is empowered by the Act to identify, take or copy medical records held by a service but having obtained them must ensure they are interpreted by a health professional.; and
- apply to the sheriff for the granting of a protection order.
Council officers have rights of entry to places where adults are known or believed to be at risk of harm. If, following inquiries, a council officer believes that action is required, the council can apply to the sheriff for a protection order. The range of protection orders include assessment orders (which may be to carry out an interview or medical examination of a person); removal orders (removal of an adult at risk) and banning orders or temporary banning orders (banning of the person causing, or likely to cause, the harm from being in a specified place) (Sections 11-34).
Who can act as a council officer for the purposes of the Act?
Section 53 (1) of the Act defines a council officer as an individual appointed by a council under Section 64 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.
Section 52(1) of the Act enables Ministers to restrict the type of individual who may be authorised by a council to perform council officer functions under the Act.
Scottish Ministers have made an order that prescribes that a council must not authorise a person to perform the functions of a council officer under sections 7 to 10 of the Act (investigative functions) unless the person:
- is registered in the part of the Scottish Social Services Council register maintained in respect of social workers or social service workers or is the subject of an equivalent registration;
- is registered as an occupational therapist in the register maintained under article 5(1) (establishment and maintenance of register) of the Health Professions Order 2001; or
- is a nurse; and
- the person has at least 12 months' post qualifying experience of identifying, assessing and managing adults at risk.
A council may withdraw the authority of a person to perform the functions of a council officer if the person no longer meets the relevant requirements.
The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 placed a requirement on all Health Boards and councils to make arrangements for adult health and social care services to be provided in an integrated way within each local authority area. Section 23 of the 2014 Act allows Ministers to make regulation to allow suitably qualified individuals who are employed by a Health Board to exercise the functions of a council officer.
Duty to refer and co-operate
While councils have the lead role in adult protection, effective intervention will only come about as a result of productive cooperation and communication between a range of agencies and professionals. What one person or public body knows may only be part of a wider picture. The multi-agency nature of adult support and protection work is crucial to the work of protecting adults from harm.
Section 5(3) of the Act places a duty on certain public bodies or office holders who know or believe that a person is an adult at risk of harm and that action needs to be taken to protect them from harm, to make a referral by reporting the facts and circumstances of the case to the council for the area in which the person is considered to be located. Public bodies should ensure that their staff are aware of the duty to refer and co-operate, and to encourage vigilance in relation to adults who may be at risk of harm.
Good practice would dictate that even if in doubt the referral should be made and should be counted as a referral by the council. The council must then determine if it knows or believes that the person is an adult at risk, and that it might need to intervene. It may take such investigative steps as considered necessary to establish whether the adult is an adult at risk of harm and what action should be taken.
Section 5 provides that certain bodies and office holders must, so far as is consistent with the proper exercise of their functions, co-operate with a council making inquiries under Section 4 of the Act and with each other where this is likely to enable or assist the council making the inquiries. A proper exercise of a public body's functions may include being bound by a duty of confidentiality.
The bodies listed in Section 5 are:
- The Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland;
- The Care Inspectorate;
- Healthcare Improvement Scotland;
- The Office of the Public Guardian;
- All councils;
- The Chief Constable of Police Scotland;
- All Health Boards (including Special Health Boards); and
- any other public body or office-holder as the Scottish Ministers may, by order, specify.
(As at July 2022, Scottish Ministers have not specified any other bodies)
As outlined above all of these bodies have a duty to refer where they know or believe an adult to be at risk of harm, and to co-operate with councils in their inquiries. Referrers do not need to have evidence that all elements of the three-point criteria are met in order to make a referral. Their information may form part of a larger picture.
Where staff in named bodies have to report suspected cases of adults at risk of harm within their own organisations, they should be clear to whom they have a duty to report. Staff also have a duty to co-operate with those working in the wider services within councils, including services for adults, children and families, criminal justice, housing, education, trading standards and consumer protection, and a range of services provided by health and specialist health boards, including acute and psychiatric hospitals and community health services.
The public bodies and office-holders may have duties to undertake inquiry, investigation, or other activity under separate legislation, which could overlap with the duty of the council to undertake inquiries and investigations under the Adult Support and Protection Act 2007. For example, Section 33 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Scotland Act 2003 places a duty on local authorities to inquire, in certain circumstances, into the situation of a person in the community who appears to have a mental disorder.
Simultaneous inquiry or investigation activity should never be used as a reason for failing to make adult protection referrals, whenever an adult is known or believed to be an adult at risk. All public bodies and office-holders named in the Act must make adult protection referrals and co-operate with subsequent adult protection inquiries and investigative activity, irrespective of their own specific functions under other legislation.
Good practice is that all relevant stakeholders will co-operate with making referrals and assisting with inquiries, not only those who have a duty to do so under the Act. Adult Protection Committees will wish to consider how best they can engage and encourage co-operation (Section 42(2)) with this broader group of agencies in order to ensure that such agencies are aware of the provisions of the Act, and that they have appropriate procedures in place.
While it is not specified in the Act, a wide range of other services also contribute to the protection of adults at risk. These include:
- GP Practices, dentists and pharmacists;
- Scottish Fire and Rescue Service;
- Agencies of the Scottish Government,
e.g. The Scottish Prison Service; Social Security Scotland.
The above services and agencies may all become involved with adults whom they know or believe as being at risk, and may therefore have cause to refer people to the council, and as such have a direct part to play in protecting people from risk of harm. Such services and agencies are expected to co-operate with assisting inquiries and to provide services to support adults at risk of harm.
Some agencies, which have a UK-wide jurisdiction or remit, may not be bound by the Act. However, they are likely to be bound by other legislation or specific protocols agreed with the Scottish Government.
Section 49 of the Act provides that it is an offence to, without reasonable cause, prevent or obstruct any person from doing anything they are authorised or entitled to do under the Act (see Chapter 15 of this Code).
General Practices
The Scottish Government has published revised Guidance for General Practice in tandem with the revised Code of Practice and revised Guidance for APCs . This is intended to assist the involvement of General Practitioners and their staff ("General Practices") in activities which arise from the Act, and aid them to support their patients in achieving the best outcome.
It provides advice on how to make referrals and notes that:
- General Practices are well placed to identify adults at risk of harm and are a vital component in the multi-agency arrangements to support and protect where it is necessary
- Adult support and protection applies to those with and without mental capacity
- As with other referrers, evidence is not required that all elements of the three-point criteria are met in order to make a referral. Their information may form part of a larger picture. In this regard, it is ultimately the responsibility of the council or delegated agency to decide whether an adult meets the definition of an adult at risk of harm
- General practices will be expected to co-operate with inquiries including with the examination of records under Section 10 of the Act. This co-operation is based upon the Council's knowledge or belief that that the person is at risk of harm. The purpose of providing the information is to assist the Council in determining whether or not the person is at risk, or later in the process to understand how to support and protect them from those risks.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Scottish Ambulance Service
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service ("SFRS") have a key role to play in keeping people safe from harm particularly in relation to fire safety. They are an important source of referrals in regard to adults as a result of their fire safety advice activity and can identify some people who may be at risk of harm for other reasons. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is represented on many Adult Protection Committees across Scotland.
The Scottish Ambulance Service ("SAS") is designated a special health board for the whole of Scotland, and is therefore included in the Section 5 duties as outlined above. It operates as an emergency service, and has contact with a wide range of people, many of whom may be adults at risk. They, therefore, can be a source of information; potential referrer and, as with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, can act as an early warning system for some people at risk of harm. There is scope for greater understanding of the role SAS can play and for greater engagement between the SAS and Adult Support and Protection at both local and national levels.
The Scottish Prison Service ("SPS")
The SPS has a duty of care to ensure that reasonable steps are taken to support and protect from harm individuals in their care, and those who may visit or make other forms of contact with individuals in prisons.
The SPS Child Protection Policy applies to children under 18 years of age. However, as per the Act, a young person over the age of 16 requiring protection may be an adult at risk in some circumstances. As per all cases for young people aged between 16 and 18 requiring support and protection,Prison Based Social Workers, in partnership with SPS managers, must give consideration to which procedures, if any, need to be applied. This will depend on the young person's individual circumstances and the particular legislation or policy framework best able to meet their needs at the time. Further details can be found in the SPS Child Protection Policy.
When SPS staff members or others working in a prison know or believe that an adult is at risk of harm (e.g., the individual is known or believed to meet the 3-point criteria), including an individual in their care, a member of his/her family, or someone with whom they have regular contact through visits, telephone contact or correspondence, they will liaise with community-based adult support and protection services. If an adult in the community is being harmed by an individual in custody, either intentionally or unintentionally, an Adult Support and Protection referral to the local authority where the individual at risk lives may be appropriate. An individual in SPS care may also cause harm in the community whilst located in prison. It may also be appropriate to consider an ASP referral if the adult themselves is at risk of harm when in the community (e.g., when due for release). Any such activity will be undertaken alongside existent offender management procedures.
For example, there may be occasions where a partner, family member or friends are at risk of harm caused by the individual in SPS care, for example on Home Detention Curfew (HDC), temporary release or release on licence. An individual in SPS care may also cause harm in the community whilst located in prison by, for example:
- insisting the vulnerable person hand in money or property;
- pressuring someone to volunteer their address for HDC, temporary release or release on licence;
- threatening harm to an adult via:
- the prison telephone system;
- written correspondence, e.g. email or letter;
- virtual or face to face visits;
- neglect where the individual in SPS care has previously provided care to an adult.
An ASP referral may also be appropriate if the adult themselves is at risk of harm when in the community. The SPS may be aware of adults who could be considered at risk of harm prior to their arrival to prison and/or as they are being readied for release (e.g. they may be at risk of harm in the community). As such, local services should have protocols in place for advising SPS of any new prisoners who are regarded as being at risk of harm and SPS should remain alert to the potential need for contact to be made with council adult support and protection services in preparation for a prisoner's release.
Independent and third-sector providers and other organisations
Additionally, and importantly:
- there will be a range of service providers and service user and carer organisations in the independent and third sectors who will have a direct service provision role in relation to adults who may be at risk of harm; and
- adults who may be at risk of financial harm may have dealings with a range of agencies including financial institutions such as banks, building societies, credit unions, post offices, Royal Mail and the Department of Work and Pensions.
While independent organisations such as these do not have specific legal duties or powers under the Act, care providers have a responsibility to involve themselves with the Act where appropriate by making referrals, assisting inquiries and through the provision of services to assist people at risk of harm. These organisations should discuss and share with relevant statutory agencies information they may have about adults who may be at risk of harm.
These providers and other service provider, and user and carer groups may also be a source of advice and expertise for statutory agencies working with adults with disabilities, communication challenges or other needs. Organisations should comply with requests for examination of records, as it is an offence to fail to do so without reasonable excuse (section 49(2)) of the Act).
Councils will wish to keep under constant review their contract agreements with the independent and third sector providers to ensure that their services are consistent with the principles of this Act.
Chapter 10 of the Code provides further guidance on the examination of records and refers to Social Work Scotland's 'Protocol for Requesting Information under Section 10' of the Act, which is for use by local partnerships as a template for their own procedures.
Information Sharing
We all have a responsibility, individually and collectively, to protect vulnerable people in our communities. This cuts across all aspects of private life and professional business. Supporting individuals at risk of harm is best done through collaboration and with a sense of community responsibility.
The Referral Process
Adult protection referrals can be made in writing (to be submitted electronically) or over the phone to the council for the area in which the adult at risk currently is. For most ASP referrals, this will be to the council for the area where the adult is habitually resident (where they live). Prompt action is vital.
Relevant contact details can be found here: Find your local contact - Act Against Harm. If you are working out of office hours, your local procedures and contacts will advise you of the relevant out of hours procedure, e.g. the Duty Social Worker.
Referral forms (sometimes referred to as an "AP1") – or the electronic link to them – can be requested from your local adult services team in advance; the form can then be saved in a place convenient for future use.
Referral information requested, either on a form or over the phone, may include:
- Details of the person completing the referral;
- Details of the person subject to the referral, including name, date of birth, address;
- The primary user group or client category of the patient, if known (e.g. learning disability, mental health, dementia, substance misuse, acquired brain injury, physical disability);
- Any communication needs of the adult at risk;
- Harm type(s) suspected;
- Whether the adult at risk is aware of the referral;
- Details of the concern, including as much information as possible about the incident(s), dates, alleged harmer(s), previous concerns, any safeguarding activity undertaken;
- An overview of the "three-point criteria":
I. In your opinion, is the adult able to safeguard their own wellbeing, property, rights or other interests?
II. In your opinion, is the adult at risk of harm?
III. In your opinion, is the adult affected by disability, mental disorder, illness or physical or mental infirmity, making them more vulnerable to harm?;
- Confirmation of whether police have been contacted if a crime is suspected;
- Any relevant relationships, proxy decision makers (guardian or Power of Attorney), and/or caring responsibilities of the adult;
Please note that this list is not exhaustive and a referral should still be made if you believe that the criteria are met for referral, even if lacking some of the information noted above. It is not your responsibility to confirm that the adult meets the three-point criteria; it is enough that you believe them to meet the criteria to warrant an ASP referral. Any information that can be provided at the referral stage will assist the local authority in undertaking adult protection inquiries.
As part of the inquiry process, it is possible that you will be asked to assist the council making the inquiries.
If there is immediate danger to you or the adult at risk, do not hesitate to call 999. You can make a subsequent Adult Protection referral, if relevant.
Referrals – prompt action is vital.
As well as your local contact's details, the Act Against Harm website carries lots of useful information, including how to recognise when an adult may be at risk of harm and examples of the type of support that can be provided once a concern has been reported.
1.
Steps to Take – The "Four Referral Rs"
Recognise – be aware of adult protection issues and how an adult at risk of harm may present. Consider trauma, undue pressure etc., and the adult's ability to safeguard themselves.
Report – where you have an internal adviser for adult protection report the matter to them, discuss with appropriate colleagues the need to make a referral but ensure this does not adversely delay referring.
Refer – Refer the individual and their circumstances through your local adult protection referral process. Where the matter is urgent contact the relevant emergency services without delay.
Record – use the individual's record to note the issues that arose, the circumstances, the decisions made/actions you took, and the rationale for your actions.
If the matter is urgent e.g. there is imminent risk of danger or significant harm has happened please contact the relevant Emergency Service – Police/Fire/Ambulance.
Information - To Share or Not To Share – Checklist
With specific reference to the circumstances of the case, before making a referral, consider:
- Is the sharing justified at this time?
- Does the duty to protect the individual outweigh the duty of confidentiality?
- What are the benefits to the individual of sharing, or the risks of not sharing, information?
- Are there wider risks from sharing or not sharing (to other family members etc.)?
- Are you sharing special category data? (see section below under Data Sharing);
- Are you able to identify a condition for processing from Article 9 UK GDPR that you can you rely on?
- Do you need to identify an additional condition from the DPA 2018? – see section below on special category data;
- Are there relevant exemptions?
- Are there other relevant statutory requirements, legislation or restrictions to consider? e.g. Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000; Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003; Child Protection Guidance 2021; reporting a crime etc.;
- Is there a legal obligation to share? (for example a statutory requirement or a court order)?
- Is there an organisational / in house protocol, e.g. a Data Sharing Agreement?
- Are there other similar, relevant, cases which ought to be considered?
- Is authorisation required within your organisation to make the decision?
- Should legal advice or other guidance be sought? E.g. ICO Helpline.
If you decide a referral is needed, and information is to be shared, consider:
- Has the individual's attorney or guardian, if relevant, been consulted?
- Should any other person be informed ahead of, or after, sharing?
- In terms of consent under UK GDPR see Why is consent important?
- Has the individual been consulted with openness and transparency? If not, reasons should be documented. Note that the controller's fairness and transparency obligations under data protection law must also be referred to
- Are there suspicions that alerting the patient to concerns could place them at greater risk?
- What information should be shared?
- What is fact and what is opinion?
- How should the information be shared / stored?
- Record the decision, actions and reasoning.
- What information was shared and for what purpose.
- Whom it was shared with.
- When it was shared.
- The justification for sharing (responses to the Share or Not To Share Checklist above can be used as a starting point).
- Whether the information was shared with or without the subject's consent.
Do you need the consent of the adult to make a referral?
No. Whilst adults with capacity have the right to consent or otherwise, there may be a lawful basis to share information under the 2007 Act without this consent.
There is a difference between medical consent and data sharing consent. It is important to be open and transparent with the adult, and vital that all decisions and rationale are recorded. Further information around UK GDPR and consent in respect of data sharing can be found here - Why is consent important? | ICO
Why do we need to share adult protection information?
Organisations need to share safeguarding information with the right people at the right time to:
- prevent death or serious harm;
- coordinate effective and efficient responses;
- enable early interventions to prevent the escalation of risk;
- prevent abuse and harm that may increase the need for care and support;
- maintain and improve good practice in safeguarding adults;
- reveal patterns of abuse that were previously undetected and that could identify others at risk of abuse;
- identify low-level concerns that may reveal people at risk of abuse;
- help people to access the right kind of support to reduce risk and promote wellbeing;
- help identify people who may pose a risk to others and, where possible, work to reduce offending behaviour;
- reduce organisational risk and protect reputation.
Where someone is suspected of being an adult at risk of harm, an Adult Support and Protection referral should be made to the council within 24 hours – any delay should be recorded with reasons.
Once you have made a referral this places a duty on the council to make inquiries where they know or believe that an individual may be an adult at risk of harm.
Information Sharing: Legalities and Cooperation
Duty to Cooperate
A number of bodies have a duty to co-operate under the Act (Section 5), e.g. Health Boards and Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Police and Councils. Any information received in the course of an inquiry is treated with the utmost confidence and will not be disclosed to any third parties other than in accordance with the provisions of the Act.
(Section 5) outlines a further number of service providers who contribute to the protection of adults at risk. Bodies named in the Act have unequivocal responsibilities to cooperate with the local authority undertaking ASP inquiries; to notify the council of an adult who may be at risk of harm; and to cooperate with others named. Other organisations who are not specifically named should also cooperate with ASP processes where requested, in order to achieve the best outcome for the individual at risk of harm.
Data Sharing
Data protection law enables organisations and businesses to share personal data securely, fairly and proportionately. The Information Commissioner's Office (the "ICO") has a Data Sharing Code of Practice and the resources available at their Data Sharing Information Hub provide detailed guidance and tools to aid data sharing in compliance with data protection law.
The ICO provide a Step by step guide to data sharing.
There are many misconceptions and fears around data sharing, and the ICO have a helpful page exploring these at Data sharing myths busted.
Forward planning for sharing information
It is strongly recommended that organisations take the time to consider all of the scenarios in which they may need to share data about vulnerable adults in their care and associated third parties. Some of this sharing may take place under the Act but other sharing may take place out-with it. Practitioners should be clear about whether they are a data controller, joint controller or processor for the personal data that they intend to share. A data controller has the responsibility of deciding how personal data is processed - they are the main decision-makers and exercise overall control over the purposes and means of the processing of personal data. Both a council and the person making the referral are likely to be controllers. The data subjects will be the adults to whom the information relates, and about whom the enquiry is being made/whose records are being examined.
Where data sharing is a regular occurrence, between organisations, there should be Data Sharing Agreements (DSAs), informed by Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), which will help to ensure that data sharing is carried out in compliance with the law.
The ICO recommend that as a first step you carry out a DPIA, even if you are not legally obliged to. Carrying out a DPIA is an example of best practice, allowing you to build in openness and transparency of ASP processes.
A DPIA will help you assess the risks in your planned data sharing and determine whether you need to introduce any safeguards.
It will assist you to assess those considerations, and document them. Having a DPIA in place will help to provide reassurance to both yourselves and those whose data you plan to share.
It is also recommended that organisations work with their local Adult Support and Protection Committee to plan for data sharing and develop local processes and templates etc. to reduce duplication and promote consistency. Some organisations may wish to develop processes and templates collectively, perhaps via a representative on the Adult Protection Committee, if applicable.
Data Sharing in Emergency Situations
Organisations can also carry out forward planning for emergency situations. In particular, organisations and practitioners should be confident that relevant personal information can be shared lawfully if it is to protect someone from serious harm, including safeguarding within a medical context. ICO guidance on Data sharing in an urgent situation or in an emergency emphasises that in an emergency, practitioners should go ahead and share data as is necessary and proportionate. It also advises what may constitute an emergency and that organisations should to plan ahead for such circumstances, i.e. consider training staff, consider DPIAs, assess the types of data that might be shared etc.
The key point is that the UK GDPR and the DPA 2018 do not prevent you from sharing personal data where it is appropriate to do so, and you have clear documented records to support your actions.
The ICO has a section on data sharing in an urgent situation or in an emergency in the Data Sharing Code of Practice.
The Code sets out that an emergency includes:
- preventing serious physical harm to a person;
- preventing loss of human life;
- protection of public health;
- safeguarding vulnerable adults or children.
In these situations, it might be more harmful not to share data than to share it. It is strongly recommended that controllers plan ahead for urgent or emergency situations as far as possible. Controllers should consider what data sharing might need to take place, what data should be shared and how this can be done in compliance with the law. This may involve preparing DPIAs and implementing DSAs to cover emergency situations which can include the relevant lawful bases and any conditions for processing as well what is likely to be necessary and proportionate in the context of the sharing. In an urgent or emergency situation, decisions have to be made rapidly and it can be difficult to make sound judgements about whether to share information. Spending time forward planning is key.
Special Category Data
What is special category data? This is personal data that needs more protection because it is sensitive and may affect an individual's rights and freedoms. This means data which:
- reveals racial or ethnic origin;
- reveals political opinions;
- reveals religious or philosophical beliefs;
- reveals trade union membership;
- is genetic data;
- is biometric data;
- is concerning an individual's health;
- is concerning an individual's sexual orientation or activity.
If you process special category data you must keep records, including documenting the categories of data. This does not include personal data about criminal allegations, proceedings or convictions, as separate rules apply (see below).
In order to lawfully process special category data you must identify a lawful basis for processing data, under Article 6 of the UK GDPR and a separate condition for processing under Article 9. These do not have to be linked.
Where Criminal Offence data , including data relating to alleged offences and to victims, is being processed, official authority or an additional condition under Article 10 of the UK GDPR is required. The Data Protection Act 2018 contains specific legal gateways for processing special category and criminal offence data for safeguarding purposes, namely those at Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 2, Paragraphs 18 (Safeguarding of children and of individuals at risk) and Paragraph 19 (Safeguarding of economic well-being of certain individuals).
Exemptions
The UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 set out guidance on exemptions
from some of the rights and obligations in some circumstances. You should not routinely rely on exemptions; you should consider them on a case-by-case basis.
How do exemptions work?
Whether or not you can rely on an exemption generally depends on your purposes for processing personal data. If an exemption applies, you may not have to comply with all the usual rights and obligations.
Some exemptions apply simply because you have a particular purpose.
However, others only apply to the extent that complying with the UK GDPR would:
- be likely to prejudice your purpose (e.g. have a damaging or detrimental effect on what you are doing); or
- prevent or seriously impair you from processing personal data in a way that is required or necessary for your purpose.
You should justify and document your reasons for relying on an exemption.
If no exemption covers what you do with personal data, you need to comply with the UK GDPR as normal.
Lawful Basis – resources and case studies
The ICO have a Lawful basis interactive guidance tool to help organisations determine the appropriate lawful basis for their data sharing, along with lawful basis resources , including slide presentations (lawful-basis-presentation), to refer to.
For processing to be lawful under the UK GDPR, controllers must identify (and document) a lawful basis for the processing.
The basis of consent is only one of six lawful bases and the UK GDPR sets a high standard for controllers to demonstrate that the conditions required for consent have been met. Thus, in this context, consent is unlikely to be an appropriate lawful basis for adult protection purposes, due to the perceived power imbalance between client and practitioner. However both Public Task and Legal Obligation would be more appropriate - through each link you will find detailed explanations and examples where each basis is appropriate. There are also a number of case studies showing different approaches to data sharing here: Case studies | ICO and here: Annex C: case studies | ICO.
Relying on a lawful basis other than consent does not prevent practitioners seeking the adult's input or views and being transparent about the sharing, indeed it is an important component of a controller's fairness and transparency obligations under data protection law.
Practitioners should, in advance of potential need, determine and document which lawful basis they can rely on in different scenarios. This should be done in consultation with their Data Protection Officer where available. | https://www.gov.scot/publications/adult-support-protection-scotland-act-2007-code-practice-3/pages/5/ |
ACC's member companies are joining the fight against COVID 19.
ACC is investing in research to improve understanding of how chemicals impact health and the environment.
The Chemical Products and Technology Division (CPTD) represents more than 80 self-funded, chemical-specific groups focused on the business of chemistry.
View activities underway by the chemical industry and to help provide resources to address and fight the impacts of COVID-19.
View the list of the American Chemistry Council's main media contacts.
The COVID-19 pandemic and recent election have strained our society and economy in ways not previously seen, so it is important for us to recognize positive stories and people who are doing their part to help our country and the world become safer, cleaner and healthier.
A blog of the American Chemistry Council: driving innovation, creating jobs, and enhancing safety.
EndocrineScience.org: Science, policy, news and analysis all under one roof.
The Center represents a premier scientific, technical, and advocacy resource for the chemical industry on endocrine issues.
Interview on endocrine active substances with Anthony Hardy, Chair of EFSA's Scientific Committee.
Kathryn St. John(202) 249-6513
The endocrine system is the collection of glands that produce hormones that help regulate many functions of the human body. Some natural and man-made chemicals can and do interact with the endocrine system, or are “endocrine-active.”
In some cases, interaction between the endocrine system and substances that are endocrine-active is harmless: the substances lack sufficient potency or exposures may be so low that no effects occur at all; in other cases the body naturally adjusts, and the exposure
causes no health effect.
However, some substances under certain exposure scenarios go beyond a simple interaction and can result in adverse health effects—these substances are often referred to as “endocrine disruptors.” An endocrine disruptor is a natural or manmade substance, external
to the body, that evidence shows directly alters the function of the endocrine system, and consequently causes negative health impacts that are confirmed through thorough scientific study.
Governments around the globe are analyzing how to best study and test for potential effects of chemicals on the endocrine system and determine if certain exposures to specific chemicals are cause for concern.
In the United States, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program is a science-based endocrine screening and testing program focused on protecting public health and the environment. EPA uses high quality, validated screening assays and test methods to determine which substances have the potential to interact with the endocrine system. Substances with such potential may then be further evaluated by EPA to determine whether adverse effects can occur and what exposures might trigger such responses.
Chemicals that are found to cause adverse effects will be subjected by EPA to a comprehensive risk assessment, so researchers can understand the potential for exposure to the chemical and the likelihood of harm under real-life scenarios.
This science-based risk assessment helps scientists determine the difference between the levels of exposure that can produce adverse effects, and the typical exposure levels experienced by humans and wildlife. EPA would then determine if this safety standard is appropriate to protect public health and the environment, including groups that might be particularly sensitive, or if limiting certain uses of the chemical should be considered.
» ACC Principles for
Identifying Endocrine-Active and Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals
Through the efforts of governments, academia and industry, considerable progress has been made to develop methods, tests and data that could help answer questions about endocrine active and endocrine disrupting chemicals. As the science is refined and improved, certain
principles should be incorporated into testing programs to ensure that results are reliable and relevant to regulators and the public:
Click here to learn more about this exciting opportunity.
The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act updated TSCA to protect Americans' health and our environment, and supports economic growth and manufacturing in the U.S.
Graphic illustrates chemical review and regulatory process under the updated TSCA.
Benchmarks for generating more accurate and useful information for managing chemicals. | https://www.americanchemistry.com/endocrine/ |
The Office of the Chief Secretary
The Office of the Chief Secretary within the Cabinet Office plays a central role in the work of the Isle of Man Government, co-ordinating its corporate policies and managing its international relationships.
In a changing, highly competitive and globalised world, these are aspects of Government that are increasingly important to the Island and its people.
The Office contributes to the good government of the Isle of Man by providing professional advice and services to the Chief Minister, the Council of Ministers and to His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor.
The Office also takes a leading role in helping to promote further economic development and in protecting our quality of life and the Island’s constitutional position.
It is responsible for:
- building solid and positive relations with international decision makers and opinion leaders
- creating greater awareness of the Island’s history, economy and culture
- ensuring that immigration, e-borders and security policies continue to serve the best interests of the residents of the Isle of Man
The mission of the Office, in short, is to support good government and protect the international reputation of the Isle of Man, so that all residents may feel they have the freedom to flourish. | https://www.gov.im/about-the-government/departments/cabinet-office/the-office-of-the-chief-secretary/ |
Disabled individuals are afforded special rights and benefits by many national and international laws. One encompassing treaty by the United Nations, known as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, directs nations to adopt and implement many laws to protect the equality and rights of the world’s nearly six-hundred and fifty million disabled persons. This United Nations treaty is aimed at creating an environment which supports equal opportunities in employment, living, education, culture, politics, marriage, property, athletics, recreation, and health benefits for all disabled individuals in all participating countries.
In the United States, many laws and governmental actions are implemented to protect and aid the disabled citizens of the U.S. The Social Security Administration is committed to aid all disabled and elderly citizens by providing financial support and services to uphold their standard of living. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is frequently cited as instrumental in protecting the employment rights of disabled persons, in all aspects including: hiring, job education, reasonable accommodations, equal pay, and advancement of disabled persons. All places of business and service centers must make reasonable accommodations for the employment, as well as the service and sales, of disabled persons.
In defining the means and standards of an amount of reasonable accommodation for disabled persons, the Americans with Disabilities Act uses several standards to define this process. Reasonable accommodations are intended to be implemented in order for a disabled individual to meet the integral functions of a specific position. Some reasonable accommodations may involve altering the training process to accurately train any person with a disability, modifying the work schedule or work capacity of disabled individuals, allowing the use of aid devices for disabled individuals, and reforming a business venue to make it accessible and easy to maneuver for a disabled person to function and do his/her job.
The World Health Organization uses The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health system in classifying the level or form of disability in each individual. The World Health Organization also uses this system to determine which areas of body functions and structures may be impaired in an individual. These areas include basic living functions, social, community, civic disorders, communication disabilities, mobility hindrances, interpersonal relations and interactions, major life disadvantages, domestic living problems, and inability to administer self-care.
Knowing your rights as a disabled individual is vital to ensure they are being respected. Although one may suffer from varying forms of disability, the opportunity to live a normal and reasonable quality of life is the right of all persons.
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Need more information on this topic. Click on the link below. | https://courts.info/disability/ |
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, is often controversial among researchers and misunderstood by the public. Some researchers describe DID as borderline personality disorder or a schizophrenic spectrum disorder while others explain that it is entirely iatrogenic in nature (Brand et al., 2016; Piper & Merskey, 2004). Public conception of the disorder centers upon the portrayals expressed in movies such as Sybil or The Three Faces of Eve. In this paper, I utilize contemporary research supporting the DSM-5 diagnosis of DID and describe: 1) what the disorder is, 2) the etiology that leads to it, and 3) current treatments demonstrating therapeutic efficacy.
Introduction
It is estimated that 1.5% of the population and 5% of psychiatric hospitalized patients meet DSM-5 criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID, and 12-28% of all dissociative disease disorder spectrum outpatients can be diagnosed with DID (Brand et al, 2016; Gentile, Dillon, & Gillig, 2013; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017). It is also estimated that these numbers may be low, resulting from diagnostic difficulties and few practitioners having competence in DID etiology, assessment, and treatment (Brand et al, 2016; Gentile, Dillon, & Gillig, 2013; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017).
There is extensive misinformation about what DID is scientifically and anecdotally. Those who suffer from DID are predominantly survivors of major traumatic episodes during childhood. Dissociation is an effective survival mechanism, protecting the individual from extensive traumatic abuse during childhood by preventing overwhelming emotional flooding; however, dissociation becomes a problematic disorder as the traumatized child enters into adolescence and adulthood. The therapeutic goal of working with DID patients is always integration of the separated ego states (ISSDT, 2011). In this paper, I use contemporary research to define DID, describe its etiology, and present a common treatment path. Further research is clearly needed in biopsychosocial etiology and therapeutic variation and efficacy.
What is Dissociative Identity Disorder?
DID is more commonly known in the mass media and among laypersons as multiple personality disorder. DSM-5 categorizes DID as the end of the dissociative disorders continuum, involving the most severely separated individual (APA, 2013; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017). DSM-5 criteria is based on disruption of identity, involving two or more distinct personality states and involves, “marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning” (APA, 2013, p. 292)
90% of patients with DID experienced chronic physical or sexual trauma when children usually at the hands of an attachment figure through betrayal trauma (APA, 2013; Brand et al., 2016; Sar, 2016; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017; Schimmenti & Vincenzo, 2016; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017). When the abuse is occurring, the consciousness of the child enduring the pain separates, or dissociates. This dissociated distinct consciousness is referred to as the alter and remains repressed to protect the self from the harm of the trauma; however, it also prevents the alter from progressing through further applicable developmental stages of normal childhood, (Barrouillet, 2015; Knight, 2017; Schimmenti & Vincenzo, 2016). Essentially, the mind is unable to maintain a unified sense of self across discreet behavioral states and dissociates as a way to escape the traumatic episodes – it is a survival mechanism, which is a common method for handling trauma when there is no means of escape (Dorahy, 2016; Putnam, 2016; Sar, 2016). In childhood, narrative thought processing has not formalized as the amygdala, housing emotional and emotional memory control, develops faster than the prefrontal cortex (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016). As a result, it is not cognitively possible for the child to process the trauma with reason and executive logic, so the emotion of the trauma is simply segregated and stored, forming the separate alter state.
Although dissociation is effective in protecting the young child, as the person matures and proceeds through other development stages and into adulthood, the alter, housing the traumatic memory, does not progress – it is not capable of handling “adult” emotions and situations, which can lead to multiple impairments and comorbidities when a stressful event triggers the recall of the alter’s associated emotions and memories(Barrouillet, 2015; Knight, 2017; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017; Schimmenti & Vincenzo, 2016; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017). Additionally, with limited developmental, cognitive, and neurobiological capabilities, most children blame themselves for the abuse, believing that it would not occur if they were not at fault (Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017). This leads to a lifetime of additional personality disorders and self-destructive behaviors, as often there is one alter whose role is to punish the victim for causing the abuse (Putnam, 2016; Sar, 2016; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017).
Separate alters are still a part of the central personality, referred to as the host, sharing the same physiological body, neurobiochemical processes, and external life dynamics. Alters differ from the host and each other in that they are compartmentalized aspects of the self. The alters have separate systems of functioning, including: a unique first person perspective; discreet identities; subjective experiences, memories, emotions, and sense of agency; different names; different ages; and individualized beliefs while simultaneously co-existing within the self (Gentile, Dillon, & Kruger, 2013; Putnam, 2016; Sar, 2016; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017).
Frequent comorbidities often make diagnosis of DID difficult, especially considering that the host ego state of most DID patient does not present during dissociated states and separate alters do not reveal themselves for some time – alters exist for protection, so they feel threatened by therapy and do not easily reveal themselves (APA, 2013; Nijenhuis, 2015). The host commonly presents for related symptoms, including: amnesia, depression, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress, personality disorders, eating disorders, sleep disorders, somatic symptom disorders, and obsessive compulsive disorders (APA, 2013; Gentile, Dillon, & Gillig, 2013). Additionally, over 70% of DID patients have attempted suicide (APA, 2013). Although difficult to diagnose, particularly with clinicians without specific training and experience, DID is an empirically robust chronic psychological disorder based on neurobiological, cognitive, and interpersonal non-integration as a response to traumatic stress (Dorahy, 2016; Gentile, Dillon, & Gillig, 2013; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017).
There has been considerable controversy in research regarding whether DID is completely iatrogenic, or fantasy based, versus a valid disorder, resulting from a trauma model (Brand et al., 2016). Iatrogenic factors do occur through misguided therapists providing suggestions and patients feigning the disorder; however, proper assessment (which is beyond the scope of this paper) of DID yields high dissociation scores in patients who are accurately diagnosed with DID (APA, 2013; Brand et al, 2016). Additionally, patients who fake DID tend to show “pride” in their disorder, lack the comorbidities common to DID patients, and report stereo-typed symptoms as described in the media (i.e., distinct “bad” and “good” alters in the hopes of making some type of gain such as avoiding criminal charges or consequences of other negative behavior), whereas true DID patients are tremendously ashamed of DID, have often attempted suicide, and include alters that are not stereotyped in character (APA, 2013; Brand et al., 2016). Research has indicated consensus that DID is not post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, or schizophrenia (Brand et al., 2016; Laddis, Dell, & Korzekwa, 2017; Sar, 2016; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017). As Sar, Dorahy, and Kruger stated, “DID as a diagnostic entity cannot be explained as a phenomenon created by iatrogenic influences, suggestibility, malingering, or social role-taking” (2017). Finally, Brand et al., (2016) stated, “Despite the concerns of fantasy model theorists that DID is iatrogenically created, no study in any clinical population supports the fantasy model of dissociation.”
Etiology of Dissociative Identity Disorder
The etiology of DID is complicated, multi-faceted, and most always stems from chronic traumatic childhood episodes usually at the hands of attachment figures. To describe the etiology of DID, a biopsychosocial model will be used (Fava & Sonino, 2017; Wade & Halligan, 2017).
Biological
Trauma generated neurobiological responses, genetic factors, and epigenetic causes are likely associated with DID; however, they have not been researched adequately (Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017). DID patients have been found to exhibit disruptions in encoding memories, which impedes memory recall (Sar, Darohy, & Kruger, 2017). Additionally, PET/MRI scans have demonstrated variations in brain activity and activation and inhibition in certain brain regions, especially in the hippocampus with differing personality states and in comparisons with control groups (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017; Sheehan, Sewall, & Thurber, 2005). Finally, chronic childhood stress from trauma results in permanent structural changes to the brain, which impedes normal processing of memories and emotions (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016).
Psychological
Trauma is a factor in 90% of patients with DID, and DID patients exhibit the highest rate of childhood psychological trauma of any other disorder (APA, 2013; Sar, 2011). As previously discussed, alters form when a part of consciousness dissociates to protect the person from the pain of the recurring trauma from an attachment figure. Using a psychodynamic theoretical perspective, this can be construed as a form of repression that blocks the traumatic events from which the child can’t escape (Schimmenti & Vincenzo, 2016). This protects the child, as the memories are no longer available to consciousness. These repressed memories are not lost – they are hidden, and each independent identity has its own unique set of memories that are not accessible to the other alters or even to the host itself (Schimmenti & Vincenzo, 2016).
Sociocultural
Iatrogenic factors are one consideration in DID, which have not been supported in recent research (as previously discussed). DID is more prevalent in women as adults, but as children, it affects boys and girls equally (APA, 2013). As adults, women are more likely to seek treatment and men are more likely to deny alters, leading researchers to believe that the prevalence of DID for men and women is nearly equal at 1.6% for women and 1.4% for men (APA, 2013). Dissociative trance states are used in some cultures and religious practices, but these must be distinguished from a DID diagnosis (APA, 2013). There is a negative societal stigma that DID does not exist – the stigma leads most DID patients to maintain and guard feelings of isolation, loneliness, and alienation, which can be a barrier to seeking treatment and increase suicidal ideation (Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017). Most troubling is that research has shown most abuse encountered by DID survivors is betrayal trauma, which is trauma perpetrated by someone upon whom the victim depends (Freyd, 1994). These perpetrators present positive, caring, and nurturing sides that unpredictably turn severely abusive. This results in conflicted feelings for the child who is developmentally unable to process such behavior, which provides further traumatization, leading to additional dissociation as part of the self desperately wants to form the attachment with the positive side of the attachment figure (Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017). The result is a child with compartmentalized traumatic cognitions and feelings too complicated for a child to understand, including: terror, betrayal, love, and shame (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016; Nijenhuis, 2015).
Treatment for Dissociative Identity Disorder
The goal of treating DID patients is to enable the alters to integrate (Brand et al., 2012; Brand et al, 2013; Briere & Scott 2015; Myrick et al., 2015; Myrick et al., 2017; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017). Integration can occur in two ways. First, the alters can assimilate, blending together into one sense of self. Second, the alters can resolve to remain separate but work together to create a functional sense of self. Both methods have been found to improve the patient’s life, but it is important for the method of integration to be left to the host and alters to decide together (Brand et al., 2013; Brand et al., 2012; Briere & Scott 2015; Myrick et al., Myrick et al., 2017; 2015; Sar, 2016). Contemporary treatment has been found effective and follows a three step process initially described in a 2012 landmark study of DID therapists’ practices (Brand et al.) and supported by other researchers with a fourth step later added (Briere & Scott 2015; Loyd, 2016; Myrick et al., 2015; Myrick et al., 2017; Nijenhuis, 2015; Putnam, 2016; Sar, 2016; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017):
- Stabilize – Ensure the patient is safe from danger from oneself and to others; teach the patient emotional regulation; provide skills training for controlling impulses; and help alters begin developing interpersonal effectiveness.
- Resolve traumatic experiences – Use exposure or abreaction, depending on therapeutic style. It is not necessary or even beneficial to relive traumatic experiences. It is more important for the alters to come to terms with unchecked emotions and phobias related to events that remind the patient of the original trauma.
- Integrate – Assist the host and alters to work together to create one sense of self. This can occur through assimilation or resolution of alters.
- Post-integration – Teach the unified individual how to handle the integrated mind state in life, and work with the individual to develop a life purpose, which provides direction and meaning.
A diverse therapeutic approach, utilizing a trauma model for treating symptoms of DID has been found effective (Briere & Scott 2015; Knight, 2017; Loyd, 2016; Myrick et al., 2017). During these treatments, consensus is that the therapist should engage the different alters when they present, but not seek them out as that could push them further in to reclusion (Brand et al., 2012; Brand et al., 2013). As Gentile, Dillon, and Kruger (2013) stated:
“The focus of the intervention is to listen, empathize, and provide validation and reassurance that the patient is currently safe, particularly when the emerging “alter” represents a person who is much younger than the patient’s current age. In addition, the patient (as the “alter”) must be provided the opportunity to tell her story and be heard and supported.”
There are no medications specifically approved for treating DID and using medications can actually complicate the situation if DID is not recognized or misdiagnosed as another disorder; however, medications can be used to treat comorbid conditions (Briere & Scott 2015; Gentile, Dillon, & Kruger, 2013). The majority of DID patients are suicidal, resulting from depression, and as a result, anti-depressants targeting Serotonin have been found effective in alleviating depressive symptoms in some DID patients as have some anti-psychotics targeting Dopamine (Gentile, Dillon, & Kruger, 2013; Myrick et al., 2015; Myrick et al., 2017). But the most significant improvements are with non-medicinal therapeutic approaches.
In dealing with the early traumatic events, some researchers prefer the psychodynamic approach of abreaction and some advocate for cognitive exposure therapy; however, there does not appear to be a more effective style (Brand et al., 2012; Brand et al., 2016; Knight, 2017; Loyd, 2016). Although more recent reports have indicated that while abreaction allows for a cathartic expressing of emotions, it does not provide a cure in-and-of-itself, and as a result, CBT shows more promising therapeutic results (Schimelpfening, 2018).
The goal of therapy is integration, or synthesis, of the alters, which requires the psychologist to work with the host and alters to resolve the emotions associated with the traumatic events that each alter uniquely and individually compartmentalizes often out of the awareness of the host (Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017). It is important to note that this does not mean that the psychologist should have the patient relive all traumatic events – in fact, this can re-traumatize the host and increase the protectionism of the alters, producing a counterproductive effect to a successful therapeutic outcome (Brand et al, 2012; Gentile, Dillon, & Kruger, 2013; Loyd, 2016).
One problem DID patients encounter is that the alters were quite effective in dealing with trauma when it occurred as a child, but as adults, they can’t process stress and emotions of normal adult life due to their developmental stagnation. It is important to provide skills to help DID patients learn to analyze thoughts and behaviors for rationality; control impulsivity; manage stress; mitigate anger (from their protective anger driven alters); take better care of themselves through exercise, nutrition, and sleep; deal with intrapersonal alter conflict; improve interpersonal communication; and gain control over their choices about how they react to events. Techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy, rational emotive behavioral therapy, mindfulness practices, family systems, guided synthesis, EMDR, and Adlerian therapy have been found effective in addressing these issues with flexibility and therapeutic relationship being most essential for stable treatment (Briere & Scott 2015; Loyd, 2016; Myrick et al., 2015; Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis, 2017).
Finally, it is important to consider cultural, religious, and spiritual factors that could be contributing to the dissociated personalities. DSM-5 considers possession and trance states to be criteria of DID, which are frequently associated with cultural and religious practices (APA, 2013; Loyd, 2016; Sar, 2016; Sar, Dorahy, & Kruger, 2017). This aspect of DID is beyond the scope of this paper.
It is important to note that countertransference is a pressing concern for the therapist to consider, as Van der Hart, Steele, & Nijenhuis stated (2017):
“First, they [psychologists] may develop undue fascination with the content of, and a counter-phobic attitude toward the patient’s traumatic memories. This may result in undue and premature focus on traumatic memories, and on their content, and neglect of the development of essential daily life and emotional skills and the process of therapy. Second, therapists may over-identify with the patient’s lack of realization, colluding to avoid dealing with traumatic memories at all.”
Conclusion
In this paper, I have used recent research to describe what DID is, how it is caused, and how it is most effectively treated. Secondarily, I have tried to dispel the myths and misinformation that are present regarding patients who suffer from DID. These people are survivors of prolonged trauma that occurred from attachment figures at vulnerable cognitive, emotional, and neurobiochemical developmental stages. As a result, they are not able to cope effectively in society with their disorder. Treatments have proven effective in helping patients to integrate their alters and live improved lives. I have only briefly covered the surface of DID and the many facets of the disorder. Additionally, the need for further research into this disorder is apparent, particularly in the areas of psychosocialneurobiological etiology and treatment efficacy.
I find DID to be fascinating clinically but taxing personally, as it is devastating to the people who have suffered with misdiagnosis, ineffective medication treatments, life-long stigma, and accusations of being susceptible to misguided therapists through iatrogenic means. Their condition is well supported in the research and resulted from horrific abuse – DID is a psychosocioneurobiological mechanism that has allowed these people to survive.
References
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Barrouillet, P.N. (2015). Theories of cognitive development: From Piaget to today. Development Review, 38, 1-12.
Brand BL, McNary SW, Myrick AC, et al. (2013). A longitudinal naturalistic study of patients with dissociative disorders treated by community clinicians. Psychological Trauma, 5, 301–8.
Brand, B.L., Myrick, A., Loewenstein, R.J., Classen, C.C., Lanius, R., McNary, S.W., Pain, C., & Putnam, F.W. (2012). A survey of practices and recommended treatment interventions among expert therapists treating patients with dissociative identify disorder and dissociative disorder not otherwise specified. Psychological Trauma, 4(5), 490-500.
Brand, B.L., Sar, V., Stavropoulos, P., Krüger, C., Korzekwa, M., Martínez-Taboas, A., Middleton, W. (2016). Separating fact from fiction: An empirical examination of six myths about dissociative identity disorder. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 24(4), 257-270.
Briere, J. N., & Scott, C. (2015). Principles of trauma therapy: A guide to symptoms, evaluation, and treatment (2nd ed., DSM-5 update). Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc.
Capuzzi, D., & Stauffer, M.D. (2016). Human growth and development across the lifespan: Applications for counselors. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons.
Dorahy, M.J., Middleton, W., Seager, L., Williams, M., & Chambers, R. (2016). Child abuse and neglect in complex dissociative disorder, abuse-related chronic PTSD and mixed psychiatric samples. Journal of Trauma Dissociation, 17(2), 223-236.
Fava, G.A., & Sonino, N. (2017). From the lessons of George Engel to current knowledge: The biopsychosocial model 40 years later. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 86, 257-259.
Freyd, J.J. (1994). Betrayal trauma: Traumatic amnesia as an adaptive response to childhood abuse. Ethics of Behavior, 4(4), 307–329.
Gentile, J.P., Dillon, K.S., & Gillig, P.M. (2013). Psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for patients with dissociative identity disorder. Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, 10(2), 22-29.
International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). (2011). Guidelines for treating dissociative identity disorder in adults, third revision. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 12(1), 115-187.
Knight, Z.G. (2017). A proposed model of psychodynamic psychotherapy linked to Erik Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 2, 1-12
Laddis, A., Dell, P.F., & Korzekwa, M. (2017). Comparing the symptoms and mechanisms of “dissociation” in dissociative identity disorder and borderline personality disorder. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 18(2), 139-173.
Lloyd, M. (2016). Reducing the cost of dissociative identity disorder: Measuring the effectiveness of specialized treatment by frequency of contacts with mental health services. Journal of Trauma Dissociation, 17(3), 362-370.
Myrick, A.C., Chasson, G.S., Lanius, R.A., Leventhal, B., & Brand, B.L. (2015). Treatment of Complex Dissociative Disorders: A Comparison of Interventions Reported by Community Therapists versus Those Recommended by Experts. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 16(1), 51-67.
Myrick, A.C., Webermann, A.R., Loewenstein, R.J., Lanius, R., Putnam F.W., & Brand, B.L. (2017) Six-year follow-up of the treatment of patients with dissociative disorders study. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 8(1), DOI: 10.1080/20008198.2017.1344080
Nijenhuis, E.R.S. (2015). The trinity of trauma: Ignorance, fragility, and control: The evolving concept of trauma/the concept and facts of dissociation in trauma. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Piper, A., & Merskey, H. (2004). The persistence of folly: Critical examination of dissociative identity disorder. Part II. The defence and decline of multiple personality or dissociative identity disorder. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 49(10), 678-83.
Putnam, F.W. (2016). The Way We Are. How States of Mind Influence Our Identities, Personality and Potential for Change. Los Gatos, CA: International Psychoanalytic Books.
Şar, V. (2016). Parallel-distinct structures of internal world and external reality: Disavowing and re-claiming the self-identity in the aftermath of trauma-generated dissociation. Frontiers of Psychology, 8, 216.
Sar, V., Dorahy, M.J., & Kruger, C. (2017). Revisiting the etiological aspects of dissociative identity disorder: A biopsychosocial perspective. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 10, 137-146.
Schimelpfening, N. (2018). How abreaction relates to dissociation and trauma. Verywell Mind. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-abreaction-1065382
Schimmenti, A., & Vincenzo, C. (2016). Linking the overwhelming with the unbearable: Developmental trauma, dissociation, and the disconnected self. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 33(1), 106-128.
Van der Hart, O., Steele, K., Nijenhuis, E. (2017). The treatment of traumatic memories in patients with complex dissociative disorders. European Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 1, 25-35.
Wade, D.T., & Halligan, P.W. (2017). The biopsychosocial model of illness: A model whose time has come. Clinical Rehabilitation, 31(8), 995-1004. | https://community.thriveglobal.com/dissociative-identity-disorder-misunderstood-by-many-except-those-who-suffer-from-it/ |
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Currently, the major recognized biochemical functions of members of the large superfamily of P450 hemoproteins (referred to commonly as the cytochromes P450) include catalyses of the monooxygenations of a wide variety of endogenous and exogenous lipophilic chemicals. Substrates that have attracted the greatest attention thus far are steroids, fatty acids, eicosanoids, retinoids, other endogenous lipids, therapeutic agents, pesticides/herbicides, chemical carcinogens, industrial chemicals and other environmental contaminants and toxic xenobiotic organics of low molecular weight. Commonly, monooxygenation of such substrates results in the generation of metabolites capable of producing biological effects that are profoundly different (qualitatively as well as quantitatively) from those elicitable by the parent chemical per se. P45OXIX-dependent conversion of testosterone to estradiol-17 beta provides a dramatic example. Thus, these hemoproteins serve as extremely important but, as yet, largely unpredictable regulators of the biological effects producible by endobiotics as well as by xenobiotics. Current focus is on the identification and acquisition of sequence information on hereto unidentified and/or uncharacterized P450 isoforms and ascertainment of the specific functions of specific, individual isoforms. The regulation of quantities and activities of such isoforms in specific species/tissues, understandably, is also of great current interest. This interest has been further intensified by recent results indicating that substrate specificity associated with one P450 may not be the same as the corresponding isoform derived from a different animal species. Recent technological advances promise to greatly hasten the acquisition of knowledge concerning the functions of these important hemoproteins.
National Center for
Biotechnology Information, | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2263165?dopt=Abstract |
Electric utilities must modernize to serve new economic and policy objectives, including managing an increasingly distributed and decarbonized power system. A fundamental question for this future system is: What is the appropriate scope for utility functions (and associated earnings opportunities) versus those that should be provided by a competitive marketplace?
The scope of utility functions can be either expansive or limited. Meanwhile, the total size of economic activity in the electricity sector may be larger in the future, providing growth opportunities even where proportional market share is less.
Countless individual decisions and compromises will ultimately determine the course of the utility. At every turn, utility program designers and regulators can evaluate proposals against key variables.
Based on the path being pursued and market conditions for specific programs, the best design can move left or right for each variable. Experience shows that the utility business cannot be remade overnight. But this is no excuse to not get started. Delaying action is to accept path dependency on the legacy business and regulatory model, which was built for different infrastructure investments and operating structures than where the grid needs to go today. | https://rmi.org/insight/reimagining-the-utility/ |
Relationships Between IP Qualified Early Memories and Specific Coping Mechanisms in Hungarian University Students
Edit Ferencz Ph.D.,
University of Veszprem, Dept.of Paedagogical Psychology,
Veszprem, Hungary
Janos Csorba M.D., Ph.D.,
Univ.of Sciences „Eotvos Lorant”,
Faculty of Special Education, Dept. of Peadagogical Psychology,
Budapest
In the following lecture I would like to give a condensed and brief summary of the consequences of the work carried out by my collague Edit Ferencz’ Ph.D.This work is about the relationships between memories from early life and some characteristic coping mechanisms of the individuum.Her contribution in approaching the inter-relationships of recalled memories and individual coping mechanisms is unique from three aspects, a) that early memories are regarded as displays of individual life style identified by the IP interview method of Victor Louis, b) the coping attitudes of the subjects are measured by means of a new Psychological Immune System test used by a leading Hungarian psychologist Olah.This test is used with accordance to the modern transactionalistic theory of Richard Lazarus about coping dimensions, and finally, c) coping attitudes are analyzed per memory elements as they emerged in memory vignettes and identified by means of the IP interview.
Alfred Adler is presumably a remarkable forerunner of the modern coping theory as his worldview and work on clarifying one’s life style has several implications related to the coping research. Courageous vs. threatened life style of pupils, compensative work of psychical structure to overcome somatic and psychical deficits, transgression, social interest etc. are fragments from his classical work towards the development of a future coping theory.Up until now there are only a few studies dealing with the classical theory of Adler from a modern coping perspective. To understand the dimensionalised approach of Lazarus, let us have a short look on the first slide. Lazarus established 15 separate scales of the Psychological Immune System, each representing a discrete domain of mechanism or of effort individuals attempt to use in order to fight the consequences of stressful situations that have exceeded the resources of the person. The term „optimism” does not need clarification, Self-coherence means that one requires understanding of him/herself and that external events occur for him/her as they expect. Self-control means, that one really controls his/her life further, „respect of Self” focuses on that, that one likes to honour, care, manage and nurture him/herself physically and spiritually. The coping potential dimensions have 3 branches, the resource management encompasses the monitoring, mobilising and the creating of internal resources, that is, we are sensitive and flexible towards changes in the surrounding world, we are able to actualise our learned abilities and we have creativity to overcome stressful situations. The column social competence refers to abilities to monitor, mobilise and create external, social resources in order to fight new demands. Finally the Self-regulation factor covers such qualities as to remain in synchrony with and continual tracking of aims in order to control ourselves emotionally, to control our impulsivity and to maintain a high level of frustration tolerance.
On the slide 2. it is easy to read the hypotheses, the aims and the design of the study. The research assumes, that memories refer not only to the Unconscious as Freud had thought originally, but has much to do with the life style of the individual mirroring the functions of their character in conjunction with his/her coping strategies. Lots of differences are expected relating to coping mechanisms if subjects with positive, effective, acquisitive life style are compared with and contrasted by clients having less effective life style characteristics.
144 teacher students were enrolled in the study with the mean age of 23 years. The study process had 3 independent procedures. The procedures were perfected independently, as it was important to avoid the influence of one study phase on another. It was imperative that the expectations of researchers should not have an impact on the production of the subjects. In the first phase students were asked to choose one recalled typical memory containing some important familial or individual events of the subject from his/her early life. In the second phase the memory text was examined with the help of aspects from Victor Louis’ interview method identifying discrete elements and qualifying them as reflecting either positive or negative life style events. Because of time pressure we are not in the position to present the interview method of Louis here to its full extent. Allowing for this 2 groups were created for each comparison. It can be seen on slide 3., five aspects were used in estimating the memory text: Activity of Self, presentation of Self, quality of emotions experienced in memory process, changes of feelings from negative to positive ones and vice versa, and finally, positive or negative qualities attributed to mother and sibling(s) that emerged during the memories. In the third separate process, subjects were investigated using items from the Psychological Immune System test, –3 items referred to each coping dimension scale creating a comparable mean value in each column.
With 2 dropout students, data of 142 subjects were used in the statistical workout. Means of dichotomic variables were compared by means of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Levene homogeneity test of variance. If Levene test was significant, the results of ANOVA had to be rejected.
On the following slides you see the differences in the coping aspects of the 2 groups contrasted by important memory elements. Participants of group I. identified with positive life style characteristics in collected memories were more likely to use (5.slide) successful impulsivity and frustration control, (6.slide) an optimistic attitude to life, to seek contacts for his/her own interest, and to persist in tracking a task. The subjects of the first group were more likely (7.slide) to respect him/herself and to have realistic feelings of control over his/her life. However, related to the management of internal resources, some interesting unexpected results had been found. Subjects of group II. had an increased level (8.slide) in coping factors, such as the skill to mobilise and create some learned or internal abilities and moreover, group II had been more successful in synchronising the subjects to the changes of external demands.
As you see on the slides, we found in 8 scales of 15,that there is a significant difference in more than half of the scale due to the abilities of group I. Commenting the results (9.slide) the number of significant items are less than expected, but the mechanisms found seem specific ones. We need to pay attention to the fact that dream vignettes are too short to place or represent each coping aspect in their full spectrum. It is striking that, the greater the ability for comparisons, frustration tolerance, optimism, and a good ability to make social contacts seem to reflect on the individuals having a vivid and acquisitive life style. Thus, we were able to demonstrate some specific coping mechanisms by contrasting two groups having two different life styles in the comparisons.
Focusing on the mechanisms those group members who have an unfavourable life style preference, it is striking that mobilisation and creation of internal resources and self-syndronization to external aims show us, that these individuals rely primarily on internal resources. These tools do not belong to the scale of social competence. According to the Louis interview we can regard these coping strategies as being of a presumably higher compensatory nature. These subjects may exert efforts to treat possible harm reflected in negative memories towards to mother or siblings. The striking use of such psychological factors may mirror the lack of social contacts in the life of the subject.
Adlerian theory of Life style has been confirmed by the coping theory. It seems wise to combine life style research with coping studies in the future. The investigation of early memories may be a fruitful place of research in order to approach the study of life style as it refers to the attitudes of individuals by avoiding the usual control of consciousness. When viewing the pathways of how the coping strategies influence the memory process we must be careful to make global impressionistic statements. Probably, there are several indirect psychological ways that coping exerts impact on memory functions, significant associations documented here do not mean direct contacts between the level of coping and memory process. | https://www.iaipwebsite.org/nuova_pagina_25.htm |
21 tips to be a good father and educate well
Raising a child is never easy. Being a father means taking into account a large number of aspects that can affect how our progeny can develop.
Although most parents do the best they can and in most cases they end up doing well, it is common to find people with doubts about what they should do to exercise their role in the best possible way.
Educate well: a challenge for parents in distress
In other words, it is not uncommon to ask what to do to be a good father (or mother). Therefore, in this article you can find a series of tips to be a good father and provide a stimulating environment and favor a correct physical and mental development.
- Related article: "Child attachment: definition, functions and types"
1. Communicate and listen to your children
Children need to show interest in them, they need to feel important to their loved ones . Listening to what they have to say, their experiences and concerns, implies that we care and are interested in them.
Also, the adult must also share their thoughts and emotions in a way that expresses confidence and allows a close bond. It is very important to talk with the children and not the children.
2. Share and spend time with them
The presence or absence of a concrete parent figure is a very influential factor in the development of a boy or girl .
Even if, due to work aspects, continuous contact is not possible, the time spent with the children must be enriching and active so that it is lived as something motivating and exciting. Talk, read, play, teach them things or take trips with them.
3. Give example
It is easy to tell someone what to do, but what you end up learning is what we see others do. Our children will imitate the behavior they observe at home. We must make our speech and our actions go hand in hand so that the child learns based on coherence.
Also, activities such as carrying out household chores, reading or doing sports are easily carried out if the child observes that their reference figures usually carry them out.
- Maybe you're interested: "Vicar learning: watching others to educate us"
4. Show affection
It has been shown that the fact that both parents show affection with their children improves the level of happiness and self-esteem of the latter. Express your love and affection for your children Directly is essential. It causes children to feel accepted and loved.
It is about making them see that they are loved unconditionally. They also learn to show affection towards others and that this expression is not inappropriate or shameful.
5. Set limits
It is essential that the child has certain limits (if flexible), facing know what to do and how far they can go . Being excessively permissive will make you not have a pattern by which to guide your behavior.
- Related article: "Positive discipline: educating from mutual respect"
6. Do not compare him with others
Making comparisons with other people may make the child think that he is not good enough or that he is appreciated or must appreciate himself based on what others have or do. Further, this harms the father-daughter relationship , as well as it can harm the possible relationship of the child with the people with whom it is compared.
7. Praise your achievements
Very often people emphasize the bad things that others do, while when they do something right we usually consider that what was done was done and no mention is made of it.
It is important for a child that when he does something well or fulfills a goal or achievement be praised and celebrated on the part of the parents. In this way the child sees its good behavior reinforced. This is one of the tips to be a good parent more useful in order to enhance the learning of children.
8. Do not overprotect him: give him space
A typical error of many parents is the idea of continuously protecting their child, trying to limit possible situations that may harm them. But overprotection does not let the individual learn and grow and makes it difficult for them to make their own decisions. Let him fall and make his own mistakes.
- Related article: "Overprotected children: 6 educational errors that damage them"
9. Avoid rigidity
An overly rigid educational style can generate a pattern of fearful and insecure thinking and behavior, exaggerated reactivity or inflexible and limited behavior.
There needs to be some flexibility that makes see that things can change , that there are different points of view. They have to explain why the decisions. It is about providing limits and a certain order but without becoming a tyrant.
10Be interested in your vision of the world
They may not have the level of understanding of an adult's situation, but children also generate their own opinions about the world. Ask for your opinion It allows us to get to know our son better and can serve to clear up doubts and fears in the minor, as well as make him see that his opinion is important and valid.
11. No to over-demand
It is positive to believe in the possibilities of our children and motivate them to act and maximize their potential. However, we must try not to sue them too much and too quickly. Each person advances in life at the speed they can, and if it is demanded in excess it can end up blocking and / or provoking frustration and feeling that nothing he achieves is enough .
12. Do not shout at them
Sometimes the behavior of children can have negative effects and provoke some level of anger . However, being misbehaved is no reason to shout at them. The screams suppose a humiliating and painful act for them and they do not fix the situation. It is preferable to calmly explain to them why their actions are not correct and what results they have, including possible punishments.
13. Answer your doubts
Childhood and adolescence are times in which the youngest begin to observe different aspects of reality, discovering a large amount of information. The world is complex and what we observe can generate a lot of doubts. Answering them supposes to increase the information of the progeny with respect to the different aspects of the reality, at the same time as it allows a greater connection with them.
14. Do not suppress your emotions or yours
Suppressing emotions, whether the child's or your own, can cause the child to see them as a weakness or something aversive that should be hidden. It is highly recommended help their expression both directly and indirectly (through drawings or games).
For example, if a relative dies it is not bad to cry in front of the minor , since this teaches you that it is not bad to express sadness. This is necessary both for positive emotions such as joy or love and for negative emotions.
15. Monitor your expectations
It is logical that when a child is born their parents think about what it will be like to grow up and how they would like life to live. However, we must try not to make ourselves excessively rigid expectations.
You and your children are not the same person. We do not have to try to live the life that we would have lived, but we must support them to live the life they want to live .
16. Be consistent
Ambivalence in the treatment of minors , in the application of norms or the fact of not having established limits in a clear way, supposes a high level of confusion for the developing child.
If you punish him for something but then buy him a toy to make him happy you provoke a contradictory message in which he will not know if something is right or wrong. The same happens if the rules change according to those who obey them. It is necessary to have coherence when acting.
- Maybe you're interested: "Chip economy: how do you use it to motivate changes?"
17. Accept your mistakes and accept yours
We may be tempted to be heroes for our children , someone who never makes a mistake and does everything right. However, everyone makes mistakes. To recognize them supposes that the child is able to see the error not as something shameful but something from which it can be improved.
Explain the error and why this is an opportunity for learning and Acquisition of values such as honesty . In the same way it is necessary to accept that children make mistakes and not criticize or embarrass them for it, but understand and support them.
18. Generates a respectful family climate
It is very important for the correct development to have an adequate family atmosphere that generates positive stimulation and allows the acquisition of trust and of different values. This implies that we not only have to focus on the child as being, but also also in the environment that we are offering .
The bonding between the parents, their social life and participation in the community are aspects that will somehow end up being recorded in the minor's mind.
19. Educate her
It may seem obvious, but it is important to participate in education of the children. Showing them a way of seeing the world, teaching them how to act and how society works and the environment that surrounds them, establishing limits and transmitting norms and values such as respect, tolerance and coexistence are elements of great importance in the face of efficient and adaptive of the minor.
20. Do not get obsessed with being a perfect father
Although these councils are thought to reflect and visualize different important aspects in the education of a boy or girl, we do not have to obsess ourselves with the idea of doing everything well. There will be times when you feel bad, you lose patience, you do not realize that something is happening to your child, that you can not be present or that for some reason you make different mistakes .
Thinking that we must always be perfect is harmful because it loses spontaneity and gives the appearance of being forced, which reduces credibility.In addition, the idea is conveyed to the child that we should always be exquisite in our dealings with others, which can cause him to be excessively demanding in his relationships both on his part to others and vice versa.
21. Being a father is forever
Being a father is something for life . It is not something we can leave when we want or something that has an expiration date when, when the child reaches the age of majority. Maybe our adult children do not depend on us in the same way as in their childhood, but we should always be available to them. | https://en.yestherapyhelps.com/21-tips-to-be-a-good-father-and-educate-well-12642 |
What is Higher Education Administration?
Higher education administration can refer to the bachelor's or master's degree one can earn from a college or university, or it may refer to the body of administrators at a higher education institution. The degree program prepares a student to become an administrator within a higher education administration, which is a body of professionals who plan, organize, and otherwise control aspects of the education offered by an institution. Higher education refers to post-secondary schools such as community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities, so higher education administration refers only to administrators at these institutions rather than at high schools, elementary schools, and alternative schools.
Several different positions fall under the category of higher education administration. Provosts are administrators who work with the college president to develop budgets, make decisions about hiring and appointments, and design schoolwide policies. In larger universities, provosts may be responsible for coordinating with deans of individual colleges regarding budgets, hiring and firing, and other important decisions regarding the regular running of the university. Academic deans are responsible for running individual departments of study, such as English, engineering, education, and so on. They must manage the staff of the department and deal with student issues pertinent to their fields of study. Some deans are responsible for other areas of important school structures, such as the dean of student life or student services.
Other positions such as director of admissions or financial aid officers are also part of higher education administration. They are responsible for managing and maintaining certain departments within the school. They are comparable to principals and vice principals at the high school level. The specific functions of each job depend on the requirements of the department, and very often more than one administrator will work within a department. In just about all instances of administration, a member of higher education administration will have to interact with colleagues in the same department and other departments, students, and sometimes even the parents of students.
The level of education one must reach before obtaining a position in higher education administration varies depending on the position, but in most cases, at least a master's degree is required, coupled with significant experience and supplemental qualifications. In some instances, a PhD is required. Administration positions may be obtained through outside hiring, but more often, people are hired from within departments or at least within the educational institution; one can essentially be promoted into the position. | https://www.wisegeek.net/what-is-higher-education-administration.htm |
here is considerable evidence that a number of apparently impulsive or addictive behaviours (e.g., self - harm, alcohol or substance misuse) can be triggered by negatively valenced affective states, and that the behaviours serve the f unction of blocking awareness of intolerable emotions. However, the evidence base for this pattern of emotionally - driven blocking behaviours is relatively patchy, because there has been little systematic investigation of the emotions that trigger different blocking behaviours. In this preliminary study of emotionally - driven blocking behaviours, 53 non - clinical women completed a self - report measure of the link between specific affective states (anger, anxiety, boredom, depression, loneliness) and different b locking behaviours (smoking; aggression; drinking alcohol; overeating; compulsive spending; stealing; self - harm; ‘risky’ sexual behaviour). The results indicate a relatively specific pattern of association between different emotions and blocking behaviours . In addition, that linkage was stronger when the individual had a higher level of behavioural impulsivity, particularly where the emotion was loneliness or anger. These findings suggest that individuals who display such behaviours might benefit from skill s training for adaptive affect regulation, although further research is needed to determine the generalizability of these results to broader clinical and non - clinical populations. | https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/89337/ |
This a synopsis of the term project I worked on for my “Jewish Mysticism, Magic, and Lore” class (Spring 2011). My original plan was to create an amulet using imagery from the tarot—but it evolved into something quite different. The original audience was my instructor and classmates, so some of the concepts are not explained in detail. It’s long. It’s complicated. It has Hebrew words in it. And six diagrams. Enjoy!
A Runic Tree:
Combining Tarot, Hebrew Letters, and the Tree of Life
My journey with this project began with a simple desire to combine two of my favorite subjects: tarot and jewelry. Upon learning about the connections between tarot reading, Jewish mysticism, and the אץ חיים (Tree of Life), I immediately set out to find a way to incorporate them into a single art piece. The art and symbolism of tarot has always inspired me, and using the אץ חיים (Tree of Life) as a layout method for tarot spreads intrigued me greatly. I wanted to discover a creative way to incorporate tarot imagery and the אץ חיים (Tree of Life) system into a wearable object—one that would function as a protective amulet. This seemingly simple goal soon expanded into a far broader project; a project with the unexpected result of a new method of iconographic meditation using anthroponymy (the study of personal names).
Tarot imagery is simultaneously ubiquitous and esoteric in visual culture. They are capable of holding great personal meaning for the reader, as well as universal messages for all human beings. Because of this, tarot imagery can function as personal talismans—and they have been constant companions in my own daily life and spiritual practice. The meditative process of reading these images has proven to be of great value and inspiration to me spiritually and as an artist. However, upon learning the difference between the functions of a talisman and an amulet, I soon became enamored with the idea of taking the cards beyond the talismanic realm, and creating a protective amulet using the same symbology.
Talismans and amulets are thought by many to be the same in both function as design (as both can be described as protective charms); however, the difference between them turns out to be key. Amulets are created with the express purpose of protecting the bearer against harm, while talismans can be ordinary objects that may evolve into personal charms. An amulet is constructed using culturally established iconographic and lexicographic systems of symbols to serve its function. Talismans can be any object of personal significance to the bearer, and may or may not convey its purpose to others in a recognizable way. Amulets simply repel harm—specifically the “evil eye” in Middle Eastern cultures. Talismans can guard the bearer against misfortune, but also bestow them with the counter-effect of good fortune (good luck charms). Talismans are more versatile this way, but are limited to objects with strictly personal significance and connection.
I was intrigued by the potential these differentiating aspects could have if applied to tarot imagery. Tarot cards, like amulets, also use a visual language of iconic imagery and lexical symbols as a system of communication to serve their function. Each card, as they are all different, holds subjective appeal to the reader, like a talisman. The cards can also represent both positive and negative aspects, depending on their context. One may read a tarot spread with the intention of self protection against harmful events or decisions. One can even create a tarot deck with a specific intention for their purpose. Understanding this, I set out to find unique tarot symbols from personally relevant cards to construct an amulet. This was my initial project.
As the אץ חיים has such significance in קבלה (Kabbalah), it is not surprising that it is a key method of reading the tarot. The אץ חיים (Tree of Life) is used a layout card-spread for which dictates how the cards apply to the reader. The ten ספירות (sephirot), the emanations of the אץ חיים (Tree of Life), correspond astrologically to the planetary bodies in our solar system (fig.1). There are twenty-two paths between the ten ספירות (sephirot), twenty-two letters in the Hebrew aleph-beit, and twenty-two tarot cards of the major arcana (trump cards). They all correspond to each other, as well as to various astrological symbols and elements (fig.1, fig.2, fig.3). Each letter adds additional meaning to the card’s message and context. Thus, the אץ חיים (Tree of Life) became began to play a major role in my project.
The vital connection between the tarot and the אץ חיים (Tree of Life) are the corresponding letters. Hebrew is an animistic linguistic and numerical system. In addition to the semantic meaning and numerical value of each letter, each also has a unique personality, individual meaning, and gender assignment. As with any language, context is key; in Hebrew, however, it is not just the words that depend on context, but the individual letters themselves. Given this crucial relationship between tarot cards and the aleph-beit, it is not surprising that the letters captured my attention in this project. The connections I could make between words, names, and the tarot became a central theme—specifically, my own name.
The letters of my chosen Hebrew name, נטליה (Natalia, or Natalyah), connect to the אץ חיים (Tree of Life) on the Pillar of Mercy and active energy (fig.4), which includes נצח (Netzah), תסד (Hesed), and תכמה (Chochman). They also overlap with the Ethical Triangle, which includes תסד (Hesed), תפארת (Tiferet), and בינה (Gevurah). According to the conceptual system of the “Four Gateways of Life” described by Amber Jayanti in Living the Qabalistic Tarot, the cards that correspond to נטליה (Natalyah)—Death, Strength, Justice, the Hermit, and the Emperor—mainly reside in the Gateway of Adolescence and Adulthood. The Emperor alone holds a position in the higher Gateway of Childhood. This particular model makes sense when compared to the levels of the פרדס (PaRDeS) model—although experienced from a descending perspective.
The Gateway of Childhood is where the reader experiences the openness and wonder of the higher realm of consciousness: סוד (Sod, occult). The Adolescent gateway is caught between the realms of questioning and bold investigation: דרוש (Remez, interpretation). The Adulthood gateway is caught between the realms of practicality and knowledge: רמז (Drush, application). The fourth gateway, Wisdom, is the realm of heuristic consciousness and stability—a culmination of the knowledge, understanding, and applicative lessons learned through the previous three realms: פשט (Pshat, simplistic, base). When using the tree as a layout for tarot, instead of ascending from מלכות (Malkhut) to כתר (Keter), the cards descend from כתר (Keter) to מלכות (Malkhut). This turns the tarot into a channel for the divine to communicate with the reader—instead of using them as an act of shamanic magic, where you travel up the tree to seek answers from the divine.
My initial attempt to create an amulet began with experimenting with many tarot readings, layout styles, and path correspondences. Eventually, I settled on the tree system that made the most sense to me, and seemed the most consistent with my קבלה (PaRDeS) studies. The astrological aspects and path lines of this tree provided a specific design and pattern for the cards. These readings were intended to guide me towards a specific goal in my life; a goal that could be re-interpreted as protective or healing, or in need of protection and healing. However, working with this pattern had an unexpected effect. When I combined the cards and letters with the layout of the אץ חיים (Tree of Life), visual patterns began to emerge. My focus was shifted from the imagery of the tarot, to the imagery of the tree itself.
The result of this pattern was a personal rune, created by tracing the lines of each letter’s path (fig.6). In my experimentation with this pattern, I found several interesting coincidences. When my “name-path” was traced from the top-down, it corresponded to the numerical ordering of the ספירות (sephirot)—the mystical route on the אץ חיים (Tree of Life). When traced in the order of the letters of my name, it traveled from the bottom-up—the magical route on the אץ חיים (Tree of Life). For many weeks, I meditated on the rune by doodling it repeatedly at random moments throughout the day. Even thought the mystical route jumbled the letters, I preferred the flow of the rune as it moved towards the base of the tree—to earth.
Another interesting aspect of the rune shape, was that it revealed one of the triangles created by connecting the ספירות (sephirot). Triangle shapes are very mystical symbols in our visual culture, as they represent pyramids, alchemical elements, and various triads. The upside-down triangle shape reveled in my rune represents the alchemical symbol for water. The water element represents emotion in mystical and alchemical modalities. This water symbol, anchoring my rune, makes a lot of sense regarding my rather sensitive nature.
The ascending and descending path-lines in the rune evoked the other aspects of alchemical symbology. Straight lines are used to differentiate the different elemental symbols: an upwards triangle is alchemical fire, an upwards triangle with a line through it is alchemical air, a downwards triangle is alchemical water, and a downwards triangle with a line through it is alchemical earth (fig. A). Depending on the way the rune is traced, the triangle could be water (pointing down), or fire (pointing to the upper-right). The two lines indicated to me that there is a possibility for all four elements in my rune (water, fire, plus two lines for earth and air), all depending on direction. The four elements also exist in my own corresponding cards: Death, Strength, Justice, the Hermit, and the Emperor.
Although the trump cards are not attributed to the four elements through suits, as in the minor arcana (pip cards), the do associate with certain properties. Death is the card of rebirth, and associated with destruction of fire and the deeper mysteries of water. It can be a negative card, but it also reminds me of the importance of growth through change. The Strength card represents inner strength as opposed to outer force. It is often associated with the feminine aspects of earth, but also of duality: human and beast, nature and nurture, inner and outer strength. Justice rules the air, as it is the card of reasoning. The Hermit is alchemical fire, as it is associated with the י (Yud), the divine spark in the Tetragrammaton, and intense mystical contemplation. The Emperor card is ruled by Aries and the upper ה (Hei) in the Tetragrammaton. It represents intellectual force and air.
This information tells me that I could potentially have all four elements represented in my cards, my name, and my rune. The configuration of these multiple systems also informs me of alchemical properties that I need to work on. For instance, it is clear to me that I lack the grounding qualities of earth—since the earth qualities of Strength are more suggestive than established, and the letters don’t connect with the earthly realm of the tree. It also confirms that the emotional aspects of the water element—represented by Death, the central symbol in rune, and other astrological and linguistic associations—has negative potential. I often feel that my emotions are “drowning” me. I need to make sure that my feelings don’t overwhelm my consciousness.
There are many more interconnected symbols, attributes—including some obsessive experimentation with color correspondences—and other information that I could pore into my analysis (fig.5). My spiritual and artistic inspiration continues to grow and evolve as I explore this broadened project. As of now, this artistic meditation, or a method for spiritual symbology, moves from personal to universal. My current focus is on using my runic method with other people’s Hebrew names, and seeing what visual and conceptual patterns emerge. It would be fascinating to develop a kind of language; a codex of new mystical symbols.
I have yet to create an amulet, but I’m believe I have found something very important—possibly more relevant and helpful in my life at this moment than an amulet would. I found that trying to force the project into a narrow focus only made it more difficult to accomplish. All the overlapping ideas and symbology became overwhelming; subsequently, they brought my seemingly simple project to a stand-still. It wasn’t until I let go of my expectations that I was able to gain anything from these studies. I was dealing with multiple complex systems of mystic tools, therefore, it was bound to get complicated. I’m very grateful that my continued exploration led to this new runic system. It has opened doors to my understanding the connection between tarot cards, Hebrew letters, and the אץ חיים (Tree of Life).
Bibliography
Amiras, Ph.D., Mira Z. “Tree of Life.” Class lecture, Jewish Mysticism, Magic and Lore from San Jose State University, San Jose, October 18, 2011.
Jayanti, Amber. Living the Qabalistic Tarot: Applying an Ancient Oracle to the Challenges of Modern Life. Rev. ed. Boston, MA: Weiser Books, 2004.
Scarborough, Samuel. “The Tree of Life – by Samuel Scarborough.” Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition – No. 20, Vol. 2. http://www.jwmt.org/v1n3/treeoflife.html (accessed December 1, 2011).
Credits
All written content and diagrams (figures 1-6) are copyright © 2011 Mnemosyne Mars, and licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License permitting non-derivative, non-commercial distribution with attribution.
2 Responses to “A Runic Tree of Life”
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That’s all really fascinating. I’d love to learn more about Kabbalah. It seems very complicated, though. Is any of the books in your references a good ‘starter’ text? | http://paganbynature.com/2012/01/a-runic-tree-of-life/ |
Phosphoric acid, also known as orthophosphoric acid, is one of the most widely used mineral acids with the chemical formula H3PO4, which contains one phosphorus atom, four oxygen atoms, and three hydrogen atoms. This compound is one of the most important and useful chemicals known to humans. The raw form of this acid is extracted from phosphate rocks while the purer form of white phosphorus is produced industrially. In general, phosphoric acid is produced in the industry in two main ways: 1) the wet method and 2) the thermal method. In the thermal method, the produced acid has a higher purity and concentration but has very high energy. Phosphoric acid produced in the wet method is less pure and is suitable for the production of various phosphate fertilizers.
Given the uses of phosphoric acid that we discussed in previous articles, we should have a brief overview of the most common neutralizing chemical reactions in which this highly consumed mineral acid participates.
What Is Neutralization?
Neutralization is the removal of an acidic or alkaline property by a suitable chemical agent. For industrial neutralization, different chemicals are available depending on the application and whether you are neutralizing an acidic or alkaline liquid. Acids such as phosphoric acid, due to their purity, always cause problems and hazards for facilities, equipment, and the environment. In order to solve these problems, experts have always been looking for a way to eliminate the acidic properties of these substances, so that they can use acid in their work system and that they can be excreted without any problems.
How Do We Neutralize an Acid?
The most common chemicals used to neutralize acids or bases are sodium hydroxide (50%) and sulfuric acid (98%). Sodium carbonate (soda ash), ammonium hydroxide, calcium hydroxide (lime), or magnesium hydroxide can also be used to raise the pH of an acidic liquid. In addition to sulfuric acid, a base liquid, phosphoric acid, hydrochloric acid (HCl), nitric acid or carbon dioxide can be used to lower the PH. These are all effective chemicals for pH adjustment. Important examples of neutralization and regulation of acidity include industrial neutralization of drinking water and wastewater treatment. It is also used in the food industry to increase the shelf life of foods and improve their taste. In the pharmaceutical industry, this method is used to adjust the pH of drugs in accordance with the acidity of the internal environment of the body and also for better performance of drugs.
How to Neutralize Phosphoric Acid?
Now that we are fully acquainted with the concept of this topic, we will discuss how neutralizing phosphoric acid:
Phosphoric Acid and Sodium Hydroxide:
The chemical reaction between phosphoric acid and sodium hydroxide is a neutralization reaction between a weak acid and a strong base, the product of which is trisodium phosphate and water.
H3PO4+3NaOH⇌Na3PO4+3H2O
Phosphoric Acid and Potassium Hydroxide:
In this neutralization reaction, we have phosphoric acid and potassium hydroxide, which process gives us potassium phosphate salts and water.
H3PO4 + KOH ⇌ K3PO4 + H2O
Phosphoric Acid and Ammonia:
Another neutralization reaction of phosphoric acid is its reaction with ammonia, the product of which is ammonium phosphate.
H3PO4 + 3 NH3 → (NH4)3PO
Ammonium phosphate obtained plays an important role in the production of phosphate fertilizers in agriculture. One of the advantages of producing this fertilizer compared to other phosphorus fertilizers is that it can use less pure phosphoric acid and unlike other fertilizers, pure phosphoric acid is not needed is not.
Conclusion:
In general, any effluent from industries and factories using acids that have a pH outside the neutral range should definitely be neutralized before entering the wastewater cycle. If this is not done, the equipment will definitely corrode and their normal disposal will have a lot of environmental hazards. | https://shanghaichemex.com/best-ways-to-neutralize-the-phosphoric-acid/ |
Organic Acid Cleaning of Irons and Steels
Organic acids are presently used in a variety of metal cleaning applications. Primary organic acids used in metal cleaning include acetic acid, citric acid, ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA), formic acid, gluconic acid, and hydroxyacetic acid. Depending on the application, acids may be used alone, but often are formulated with bases and other additives. Organic acids often replace mineral acids, such as hydrochloric and sulfuric acid, in many metal cleaning applications. Advantages in using organic acids include:
• Efficiency in removing certain metal oxides
• Low corrosivity to base metal
• Safety and ease of handling
• Ease of disposal
Disadvantages of organic acids include longer cleaning times, higher temperature requirements, and higher costs compared to other cleaning operations. | https://www.civilengineeringhandbook.tk/corrosion-resistance-3/organic-acid-cleaning-of-irons-and-steels.html |
Commonly used unit of measurement for the value or scale (potentia hydrogen = starch concentration of hydrogen) for the concentration of the active acids in a solution, which is measured by the free hydrogen ions. In viticulture, this is a very important criterion for the growth of the vine, the ripeness and the taste and the durability of the wine. Already the salary in ground (from alkaline to angry ) the temperature and the Rainfall during the growth cycle as well as the vine has great importance in terms of concentration in wine. It is thus expressed, inter alia, in connection with winemaking, the acidity (acidity) in the soil and a wine. Although this is related to the acidity in the wine (sum of different acids), but says something completely different.
The acidity in grams per liter or in per thousand indicates which acids in which amount are contained in a wine (see table below total extract ). This has nothing to do with the acidity. The degree of acidity in pH values indicates whether in total the wine (or any other solution) is acidic (0 to 6.9 pH), neutral (7.0 pH = eg water) or alkaline (7.1 to 14 pH). The lower the value, the higher the acidity. For example, have a pH of 0 sulfuric acid or hydrochloric acid. The pH for a wine is on average between 2.8 to 3.8 pH. Incidentally, it does not change, or hardly does, over time (see below) bottle aging ).
The pH value indicates whether a wine tastes sour, less sour or even not sour. This is not so much of that titration determined acid content, but on the amount, type and interplay of many different acids in a wine. The acidity must therefore not be equated with the pH (acidity), as some substances in the wine have an alkaline effect and thus weaken the acidity. Therefore, two wines with the same acidity can have two different pH values (ie acidity levels). Thin wines with low total extract In addition to a high degree of acidity, they have a low pH value only because there are too few extractives that could weaken the acidity.
On the other hand, low pH results better colour, prevent spoilage bacteria and allow more free, active sulfur dioxide, At the sulphurize The principle is: the lower the pH, the stronger the germ-inhibiting effect and the less sulfur is needed. A malolactic fermentation is only possible from a value of 3.2 pH upwards. At too high pH values, as they often occur in wines from hot growing areas and certain varieties, there is a high risk that unwanted bacteria take over the malolactic fermentation. You may then like unpleasant wine tastings Lactic acid sting and horse sweat cause. | https://glossary.wein-plus.eu/ph-value |
Zirconium is a common choice for nuclear applications due to its low thermal neutron capture cross section which is about 30 times less than that of stainless steel.
A specific key useful benefit of zirconium alloys are their specific resistance to acids including hydrochloric, sulfuric and phosphoric acids which means applications which require direct contact with these substances is particularly suited.
The main properties of Zr and the Zr alloys are given in Table 1. It should be noted that one of the main reasons for selecting Zr as a nuclear material is its low thermal neutron capture cross section which is about 30 times less than that of stainless steel giving a better neutron efficiency in water reactors. The main characteristics of Zr metallurgy come from its high reactivity with oxygen, from the different type of chemical interactions with the alloying elements (complete solubility or intermetallic compound formation) and from its strongly anisotropic hexagonal crystal structure, the latter leading to the development of a textured material after thermo-mechanical processing.
Zirconium has outstanding resistance to hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, organic acids, and alkaline media such as sodium hydroxide. Its resistance to nitric acid is equaled only by the noble metals such as tantalum. The most common application areas for cast zirconium equipment are in hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, and hot organic acids. Zirconium shows excellent corrosion resistance to all concentrations of hydrochloric acid even at temperatures exceeding the normal boiling point. However, zirconium is not resistant to hydrochloric acid containing oxidizing species such as cupric chloride, ferric chloride, or wet chlorine. Zr 702C is resistant to sulfuric acid concentrations up to 70 percent and Zr 705C is resistant to concentrations up to 55 percent to the normal boiling point of sulfuric acid. Poor resistance is obtained with higher concentrations, even at room temperature.
Zirconium is superior to stainless steels, nickel alloys, and titanium in organic acids. This alloy is considered for these applications at high temperatures where its marked superiority results in a distinct economic advantage. Zirconium has poor resistance to concentrated sulfuric acid, hydrofluoric acid, concentrated phosphoric acid, ferric chloride, cupric chloride, wet chlorine, and other oxidizing chloride environments.
One of the earliest applications for zirconium was in the handling of hydrochloric acid. Zirconium is still widely used in this area. The corrosion rate of zirconium is less than 5mpy at all concentrations and temperatures well in excess of the boiling point. Even in 37% HCI, zirconium does not corrode appreciably until temperatures of 130°C are reached (see Figure 1). Zirconium’s corrosion-resistant behavior in pure hydrochloric acid is superior to any other engineering metal.
Aeration does not affect zirconium’s behavior in hydrochloric acid. However, oxidizing impurities such as cupric or ferric chlorides in relatively small amounts will decrease the corrosion resistance of zirconium in hydrochloric acid. These oxidizing ions should be avoided or electrochemical protection methods should be used to counteract the effect of oxidizing impurities.
Current applications of zirconium equipment in hydrochloric acid include pumps, valves, piping, condensers, and evaporators. Zirconium heat exchangers, pumps, and agitators have been used for over 20 years in an azo dye coupling reaction. Besides being very corrosion resistant in this environment, zirconium does not plate out undesirable salts which would change the color and stability of the dyes. Heat exchangers made of zirconium are used by chemical companies in the production of polymers. Other hydrochloric applications where zirconium has been used are phthalic-hydrochloric acid and wet hydrogen chloridechlorine atmospheres. A very important application for zirconium is in processes that cycle between hydrochloric or sulfuric acid and alkaline solutions.
Zirconium is used extensively in 40-70 weight percent sulfuric acid at elevated temperatures. Zirconium has been used to replace impervious graphite heat exchangers and lead heating coils in an environment containing sulfuric acid, zinc and sodium sulfates, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon disulfide. Zirconium has been used in these applications for over ten years without corrosion problems. Some other examples of sulfuric acid applications include ester manufacturing, steel pickling, alcohol stripping towers and hydrogen peroxide manufacturing.
Zirconium is corrosion resistant in phosphoric acid at concentrations up to 55% and temperatures exceeding the boiling point. Above 55% H3PO4, concentrations the corrosion rate rises with increasing concentration and temperature (see Figure 10). The corrosion rate of zirconium is still less than 5mpy at 60°C and concentrations up to 85%. Fluoride ion impurities in phosphoric acid can cause attack of zirconium. | https://www.totalmateria.com/page.aspx?ID=CheckArticle&site=ktn&NM=355 |
Boiling point 337 ° C, 610 K, 639 ° F (when sulfuric acid is above 300 ° C, slowly decomposes.
Water solubility miscible
Acidity (pKa) -3, 1.99
Viscosity 26.7 cP (20 ° C)
EU Index 016-020-00-8
EU classification C N T
R-phrases R35
S-phrases (S1 / 2) S26 S30 S45
Other names Vitriol oil, Hydrogen sulfate, Sulfate acid
General Information
Its chemical formula is H2SO4 and it is a strong mineral acid with high density and density. It is realized by Cabir Bin Hayyan in 8th century. It is produced with concentrated form. Concentrated sulfuric acid contains% 96-98% H2SO4 by mass. One of its characteristics is that it is a substance close to water. Concentrated sulfuric acid draws water from many organic substances and forms a reaction exothermic. This electrically conductive substance that causes very high heat when it is dissolved in water is known as "battery acid".
Production and Reactions
Sulfuric acid is produced in the industry by the method of touching or by the method of lead chambers. The industrial method used in the production of sulfuric acid is called an touching inde. In the first step, sulfur dioxide is formed by the combustion of sulfur and sulphides.
S8 (g) + 8 O2 (g)? 8 SO2 (g) (? H ° = -2374 kJ / mol)
2 H 2 S (g) + 3 O 2 (g)? 2 SO 2 (g) + 2 H 2 O (g) (? H 0 = -1037 kJ / mol)
Sulfur dioxide reacts with more oxygen to form sulfur trioxide, but this reaction occurs more slowly. In the contacting process, the mixture of sulfur dioxide and oxygen passes through contact with the surface of the platinum metal or vanadium oxide catalysts.
2 SO2 (g) + O2 (g)? 2 SO 3 (g) (? H ° = -226 kJ / mol)
Direct dissolution of sulfuric acid forms sulfuric acid moisture. The resulting moisture is mixed with water to give concentrated sulfuric acid. Commercial acid is concentrated to distillation (98.3%). Pure sulfuric acid is obtained by fractional crystallization. Concentrated sulfuric acid may react in the heat to give SO2 with most metals.
2Ag + 2H2SO4 SO Ag2SO 4 + SO2 + 2H2O
Gold is the most difficult to react to. Concentrated sulfuric acid disrupts the salts of other low-boiling acids.
H2SO 4 + NaCl ›HCl + NaHSO4
Usage areas
Heat
Many reactions of sulfuric acid occur exothermically. Since the amount of heat exiting is quite high, this temperature is utilized in many sectors.
Chemistry
This chemical is indispensable in the chemical industry. Many acids are produced by hydrochloric acid.
Paint
It is used in the production of dyestuffs.
Medicine
It acts as the raw material or additive of many drugs.
food
It is used in the production of glucose through the sweetening of starch and alcohol.
Metal
It is used for cleaning metal surfaces.
Other
It can be used in many branches such as fertilizer, explosive material, inorganic salt, oil treatment, metallurgical processes, polishing, animal waste disposal, parchment paper production. | https://www.kimyaborsasi.com.tr/en/s/sulfuric-acid-china-155.html |
AbstractThe mechanism of the CO + H2 → H2CO reaction catalyzed by acidic systems was investigated theoretically using the ab initio MP2 and CCSD(T) methods and the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set (the effects of the surrounding solvent molecules were approximated by employing the polarized continuum solvation model). Two representative acids were chosen to verify the usefulness of such catalysts in this process: sulfuric acid (as a strong mineral acid) and HAlF4 (as a superacid). Detailed mechanisms in both gas and liquid phases proceeding either along a concerted path or according to a stepwise route were investigated and discussed. The most important findings include the observation that both acids seem to catalyze the carbon monoxide hydrogenation in a qualitatively similar way but only the HAlF4 superacid is predicted to effectively reduce the activation barriers to render the whole process plausible.
|Author|
|Other language title versions|
|Journal series||Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, ISSN 1463-9076, (A 40 pkt)|
|Issue year||2017|
|Vol||19|
|No||27|
|Pages||18047-18054|
|Keywords in English||catalysis, superacids, mechanisms, hydrogenation|
|DOI||DOI:10.1039/c7cp03362a|
|URL||http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2017/cp/c7cp03362a|
|Language||en angielski|
|Score (nominal)||40|
|Score|| = 40.0, ArticleFromJournal|
= 40.0, ArticleFromJournal
|Publication indicators||: 2017 = 3.906 (2) - 2017=4.224 (5)|
|Citation count*||4 (2018-09-26)|
* presented citation count is obtained through Internet information analysis and it is close to the number calculated by the Publish or Perish system. | https://repozytorium.bg.ug.edu.pl/info/article/UOG6ad8ac2ebea3496fa5366293f8ec4e72/ |
- This event has passed.
Movies at the Marshall: Pretty Woman
January 15, 2018 at 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm
In its inaugural year, the Garry Marshall Theatre is screening all 18 movies directed by its founder, in chronological order. At each evening screening, a guest speaker will answer questions and share personal stories about the film’s production. Reserve tickets online.
Written by J.F. Lawton, Pretty Woman (1990) stars Richard Gere, Julia Roberts and Jason Alexander, and is rated R. | https://tolucalake.com/event/movies-marshall-pretty-woman/ |
Chhattisgarh permits multiplexes, cinema halls to reopen in Raipur
Multiplexes and cinema halls have been allowed to reopen with 50 per cent of their seating capability in areas outdoors containment zones in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur, an official mentioned on Wednesday.
Raipur is the newest addition to the listing of districts the place screening of movies has been allowed by the state authorities.
Screening of movies is anticipated to begin by Saturday, the Diwali day, or Sunday in Raipur, a cinema corridor proprietor mentioned.
In an order, Raipur collector S Bharathi Dasan has detailed a Normal Working Process (SOP) for exhibiting movies in cinema halls and multiplexes to test the unfold of the coronavirus an infection, the general public relations division official mentioned.
“The occupancy of the cinema halls and multiplexes shall not be greater than 50% of their complete seating capability and the seating association contained in the premises must be made in such a method that sufficient bodily distancing of a minimum of 6 toes is maintained between two people,” he mentioned.
Temperature setting of air con (AC) gadgets must be within the vary of 24-30 diploma Celsius inside cinema halls, the official mentioned.
Nevertheless, in case of unavailability of the AC system, obligatory preparations must be made for cross air flow, he added.
Availability of hand sanitisers within the touch-free mode on the entry and exit factors in addition to in widespread areas throughout the premises of multiplexes and cinema halls must be ensured, he mentioned.
Thermal scanning and sanitization of arms of tourists and employees must be executed at entry factors, the order mentioned.
Solely asymptomatic people must be allowed to enter the premises, he mentioned, including that everybody ought to put on face masks and preserve social distancing in ready areas, widespread areas and inside halls.
Earlier, reopening of cinema halls and multiplexes was allowed in a number of districts, together with Raigarh, Janjgir-Champa and Bastar.
Nevertheless, the same permission is but to be granted in districts like Rajnandgaon and Korba, officers mentioned.
Welcoming the choice of Raipur district administration, a Central Circuit Cine Affiliation (CCCA) member right here mentioned the exhibitors have already made all preparations to adjust to the protection protocols.
“In some districts, the native administration had given a permission for reopening cinema halls and multiplexes, however they’re but to renew operations because the distribution of movies primarily takes place from the state capital Raipur and the enterprise was closed right here,” Labhansh Tiwari, a member of CCCA, advised PTI.
In Raipur, screening of movies in cinema halls and multiplexes can be began by Saturday or Sunday, mentioned Tiwari who runs Shyam Cinema Talkies within the metropolis. | https://www.gujjubaba.in/chhattisgarh-permits-multiplexes-cinema-halls-to-reopen-in-raipur/ |
The mythical island of Motonui is a loooooong way from Bernal Heights, but you can go there during a free screening of Disney’s “Moana” in Precita Park on Saturday evening.
Neighbor Dan works for California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), and he tells Bernalwood there’s a sing-along film screening of Moana happening:
Yes, it’s that time of the year again—Movies in the Park.
California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) will again host the annual family movie night in Precita Park.
“Moana” will be shown on Saturday, Sept. 16 at Precita Park, at 7 pm
The first 250 attendees will receive a special goodie bag (one per family).
Kids are invited to dress in costume and join the movie fun. Grab your picnic blanket, pack some snacks and join us for a family night of fun!
Visit our website for more details. | https://bernalwood.com/2017/09/15/saturday-eve-sing-along-with-disneys-moana-in-precita-park/ |
Browse Through:
Default Task
Classification (21)Regression (5)Clustering (3)Other (2)
Attribute Type
Categorical (1)Numerical (14)Mixed (2)
Data Type
Multivariate (18)Univariate (0)Sequential (0)Time-Series (2)Text (2)Domain-Theory (0)Other (2)
Area
Life Sciences (8)Physical Sciences (1)CS / Engineering (8)Social Sciences (2)Business (0)Game (0)Other (4)
# Attributes - Undo
Less than 10 (13)10 to 100 (23)Greater than 100 (6)
# Instances - Undo
Less than 100 (4)100 to 1000 (23)Greater than 1000 (23)
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Matrix (79)Non-Matrix (23)
23 Data Sets
Table View List View
1. Connectionist Bench (Vowel Recognition - Deterding Data): Speaker independent recognition of the eleven steady state vowels of British English using a specified training set of lpc derived log area ratios.
2. Autism Screening Adult: Autistic Spectrum Disorder Screening Data for Adult. This dataset is related to classification and predictive tasks.
3. Early stage diabetes risk prediction dataset.: This dataset
contains the sign and symptpom data of newly diabetic or would be diabetic patient.
4. Thoracic Surgery Data: The data is dedicated to classification problem related to the post-operative life expectancy in the lung cancer patients: class 1 - death within one year after surgery, class 2 - survival.
5. : Simulated Data set of Iraqi tourism places: Simulated Data set of Iraqi tourism places with their position (longitude,latitude)and type of interest for each place
6. Heart Disease: 4 databases: Cleveland, Hungary, Switzerland, and the VA Long Beach
7. Forest type mapping: Multi-temporal remote sensing data of a forested area in Japan. The goal is to map different forest types using spectral data.
8. Chronic_Kidney_Disease: This dataset can be used to predict the chronic kidney disease and it can be collected from the hospital nearly 2 months of period.
9. Folio: 20 photos of leaves for each of 32 different species.
10. GPS Trajectories: The dataset has been feed by Android app called Go!Track. It is available at Goolge Play Store(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.go.router).
11. University: Data in original (LISP-readable) form
12. Autistic Spectrum Disorder Screening Data for Children : Children screening data for autism suitable for classification and predictive tasks
13. Autistic Spectrum Disorder Screening Data for Adolescent : Autistic Spectrum Disorder Screening Data for Adolescent. This dataset is related to classification and predictive tasks.
14. CSM (Conventional and Social Media Movies) Dataset 2014 and 2015: 12 features categorized as conventional and social media features. Both conventional features, collected from movies databases on Web as well as social media features(YouTube,Twitter).
15. Abscisic Acid Signaling Network: The objective is to determine the set of boolean rules that describe the interactions of the nodes within this plant signaling network. The dataset includes 300 separate boolean pseudodynamic simulations using an asynchronous update scheme.
16. Student Academics Performance: The dataset tried to find the end semester percentage prediction based on different social, economic and academic attributes.
17. ILPD (Indian Liver Patient Dataset): This data set contains 10 variables that are age, gender, total Bilirubin, direct Bilirubin, total proteins, albumin, A/G ratio, SGPT, SGOT and Alkphos.
18. Fertility: 100 volunteers provide a semen sample analyzed according to the WHO 2010 criteria. Sperm concentration are related to socio-demographic data, environmental factors, health status, and life habits
19. Robot Execution Failures: This dataset contains force and torque measurements on a robot after failure detection. Each failure is characterized by 15 force/torque samples collected at regular time intervals
20. Behavior of the urban traffic of the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil: The database was created with records of behavior of the urban traffic of the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
21. Kinship: Relational dataset
22. Dresses_Attribute_Sales: This dataset contain Attributes of dresses and their recommendations according to their sales.Sales are monitor on the basis of alternate days.
23. Paper Reviews: This sentiment analysis data set contains scientific paper reviews from an international conference on computing and informatics. The task is to predict the orientation or the evaluation of a review.
Supported By:
In Collaboration With: | https://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets.php?format=nonmat&task=&att=&area=&numAtt=10to100&numIns=100to1000&type=&sort=typeUp&view=list |
# Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies
Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies is an annual event that began in 2011. At the Meet-Up, concert videos and films of the rock band the Grateful Dead are shown in movie theaters at multiple locations. Each yearly screening occurs only once. The event provides a venue and opportunity for the band's fans, known as Deadheads, to gather in celebration and camaraderie.
From 2011 to 2018, the Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies was shown at movie theaters throughout the United States, and was organized and managed by Fathom Events. The 2019 Meet-Up was shown internationally, with Trafalgar Releasing as the distribution partner.
## 2011
The first Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies, on April 20, 2011, screened The Grateful Dead Movie in U.S. movie theaters. The Grateful Dead Movie is a music documentary that focuses on the band's October 16 to 20, 1974 performances at the Winterland Arena. It also includes interviews with the band members, and archival footage from earlier in their career. Shot on 35 mm film, it was co-directed by Jerry Garcia, and was originally released in theaters in 1977.
## 2012
The 2012 event occurred on April 19 at 7:00 pm local time in selected movie theaters around the U.S., and aired the Grateful Dead's performance of July 18, 1989 at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre near East Troy, Wisconsin. This concert took place one day after the Alpine Valley show documented in the feature-length music video Downhill from Here, which was released in 1997.
## 2013
The 2013 event occurred on August 1 and featured the music documentary film Sunshine Daydream in select U.S. movie theaters. Sunshine Daydream was shot at the concert performed on August 27, 1972 at the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon, and includes extensive footage of the audience as well as the band. In 2013 the movie was re-edited and restored from the original 16 mm film negatives, and remastered to a high-definition digital projection for the screening. The audio was also completely remastered. The film was shown in about 450 movie theaters in the U.S. The following month, Sunshine Daydream was released on DVD and Blu-ray, packaged together with a 3-CD album of the complete Veneta concert.
## 2014
The 2014 meet-up occurred on July 17 in movie theaters nationwide in the United States, and aired the Grateful Dead's performance of April 21, 1972 at the Beat Club television studio in Bremen, West Germany. The screenings began at 7:30 pm local time nationwide. The presentation was prepared from restored video from the original Beat Club broadcast and re-mastered audio from the original analog magnetic tapes. It also included a behind-the-scenes look at the production of an upcoming Grateful Dead release, with Bob Weir on guitar and vocals, and Jeffrey Norman performing mixing and mastering.
## 2015
Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies 2015 occurred on May 4, 2015, with the presentation of a previously unreleased video of the Grateful Dead concert performed at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre near East Troy, Wisconsin on July 19, 1989. The performance lasted approximately 160 minutes. This was the show performed the night after the one shown at the 2012 meet-up. The 2015 event took place in over 400 movie theaters in the United States. Screenings began nationwide at 7:00 pm local time. The concert was recorded in analog video format using multiple cameras, and the sound in movie theaters was in Dolby Stereo. Some of the content aired included additional content that was exclusive to the cinema presentations, which was previously unreleased. The concert was also aired on YouTube, but the additional exclusive content played only in cinema presentations was not included in the YouTube presentation.
## 2016
The 2016 Meet-Up featured a previously unreleased video of the Grateful Dead concert performed on July 2, 1989 at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The concert was screened on May 11, 2016.
## 2017
The Meet-Up for 2017 took place on August 1, the 75th anniversary of the birth of Jerry Garcia. It featured the Grateful Dead's performance of July 12, 1989 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.
Also in 2017, The Grateful Dead Movie was shown in theaters one time only, on April 20 (4/20). The screening was in honor of the 40th anniversary of that film, which was released in 1977. Also shown was a preview of the then-soon-to-be-released documentary film Long Strange Trip, and a short documentary about the concert recorded in the album Cornell 5/8/77.
## 2018
The 2018 Meet-Up took place on August 1. The theatrical presentation was the July 7, 1989 Grateful Dead concert performed at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. The same concert was released in 2010 as the audio/video album Crimson White & Indigo.
## 2019
The 2019 Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies was on August 1. It featured the band's June 17, 1991 concert at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. For the first time, the Meet-Up was shown internationally instead of just in the U.S., with Trafalgar Releasing replacing Fathom Events as the distribution partner. A recording of the same concert was released in the albums Giants Stadium 1987, 1989, 1991 and Saint of Circumstance. The former also includes the video of the show.
## 2022
The 2022 Grateful Dead Meet-Up at the Movies took place on November 1, with a second screening on November 5. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the band's Europe '72 tour, it featured songs selected from their April 17, 1972 concert at the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark, which was broadcast on Danish TV. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grateful_Dead_Meet-Up_at_the_Movies |
CETL presents ‘The Boys of Baraka’, the second in an ongoing series of movies that showcase teaching shown on the last Monday of each month. This movie is an award-winning PBS documentary that will allow a discussion about how environment affects teaching and learning. It is the winner of awards at the Newport, Chicago, Woodstock and SILVERDOCS Film Festivals. A discussion about the movie will be held at 2:30 p.m. with a full screening of the movie to follow. | https://blogs.nvcc.edu/cetl/2012/03/15/monday-movies-continue-the-boys-of-baraka/ |
Coimbatore: Tamil Nadu Cinema Theatres Association threatened that none of actor Kamal Haasan's movies will be released, old or new, in any theatres in the state, if he goes ahead with his plan to release his 'Vishwaroopam' on DTH format, before screening in theatres.
In view of Haasan deciding to release 'Vishwaroopam' in DTH on January 10 and in threatres the next day, theatre owners and their representatives across the state met here today to decide their future course of action.
Briefing reporters on the deliberations of the meeting, association general secretary, Paneerselvam said theatre owners have already asked Haasan not to release the film on DTH, which would set a precedent, leading to closure of theatres.
The pirated CD and new films shown in Television has taken a toll of audience-attendance in theatres in Tamil Nadu, number of which has gone down from 3,000 to 1,200 now and once a step like DTH becomes a precedent, there would not be any theatres in future, he said.
"For one's profit and benefit, it is not fair to bring down the entire film theatre industry...," Paneerselvam said.
"In case, he goes ahead with the move to release it on DTH before releasing it in theatres, we will not screen his movies, old or new, in any theatres in the state," he added.
The association claimed that the actor has decided to release the film in theatres in other States, including Kerala and said it would request him not to mete out such "step-motherly" treatment to Tamil Nadu theatres. | https://www.siliconindia.com/news/entertainment/Cinema-Owners-Threaten-No-Show-for-Kamal-Haasans-Film-nid-137322-cid-50.html |
This month, the Livingston Parish Library has plenty in store for those who enjoy celebrating the spookiest of holidays.
Among those activities will be held this weekend, when Casper the Friendly Ghost comes to town.
The Livingston Parish Library will hold a free outdoor screening of the 1995 film “Casper” on Saturday, Oct. 17, the library system has announced.
Scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., the popular fantasy-comedy film — which marked the first feature-length movie to have a computer-generated character in a lead role — will be shown on the lawn at the Main Branch in Livingston.
Due to COVID-19 safety guidelines regarding spacing and capacity limitations, people are required to register in advance to reserve a spot at the “Movies Under the Moonlight” event. Each group will be assigned its own area following the 6-foot-safety rule, the library said.
People are encouraged to bring masks as well as blankets or lawn chairs. Popcorn will be provided at the free screening, though people are welcome to bring their own snacks.
Additionally, those who arrive in costume will receive a special commemorative button, as well as some spooky activity sheets.
With Halloween later this month, the library has much more in store for patrons to get them ready for the festivities.
Along with this weekend’s screening of “Casper,” the library system is holding virtual “Spooky Science” STEAM activities at 10 a.m. every Saturday in the month of October.
On Friday, Oct. 16, Science Tellers will share the story of “The Mummy at Mystery Mansion,” in which viewers will try to unravel the mystery behind the haunted house while learning a few science concepts along the way.
The month-long celebration will end with a virtual Halloween-themed “Trick or Treat” puppet show on Saturday, Oct. 31, beginning at 1 p.m.
All of the Livingston Parish Library’s virtual programming can be found on their social media platforms. For more information or to register for an event, visit www.mylpl.info. | https://www.livingstonparishnews.com/living/with-halloween-coming-livingston-parish-library-schedules-plethora-of-spooky-activities/article_75c275a6-0e47-11eb-8ad7-6382ec3da3de.html |
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