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Citizen Day aims to give Solvay employees around the world the opportunity to engage in actions with local communities. This event was created in 2019 to reinforce our Purpose of bonding people, ideas and elements to reinvent progress, and to act as ONE team for ONE planet.
Citizen Day is also part of Solvay’s ambition to align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and a way to pursue the Group’s commitment to fostering positive change in the world through science, true to the vision of our founder Ernest Solvay, nearly 160 years ago.
No state, no individual group of any kind, can act alone to solve these enormous challenges. Strength is in numbers! Collective, collaborative action is the only way to build a responsible future.
Promoting actions for education
The second edition of Citizen Day will be held from 30 November to 6 December 2020, placing the focus on education. Building on the momentum of the first Citizen Day in 2019 that focused on protecting the environment and to which 25,000 Solvay people participated in 90% of our sites, it encourages employees worldwide to dedicate their time to sharing their expertise and know-how and raising awareness on science & technology education. Due to the current context and leveraging the rise of e-learning, Citizen Day 2020 will be an entirely digital event. We are acting locally to impact globally. Discover more below! | https://www.solvay.com/en/sustainability/citizen-day |
The European Space Agency (ESA) released a video showing the object entering Earth’s atmosphere.
In it, a bright light is seen flashing in the distance from the International Space Station.
However, notorious alien conspiracy theorist Tyler Glocker disputed the scientists’ conclusion.
He said: “I don’t think it’s a meteorite at all. What many people may not realise if that this video is a time lapse.
“You’re seeing the Earth spinning at a high rate of speed and we see this flash of light coming from space.
“When you account how fast the Earth would have actually been moving, had this not been sped up, it would have been moving much, much slower.
But critics have rejected the claims.
Scott Brando, who runs debunking website ufoofinterest.org, told Express.co.uk: "It was a meteor seen and confirmed by Italian ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli."
He compared the meteor to clips of the Perseid meteor shower in 2011 to try and prove his wacky theory.
He added: “It’s a short, stubby object that looks nothing like the other meteor here. We can see this discharge, the energy coming from the back of it.”
“Speeds that are slower than even the slowest meteorites.”
Detlev Koschny, co-manager of the Near-Earth Object (NEO) division of ESA’s Space Situational Awareness team, picked apart his theory.
He said: “It looks like a bright meteor, or fireball. one can see the fireball illuminating the clouds from above, so it must have been close to them – and close to the Earth’s limb.
“It also seems to show a little tail.”
Alien hunters were sent into a frenzy after a raft of sightings were reported this weekend.
Witnesses have supposedly spotted 25 orbs in the sky, a “flying bus”, and a triangle UFO trailed by military helicopters.
Events started in Texas on Saturday, according to the US-based Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). | https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/nasa-news-space-ufo-2017-17045419 |
Janeiro: Are Women on the lead?
BY: Bianca Cartera and Daniel Young
Statistics have proven women’s 100m sprint records to be rapidly improving in comparison with the men’s records.
Countless researches, studies and reviews tend to ‘prove’ men to be of the faster, stronger and ultimately superior gender. However, women are seemingly making a comeback as their rate of improvement, progression and development start to steal the spotlight. Will women finally get to steal the glory the men have been luxuriating in ever since
Domains and Ranges of men and women’s data regarding the Olympic records
Men
Women
Domain: x≥ 1
Domain: x≥ 1
Range: 10.3≥ y
Range: 11.9 ≥ y
The Domain of my linear function for both the men and the women’s scatter plots (Shown on Page
3) start from 1 and increases infinitely. This is because the “domain” represents the number of
Olympic events held after 1944 and the Olympic events, so far, will continue until the end of time, therefore the domain will not have an end to it as well.
The Range of the linear function for the men’s scatter plot (Shown on Page 2 and 3) is anything below or equal to 10.3, and the range of my linear function for the women’s linear function is anything below or equal to 11.9 because the “range” is the number of seconds that represents the gold medalist winner, and it is correspondent to an Olympic year. Since it is a linear function that is decreasing, then the y intercept would represent the record in which the number of seconds is at its highest. The range of the function may go down infinitely, based on this graph, since nothing indicates that the domain will stop, so nothing also indicates that the range will stop because the range of both records is dependent on the Domain. In other words, the record of the women and men’s sprints are dependent on what Olympic year it is held.
2
More from the Olympics
Justin Bieber ‘claims’ he can beat Usbaine Bolt’s record
October 20, 2012
Katy Perry training for the
100m hurdles- caught on steroids! October 19, 2012
One Direction refuses to believe the latest championship made by
Fraser
October 22, 2012
This is a scatter plot showing the data from both the men and women’s records regarding the 100m Olympic sprints. It is evident from this graph that the men’s records are on the lead in comparison with the women’s data since the women’s number of seconds is always more than the men’s in every single Olympic event. Though it is also evident the women’s data is more accurate since it is more stable and steadily improving as it is decreasing almost constantly per every Olympic event, while the men’s data is less correlated due to the fact that their records worsen (they become slower) a lot of times every passing event, resulting in a graph with a more scattered data.
3
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These are the same data from the men and women’s 100m
Olympic sprint, but they are separated into two different scatter plots, one for each gender.
Looking at the scatter plots individually, the difference of the gender’s rate of improvement (the slope of the line of best fit) is not very noticeable. In the same manner, when we compare the records of the 100m
Olympic sprints of men to the women’s, what may seem important is the difference between the two genders per every event, rather than the improvement of each gender compared to the previous event. | https://www.majortests.com/essay/Glory-Olympic-Games-And-Women-567691.html |
USC scientists have found evidence that the Earth’s inner core oscillates, contradicting previously accepted models that suggested it consistently rotates at a faster rate than the planet’s surface.
Their study, published today in Science Advances, shows that the inner core changed direction in the six-year period from 1969–74, according to the analysis of seismic data. The scientists say their model of inner core movement also explains the variation in the length of day, which has been shown to oscillate persistently for the past several decades.
“From our findings, we can see the Earth’s surface shifts compared to its inner core, as people have asserted for 20 years,” said John E. Vidale, co-author of the study and Dean’s Professor of Earth Sciences at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “However, our latest observations show that the inner core spun slightly slower from 1969–71 and then moved the other direction from 1971–74. We also note that the length of day grew and shrank as would be predicted.
“The coincidence of those two observations makes oscillation the likely interpretation.”
Analysis of atomic tests pinpoints rotation rate and direction
Our understanding of the inner core has expanded dramatically in the past 30 years. The inner core—a hot, dense ball of solid iron the size of Pluto—has been shown to move and/or change over decades. It’s also impossible to observe directly, meaning researchers struggle through indirect measurements to explain the pattern, speed and cause of the movement and changes.
Research published in 1996 was the first to propose the inner core rotates faster than the rest of the planet—also known as super-rotation—at roughly 1 degree per year. Subsequent findings from Vidale reinforced the idea that the inner core super-rotates, albeit at a slower rate.
Utilizing data from the Large Aperture Seismic Array (LASA), a U.S. Air Force facility in Montana, researcher Wei Wang and Vidale found the inner core rotated slower than previously predicted, approximately 0.1 degrees per year. The study analyzed waves generated from Soviet underground nuclear bomb tests from 1971–74 in the Arctic archipelago Novaya Zemlya using a novel beamforming technique developed by Vidale.
The new findings emerged when Wang and Vidale applied the same methodology to a pair of earlier atomic tests beneath Amchitka Island at the tip of the Alaskan archipelago—Milrow in 1969 and Cannikin in 1971. Measuring the compressional waves resulting from the nuclear explosions, they discovered the inner core had reversed direction, sub-rotating at least a tenth of a degree per year.
This latest study marked the first time the well-known six-year oscillation had been indicated through direct seismological observation.
“The idea the inner core oscillates was a model that was out there, but the community has been split on whether it was viable,” Vidale says. “We went into this expecting to see the same rotation direction and rate in the earlier pair of atomic tests, but instead we saw the opposite. We were quite surprised to find that it was moving in the other direction.”
Future research to dig deeper into why inner core formed
Vidale and Wang both noted future research would depend on finding sufficiently precise observations to compare against these results. By using seismological data from atomic tests in previous studies, they have been able to pinpoint the exact location and time of the very simple seismic event, says Wang. However, the Montana LASA closed in 1978 and the era of U.S. underground atomic testing is over, meaning that the researchers would need to rely on comparatively imprecise earthquake data, even with recent advances in instrumentation.
The study does support the speculation that the inner core oscillates based on variations in the length of day—plus or minus 0.2 seconds over six years—and geomagnetic fields, both of which match the theory in both amplitude and phase. Vidale says the findings provide a compelling theory for many questions posed by the research community.
“The inner core is not fixed—it’s moving under our feet, and it seems to going back and forth a couple of kilometers every six years,” Vidale said. “One of the questions we tried to answer is, does the inner core progressively move or is it mostly locked compared to everything else in the long term? We’re trying to understand how the inner core formed and how it moves over time—this is an important step in better understanding this process.”
Earth’s inner core: A mixture of solid Fe and liquid-like light elements
Wei Wang et al, Seismological observation of Earth’s oscillating inner core, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abm9916. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm9916
Citation:
The Earth moves far under our feet: A new study shows that the inner core oscillates (2022, June 10)
retrieved 10 June 2022
from https://phys.org/news/2022-06-earth-feet-core-oscillates.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. | https://techcodex.com/a-new-study-shows-that-the-inner-core-oscillates/ |
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterized by impairments in flexibly acquiring and maintaining new information, as well as in applying learned information for problem solving. However, the neural mechanism underpinning such impairments remains unclear. This study investigated the flexibility in the acquisition and application of visual information in ASD (aged 14–21) when they performed the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Behavioral data including response accuracy and latency, and prefrontal hemodynamic data measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), were collected when individuals performed WCST. Canonical general linear model and functional connectivity analyses were performed to examine the prefrontal activation and synchronization patterns, respectively. Results showed that although ASD individuals (n = 29) achieved comparable accuracy rates when compared with age-and intelligence quotient (IQ)-matched typically developing (TD; n = 26) individuals (F1,53 = 3.15, p = 0.082), ASD individuals needed significantly more time to acquire and apply WCST card sorting rules (F1,53 = 17.92, p < 0.001). Moreover, ASD individuals showed significantly lower prefrontal functional connectivity than TD individuals during WCST (F1,42 = 9.99, p = 0.003). The hypoconnectivity in ASD individuals was highly significant in the right lateral PFC in the acquisition condition (p = 0.005) and in the bilateral lateral PFC in the application condition (ps = 0.006). Furthermore, slower WCST reaction time was correlated with lower bilateral lateral PFC functional connectivity only in the application condition (ps = 0.003) but not the acquisition condition. Impairment in information acquisition and application is evident in ASD individuals and is mediated by processing speed, which is associated with lower functional connectivity in the bilateral lateral PFC when these individuals apply learned rules to solve novel problems. | https://research.polyu.edu.hk/en/publications/abnormal-prefrontal-functional-connectivity-is-associated-with-in |
A recent study by Hart and Jamieson (1983) reported that Type A males recover from a psychosocial stressor significantly slower than their Type B counterparts. It is unclear, however, whether this result is a robust one, or the result of an element of social comparison which was present during performance of and recovery from the stimulus task. The present study therefore reexamined this issue. Sixty-one male and 61 female undergraduate university students completed the Jenkins Activity Survey (Form T) and were then randomly assigned to either a social comparison or no social comparison group. Subjects in both conditions performed the Stroop color word task under conditions stressing time urgency and competition. In addition, subjects in the social comparison group were informed that their scores would be compared to the scores of other subjects who had already participated in the study. Heart rate was recorded before, during and after performance of the task. Hart and Jamieson's study was not replicated. The social comparison group which was expecting feedback at the end of the recovery period showed significantly (p<.025) less heart rate recovery during this period. No A/B differences were observed either in response to or recovery from the task. The failure to replicate the finding by Hart and Jamieson suggests that the previous report be interpreted with caution until further replications are attempted. | https://knowledgecommons.lakeheadu.ca/handle/2453/1064 |
As we focus along each of our journey throughout the solar system, the planets are constantly revolving. The earliest documents suggest that each of our planet’s rotation charge would have visite site been reset after a huge impact about 4. a few billion years ago.
Scientists have discovered a incomprehensible phenomenon that is affecting the Earth’s rotation. They will predict the rotation cost will decrease in the next many years. This would result in much longer days and shortened evenings.
One of the theories that explains the Earth’s motion may be the Coriolis effect. It is largely observable in meteorological weighing scales. However , it also affects the Globe’s rotation.
Other results include the Chandler wobble, free core nutation, and polar action. These results are because of the interactions belonging to the core and layer. In particular, the outer core rotates slower compared to the inner core.
Currently, the regular speed of Earth’s rotation is usually 107, 800 kilometers one hour. Depending on the time of day and other factors, the rotation fee may vary. That is why scientists include used atomic clocks to measure time.
The rotation rate has got fluctuated for years and years. During the early 2000s, it was predicted that the Globe’s rotation level would slow-moving. But then this began to increase. During the summer time of 2010, The planet completed its rotation 1 ) 59 milliseconds ahead of the expected 24 hours.
The International Massive Union (IAU) has been measuring the rotational quickness of the The planet with atomic clocks. If the predicted rotational velocity is near to the actual value, the scientific community should add a start second for the UTC. Usually, the hop is confident. | https://promopisofares.com/all/spinning-events-in-our-time/ |
In 1695, Edmond Halley discovered that eclipses recorded in ancient history did not match calculations for the times or places of those eclipses.
Starting with records of eclipses in his day and the observed motion of the moon and sun, he used Isaac Newton’s new theory of universal gravitation (1687) to calculate when and where ancient eclipses should have occurred and then compared them with eclipses actually observed more than 2,000 years earlier.
They did not match. Halley had great confidence in the theory of gravitation and resisted the temptation to conclude that the force of gravity was changing as time passed.
Instead, he proposed that the length of a day on Earth must be slowly increasing. The Earth’s rotation must be slowing down.
If the Earth’s rotation had slowed down slightly, the moon must have gained angular momentum to conserve the total angular momentum of the Earth-moon system. This boost in angular momentum for the moon would have caused it to spiral slowly outward from the Earth to a more distant orbit where it travels more slowly.
If, 2,000 years earlier, the Earth had been spinning a little faster and the moon had been a little closer and orbiting a little faster, then eclipse theory and observation would match.
Scientists soon realized that Halley was right. But what would cause the Earth’s spin to slow?
The gravitational attraction of the moon is the principal cause of the ocean tides on Earth. As the shallow continental shelves (primarily in the Bering Sea) collide with high tides, the Earth’s rotation is retarded. The slower spin of the Earth causes the moon to edge farther from our planet.
From 1969 to 1972, the Apollo astronauts left a series of laser reflectors on the moon’s surface. Since then, scientists on Earth have been bouncing powerful lasers off these reflectors.
By timing the round trip of each laser pulse, the moon’s distance can be measured to an accuracy of several inches. The moon is receding from the Earth at the rate of about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) a year.
As the moon recedes from Earth, its apparent disk becomes smaller. Total eclipses become rarer; annular eclipses more frequent. | https://sorendreier.com/total-solar-eclipses-are-going-extinct/ |
Objective—Students will:
- Be able to explain the merits and the trade-offs of the Options.
- Be prepared to craft a policy Option that reflects their own views on the issue.
- Practice deliberative dialogue in a small group.
Preparation
- Prior to this activity, students should have participated in an Options role-play from a Choices unit.
- Students should also have an understanding of deliberation. (See “Guidelines for Deliberation”)
Handouts
Policy Options for the topic under consideration
Student Rubric for Deliberative Dialogue
In the Classroom
Introducing the “Fish Bowl”—Explain that students will discuss the merits and the trade-offs of each of the Options presented during the Options role-play and that, following this activity, students will have an opportunity to develop their own Option reflecting their own views. If necessary, review with students the nature of deliberative dialogue. Explain that this discussion will take place in a “fish bowl.” This means that at any one time some of the class will participate in a discussion while others are observing silently from the outside. Those on the outside will be looking for ideas about the Options that resonate with them. After each Option is considered, the roles will rotate until everyone has had the opportunity to speak.
Breaking Students Into Groups—Form three or four groups depending on how many Options were originally presented. The new groups should be “jigsawed” from the Options groups so that each new group contains students from each of the original Options groups. If needed, assign one student to facilitate in each group.
Inside the “Fish Bowl”—Ask students in the first of the new groups to move to the center while the others remain outside the circle. This group will discuss Option 1. Ask students to identify the arguments in support of this Option. Then students should talk about the risks and the trade-offs involved in taking this approach, drawing on the knowledge they acquired during the role play. They should understand that this is not a time to dismiss the Option before it has gotten a full airing. Even if no one in the group personally supports this Option, it may be supported by some of those observing. After an allotted time groups should switch until all Options have been discussed.
Outside the “Fish Bowl”—Students on the outside of the circle should be listening carefully to the issues raised, considering other ideas or concerns that they might raise if they were in the circle, and thinking about their own views on this Option in light of the discussion. Students should complete the Pros and Cons handout while their classmates are deliberating. [Some teachers include a “hot seat” on the inside circle so that observing students can enter the discussion individually to make one point and then return to the outside of the circle. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach.]
Assessment
The Student Rubric for Deliberative Dialogue is a self-assessment form for students to reflect on their participation in the fish bowl exercise.
The Rubric for Deliberative Dialogue is designed for use by the teacher.
Homework
Using the handouts from the relevant Choices unit, ask students to complete their own Option. Remind students to take into consideration what they learned from the readings, in the role play, and in the fish bowl discussion.
Extra Challenge: Encourage students to write a letter to an elected official or to the editor of the local paper or the school newspaper expressing their views. | https://www.choices.edu/resources-for-teachers/3220-2/ |
I have two ChIP-seq tracks of a histone modification from WT and KO cells which have been processed in parallel. I also have input tracks for both samples. The histone modification is diffuse across the genome and does not form clear peaks. Peak calling is therefore very difficult. Normally, to identify novel binding sites, I would call peaks on WT and KO samples individually and then intersect the two peak files.
In this case, I am considering calling peaks on the KO sample using the WT sample as my "input" to identify novel regions of enrichment.
Both the ChIP samples and the matched inputs are similar to each other with comparable read counts.
Are there any reasons why this would be a bad idea? | https://www.biostars.org/p/165216/ |
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Despite staunch denials by EU officials and Greek finance minister, two local newspapers have reported that a restructuring is in the works, according to The Guardian.Ta Nea said the government was considering a “velvet restructuring,” which would extend the repayment terms of loans, and that Papaconstantinou that is holding talks. Ta Nea didn’t reveal its source.
Isotimia had more specifics and said the government is hoping to extend the maturities of its outstanding debt by five years, The Guardian reported.
Meanwhile Interpol officials are expected to question Citigroup trader Paul Moss in London today, after Greek officials claim that an email sent by Moss about debt restructuring set-off a share sell-off at the Athens Stock Exchange. RTT News quotes the email:
“MKT NOISE Over the last 20min, there seems to be some increased noise over Greek debt restructuring as early as this Easter weekend.”
In a statement, the Greek Finance Ministry said:
“Such rumours are of course devoid of any substance and verge on the ridiculous.
Nevertheless, since the dissemination of such false “news” can create concerns among the public at large, the Ministry of Finance will use all legal means available in order to identify and pursue those responsible.”
Meanwhile, Citigroup has denied any wrongdoing on the part of its employees but is said to be cooperating with the investigation.
Yields on 2-year Greek bonds soared over 23% yesterday while 10-year bond yields reached almost 15%.
NOW WATCH: Money & Markets videos
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Site highlights each day to your inbox.
Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. | https://www.businessinsider.com.au/greek-debt-restructuring-rumors-are-back-and-a-citi-trader-is-investigated-2011-4 |
Variant.
Use the
Option Explicit statement on first line of a module to force all variables to be declared before usage (see ALWAYS Use "Option Explicit" ).
Always using
Option Explicit is highly recommended because it helps prevent typo/spelling errors and ensures variables/objects will stay their intended type.
Option Explicit Sub Example() Dim a As Integer a = 2 Debug.Print a 'Outputs: 2 Dim b As Long b = a + 2 Debug.Print b 'Outputs: 4 Dim c As String c = "Hello, world!" Debug.Print c 'Outputs: Hello, world! End Sub
Multiple variables can be declared on a single line using commas as delimiters, but each type must be declared individually, or they will default to the
Variant type.
Dim Str As String, IntOne, IntTwo As Integer, Lng As Long Debug.Print TypeName(Str) 'Output: String Debug.Print TypeName(IntOne) 'Output: Variant <--- !!! Debug.Print TypeName(IntTwo) 'Output: Integer Debug.Print TypeName(Lng) 'Output: Long
Variables can also be declared using Data Type Character suffixes ($ % & ! # @), however using these are increasingly discouraged.
Dim this$ 'String Dim this% 'Integer Dim this& 'Long Dim this! 'Single Dim this# 'Double Dim this@ 'Currency
Staticlike:
Static CounterVariable as Integer
When you use the Static statement instead of a Dim statement, the declared variable will retain its value between calls.
Publiclike:
Public CounterVariable as Integer
Public variables can be used in any procedures in the project. If a public variable is declared in a standard module or a class module, it can also be used in any projects that reference the project where the public variable is declared.
Privatelike:
Private CounterVariable as Integer
Private variables can be used only by procedures in the same module.
Source and more info: | https://riptutorial.com/excel-vba/example/2672/declaring-variables |
Most of the intelligent world, and by that I mean the portion whose reasoning is not polluted by mythologies, understands the necessity and general concepts of evolution, especially in regard to human development. While true evolution takes place slowly at the DNA level over hundreds of generations, one need not look back much more than a couple of generations to see the more immediate environmental impact of changing conditions. As a species, we are generally taller, more sedentary and therefore, more obese, and living longer. We have largely eradicated the diseases that killed our great-grandparents but succumb to autoimmune diseases that were once quite rare. How this might all balance out on the evolutionary scale remains to be seen, but without question the actions we take today affect what our species is tomorrow.
How much control do we have over our own evolution? Some would claim that we are in total control of our evolution with technological and metaphysical advances that allow one to choose not only physical traits of our children but also their temperament and even the basic structures of their belief system. If we develop the means by which to conceive, gestate, and give birth to live humans totally outside the physical body, is there any real limit to the changes we might make in human physiology? Eradicating disease is one thing, but might our attempts to make ourselves smarter change the evolutionary construct of the brain in ways we cannot anticipate? Does giving one the ability to run faster change the skeletal and muscular evolution of our legs?
Some suggest that genetic modification interrupts and eventually might bring an end to evolution; that by preventing latent genes from dying or promoting certain DNA strands out of order, we deter the species from its natural course of adaptation. Yet, are we not, through natural biological processes, doing the same thing when we choose with whom we mate? Two red haired parents are more likely to produce a house full of red haired offspring. The combined DNA of two track champions yields children with a higher potential for physical development.
Genetic modification might change the appearance of one person for one generation, but in order for that modification to become part of the greater human genome, it must be duplicated identically across the whole of the population for multiple generations until that modification itself becomes a part of our very nature. For such modification to overtake the natural course of evolution, the population must first surrender all personal choice.
One must then ask, at the point humans surrender their personal choice, are they really still human?
We don’t just make this up. Here are our sources:
http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situation_trends/en/
http://www.livescience.com/13081-8-reasons-obesitiy-americans-fat.html
http://www.livescience.com/45376-why-did-humans-grow-four-inches-in-100-years-it-wasnt-just-diet.html
http://www.livescience.com/36217-early-bacterial-exposure-immunity.html
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20131210130858-75054000-big-idea-2014-you-will-transform-your-own-biology
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/artificial-wombs-are-coming-and-the-controversys-already-here#
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1911
Miller, Geoffry F. The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. April 1, 2001. Anchor Books, Random House, New York.
This article was originally published in EspritNu, Vol. 1., November 2014. | https://www.charlesiletbetter.com/genetically-modified-people/ |
An Indian study by JNCASR of Department of Science & Technology finds place among major breakthroughs in ecology and evolution counted from ‘Origin of Species’
New Delhi: Indian researchers have contributed to one of sixty-five major breakthroughs in ecology and evolution over the last 160 years, counted from Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ in 1859.
A study in 2003 from the Evolutionary & Organismal Biology Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), has been included in a book titled ‘Conceptual Breakthroughs in Evolutionary Ecology’ by Prof. Laurence D. Mueller, Univ. of California, Irvine, recently published by Elsevier.
This research study from JNCASR is the only one from a non-western country that finds a place in this collection. It was the first experimental verification of the theoretical prediction that population stability may evolve as a by-product of natural selection favouring some life-history trait which traded off with other traits that directly affected population dynamic behaviour.
For example, suppose a population inhabited an ecology wherein it was very advantageous to develop rapidly to reproductive maturity, even if it reduced subsequent offspring production. In such a case, this population might evolve reduced offspring production, as a by-product for selection of rapid development to maturity. The reduced offspring production, in turn, would result in relatively stable population dynamics.
In the 1980s-90s, the common finding that populations of many species typically showed relatively stable dynamics had created a conundrum in evolutionary ecology. A simplistic prediction from the theory of natural selection suggested that all else being equal, higher offspring production should be favoured by evolution. However, in the 1970s, seminal work by the theoretical ecologist Robert May had shown that populations in which individuals produced large numbers of offspring would typically exhibit unstable dynamics. This meant that their numbers would fluctuate a lot through time. Therefore, if natural selection favoured higher offspring production, most populations would be expected to have evolved unstable, fluctuating dynamics.
Yet, empirical studies showed that many wild and laboratory populations of different species actually showed fairly stable dynamics. Theoretical work suggested that one factor that might promote such evolution of population stability could be trade-offs among traits related to Darwinian fitness.
This mechanism was exactly what Prof. Amitabh Joshi’s group at JNCASR, including N. G. Prasad, Sutirth Dey and Mallikarjun Shakarad (now faculty at IISER Mohali, IISER Pune and Delhi University, respectively), demonstrated experimentally in their 2003 paper in Biology Letters, then a Supplement to the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences. They used fruitfly populations that had been selected in the laboratory for rapid egg-to-adult development for over 100 generations.
These populations had evolved smaller body size and female fecundity as a result of evolving a greatly reduced larval phase. The group then used these populations in an experiment where their population sizes were monitored in every generation in a nutritional environment known to induce unstable dynamics. They showed that the faster-developing populations had indeed evolved greater population stability than their ancestral control populations.
Incidentally, these faster-developing fruitfly populations have now completed 800 generations (23 years) of selection and have been used to establish many novel findings about fundamental phenomena in evolutionary biology, especially in the areas of life-history evolution and the evolution of competitive ability, the trait- environment- and selection-dependent nature of canalization, the evolution of reproductive isolation through a combination of natural and sexual selection, as well as male-female coevolution and the evolution of inter-sexual conflict.
“The article from Joshi’s group illustrates the power of lateral thinking leading to profound, even disruptive concepts that are so vital for the meaningful progress of science. In the basic sciences, it is the capacity to work on the high risk, new ideas that differentiates the few leaders from a plethora of followers and the profound from the incremental,” said Prof Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST. | https://indiaeducationdiary.in/an-indian-study-by-jncasr-of-department-of-science-technology-finds-place-among-major-breakthroughs-in-ecology-and-evolution-counted-from-origin-of-species/ |
throughout the Phanerozoic. These changes have been linked to the evolution, radiation,
and size of animals but have not been considered to affect climate. We conducted
simulations showing that modulation of the partial pressure of oxygen (pO2), as a result
of its contribution to atmospheric mass and density, influences the optical depth of the
atmosphere. Under low pO2 and a reduced-density atmosphere, shortwave scattering by
air molecules and clouds is less frequent, leading to a substantial increase in surface
shortwave forcing. Through feedbacks involving latent heat fluxes to the atmosphere and
marine stratus clouds, surface shortwave forcing drives increases in atmospheric water
vapor and global precipitation, enhances greenhouse forcing, and raises global surface
temperature. Our results implicate pO2 as an important factor in climate forcing
throughout geologic time.
On geological time scales, Earth’s atmo- spheric oxygen concentration is regulated by burial of organic carbon and pyrite, which adds O2 to the atmosphere, and oxidative weathering, which removes it
(1). Long-term imbalances in these processes
have caused pO2 to vary on the order of 1% on
million-year time scales. Charcoal evidence of
fire deposited in sediments suggests that O2
abundances have remained within the fire window, approximately 13 to 35%, since at least the
Silurian (~420 million years ago) (2). Estimates
of the evolution of pO2 through the Phanerozoic
have been made using geochemical models of
carbon and sulfur cycles (1, 3–7) and proxy methods
based on abundances of charcoal in wetland environments (8) and stable carbon isotopes of plant
resins and ambers (9). These reconstructions differ
substantially, with some indicating that pO2 was
essentially at or above modern levels for most of
the past 300 million years (5, 6, 8) and others indicating substantial variations, including a long-term
rise from levels as low as 10 to 11% in the Mesozoic
to modern values (1, 3, 4, 7, 9).
In the current atmosphere, oxygen (O2) constitutes approximately 20.95% of air by volume,
with nitrogen (N2) and argon (Ar) contributing
78.09% and 0.93%, respectively. As a result of
this composition, dry air has a mean molecular
weight of 28.97 g/mol, a typical density at sea
level of ~1.2 kg/m3, and a mean sea-level pressure
of 101.3 kPa. Changes to atmospheric pO2 of several percent, assuming no change in the amounts
of other constituents, have a substantial effect
on atmospheric density, molecular weight, and
pressure (Table 1).
Unlike greenhouse gases, O2 is inactive in theinfrared band, contributes weakly to the radia-tive forcing of the atmosphere, and is not con-sidered an important factor in climate forcing(10). However, through its influence on atmo-spheric density, O2 directly influences solar op-tical depth (ta), a measure of atmospheric opacity,by absorption and scattering of solar radiation.In its simplest form, the solar optical depth isexpressed as
tðzÞ ¼ krDz ð1Þ
where k (m2/kg) represents a mass absorption
coefficient, r (kg/m3) is the density of the absorber, and Dz (m) is the thickness of the atmosphere. Following Beer’s law, the fraction of solar
radiation (I) that passes through the atmosphere
is related to the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) intensity I0 and optical depth by
I¼ I0 expð−tÞ ð2Þ
In the modern atmosphere, ~23% of the totalincoming radiation (~79 W m−2) is scattered tospace by air molecules and water droplets inclouds (11). In an atmosphere with less O2, col-lisions between photons and air molecules areless common, reducing scattering. Using Eqs. 1and 2 and assuming a 22.5% decrease in totalair density with a decline in O2 from 21% to 10%(Table 1), total scattering is estimated to decreaseby ~16 W m−2.Here, we quantified the effect of changingpO2 on global climate with the use of an atmo-spheric global climate model (GCM) to accountfor changes in atmospheric density, mass, andmolecular weights (Table 1 and supplementarymaterials). In doing so, we maintained the par-tial pressures of other atmospheric constituents(N2, Ar, CH4, N2O, and CO2, except as indicated)at constant values. We focused on simulationsof the Cenomanian, a mid-Cretaceous stagecharacterized by high pCO2 [e.g., (12)] and thewarmest conditions of the past ~100 millionyears (13). Paleo-pO2 estimates inferred fromstable-isotope carbon compositions indicate thatthe atmospheric percentage of O2 was as low as10 to 11% during this interval (7, 9), with one bio-geochemical model indicating levels as high as32.5% (6). We developed a series of simulationswith O2 abundance varying between 5% and 35%,which captures the full range of both Cretaceousand Phanerozoic pO2 values estimated by geo-chemical modeling and proxy techniques, andpCO2 varying between preindustrial (280 ppmv)and 8 times preindustrial levels (2240 ppmv).Varying pO2 in our simulations alters bothTOA and surface radiative forcing. In the sim-ulation with 1120 ppmv pCO2, approximatelythe median value of Cenomanian pCO2 proxyestimates [e.g., (12)], the global TOA shortwaveforcing increases by 3.4 W m−2 with a decreasein O2 from 21 to 10% and is balanced by an in-crease in outgoing TOA longwave radiation. Theequilibrium TOA shortwave forcing response isconsistent with a reduction in outgoing short-wave radiation by Rayleigh scattering but isless than anticipated from our scaling estimatebecause of climate feedbacks. To demonstratethis, we ran a Cenomanian simulation with 10%O2 branched from an equilibrium 21% O2 simula-tion (see supplementary materials). The initial1-day difference in the total atmospheric scatter-ing, 23.5 W m−2, is similar in magnitude to ourscaling estimate, with increases in clear-skyand cloud surface shortwave forcing of 4.5 W m−2and 19 W m−2, respectively. The increase in cloudshortwave forcing is greater than anticipatedfrom a reduction in scattering alone becausethe cloud fraction initially decreases by 10.5%
1238 12 JUNE 2015 • VOL 348 ISSUE 6240
sciencemag.org SCIENCE
1Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. 2Department of
Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Table 1. Dry atmospheric conditions under variable O2 levels. Atmospheric pN2 and pAr are
fixed at modern values; Mv/Ma is the ratio of the molecular weight of water to the molecular weight
of dry air. | http://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/12_june_2015?sub_id=KGmFyqsP99xC&folio=1238 |
Key Vocabulary • Altitude- elevation or distance above sea level • Temperature- a measure of heat energy in an item • Water Vapor- water in the form of a gas • Pressure- the force pushing on an area or surface • Particles- solids such as dust, smoke, salt, pollen, chemicals, cells etc. • Weather- a condition of the Earth’s atmosphere at a particular place and time • Climate- the overall, average or expected weather patterns in an area.
Composition of the Atmosphere • Atmosphere- the layer of gases that surround the planet • Made of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, other gases, and particles • 78% Nitrogen • 21% Oxygen • 3 jobs of the atmosphere • Makes Earth inhabitable • Traps energy to help heat the Earth. • Protects us
Layers in the Atmosphere • Troposphere- “tropo-” means changing • Lowest layer, ground level to 12 km high • Contains Earth’s weather • Where we live • Stratosphere- “strato-” means layer • Next highest layer, 12-50 km • Contains the Ozone layer • Absorbs UV rays from the Sun • Commercial jets fly here, few clouds, dry
Ozone Layer • Ozone is a pale blue gas, with a strong odor: O3 • We breathe Oxygen O2 • 90% of all the Ozone is found in the stratosphere. 10% is found in the troposphere. Ozone is extremely important because it is the only gas that absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and protects the surface of the Earth and people from the damaging effects of UV rays.
Layers in the Atmosphere cont’d • Mesosphere- “meso-” means middle • 50-80 km • Coldest part of the atmosphere • Meteoroids burn up in this layer (shooting stars) • Hard layer to study • Thermosphere- “thermo-” means heat • Top layer, 80 km and outward (no outer limit) • Layer most exposed to the Sun, Hottest layer • Divided into two additional layers (Ionosphere and Exosphere) • Ionosphere- 80-550 km, radio waves bounce off of electrically charged molecules, contains Aurora Borealis • Exosphere- above 550 km, satellites orbit here
Energy in the Atmosphere • Electromagnetic waves- a form of energy that can travel through space. • Some of the energy from the sun is reflected and absorbed in the atmosphere. • Most of the energy that reaches in the Earth is visible light, infrared radiation, or small amount of UV radiation.
Kinds of Radiation Visible Light- mixture of all colors of light in the rainbow (ROYGBIV) Infrared- form of energy with wavelengths that are longer than red light (EX: Food prep) Ultraviolet(UV)- a form of energy with wavelengths that are shorter than violet light (EX: Causes damage to DNA or cells)
Today’s Tasks • Put your stapled Genetic Research Paper in the Bin. (If you gave it to Mrs. Goodman that is ok go to the next step.) • Go to SWS: Daily Assignment, Copy today’s assignment and Paste at the end of the Atmosphere Notes from yesterday. • Complete #1-4 from what you pasted. • We will start talking about the following questions in about 15-20 minutes.
Greenhouse Effect • Greenhouse Effect- process by which gases in the atmosphere hold in heat • Humans have impacted the natural greenhouse effect by adding to the amount of greenhouse gases. That increases the temperature on Earth. • Greenhouse gasses are Carbon Dioxide, Water Vapor, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide. • Humans have also released chemicals that have decreased the size of the ozone layer. (Made a hole)
What happens to the temperature as you increase in altitude in the Troposphere? In the Stratosphere? In the Mesosphere? In the Thermosphere?
What happens to the pressure as you increase in altitude from the troposphere to the thermosphere?
Word Bank: Atmosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere, Stratosphere, Troposphere, Ozone Layer Exit Slip • In which part of the atmosphere does most weather occur? • What part of the atmosphere shields Earth’s surface from harmful UV radiation? • What is the outermost layer called? • In which layer do we live and spend most our time? • Which layer is the hardest to study? Why? • What is the most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere? • Why are the thermosphere and exosphere the warmest layers?
Heating the Atmosphere • Thermal Energy- the total energy of motion in the molecules of a substance • Temperature- the average amount of energy of motion of each molecule of a substance • Thermometer- tool used to measure the average amount of energy of motion (temperature) • Heat- energy transferred from a hotter object to a cooler object
There are 3 ways Heat is transferred • Radiation- the direct transfer of energy by electromagnet waves Ex- Sunlight shining on Earth • Conduction- the direct transfer of heat from one substance to another substance that is touching Ex- Items on ground getting warm because they sit on the ground • Convection- the transfer of heat by the movement of a fluid Ex- Air above ground warming due to heat in ground.
Lab Results and Discussion 1. When you placed the thermometer directly on the ground what kind of heat transfer was taking place? When you placed the thermometer 1.25m above the ground what kind of heat transfer was taking place? What kind of transfer occurred for your skin to feel warm? 2. How did the temperature 1 cm above the ground compare to the temperature 1.25 m above? 3. Are there differences between your two locations? Explain. Why do you think that was or was not the case?
4. Predict the outcome of this experiment if you were 12 hours from now? Explain your Prediction using science terms. 5. What can you conclude about the temperature of the troposphere closer to the ground as opposed to further from the ground? | https://fr.slideserve.com/arista/the-atmosphere-powerpoint-ppt-presentation |
Oxygen is a chemical element with symbol O and atomic number 8. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colourless, odourless, tasteless diatomic gas with the formula O2. This substance is an important part of the atmosphere, and is necessary to sustain most terrestrial life.
Oxygen is a member of the chalcogen group on the periodic table and is a highly reactive nonmetallic element that readily forms compounds (notably oxides) with most elements except the noble gases Helium and Neon. Oxygen is a strong oxidizing agent and only fluorine has greater electronegativity. By mass, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium and the most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust, making up almost half of the crust's mass. Oxygen is too chemically reactive to remain a free element in Earth's atmosphere without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms, which use the energy of sunlight to produce elemental oxygen from water. Free elemental O2 only began to accumulate in the atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago. Diatomic oxygen gas constitutes 20.8% of the volume of air.
Oxygen constitutes most of the mass of living organisms, because water is their major constituent (for example, about two-thirds of human body mass. Many major classes of organic molecules in living organisms, such as proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and fats, contain oxygen, as do the major inorganic compounds that are constituents of animal shells, teeth, and bone. Elemental oxygen is produced by cyanobacteria, algae and plants, and is used in cellular respiration for all complex life. Oxygen is toxic to obligately anaerobic organisms, which were the dominant form of early life on Earth until O2 began to accumulate in the atmosphere. Another form (allotrope) of oxygen, ozone (O3), strongly absorbs UVB radiation and consequently the high-altitude ozone layer helps protect the biosphere from ultraviolet radiation, but is a pollutant near the surface where it is a by-product of smog. At even higher low earth orbit altitudes, atomic oxygen is a significant presence and a cause of erosion for spacecraft.
Oxygen is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquefied air, use of zeolites with pressure-cycling to concentrate oxygen from air, electrolysis of water and other means. Uses of elemental oxygen include the production of steel, plastics and textiles, brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy and life support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight and diving.
At standard temperature and pressure, oxygen is a colourless, odourless gas with the molecular formula O2, in which the two oxygen atoms are chemically bonded to each other with a spin triplet electron configuration. This bond has a bond order of two, and is often simplified in description as a double bond or as a combination of one two-electron bond and two three-electron bonds.
Oxygen is more soluble in water than nitrogen is. Water in equilibrium with air contains approximately 1 molecule of dissolved O2 for every 2 molecules of N2, compared to an atmospheric ratio of approximately 1:4. The solubility of oxygen in water is temperature-dependent, and about twice as much dissolves at 0°C than at 20°C. At 25°C and 1 standard atmosphere (101.3 kPa) of air, freshwater contains about 6.04 milliliters (mL) of oxygen per liter, whereas seawater contains about 4.95 mL per liter. At 5°C the solubility increases to 9.0 mL (50% more than at 25°C) per liter for water and 7.2 mL (45% more) per liter for sea water.
Oxygen condenses at 90.20 K (−182.95°C, −297.31°F), and freezes at 54.36 K (−218.79°C, −361.82°F). Both liquid and solid O2 are clear substances with a light sky-blue colour caused by absorption in the red (in contrast with the blue colour of the sky, which is due to Rayleigh scattering of blue light). High-purity liquid O2 is usually obtained by the fractional distillation of liquefied air. Liquid oxygen may also be produced by condensation out of air, using liquid nitrogen as a coolant. It is a highly reactive substance and must be segregated from combustible materials.
Two major methods are employed to produce 100 million tonnes of O2 extracted from air for industrial uses annually. The most common method is to fractionally distill liquefied air into its various components, with N2 distilling as a vapour while O2is left as a liquid. A drawing of three vertical pipes connected at the bottom and filled with oxygen (left pipe), water (middle) and hydrogen (right). Anode and cathode electrodes are inserted into the left and right pipes and externally connected to a battery.
The other major method of producing O2 gas involves passing a stream of clean, dry air through one bed of a pair of identical zeolite molecular sieves, which absorbs the nitrogen and delivers a gas stream that is 90% to 93% O2. Simultaneously, nitrogen gas is released from the other nitrogen-saturated zeolite bed, by reducing the chamber operating pressure and diverting part of the oxygen gas from the producer bed through it, in the reverse direction of flow. After a set cycle time the operation of the two beds is interchanged, thereby allowing for a continuous supply of gaseous oxygen to be pumped through a pipeline. This is known as pressure swing adsorption. Oxygen gas is increasingly obtained by these non-cryogenic technologies.
Oxygen gas can also be produced through electrolysis of water into molecular oxygen and hydrogen. DC electricity must be used: if AC is used, the gases in each limb consist of hydrogen and oxygen in the explosive ratio 2:1. Contrary to popular belief, the 2:1 ratio observed in the DC electrolysis of acidified water does not prove that the empirical formula of water is H2O unless certain assumptions are made about the molecular formulae of hydrogen and oxygen themselves. A similar method is the electrocatalytic O2 evolution from oxides and oxoacids. Chemical catalysts can be used as well, such as in chemical oxygen generators or oxygen candles that are used as part of the life-support equipment on submarines, and are still part of standard equipment on commercial airliners in case of depressurization emergencies. Another air separation technology involves forcing air to dissolve through ceramic membranes based on zirconium dioxide by either high pressure or an electric current, to produce nearly pure O2 gas.
In large quantities, the price of liquid oxygen in 2001 was approximately $0.21/kg. Since the primary cost of production is the energy cost of liquefying the air, the production cost will change as energy cost varies.
Liquid oxygen — abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries — is one of the physical forms of elemental oxygen.
Liquid oxygen has a pale blue colour and is strongly paramagnetic, it can be suspended between the poles of a powerful horseshoe magnet. Liquid oxygen has a density of 1.141 g/cm3 (1.141 kg/L) and is cryogenic with a freezing point of 50.5 K (−368.77°F; −222.65°C) and a boiling point of 90.19 K (−297.33°F, −182.96°C) at 101.325 kPa (760 mmHg). Liquid oxygen has an expansion ratio of 1:861 under 1 standard atmosphere (100 kPa) and 20°C (68°F).
Because of its cryogenic nature, liquid oxygen can cause the materials it touches to become extremely brittle. Liquid oxygen is also a very powerful oxidizing agent: organic materials will burn rapidly and energetically in liquid oxygen. Further, if soaked in liquid oxygen, some materials such as coal briquettes, Carbon Black, etc., can detonate unpredictably from sources of ignition such as flames, sparks or impact from light blows. Petrochemicals often exhibit this behaviour, including asphalt.
Liquid nitrogen has a lower boiling point at −196°C (77 K) than oxygen's −183°C (90 K), and vessels containing liquid nitrogen can condense oxygen from air: when most of the nitrogen has evaporated from such a vessel there is a risk that liquid oxygen remaining can react violently with organic material. Conversely, liquid nitrogen or liquid air can be oxygen-enriched by letting it stand in open air; atmospheric oxygen dissolves in it, while nitrogen evaporates preferentially.
Application
Oxygen: Blast furnaces, copper smelting, steel production (basic oxygen converter process); manufacture of synthesis gas for production of ammonia methyl alcohol, acetylene, etc.; oxidizer for liquid rocket propellants, resuscitation, heart stimulant; decompression chambers; spacecraft; chemical intermediate; to replace air in oxidation of municipal and industrial organic wastes; to counteract effect of euthrophication in lakes and reservoirs; coal gasification.
In commerce, liquid oxygen is classified as an industrial gas and is widely used for industrial and medical purposes. Liquid oxygen is obtained from the oxygen found naturally in air by fractional distillation in a cryogenic air separation plant.
Liquid oxygen is a common liquid oxidizer propellant for spacecraft rocket applications, usually in combination with liquid hydrogen or kerosene. Liquid oxygen is useful in this role because it creates a high specific impulse. It was used in the very first rocket applications like the V2 missile (under the name A-Stoff and Sauerstoff) and Redstone, R-7 Semyorka, Atlas boosters, and the ascent stages of the Apollo Saturn rockets. Liquid oxygen was also used in some early ICBMs, although more modern ICBMs do not use liquid oxygen because its cryogenic properties and need for regular replenishment to replace boiloff make it harder to maintain and launch quickly. Many modern rockets use liquid oxygen, including the main engines on the Space Shuttle.
Liquid oxygen also had extensive use in making oxyliquit explosives, but is rarely used now due to a high rate of accidents.
Shipment / Storage
For reasons of economy, oxygen is often transported in bulk as a liquid in specially insulated tankers, since one litre of liquefied oxygen is equivalent to 840 liters of gaseous oxygen at atmospheric pressure and 20 °C. Such tankers are used to refill bulk liquid oxygen storage containers, which stand outside hospitals and other institutions with a need for large volumes of pure oxygen gas. Liquid oxygen is passed through heat exchangers, which convert the cryogenic liquid into gas before it enters the building. Oxygen is also stored and shipped in smaller cylinders containing the compressed gas; a form that is useful in certain portable medical applications and oxy-fuel welding and cutting.
For overseas carriage aspects of Chemicals, the readers are recommended to acquire or have access to a good chemical dictionary, and a copy of the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code, issued by the International Maritime Organisation. Also consult the applicable MSDS sheet.
Risk factors
Hazard
Gaseous: moderate fire risk as oxidizing agent; therapeutic overdoses can cause convulsions.
Liquid: may explode on contact with heat or oxidizable materials. Irritant to skin and tissue. | https://www.cargohandbook.com/Oxygen |
Oxidation and nitridization of Zr1%Nb Z. Hózer, M. Kunstár, L. Matus, N. Vér presented by L. Matus 11th International QUENCH Workshop Karlsruhe, 25-27 October, 2005, Germany
1. Introduction • In the frame of our CLAIR (Oxidation and nitridization of Zr CLaddings in AIR) program we are dealing with the high temperature behaviour of VVER cladding material Zr1%Nb in air, oxygen and nitrogen. For comparison some tests were performed by Zircaloy-4. • The experiments were made up to low extent of reactions, because we wanted to remain • - in the parabolic range of reaction rate, • - at low embrittlement to have possibility for ring rupture tests.
2. Experimental • A resistance heated vertical tube furnace was applied with quartz inlet tube for getting closed area to get definite atmosphere at experiments. • Both air and oxygen were dried with adsorber. • In case of nitrogen special attention was paid to remove any oxidative component. At the bottom of high temperature stage Zr turnings were placed in to result sufficiently pure nitrogen. In this case double walled quartz tube was applied with vacuum or nitrogen filled to avoid oxygen diffusion through the high temperature quartz.
With a small device it was possible to place the sample into the upper cold part of quartz inlet tube and lowering it to the hot stage of furnace after appropriate gas flushing and furnace temperature. It made also possible to interrupt reaction by pulling back samples to cold top. • The samples were weighted and geometrically measured before and after tests.
This slide shows the Zr turnings after some hours nitrogen streaming through. The lower dark stage formed because of oxidant species. The upper gold coloured part indicate that the escaping nitrogen was pure enough.
3. Resultsa. Air oxidation of Zr1%Nb • Some years ago we studied the air oxidation of Zr1%Nb separate effect test for CODEX-AIT. • The present results agree well with the earlier as can be seen in the next plot. • Andreeva-Andrievskaya et. al. got similar results for the same alloy. • The results in both laboratory showed that the Arrhenius type plot is not a straight line, the reaction rate increase with reduced rate at higher temperature.
Air oxidation of Zr1%Nb, weight gain vs. square root of time Using a new cladding material the air oxidation showed a delay in start of process. It is certainly coming from its original surface oxide layer.
Growth of test samples during air oxidation It is well known that about ECR~10% is the allowed oxidation for cladding. At that value ca. 3% increase of cladding geometries has been found.
b. Oxygen oxidation of Zr1%Nb • Weight gain of some zirconium alloy and pure zirconium in O2 oxidation can be seen in figure left.
Similar to the air oxidation a delay appeared in start of oxidation process. The time of delay was also about 40 s, similar to air. At Zircaloy-4 no delay was observed.
Growth of test samples during O2 oxidation Linear growths vs. ECR are similar as at air oxidation. Moreover the length and diameter were growing on the same extent.
C. Reaction of N2 with Zr1%Nb In figure left the mass gain vs. square root of time is shown. The parabolic law is valid and no delay in start of reactions has been found.
Reaction rates of N2 with Zr and its alloys, summery On left our results for Zr1%Nb and one point for Zircaloy-4 together with others from literature for pure Zr can be seen. At atmospheric pressure N2 all values are on the same line. Under them are given points from Dravnieks, who used lower N2 pressures.
Growth of test samples during N2 reactions It seems so that at higher temperature the deformation with ECR is going back. Certainly with rising temperature the nitrogen is distributed more in the Zr material.
4. Summary • Reactions of Zr1%Nb VVER cladding material has been studied in air, oxygen and nitrogen at high temperatures (800-1200 oC) and low extent of scaling. • The parabolic law is valid in the ECR < 10 % range. • The new cladding type shows a delay in start of air and oxygen atmosphere, but not in case of nitrogen. • As comparison the Zircaloy-4 showed no delay. • Geometrical parameters were growing approximately linear with the extent of reactions. | https://www.slideserve.com/leo-pace/oxidation-and-nitridization-of-zr1-nb |
The major factors responsible for extending the shelf life of fruits and vegetables include: careful harvesting so as not to injure the product, harvesting at optimal horticultural maturity for intended use, and good sanitation When these are practiced, the implementation of optimum storage conditions through modified atmospheres can be quite effective at maximizing the shelf life and quality of the product.
A modified atmosphere can be defined as one that is created by altering the normal composition of air (78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.03% carbon dioxide and traces of noble gases) to provide an optimum atmosphere for increasing the storage length and quality of food/produce . This can be achieved by using controlled atmosphere storage (CAS) and/or active or passive modified atmosphere packaging (MAP). Under controlled atmospheric conditions, the atmosphere is modified from that of the ambient atmosphere, and these conditions are maintained throughout storage. Examples of this type of storage and the commercial systems available are MAP uses the same principles as CAS; however, it is used on smaller quantities of produce and the atmosphere is only initially modified. Active modification occurs by the displacement of gases in the package, which are then replaced by a desired mixture of gases, while passive modification occurs when the product is packaged using a selected film type, and a desired atmosphere develops naturally as a consequence of the products' respiration and the diffusion of gases through the film . The numerous film types used in MAP and some commercially available MAP systems are listed in Table .
Oxygen, CO2 , and N2 , are most often used in MAP/CAS (Parry 1993; Phillips 1996). Other gases such as nitrous and nitric oxides, sulphur dioxide, ethylene, chlorine (Phillips 1996), as well as ozone and propylene oxide (Parry 1993) have been suggested and investigated experimentally. However, due to safety, regulatory and cost considerations, they have not been applied commercially. These gases are combined in three ways for use in modified atmospheres: inert blanketing using Nitrogen Gas , semi-reactive blanketing using CO2 / N2 or O2 /CO2 /N2 or fully reactive blanketing using CO2 or CO2 /O2 (Parry 1993; Moleyar and Narasimham 1994).
Normally, the concentration of O2 in a pack is kept very low (1-5%) by use of Nitrogen Gas Generators to reduce the respiration rate of fruits and vegetables (Lee and others 1995). Reducing the rate of respiration by limiting O2 prolongs the shelf life of fruits and vegetables by delaying the oxidative breakdown of the complex substrates which make up the product. Also, O2 concentrations below 8% reduce the production of ethylene, a key component of the ripening and maturation process. However, at extremely low O2 levels (that is, <1%), anaerobic respiration can occur, resulting in tissue destruction and the production of substances that contribute to off-flavors and off-odors (Lee and others 1995; Zagory 1995), as well as the potential for growth of food borne pathogens such as Clostridium botulinum (Austin and others 1998). Therefore, the recommended percentage of O2 in a modified atmosphere for fruits and vegetables for both safety and quality falls between 1 and 5% (Table VI-4). However, it is recognized that the oxygen level will realistically reach levels below 1% in MAP produce. It is generally believed that with the use of permeable films, spoilage will occur before toxin production is an issue; MAP of produce, however, should always incorporate packaging materials that will not lead to an anoxic package environment when the product is stored at the intended temperature. This recommendation should be qualified, however, by saying that all films are permeable to oxygen to some degree; the difference pertains to the rate of gas transfer through the film, with some films allowing greater transfer rates than others. Moreover, the elimination or significant inhibition of spoilage organisms should not be practiced, as their interaction with pathogens may play an integral role in product safety. A number of packers of fresh prepared green vegetables in the United Kingdom have been experimenting with O2 mixtures between 70 and 100% (Day 1996). The treatment, referred to as "oxygen shock" or "gas shock," has been found to be very effective in inhibiting enzymatic discoloration, preventing anaerobic fermentation reactions, and inhibiting aerobic and anaerobic microbial growth. High levels of O2 can inhibit the growth of both anaerobic and aerobic microorganisms since the optimal O2 level for growth (21% for aerobes, 0-2% for anaerobes) is surpassed. However, there have also been reports of high O2 (that is, 80-90%) stimulating the growth of foodborne pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes (Amanatidou and others 1999). Recent studies by Kader and Ben-Yehoshua (2000) and Wszelaki and Mitcham (2000) examining the use of superatmospheric O 2 levels to control microorganisms on produce, have found that only O 2 atmospheres close to 100 kPa or lower pressures (40 kPa O 2 ) in combination with CO 2 (15 kPa), are truly effective. These requirements may be difficult to achieve in industry since working with such high O 2 levels can be hazardous due to flammability issues. As with most MAP gases, superatmospheric O2 has varied effects depending on the commodity, and further research is required in this area to elucidate the utility of this technique in the fresh-cut produce industry. A high O2 MAP group has been formed in the United Kingdom and includes a number of industry groups, notably Marks and Spencer plc, one of the first retail chains to distribute MAP foods. More recently, the "high O2 MAP club" has provided a base for the new "Novel Gases MAP Club" in the United Kingdom, a group that will investigate the use of novel high O2 , argon and nitrous oxide MAP for extending shelf life and quality of fresh-cut produce. Their main focus is research into the commercial application of this process. | http://mellcon.com/product/food_map_nitrogen.aspx |
NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Physics Chapter 13 Kinetic Theory
Topics and Subtopics in NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Physics Chapter 13 Kinetic Theory:
|Section Name||Topic Name|
|13||Kinetic Theory|
|13.1||Introduction|
|13.2||Molecular nature of matter|
|13.3||Behaviour of gases|
|13.4||Kinetic theory of an ideal gas|
|13.5||Law of equipartition of energy|
|13.6||Specific heat capacity|
|13.7||Mean free path|
QUESTIONS FROM TEXTBOOK
Question 13. 1. Estimate the fraction of molecular volume to the actual volume occupied by oxygen gas at STP.’ Take the diameter of an oxygen molecule to be 3 A.
Answer: Diameter of an oxygen molecule, d = 3 A = 3 x 10-10 m. Consider one mole of oxygen gas at STP, which contain total NA = 6.023 x 1023 molecules.
Question 13. 2. Molar volume is the volume occupied by 1 mol of any (ideal) gas at standard temperature and pressure (STP : 1 atmospheric pressure, 0 °C). Show that it is 22.4 litres.
Answer:
Question 13. 3. Following figure shows plot of PV/T versus P for 1.00 x 10-3 kg of oxygen gas at two different temperatures.
(a) What does the dotted plot signify?
(b) Which is true : T1> T2 or T1< T2?
(c) What is the value of PV/T where the curves meet on the y-axis?
(d) If we obtained similar plots for 1.00 x 10-3 kg of hydrogen, would we get the same value of PV/T at the point where the curves meet on the y-axis? If not, what mass of hydrogen yields the same value of PV/T (for low pressure high temperature region of the plot) ? (Molecular mass of H2 = 2.02 u, of O2 = 32.0 u, R = 8.31 J mol-1 K-1.)
Question 13. 4. An oxygen cylinder of volume 30 Hire has an initial gauge pressure of 15 atmosphere and a temperature of 27 °C. After some oxygen is withdrawn from the cylinder, the gauge pressure drops to 11 atmosphere and its temperature drops to 17 °C. Estimate the mass of oxygen taken out of the cylinder. (R = 8.31 J mol-1 K-1, molecular mass of O2 = 32 u.)
Answer:
Question 13. 5. An air bubble of volume 1.0 cm3 rises from the bottom of a lake 40 m deep at a temperature of 12°C. To what volume does it grow when it reaches the surface, which is at a temperature of 35 °C.
Answer:
Question 13. 6. Estimate the total number of air molecules (inclusive of oxygen, nitrogen, water vapour and other constituents) in a room of capacity 25.0 m3 at a temperature of 27 °C and 1 atm pressure.
Answer:
Question 13. 7. Estimate the average thermal energy of a helium atom at (i) room temperature (27 °C), (ii) the temperature on the surface of the Sun (6000 K), (iii) the temperature of 10 million kelvin (the typical core temperature in the case of a star).
Answer:
Question 13. 8. Three vessels of equal capacity have gases at the same temperature and pressure. The first vessel contains neon (mono atomic), the second contains chlorine (diatomic), and the third contains uranium hexafluoride (polyatomic). Do the vessels contain equal number of respective molecules? Is the root mean square speed of molecules the same in the three cases? If not, in which case is vrms the largest?
Answer: Equal volumes of all the gases under similar conditions of pressure and temperature contains equal number of molecules (according to Avogadro’s hypothesis). Therefore, the number of molecules in each case is same.
Question 13. 9. At what temperature is the root mean square speed of an atom in an argon gas cylinder equal to the rms speed of a helium gas atom at -20 °C? (atomic mass of Ar = 39.9 u, of He = 4.0 u).
Answer: Let C and C’ be the rms velocity of argon and a helium gas atoms at temperature T K and T K respectively.
Here, M = 39.9; M’ = 4.0; T =?; T = -20 + 273 = 253 K
Question 13. 10. Estimate the mean free path and collision frequency of a nitrogen molecule in a cylinder containing nitrogen at 2.0 atm and temperature 17 °C. Take the radius of a nitrogen molecule to be roughly 1.0 A. Compare the collision time with the time the molecule moves freely between two successive collisions (Molecular mass of N2 = 28.0 u).
Answer:
Question 13. 11. A meter long narrow bore held horizontally (and closed at one end) contains a 76 cm long mercury thread which traps a 15 cm column of air. What happens if the tube is held vertically with the open end at the bottom?
Answer: When the tube is held horizontally, the mercury thread of length 76 cm traps a length of air = 15 cm. A length of 9 cm of the tube will be left at the open end. The pressure of air enclosed in tube will be atmospheric pressure. Let area of cross-section of the tube be 1 sq. cm.
.’. P1 = 76 cm and V1 = 15 cm3
Question 13. 12. From a certain apparatus, the diffusion rate of hydrogen has an average value of 28.7 cm3 s-1. The diffusion of another gas under the same conditions is measured to have an average rate of 7.2 cm3 s-1. Identify the gas.
Answer: According to Graham’s law of diffusion of gases, the rate of diffusion of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its molecular mass.
If R1 and R2 be the rates of diffusion of two gases having molecular masses M1 and M2 respectively, then
Question 13. 13. A gas in equilibrium has uniform density and pressure throughout its volume. This is strictly true only if there are no external influences. A gas column under gravity, for example, does not have uniform density (and pressure). As you might expect, its density decreases with height. The precise dependence is given by the so-called law of atmospheres n2 = n1 exp [ – mg (h2 – h1)/kBT]
where n2, n1 refer to number density at heights h2 and h1 respectively. Use this relation to derive the equation for sedimentation equilibrium of a suspension in a liquid column : | https://indianexpresss.in/ncert-solutions-for-class-11-physics-chapter-13-kinetic-theory/ |
Observations have revealed that the elemental abundances of carbon and oxygen in the warm molecular layers of some protoplanetary disks are depleted compared to those is the interstellar medium by a factor of ~10-100.
Meanwhile, little is known about nitrogen. To investigate the time evolution of nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen elemental abundances in disks, we develop a one-dimensional model that incorporates dust settling, turbulent diffusion of dust and ices, as well as gas-ice chemistry including the chemistry driven by stellar UV/X-rays and the galactic cosmic rays.
We find that gaseous CO in the warm molecular layer is converted to CO2 ice and locked up near the midplane via the combination of turbulent mixing (i.e., the vertical cold finger effect) and ice chemistry driven by stellar UV photons. On the other hand, gaseous N2, the main nitrogen reservoir in the warm molecular layer, is less processed by ice chemistry, and exists as it is. Then the nitrogen depletion occurs solely by the vertical cold finger effect of N2.
As the binding energy of N2 is lower than that of CO and CO2, the degree of nitrogen depletion is smaller than that of carbon and oxygen depletion, leading to higher elemental abundance of nitrogen than that of carbon and oxygen. This evolution occurs within 1 Myr and proceeds further, when the α parameter for the diffusion coefficient is ~0.001. Consequently, the N2H+/CO column density ratio increases with time. How the vertical transport affects the midplane ice composition is briefly discussed.
Kenji Furuya, Lee Sokho, Hideko Nomura
Comments: 22 pages, 15 figures, accepted by ApJ
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as: arXiv:2209.07197 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2209.07197v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2209.07197
Focus to learn more
Submission history
From: Kenji Furuya
[v1] Thu, 15 Sep 2022 10:16:52 UTC (451 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.07197
Astrobiology, Astrochemistry, | https://astrobiology.com/2022/09/different-degrees-of-nitrogen-and-carbon-depletion-in-the-warm-molecular-layers-of-protoplanetary-disks.html |
How can primary and secondary sources by used successfully in an investigation?
What types of sampling techniques are there?
Key Terminology
- Sampling techniques
- Random sampling
- Stratified sampling
- Systematic sampling
- Transect
- Pedestrian and traffic counts
- Footfall surveys
We will be defining the terms above throughout the lesson and there are links to what they are in the associated sections below.
The 5 data collection transects
Data collection requirements per transect group
- Two minute pedestrian count, to be carried out at 8 pre-chosen sites along the transect.
- Two minute traffic counts, to happen at the same 8 pre-chosed sites as the pedestrian counts. The traffic count needs to breakdown the traffic by type.
- Building type and name/brand along the complete transect.
- Two minute footfall (the number of people entering a doorway versus the number of people walking past) survey to be done outside 8 building/premises decided upon before data collection is started.
- An environment quality survey which uses an observer’s judgements to assess environmental quality against a range of indicators. You need to complete 8 environment quality surveys.
Activity One - Collecting quality data
- What is 'quality data'?
- The conclusions that you make will be based upon the data you collect - therefore rubbish data leads to...
- What steps can we take to ensure that the data collected by the different groups is comparable?
Activity Two - 'Walking' the transects and selecting sites
Use Google Street View within Google Maps to 'walk' at least one of the transects. Be thinking about where it would be best to be when you want to collect the pedestrian and traffic counts.
Activity Three - Sampling
Sampling is the process of collecting data from some sites or people in order to obtain a perspective upon a large population or place. How we choose locations (or people to ask questions of) can introduce data skews.
Which sampling approach will you take to ensure the high quality of your data collection?
Activity Four- Pedestrian, traffic and footfall surveys
- How might you categorise the traffic when doing the traffic count?
- You will be given a certain transect to look at. Where upon that transect would you location the 8 count locations? Which sampling method have you used to select the locations? How can you record the locations so that you can find them during the data collection day?
Activity Five - Building type
- How could you systematically record the building types along the length of your transect?
- How could you use the RICEPOTS system?
- How could you incorporate into your system the recording of the name of building/shops etc?
Activity Six- Environment quality survey
- Which environmental quality survey do you think we should use? A or B? Why?
Activity Seven - The Write Up - Methodology
While you have collected the data as a group you will write up how you did this process individually. What methods you include will very much depend on what your hypotheses are. Produce a methodology (in a lab report style rather than a story) for the methods you will use by including the following:
- Sampling techniques. What sampling techniques did you use to pick the sites and then collect the data at each site? Describe them and say why they were chosen.
- In one sentence say which month and the amount of time that was used to collect the data.
- Describe each method to collect the data. Use subheadings to divide the techniques and image/diagrams to help with your descriptions. (You will save on words if you include well-annotated diagrams of the data collection techniques.)
- Justify why you are collecting this data by referring back to your hypotheses.
Formal Requirements
- The maximum word count is 200 words.
- It should be written in the third person with no 'I' or 'we'.
- Make sure you are writing in the document you have already associated with the Google Classroom assignment.
How will I be assessed?
The methodology will be assessed primarily through Criterion B - Investigating. | https://www.geogalot.com/myp-humanities/year-11/2-critical-thinking/002-methodology |
Demerits of Survey Methods:
1. The first drawback of survey method is the money needed for conducting the surveys. In most cases the researcher has to recruit a large number of field workers make arrangement for their training and supervision and arrange for the printing of schedules and the tabulation of collected data. All this requires a considerable amount of money which very few people can afford.
2. Survey is prolonged and time consuming process. A large and elaborate survey may take years and it is a real task for anyone to maintain his zeal during this period. As a result most of the surveys are conducted in a hurry and greater reliance is placed upon whatever information can be had quickly and conveniently. The reliability and validity of such information is not always beyond question.
3. Survey techniques leaves little scope for manoeuvring. The whole scheme is perfectly rigid and must be decided before hand. Any change in the research design or any one of the major variables may mean conducting the survey afresh. A survey unless well planned in advance may very well lead to complication later on and howsoever perfect the pre planning it is impossible to visualize all the techniques flaws that may be revealed only through experience.
4. The reliability and validity of the data collected through survey is not always doubt. The reliability of data to a great extent is dependent upon the honesty and efficiency of the field workers the cooperation of the respondents the adequacy and suitability of schedule etc. All these requirements are very seldom fully met and the collected data may contain much invalid and inaccurate information.
5. The study through survey method at times becomes too much aggregative and therefore too much general. A survey must be fairly large to give valid results and the very extensiveness of the survey precludes the intensive study of individuals and even small group within the large population.
6. Survey method is not suitable for problems that require the study in the historical retrospect ordinarily survey reporting refers to specific point in time or to a relatively short time period studies of origins and long term development require research methods of more longitudinal character.
7. Most of the survey are conducted on sample basis and the information collected is subject to sampling error. Beside this the sample itself may not be representative and then whatever information is collected may become unpreventative of the group to which it is intended to be applied.
8. Survey method lays to much emphasis upon problem of immediate importance. It does not permit a more comprehensive study of the society. The study of the fundamental points of society in its wider perspective over time is not possible through this methods. This is why most of the surveys deal with problems of immediate importance only. | http://www.expertsmind.com/questions/demerits-of-survey-methods-30132486.aspx |
Sampling of Populations, Fourth Edition continues to serve as an all–inclusive resource on the basic and most current practices in population sampling. Maintaining the clear and accessible style of the previous edition, this book outlines the essential statistical methodsfor survey design and analysis, while also exploring techniques that have developed over the past decade.
The Fourth Edition successfully guides the reader through the basic concepts and procedures that accompany real–world sample surveys, such as sampling designs, problems of missing data, statistical analysis of multistage sampling data, and nonresponse and poststratification adjustment procedures. Rather than employ a heavily mathematical approach, the authors present illustrative examples that demonstrate the rationale behind common steps in the sampling process, from creating effective surveys to analyzing collected data. Along with established methods, modern topics are treated through the book′s new features, which include:
-
A new chapter on telephone sampling, with coverage of declining response rates, the creation of "do not call" lists, and the growing use of cellular phones
-
A new chapter on sample weighting that focuses on adjustments to weight for nonresponse, frame deficiencies, and the effects of estimator instability
-
An updated discussion of sample survey data analysis that includes analytic procedures for estimation and hypothesis testing
-
A new section on Chromy′s widely used method of taking probability proportional to size samples with minimum replacement of primary sampling units
-
An expanded index with references on the latest research in the field
All of the book′s examples and exercises can be easily worked out using various software packages including SAS, STATA, and SUDAAN, and an extensive FTP site contains additional data sets. With its comprehensive presentation and wealth of relevant examples, Sampling of Populations, Fourth Edition is an ideal book for courses on survey sampling at the upper–undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also a valuable reference for practicing statisticians who would like to refresh their knowledge of sampling techniques.
Boxes.
Figures.
Getting Files from the Wiley ftp and Internet Sites.
List of Data Sites Provides on Web Site.
Preface to the Fourth Edition.
Part 1: Basic Concepts.
1. Use of Sample Surveys.
2. The Population and the Sample.
Part 2: Major Sampling Designs and Estimation Procedures.
3. Simple Random Sampling.
4. Systematic Sampling.
5. Stratification and Stratified Random Sampling.
6. Stratified Random Sampling: Further Issues.
7. Ratio Estimation.
8. Cluster Sampling: Introduction and Overview.
9. Simple One–Stage Cluster Sampling.
10. Two–Stage Cluster Sampling: Clusters Sampled with Equal Probability.
11. Cluster Sampling in Which Clusters Are Sampled with Unequal Probability: Probability Proportional to Size Sampling.
12. Variance Estimation in Complex Sample Surveys.
Part 3: Selected Topics in Sample Survey Methodology.
13. Nonresponse and Missing Data in Sample Surveys.
14. Selected Topics in Sample Design and Estimation Methodology.
15. Telephone Survey Sampling (Michael W. Link and Mansour Fahimi).
16. Constructing the Survey Weights (Paul P. Biemer and Sharon L. Christ).
17. Strategies for Design–Based Analysis of Sample Survey Data.
Appendix.
Answers to Selected Exercises.
Index.
LOADING... | https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/2173645/sampling_of_populations_methods_and_applications |
Professor Thompson works primarily in survey methodology and sampling theory. Her book Theory of Sample Surveys describes the mathematical and foundational theory in detail; it also contains a systematic approach to using estimating functions in surveys, and a thorough discussion (with examples) of the role of the sampling design when survey data are used for analytic purposes.
Estimation for stochastic processes has been another theme of her research. These twothemes come together in aspects of inference from complex longitudinal surveys. Issues in the design of longitudinal surveys to support causal inference are central to work on the International Tobacco Control Survey, with which Professor Thompson has been involved since 2002. She studies the application of multilevel models and longitudinal models with time-varying covariates to complex survey data, including the best ways to adapt the estimating functions systems for use with survey weights, and the use of resampling techniques to provide accurate interval estimates.
She is also currently collaborating on projects in survival and multistate models and the design of behavioural interventions on random networks.
Professor Thompson has been active in the Statistical Society of Canada, serving as president in 2003-04. She is particularly interested in promoting collaboration between statisticians and researchers in the natural, health and social sciences.
She was the initial Scientific Director of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI).
Chen, M., Thompson, M. E. and Wu, C. (2018) Empirical likelihood methods for complex surveys with data missing-by-design. Statistica Sinica 28, 2027-2048.
Thompson, M. E. (2018) Dynamic data and official statistics. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 46, 10-23.
Chen, Q., Elliott, M. R., Haziza, D., Yang, Y., Ghosh, M., Little, R.J.A., Sedransk, J., and Thompson, M. (2017) Approaches to improving survey-weighted estimates. Statistical Science 32, 227-248.
Chen, M., Wu, C. and Thompson, M. E. (2016) Mann-Whitney test with empirical likelihood methods for pretest-posttest studies. Journal of Nonparametric Statistics 28(2), 360-374.
Thompson, M. E., Ramirez Ramirez, L. L., Lyubchich, V. and Gel, Y. (2016) Using bootstrap for statistical inference on random graphs. Canadian Journal of Statistics 44(1), 3-24.
Chen, M., Wu, C. and Thompson, M. E. (2015) An imputation based empirical likelihood approach to pretest-posttest studies. Canadian Journal of Statistics 43(3), 378-402.
Zhou, Q., Song, P. X.-K. and Thompson, M. E. (2015) Profiling heteroscedasticity in linear regression models. Canadian Journal of Statistics 43(3), 358-377.
Zhou, Q. M., Song, P. X.-K. and Thompson, M. E. (2012) Information ratio test for model misspecification in quasi-likelihood inference. Journal of the American Statistical Association 107.
Wang, Z. and Thompson, M. E. (2012) A resampling approach to estimate variance components of multilevel models. Canadian Journal of Statistics 40, 150-171. | https://uwaterloo.ca/statistics-and-actuarial-science/people-profiles/mary-thompson |
This open-source tool developed in collaboration with the IDB applies machine learning to review the quality of data used to determine eligibility for social programs in Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
One of the keys to implementing or evaluating a social program is having good data. And, in this sense, well-designed information systems for social programs are key to their effectiveness. These programs depend on massive information-gathering exercises related to households, in order to determine eligibility to receive benefits connected to health, education or conditional transfers, for example. However, the surveys typically employed to gather this household data do not always allow for manual verification for each of the variables that are asked. This certainly leaves rooms for errors or atypical data in the information obtained. For this reason, improving the quality of this data can in fact strengthen the quality of social program delivery, allowing us to provide services with greater precision and efficiency.
As in so many other fields, the digital revolution is making it possible to apply technology including artificial intelligence to obtain better results in social policies. A new open-source application that applies machine learning techniques to improve and accelerate the revision of this data is an example of this. The Atypical Data Classifier, formerly known as the Identification System for Potential Beneficiaries of Social Programs in Colombia (SISBEN ML) is a system that was designed with the purpose of automating a quality control process, taking into account all available information of household surveys in an objective way to select the cases that merit verification. This tool automatically classifies atypical cases of information to improve data quality and efficiency in the review process of potential beneficiaries of social programs.
The tool was intentionally developed in open source and is available through Code for Development, an Inter-American Development Bank initiative to promote using open-source technology in Latin America and the Caribbean for the public good. This is a result that we hope to continue replicating at the IDB as we collaborate in the development of other IT solutions together with countries.
Classifying and visualizing social program data
Traditional processes for reviewing social program data use logical validation meshes or manual validation systems. For example, a logical validation mesh verifies that someone born in 1975 cannot be considered a child in the database. The manual review depends on a person reviewing and cross-checking each of these points among possibly thousands of household surveys one by one.
The Atypical Data Classifier uses machine learning to automatically review all the information available from the survey while also potentially flagging atypical cases that may be less obvious, such as the use of an unusual construction material in the area. The current version applies unsupervised machine learning to generate the classifications, meaning the system continually learns by itself what is atypical and what is not. This learning is contextualized by geographic area. The algorithm knows to classify cases based on the local conditions where the surveyed family resides.
The Atypical Data Classifier includes two components. One is the classifier itself, the algorithms used to classify the households by reviewing the survey data and monitoring to detect atypical cases. The second component is the visualizer, a Web interface that allows you to see which cases that the classifier has identified as atypical while highlighting the exact variables within each form that it considers to be inconsistent. This streamlines the process of reviewing the household indicators for possible errors.
Numerous advantages to automating the data quality review process
Automating this process has a series of advantages for the institution that manages social programs:
- First, it allows you to reduce costs by minimizing the personnel required to review the data collected.
- It also allows to increase the quality of the final database. In the manual case, random sampling would be carried out in order to deliver the results on time and keep costs down. In this case, it is the algorithm that selects the sample after making a first revision to all the files.
- Finally, the tool allows to correct any logistic problem or the survey tool during the execution of the operation, since the algorithm will yield in real time the results of the analysis of the data deposited in the central database.
The tool was developed in coordination with the National Planning Department of Colombia, and can be adapted for use in other countries. Any organization can calibrate the components with the weights that they value in their calculations for determining eligibility for social programs.
In the process of creating the tool we learned a lot about the types of validation that are necessary for a tool to be reusable by third parties. We are currently working on a more modular version that has fewer dependencies with technologies from a particular provider. This would allow any institution to use the system, regardless of its infrastructure, operating system and other tools that it might be using.
In the near future we hope to take an additional step through the use of information from social databases and tools that apply machine learning to further enhance information and improve the efficiency of the use of public resources in social programs.
Interested in using this tool? Get the code for the Atypical Data Classifier on our GitHub. | https://blogs.iadb.org/conocimiento-abierto/en/atypical-data-classifier-review-data-quality-for-social-programs/ |
The European Social Survey (ESS) is a cross-national survey that has been conducted in around 30 European countries every two years since 2002. In each country, a minimum of 1,500 respondents take part in a one-hour face-to-face interview. Switzerland has participated in all rounds since the very beginning. The respondents are drawn from a probabilistic sample representing the countries’ population aged 15 and above.
The ESS measures values, attitudes and behavioural patterns of the populations of European countries. In order to obtain high-quality internationally comparable data, the methodological specifications of the survey are very precise and rigorous. In 2005, the project’s scientific quality earned it the prestigious Descartes Prize.
The questionnaire is divided into two parts. The first part, the “core module”, consists of socio-political, socio-economic and socio-psychological questions. The core module also gathers information regarding the respondents’ socio-demographic profile. These questions remain the same in each round. The second part includes two or more periodically repeated modules that focus on specific topics. The purpose of these rotating modules is to provide a broader insight into a series of issues that are of particular academic or political interest. A supplementary section is dedicated to the Schwartz human values scale and a selection of experimental tests.
The main objectives of the ESS:
- Generate a continuous series of valuable data for comparisons over time and across countries that monitor the evolution of values, attitudes and behavioral patterns in the European societies;
- Establish and transmit higher standards in the comparative international social sciences (e.g. questionnaire design and pre-testing, sampling strategies, translation procedures, data collection and processing);
- Increase the visibility and accessibility of statistical data on social change in Europe, not only for researchers and policymakers, but also for the media and the wider public.
Initiated by the European Science Foundation, the ESS is coordinated by the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys at the City University of London. At the end of 2013, the ESS was awarded the status of a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). ERICs offer unique research opportunities to the participating countries and greatly enhance the advancement of knowledge and the development of technologies.
The ESS-ERIC is governed by a General Assembly, which has three standing committees: the Scientific Advisory Board, the Methods Advisory Board and the Finance Committee. Switzerland is represented in the General Assembly by Georg Lutz and in the Scientific Advisory Board by Christian Staerklé. The design and operationalisation of the survey (methodological decisions, survey topics, development of the source questionnaire, archiving of the data) are carried out by the Core Scientific Team at the City University of London. This work is supported by partners at a number of research centres:
- Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD), Norway
- Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS), Germany
- The Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP), Netherlands
- Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
- University of Leuven, Belgium
- University of Essex, Great Britain
- University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Each participating European country carries out the survey in accordance with the methodological rules established by the central ESS-ERIC team. In the case of Switzerland, FORS is responsible for the execution of the survey. Under the lead of Michèle Ernst Staehli, the Swiss ESS-team performs the following tasks: translation of the English source questionnaire into three national languages (French, German and Italian), sample drawing for Switzerland, development of specific survey methods, cleaning, processing and documentation of the Swiss ESS data. The fieldwork is carried out by a specialized agency.
Funding
The international project planning and organisation, the questionnaire development, and the data archiving are funded by the members of the ESS-ERIC. The planning and operationalisation of the survey in Switzerland is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
The ESS is characterised by scientific rigour and methodological sophistication. The three following aspects are of particular importance:
The source questionnaire must be developed with particular care in order to enable cross-country comparisons. The questions are pre-tested in several countries. Emphasis is also placed on the quality of the question translations. The specialists of the ESS Core Scientific Team provide the national teams with guidance regarding their translation procedure. The specific process for translation and assessment is called TRAPD (translation, review, adjudication, pretesting, and documentation).
Regional or international events can greatly affect attitudes and perceptions of survey participants. An act of terrorism or an economic crisis can have a strong impact on responses. Hence, during its fieldwork, the ESS also records important media events (ESS media claims). This allows future data analysts to gain a better understanding of the national contexts in which the questions were asked.
The quality of a survey depends to a high degree on the sample drawing procedures. The Core Scientific Team is supported by a group of specialists who advise and validate the national samples. In order to ensure the sample of the population is as representative as possible, the protocol prohibits quota samples and encourages the participating countries to achieve high response rates. To this effect, the methodological procedures are constantly improved (e.g., intensive interviewer training). Since the third round, Switzerland has achieved a response rate of more than 50 percent, which is an exceptionally high for this type of survey. The interview is held face-to-face and takes approximately one hour. Each interviewer conducts only a limited number of interviews in order to improve the quality of the collected data.
Summary table of the methodological characteristics of the European Social Survey
- Target population: All individuals aged 15 and above who reside in Switzerland
- Surveyed individuals: Random sample, with a minimum of 1,500 respondents
- Mode: Face-to-face interviews, CAPI
Sample Construction:
2002-2004: Random sampling in three stages:
- Sample of postal codes representing all regions of Switzerland
- Selection of a specified number of households from each of the sampled postal codes
- Random drawing of one person from each household
2006-2008: Random sampling in two stages:
- Selection of a specific number of households in every region of Switzerland (national registry of phone numbers and addresses)
- Random drawing of one person from each household/address
Since 2010: Random sampling in one stage:
- The ESS is declared a survey of national importance and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Hence, a sample of individuals can be drawn randomly from the sampling register of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office in accordance with Art. 13c, para. 2, lett. d, of the Ordinance on the Execution of Federal Statistical Surveys dated 30 June 1993.
The questionnaire is divided into a main module with core questions that remain unchanged in every round and a second module that focuses on specific topics that are periodically repeated.
The goal of the core module is to study the evolution of a large spectrum of social indicators. These include the use of media, the degree of trust in the social environment, political participation and the perception of institutions, subjective wellbeing, feelings about discrimination, attitudes toward exclusion, as well as national, ethnic, and religious identity. The core module also includes a part that collects information on the respondents’ socio-demographic profile. The repetitive nature of the core module enables observation to be carried out regarding how these topics change over time.
The rotating modules that focus on specific topics vary with each round of the ESS. Research groups can propose modules on specific topics that are of particular interest. These can include new topics (e.g. fairness and justice), but also modules that were already included in previous years (e.g. timing of life, which was carried out in 2006). These modules enable specific topics to be expanded upon or deepening.
A supplementary section is dedicated to the Schwartz’ human values scale and a series of experimental tests.
ESS 2014 (Round 7)
After completion of the fieldwork, FORS reviews and verifies the data and processes it, so that it can be integrated into the central data archive of the ESS. The anonymised ESS datasets are freely available to researchers and other interested parties after registration and agreement to the data use conditions. The data can be downloaded from the ESS website as SAS or SPSS files. For users who do not have access to statistical software, the ESS website also offers an online analysis tool.
The Swiss ESS data is also available on the FORS NESSTAR SERVER. This server also provides exclusive access to additional, country-specific questions surveyed in Switzerland, and to the German and French language versions of the dataset. Further information on the survey, the data and variables is also available here. NESSTAR provides only a limited selection of the Swiss ESS data. The overall dataset is available on the FORSbase data catalogue.
For cross-country comparisons, the data has to be weighted by population size of the respective countries in order to ensure correct representation of each country. The ESS calculates these weights for all participating countries (see ESS population size weights). Depending on the national sampling design, the data of certain countries has to be weighted to account for sampling design bias (see ESS design weights). For Switzerland, only the ESS data from 2002 to 2008 requires such design weights. Starting in 2010, the respondents are drawn from a one-stage national random sample of individuals; hence the data from 2010 requires no weights.
Researchers are requested to respect the data use conditions, in particular the proper citation (see correct citation for Swiss data sets) in articles or other forms of publication. All publications that reference the data must be communicated to the ESS bibliography.
Users who want to expand their knowledge on statistics in the social sciences can attend a free online-course: EDUNET provides both theoretical and practical tutorials including correction/proofing using ESS data.
Interesting links:
- FORSbase and FORS NESSTAR (the national social science data archive that stores the ESS-data for Switzerland)
- The international archive (that stores all ESS data)
- The international site of the European Social Survey
- ESS for participants (the site for participants in Switzerland)
Further documents:
ESS keeps a list of publications that use ESS data.
ESS 2016: Topline Results on Welfare Attitudes and Climate Change
ESS 2014: Topline Results on Social Inequalities in Health and Attitudes towards Immigration
ESS 2012: Topline Results on Personal and Social Wellbeing
ESS Topline Findings from previous editions:
ESS 2012:
Europeans’ Understandings and Evaluations of Democracy
Compréhensions et évaluations de la démocratie par les Européens
ESS 2010:
Trust in Justice
ESS 2010 und 2004:
Economic Crisis, Quality of Work and Social Integration
ESS 2008: | https://forscenter.ch/projects/european-social-survey/ |
Effective planning for natural disasters requires accurate local data relevant to disaster mitigation efforts. However, data on topics such as individual risk perceptions or household preparedness behaviors are often unavailable at the spatial or temporal resolution necessary for local mitigation efforts. To address these data needs, this paper presents new nationwide estimates of one element of household preparedness — setting aside supplies in the home to use in case of a disaster — across states and metropolitan areas in the United States. Using national online survey data collected in 2015, a multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) model was fit using demographic, social, and geographic predictors. The resulting model estimates are presented for all U.S. states and all 917 metropolitan and micropolitan areas. Estimates were externally validated against representative surveys at the state and metropolitan level, including data from the 2013 American Housing Survey. Validation indicated that model estimates have low absolute errors and are strongly correlated with external data. Comparing the estimates against historical disaster losses demonstrates broad variation in preparedness even among places with historically high rates of death and injury from natural disasters. These findings suggest that cost-effective online data collection techniques combined with MRP methods can be an effective tool for researchers and decision makers interested in understanding geographic variation in social survey data at subnational scales. | https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2830690 |
2 edition of Economic competitiveness and research productivity found in the catalog.
Economic competitiveness and research productivity
Hugh Davis Graham
Published
1989
by Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research, University of Maryland Graduate School, Baltimore, and University of Maryland Baltimore County in Baltimore
.
Written in English
Edition Notes
|Statement||by Hugh Davis Graham and Nancy Diamond.|
|Contributions||Diamond, Nancy., Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research., University of Maryland (System). Graduate School, Baltimore., University of Maryland, Baltimore County.|
|Classifications|
|LC Classifications||LB2329.8.U6 G73 1989|
|The Physical Object|
|Pagination||62 p. :|
|Number of Pages||62|
|ID Numbers|
|Open Library||OL1786297M|
|LC Control Number||89181449|
The work is a result of an international collaborative research project by RIETI (Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry), Japan. The total factor productivity growth and level amongst these five countries sheds new light on the industrial competitiveness of growing Asian economies compared to Japan and the United States. “The fundamental goal of economic policy is to enhance competitiveness, which is reflected in the productivity with which a nation or region utilizes its people, capital, and natural endowments to produce valuable goods and services.”.
Productivity and International Competitiveness in Japan and the United States, Dale W. Jorgenson, Masahiro Kuroda. Chapter in NBER book Productivity Growth in Japan and the United States (), Charles R. Hulten, editor (p. 29 - 57) Conference held August , Published in January by University of Chicago PressCited by: It explores topics relating to economic growth and productivity, the relation of technical progress to capital formation, investing in productivity growth, the relationship between technology and the cost of capital, future challenges to agricultural research, and innovation in the chemical processing industries.
University Research and Local Economic Development, August A review of studies that examine the extent to which university research contributes to economic growth and development. Lessons From the Irish Miracle, June An analysis of Ireland’s dramatic improvement in economic growth and prosperity, with comparisons to Arizona. Hence, economic competitiveness is often viewed as the best index for judging a countrys economic potential and strength in comparison to other nations on the global platform. Subsequently, there are two reports about international competitiveness that play a critical role in the fiercely growing debate regarding productivity and.
1992 Annual Book of Astm Standards: Section 15 : General Products, Chemical Specialties, and End Use Products
International economic institutions
Quentin Durward.
New distributional records of bats from Iran
Middle East Laminated Map (Collectors Series)
Malaysia
To Authorize the President in His Discretion To Retire Certain Officers of the Navy
Man in two camps
Chapters in the administrative history of mediaeval England
Ascalon
review of bursting disc technology.
Cd-Roms in Print 1993
International Productivity and Competitiveness will be essential reading for government officials interested in international productivity, as well as scholars and students of comparative international : Hardcover. Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Growth across the European Regions BEN GARDINER1, RON MARTIN2 and PETER TYLER3 1.
Cambridge Econometrics, Cambridge 2. Department of Geography. Measuring Economic Growth and Productivity: Foundations, KLEMS Production Models, and Extensions presents new insights into the causes, mechanisms and results of growth in national and regional accounts.
It demonstrates the versatility and usefulness of the KLEMS databases, which generate internationally comparable industry-level data on outputs, inputs and productivity. This pathbreaking volume conveys the "state of the art" of contemporary research on productivity growth and international competitiveness--arguably the most important problems facing contemporary economics.
Adopting a worldwide perspective that features comparative analyses of both industrialized and developing countries, the book assembles papers from an international roster. Productivity is the ultimate engine of growth in the global economy.
Raising productivity is therefore a fundamental challenge for countries going new OECD report on The Future of Productivity shows that we are not running out of ideas. In fact, the growth of the globally most productive firms has remained robust in the 21st Size: 3MB.
Competitiveness is the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country World Economic Forum – WEF Competitiveness is the ability of a country to achieve sustained high rates of growth in GDP per capita Source: Authors’ own research based on.
Creating Wealth: Competitiveness and Productivity. We begin with a brief overview of the basic economic concepts that underlie the analysis necessary to deal with the issues before us. These are competition, competitiveness and productivity. What Is Competition. Economic competition is the contest between parties to grow and create wealth.
economic cycle, it is important for the NCC to review our working definition of competitiveness, the components of competitiveness, how to measure it, and to ensure the Council is fully informed of the latest theoretical research and empirical evidence on those factors that are most important for enhancing Size: 1MB.
Productivity is important because it has been found to be the main factor driving growth and income levels. And income levels are very closely linked to human welfare. So understanding the factors that allow for this chain of events to occur is very important. Basically, rising competitiveness means rising prosperity.
Competitiveness, Trade. Indonesia and China: Friends or Foes. Quality Competition and Firm Productivity. 05 December We define and measure "firm-product-destination-year-specific export quality" and investigate how quality competition from China affects Indonesian firm productivity in the domestic and export markets.
opportunities for higher productivity but do not directly link to company productivity and labor mobilization. We incorporate two broad dimensions of macroeconomic competitiveness, building on the economic development literature.
First, social infrastructure and politicalCited by: The primary objective of this research was to take the stock of existing situations and to assess the industrial productivity and the major impacts of globalization and competitiveness on industrial performance.
RESEARCH DESIGN Research design is a road map of the collection, measurement and analysis of data. Ample empirical evidence has shown the importance of institutions for productivity, 8 suggesting that their fundamental role consists in setting the right incentives and lowering uncertainty so that citizens can be confident in engaging in economic activities.
9 Economic agents will invest only if they believe that they will reap expected. Winning Airlines: Productivity and Cost Competitiveness of the World’s Major Airlines (Transportation Research, Economics and Policy) th Edition by Tae Hoon Oum (Author) › Visit Amazon's Tae Hoon Oum Page.
Find all the books, read about the author, and more. Cited by: EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States. EPI’s research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans.
Labour Productivity, Economic Growth and Global Competitiveness in Post-crisis Period Article (PDF Available) in Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences November with Reads. EPI is an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on working people in the United States.
EPI’s research helps policymakers, opinion leaders, advocates, journalists, and the public understand the bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary Americans. Follow EPI. Eye St. NW, Suite The aim of this article is to set out the future research area of competitiveness theory taking into account the development of competitiveness concept and existing research tendencies.
It is generally recognized that continued competitiveness and economic growth are essential factors for supporting living standards and wellbeing. Complimentary insights from recent McKinsey study Productivity of individual sectors matters more than ‘sector mix’ –Maintaining strong growth over time is the the key Service productivity and competitiveness is critical –Services sectors have accounted for almost all net jobs growth in nhigh-income countries over the past two decadesFile Size: KB.
So while innovation can increase productivity and competitiveness, it is not synonymous with either. PRODUCTIVITY Productivity is perhaps the most straightforward and easily defined of the three factors.
Productivity is economic output per unit of input. The unit of input can be labor hours (labor productivity) or all. Bargaining for Competitiveness: Law, Research, and Case Studies.
By Richard N. Block. Read preview. Synopsis. This book is an analysis of the relationship among collective bargaining, firm competitiveness, and employment protection/creation in the United States. Wages and Labor Productivity; Labor Economics; Competition, International.Competitiveness, Strategy, and Productivity are the three important characteristics of any business.
Competitiveness in this chapter refers to the effectiveness of an organization in the marketplace similar to the other operations that offer familiar products or services.Advanced comments on Attilio Stajano’s Research, Quality, Competitiveness: European Union Technology Policy for the Information Society proves with cogent analysis that education and knowledge are instead veritable infrastructures for social cohesion and economic productivity.
Allocations for school and education are also necessary. | https://qokafuwyfyti.maisonneuve-group.com/economic-competitiveness-and-research-productivity-book-29601gu.php |
You are here: Home / OnCohesion / The pathway to violent extremism: is socio-economic inequality, or our perception of it, to blame?
As part of our new publication ‘OnCohesion’ read Hilary Pilkington’s blog which focuses on violent extremism and what drivers may lead to it.
Accurate information about suicide bomber Salman Abedi’s plans, it appears, had been received but its significance was not identified soon enough.
Radicalisation research is a relatively new field of study that seeks to explain why and how people become violent extremists.
The very fact that research provides inconclusive evidence on the role of general, structural conditions, points the way to a more nuanced understanding and more contextualised, localised interventions.
Demonstrating any causal relationship in social science is difficult but a first step towards understanding the role of social and economic factors is to consider findings to date in relation to three distinct measures – economic development, poverty, and economic inequality.
Long-term, structural inequalities need to be addressed through serious, targeted government policies.
In December 2017, David Anderson QC published an independent assessment of MI5 and police internal reviews of operational processes surrounding the four terrorist attacks that took place in the UK between March and June 2017 (Westminster, London Bridge, Finsbury Park Mosque, Manchester Arena). The Manchester attack, in particular, Anderson concluded, ‘might have been averted had the cards fallen differently’. Accurate information about suicide bomber Salman Abedi’s plans, it appears, had been received but its significance was not identified soon enough.
The findings of that report must have been painful reading for the families of those who died and for those injured and traumatised by the attack. The report focused attention on issues around intelligence handling and operational procedure and quite rightly so – the lives of our children should not depend on how the cards fall. While the relevant agencies grapple with the questions raised by the report, however, it falls to communities, including the academic community, to try to understand what led another one of our children – Salman Abedi – on a pathway to violent extremism?
Radicalisation research is a relatively new field of study that seeks to explain why and how people become violent extremists. Research to date shows it is a complex phenomenon. Multiple factors at individual, group and societal levels are at play, and there is no single profile of individuals prone to embark on such a path nor any single route they take. Researchers have devised numerous socio-psychological models which categorise and hierarchise the identified factors (see Borum; Christmann; Moghaddam; and Doosje, Loseman and van den Bos); but in practice, it is unlikely that any single model can show what brings individuals to violence.
Recognising complexity, however, should not be an excuse for inaction. The fact that there is no simple solution, does not mean identifying relevant factors and intervening to lessen their impact is pointless; it means we must be more precise in understanding the drivers and more targeted in the interventions.
Take, for example, the question of socio-economic inequality as a key driver of radicalisation. The conclusions of a systematic review of the evidence on this will be published by the DARE (Dialogue About Radicalisation and Equality) project in August 2018. Without pre-empting its findings, I would like to make the case here that the very fact that research provides inconclusive evidence on the role of general, structural conditions, points the way to a more nuanced understanding and more contextualised, localised interventions.
On the first two measures – overall economic development and individual poverty/deprivation – we do not find any direct or consistent relationship with violent extremism/terrorism.
In the case of (country-level) economic development, findings are inconsistent – reflecting that the relationship differs over time and for types of terrorism. This might also be explained by the relationship between income and terrorism being nonlinear; domestic terrorism increases alongside economic development but declines as the country becomes highly developed. Another important finding is that the relationship is also affected by the presence of minority discrimination.
In the case of poverty, research has failed to demonstrate a direct link. Evidence of individual trajectories suggest violent extremists are strikingly normal in terms of socioeconomic background, while a recent study of (currently active) foreign fighters found that none had come from familial situations of poverty or marginality.
On the third measure – inequality – however, there is some evidence that economic inequality is a predictor of domestic terrorism especially where it divides communities based on ethnicity, religion or language. Meanwhile, another study established that in European countries, a larger gap between non-EU immigrant and native population groups in the labour market and the school system correlates with a higher per capita number of foreign fighters leaving the country to join Islamic State (IS).
Does this lack of a clear link between socio-economic factors and violent extremism mean that it is, in fact, other factors such as ideology, religion or geo-political factors that are the real drivers of radicalisation? The answer is that of course these factors also play a role, but we should not dismiss socio-economic factors.
What the evidence indicates is that socio-economic inequality matters but the relationship is complex and influenced by perceptions and experiences. Indeed, the research suggests that people’s subjective perceptions may be as important as objectively measured inequalities in exacerbating attitudes about injustice and privilege. This brings the human factor back in and opens the way to local, contextualised, community led intervention.
Manchester presents an example of where the door is already open to such an approach. Since 2014, Manchester City Council has been working with Greater Manchester Police, local councils, the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation and communities to build an understanding of local community concerns relating to extremism, radicalisation and terrorism. This led to a series of community discussions, a published report on Rethinking Radicalisation and the implementation of an accredited programme of training in Radical Dialogue for community representatives concerned with countering extremism and building resilient and cohesive communities. This programme, and its participants, have since fed into the development of the RADEQUAL Campaign and community network.
Radicalisation is a process that is complex (not linear), situational (emerging out of interaction including choice), emotional (as well as ideological) and changing (affected by time and place). While this means there is no single or simple solution to the problem, it also means it is open to intervention and best understood, and tackled, in context rather than globally and through (local) community rather than (national) policy interventions.
The research evidence, in this sense, can be enabling. If perceptions of inequality and injustice are as much the problem as objective measures of actual inequality, then facilitated community engagement and dialogue is an important tool in the effort to counter radicalisation. Long-term, structural inequalities need to be addressed through serious, targeted government policies. In the meantime, communities themselves can begin to tackle the subjective dimension of inequality by creating the space to have uncomfortable but important conversations about the difference and inequity that is felt.
In the process, we may well find that the desire to tackle inequality is something that unites, rather than divides communities.
Hilary Pilkington is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester and coordinator of the EU funded MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy & Civic Engagement) project. She has recently been awarded funding from the EU to coordinate a cross-European study - DARE (Dialogue About Radicalisation and Equality) - aimed at understanding and preventing youth radicalisation. | http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/oncohesion/2018/07/the-pathway-to-violent-extremism-is-socio-economic-inequality-or-our-perception-of-it-to-blame/ |
This paper has three primary objectives. First, it provides a broad overview of the available South African data used to examine gender in the labour market, with specific reference to the South African Revenue Services (SARS) tax data which has recently been made available. Second, the...
This paper provides a retrospective assessment of the effects of trade policies on South African manufacturing since the transition to democracy, examining the differences and commonalities in the views of economists in favour of and against an acceleration of trade liberalization. Data from...
This study investigates the effect of real exchange rate volatility on the distribution of income between labour and capital in South Africa. Both symmetric and asymmetric effects are considered. Using quarterly data for 1985:1–2018:3 and local linear projection, we find that the immediate...
The paper examines the incidence and employment impacts of the Employment Tax Incentive, a South African wage subsidy system that is targeted at the employers of low-wage youth. The paper uses a triple differences strategy and survey and administrative data, covering the universe of South...
The availability of anonymized individual tax return data can contribute to a deeper understanding of the drivers behind the high levels of inequality and unemployment in South Africa. In the recent past, researchers have examined either payroll or personal income tax data. This paper explains...
There is general agreement at present that the Southern African Development Community needs to re-imagine itself and breathe new life into its somewhat moribund structure. The European Union is often presented as the textbook example to be followed by other regional associations—a rules-...
Longitudinal surveys can give insight into economic mobility, which allows us to understand how markers of (dis)advantage are consequential in determining material conditions in the present, and how these markers structure economic opportunity over time. In this paper we show that this dynamic...
Differences in the economic lifecycle between countries at different levels of development suggest that there may be differences between sub-populations within countries, particularly where the sub-populations have different levels of income. Given stark inequalities by race in...
Using height as a proxy for physical productivity of labour, this paper estimates the selection of Mexican migration to the United States at the beginning of the flow (1906–08), and it exploits a natural experiment of history to evaluate the impact of random shocks on short-run...
Many practical and action-oriented international roadmaps to improve the quality of aid and its delivery and impact on development—including the Paris Declaration, Accra Agenda for Action, and Busan Partnership—emphasize a more active involvement of domestic institutions and...
This paper documents the compilation of a Pre-Prototype 2015 Social Accounting Matrix for Myanmar and provides an overview of key economic structural features of this emerging economy in a challenging process of transition. We built this Social Accounting Matrix using National Accounts and...
Using data from a new survey of small and medium-sized enterprises in Myanmar, we analyse enterprise demand for formal credit and the extent to which they are constrained in the formal credit market. We account for firms self-selecting out of the credit market in Myanmar. Our data...
This paper assesses the effects on poverty and inequality of the alternative targeting approaches that Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer programme could take as its expansion continues during the period of the country’s Seventh National Development Plan (2017–21). It further...
How does the public provision of education and the deployment of distortionary tax and subsidy instruments differ when the government’s objective is conventional welfarist compared to when the objective is the non-welfarist one of equality of opportunity? This paper develops a...
This paper investigates the evolution of the gender wage gap in South Africa, using the 1993–2015 Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series data set. The changes in the gap are heterogeneous across the wage distribution. There has been a substantial narrowing of the gap at the bottom of the...
This paper analyses the impacts of indirect tax policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the excise duty and value-added tax rates on alcoholic... | https://www.wider.unu.edu/publications?f%5B0%5D=biblio_type%3AWorking%20Paper&page=1 |
This internship will be developing tools and solving algorithmic problems related to short read technologies (the new technologies of sequencing the human genome). The problem being solved will help the biology and molecular biology researchers to use these new tools to find variations between different individuals. This will be very important step in realizing the personalized genomics dream.
This internship will assist in the development of a diverse generational employee survey towards leadership development and workplace goal alignment. Initial baseline measurements will be obtained from Watson Wyatt, who have worked with BC Hydro since 2002 to develop, deliver and analyze the annual employee survey and results. The main objective of the research is to understand the perspectives and gauge the level of engagement of the workforce of BC Hydro.
The objective of this research project is to insight trends and associations between fans of various entertainment properties, the entertainment industry and the media properties themselves. The intern will begin by analyzing data from various sources such as product sales reports, market growth rates as well as data previously collected by the company. Based on the data, key factors will be extracted and employed in the analysis. Existing visualization techniques will be tested and if necessary, new methods will be created to better interpret the data.
In this project, the intern will create a sustainable community economic development guide that will identify and document the current range of initiatives towards sustainable community economic development available to local governments in BC. This guide will outline the framework, methodology, tools, initiatives and resources available to local governments in BC striving to support local economies.
The intent of this internship is to undertake the research necessary to enable Vancity to develop a social and environmental purchasing portal. The target audience will be Vancity staff via their existing intranet, Insite. The research will focus on Vancity’s peer and micro-entrepreneurs, their social enterprises and its ‘green’ business members. The idea is to provide staff with a tool to help inform their purchasing habits for both corporate discretionary spending as well as personal buying.
The purpose of branding is to create high brand familiarity and positive brand image which contribute to the building of brand equity. The underlying mechanisms, both at a cognitive and electrophysiological level, are poorly understood. The main goal of this study will be the exploration of the electrophysiological correlates of branding of a familiar product and compare these effects across different media channels. If branding through TV, as explored in one study, produces a certain effect on brain waves, does branding in print and online produce the same or similar effect?
The aim of this research is to design and implement a model of social currency in a networked community which is based on the stock and flow concepts most commonly associated with investment forecasting and user choice in an environment of scarcity. In other words, creating a system which can assist in predicting those things users would most be willing to put their actual money behind. This research is intended to ultimately assist developers of film, television etc.
Fit Brains technology uses five classes in skill development that are loosely associated to certain regions of the brain. Together, these skill sets help define the human experience. It is also believed that increased fitness across these five classes can better a sense of wellness. Sometimes, incidental effects in game strategies have demonstrated that the point metric contributing to the fitness levels can be tampered with and can mislead the player in various ways.
Fit Brains is an online platform providing fun and entertaining games that exercise the five key cognitive areas of the brain. Since inception, the platform has attracted about 20,000 unique visitors per month. Although the number of visitors is reasonable, Fit Brains’ goal is to expand the platform to several millions interested in exercising their cognitive functions. Therefore, Fit Brains is exploring the use of contextual advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) to increase the number of targeted unique visitors.
This project will examine the ecological response of understory vegetation communities to alternative forest management practices, in the Montane spruce forests of the Interior, which have been disturbed by mountain pine beetle, fire and salvage logging. The research is within the Secwepemc Nation traditional territory and will focus on culturally valued plants and include applied burning to bring cultural values into the analysis. | https://www.mitacs.ca/en/university/simon-fraser-university?page=71 |
A pair of researchers from the French University Institute discovered new evidence of a major evaporation event in the past of the Moon. In their new work, Chizu Kato and Frédéric Moynier describe the investigation of the isotopes of gallium, which are part of the material of the lunar samples, their findings and, on the basis of the results obtained, draw conclusions about the history of the formation of the moon.
The most popular hypothesis of the Moon’s formation today is that the Moon was formed from fragments of the Earth’s collision with a large celestial body. This hypothesis is based on the results of analysis of samples of lunar rocks and soil, which in composition correspond to the material of the Earth. However, the amounts of some isotopes, especially light ones, do not agree with the amounts of these same isotopes in the matter of our planet. This means that either the matter of the Moon has a different origin, or the primary isotopic composition of the Moon’s substance has changed already after the formation of it. Many scholars are inclined to the second version, its adherents are also Kato and Muanier. The authors of the paper believe that the light isotopes of a number of elements evaporated more intensively into space, in comparison with their heavier counterparts, during the “hot” period of the Moon’s existence, while it had not yet cooled down.
In the new study, Kato and Muanier are studying the amounts of gallium isotopes in the lunar samples and come to the conclusion that these quantities are in good agreement with the hypothesis of evaporation of light isotopes of this element in the initial period of the existence of the Moon from liquid magma, which at that time covered the whole of its surface.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances. | https://earth-chronicles.com/space/gallium-in-the-lunar-patterns-will-tell-about-the-formation-of-the-moon.html |
Isradipine, a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, could slow down or stop the progression of Parkinson’s disease, reported newspapers.
Parkinson’s disease is thought to be caused by a deficiency of dopamine in parts of the brain. The Times and The Guardian both quoted James Surmeier, the lead researcher, as saying: “Our hope is that this drug will protect dopamine neurons, so that if you began taking it early enough you won’t get Parkinson’s disease, even if you were at risk.”
This study was carried out in animals and these findings cannot be directly extrapolated to humans.
The disease that was treated was also “Parkinson’s like”, and not actual Parkinson’s disease and we would need studies in Parkinson’s disease in humans before we could draw conclusions about the effects of oral isradipine, a calcium channel blocking drug, on this disease.
Where did the story come from?
The research was conducted by James Surmeier and his team at the Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The research was published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, Nature .
What kind of scientific study was it?
This research was a study conducted in a laboratory in mice. There were two parts to the study. In the first, slices from adult mouse brains were exposed to a pesticide (rotenone) which is believed to cause "Parkinson’s-like disease". Some of these slices had been pre-treated with isradipine. The effects of the toxin on the "treated" brain cells were compared with those that had not been ‘treated’.
In the second part, live mice were given isradipine for seven days while others were given placebo control pellets. The mice were then given a Parkinson’s-like disease by repeated injections with a toxin. The effects of treatment on dopamine-containing neurons and movement control were compared between treated and untreated mice.
What were the results of the study?
The researchers reported that isradipine "rejuvenated dopamine-containing neurons" in mice.
What interpretations did the researchers draw from these results?
The authors conclude that the observable "rejuvenation" of dopamine-containing neurons "points to a new strategy that could slow or stop the progression" of Parkinson’s disease.
What does the NHS Knowledge Service make of this study?
Parkinson’s disease is thought to be caused by a deficiency of the chemical transmitter dopamine in specific parts of the brain. As this research was conducted in animals, findings shouldn’t be extrapolated to humans.
Mice were exposed to toxins that are believed to cause Parkinson’s-like disease because of their effects on dopaminergic neurons and behaviour. It is not clear whether the unit of analysis in statistical tests was the mouse or a sample of brain tissue. Here we would expect to see similarities between samples if they came from the same mouse.
The research should be seen as a hypothesis-generating study as it provides information on which to design further studies. We need studies in humans before we can draw conclusions about the effects of oral isradipine on Parkinson’s disease.
Analysis by Bazian
Edited by NHS Website
Links to the headlines
Drug that treats blood pressure could curb Parkinson’s disease.
The Times, 11 June 2007
Blood pressure drug may help stall Parkinson’s say researchers.
The Guardian, 11 June 2007
Drugs trial offers hope of Parkinson’s breakthrough.
The Independent, 11 June 2007
Links to the science
Chan C, Guzman J, Ilijic E, et al. | https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/isradipine-tackling-parkinsons-disease/ |
The Enhanced Practice dissertation provides an opportunity to gain valuable independent research experience. A supervisor will be allocated based on the student's topic of interest and a suitable area of research will be agreed upon, ensuring that the intended learning outcomes of the course are addressed. In the process, the foundations will be laid for potential further research at PhD level.
Timetable
Group / individual sessions with subject supervisor and/or course convenor as required.
Requirements of Entry
Mandatory Entry Requirements: generic regulations apply
Excluded Courses
Dissertation DUMF5078
Assessment
Assessment
20% of the mark will be based on a research proposal.
80% of the mark will be based on the submitted dissertation.
Main Assessment In: August
Course Aims
1. To engage students in independent research and study.
2. To allow students to explore a topic of interest to some depth in a practice-related area.
3. To develop and sustain an argument within this topic of interest.
Intended Learning Outcomes of Course
By the end of this course students will be able to:
1.demonstrate an ability to undertake a substantial, focused piece of research in a practice-related area using appropriate methodology;
2.examine relevant literature and present a critical review of that literature;
3.formulate a suitable research question derived from their literature analysis;
4.analyse relevant evidence by using appropriate methods;
5.evaluate their findings and draw conclusions;
6.produce a substantial piece of written work that clearly demonstrates motivation and structure and conforms to the requirements specified in the course documentation (e.g. quality, length, references, layout).
Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits
Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment. | https://www.gla.ac.uk/coursecatalogue/course/?code=DUMF5125 |
BMC 296 - Design and Analysis of Ecological Field Experiments
Course DescriptionEnvironmental reports draw conclusions from field experiments and analyses of the data, but how can we evaluate the validity of these conclusions? This course will cover basic concepts of experimental design including common flaws in sampling, data collection and data analysis. Evening classes will be held on campus to give students a theoretical foundation that they will then apply to field work at U of C's Barrier Lake Field Station. During the intensive weekend in Kananaskis, you will design a study to answer a specific ecological question, collect field data, analyse the data to address the question and present your findings to your colleagues. You will write a short final paper that will critically compare and evaluate the three density-measurement techniques used in the field experiments.
Course Details
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to: | https://conted.ucalgary.ca/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=5649925 |
Article (Pre-print): Genetic Risk Factors for ME/CFS Identified using Combinatorial Analysis
Overview: Researchers re-analyzed genetic data from previous ME/CFS studies using a new technique with combinatorial analysis and machine learning.
The technique allowed them to group the ME/CFS patients into ‘communities’ based on symptoms, and they looked for genetic variants that were linked to those communities.
They looked, for example, at people with ME/CFS who had previously had Epstein-Barr virus or who were currently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. By looking at the ME/CFS patients with similar symptoms, blood test results, or diagnoses, the researchers could draw conclusions about the genetic variants involved. For example, in ME/CFS patients with significant pain, they were more likely to have genetic variants in pain-related genes, such as a sodium-dependent transporter involved in GABA reuptake.
My hope is that someday this type of analysis can be used to help people with ME/CFS target the right treatment. | https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/news-and-research-genetic-risk-factor-for-me-cfs/ |
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY
Q1) When did India get Independence?
A. 14th August,1947. B. 15th August, 1947. C. 14th August, 1950.D.15th August, 1950.
Q2) Where does the Prime Minister Of India hoist the National flag every year on Independence Day?
A. Taj Mahal.B. India Gate.C. Red Fort. D. Qutub Minar.
Q3) Which freedom fighter is known as Netaji?
A. Mahatma Gandhi B. Subhash Chandra Bose. C. Bhagat Singh. D. Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
Q4) Who is called The Father of the Nation?
A. Jawahar Lal Nehru.B. Sardar Valabhbhai Patel.C. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.D. Chandra Shekhar Azad.
Q5) Which movement marked Gandhiji’s entry into national politics?
A. Champaran Movement. B. Dandi March. C. Satyagrah. D. None of these
Q6) Who gave the slogan Dilli Chalo or March to Delhi?
A. Tilak. B. Subhash Chandra Bose. C. Mahatma Gandhi.D. All of them.
Q7) Who set up the Indian Independence League?
A. Jawahar Lal Nehru. B.Tilak. C.Rash Bihari Bose. D. None of them. | https://blog.birdsnbats.com/2020/08/16/independence-day-quiz-jai-hind-grow-independently-and-intellectually-go-for-it/ |
Where was the first initiative of Mahatma Gandhi as a nationalist in India?
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Porbandar
Kheda
Champaran
Ahmedabad
Answer
(Detailed Solution Below)
Option 3 : Champaran
Detailed Solution
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The correct answer is
Champaran
.
Champaran
was the
first
initiative of
Mahatma Gandhi
as a nationalist in India.
Key Points
Mahatma Gandhi
was the leader who guided India towards Independence. India was under British rule for over 250 years.
Gandhi
returned
to India from South Africa in
1915
at the request of Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
Mahatma Gandhi's famous contributions to the Indian freedom movement:
Champaran Satyagraha (1917):
The Champaran agitation in Bihar was Gandhi's first active involvement in Indian freedom politics.
The Champaran
farmers
were being forced to grow Indigo and were being tortured if they protested.
The farmers sought Gandhi's help and through a calculated non-violent protest, Gandhi managed to win concessions from the authority.
Additional Information
Kheda Satyagraha (1918)
:
When Kheda, a village in Gujarat, was badly hit by floods, the local farmers appealed to the rulers to waive off the taxes.
Here, Gandhi started a signature campaign where peasants pledged
non-payment of taxes.
Khilafat Movement
Gandhi's influence on the Muslim population was remarkable.
This was evident in his involvement in the Khilafat Movement.
After the first World War, the Muslims feared for the safety of their Caliph or religious leader and a worldwide protest was being organized to fight against the collapsing status of the Caliph.
Gandhi became a prominent spokesperson of the All India Muslim Conference and returned the medals he had received from the Empire during his Indian Ambulance Corps days in South Africa.
His role in the Khilafat made him a national leader in no time.
Non-cooperation Movement(1920):
Gandhi had realized that the British had been able to be in India only because of the cooperation they received from the Indians.
Keeping this in mind, he called for a non-cooperation movement.
The ominous day of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre triggered the non-cooperation movement.
Gandhi set the goal of
Swaraj or self-governance,
which since then became the motto of the Indian freedom movement.
Salt March(1930):
Also known as the
Dandi Movement
, Gandhi's Salt March is considered to be a pivotal incident in the history of the freedom struggle.
Gandhi started a
Satyagraha campaign against the salt
tax
in
March 1930.
He marched 388 kilometers from
Ahmedabad
to Dandi in Gujarat to make salt.
Thousands of people joined him and made it one of the biggest marches in Indian history.
Quit India Movement(1942):
During the Second World War, Gandhi was determined to strike the British Empire with a definitive blow that would secure their exit from India.
This happened when the British started recruiting Indians for the war. Gandhi protested strongly and said that the Indians cannot be involved in a war that is in favour of democratic purposes when India itself is not a free country.
This argument exposed the two-faced image of the colonizers and within half a decade, they were out of this country.
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More National movement (1919 - 1939) Questions
Q1.
Which of the following pair(s) is/are correct about the relation of movement and their year? I. Civil disobedience movement - 1930 II. Non-cooperation and Khilafat Movement - 1921
Q2.
When did the Simon Commission come to India?
Q3.
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Q4.
When did the Khilafat movement start?
Q5.
Where was the first initiative of Mahatma Gandhi as a nationalist in India?
Q6.
Who was the judge who presided over the hearing of Mahatma Gandhi during the non-cooperation movement in the year 1922?
Q7.
In which year the last election of Indian Legislature under the Government of India Act, 1919 was held ?
Q8.
In February 2021 Prime Minister inaugurates which Centenary Celebration ?
Q9.
Who among the following was elected as the President All India Khilafat Conference met at Delhi in 1919?
Q10.
Who drafted the Constitution of Muslim League, ‘The Green Book’?
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Q1.
Which of the following pair(s) is/are correct about the relation of movement and their year? I. Civil disobedience movement - 1930 II. Non-cooperation and Khilafat Movement - 1921
Q2.
In which year was the Satyagraha movement started?
Q3.
In which year Mahatma Gandhi established the Natal Congress to fight against racial discrimination?
Q4.
Who among the following was the first Home Minister of India?
Q5.
Which of the following statement(s) regarding The Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental college is/are correct? I. It was founded by Sayyid Ahmed Khan. II. It was established in 1875.
Q6.
In _______, Gandhiji organised a satyagraha to support peasants of Kheda district.
Q7.
Which of the following statement is correct? I. Lord Dalhousie introduced doctrine of lapse. II. Company took over Awadh in 1856.
Q8.
Who was the Viceroy of the British India during 1869 - 1872 ?
Q9.
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What’s Prince Philip’s favorite drink? Check out our quiz to see how much you know about the Royal Family:
1. In which battle did George VI fight?
A. The First Battle of Ypres
B. The Battle of Loos
C. The Battle of Jutland
D. The Battle of Tumbledown
2. What was the name of the first royal corgi, which was given to the Queen on her 18th birthday in 1944?
A. Sinbad
B. Susan
C. Senator
D. Sonata
3. Who succeeded Queen Victoria?
A. Prince Albert
B. Edward VII
C. George V
D. Edward VIII
4. Of how many countries is the Queen head of state?
A. Four
B. Eight
C. 16
D. 21
5. What title did the British monarch also have until 1947?
A. King of India
B. Imperial Sovereign
C. Monarch of Asia
D. Emperor of India
6. In which naval engagement during World War II was Prince Philip mentioned in despatches?
A. Battle of Cape Matapan
B. Battle of Cape Potsandpans
C. Battle of Cape Cod
D. Battle of Barents Sea
7. What was Edward VIII’s relationship to his successor, George VI?
A. First cousin
B. Father
C. Elder brother
D. Younger brother
8. What was the Queen Mother’s maiden name?
A. Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
B. Lady Elizabeth Glamis
C. Lady Elizabeth Bows
D. The Countess of Strathmore
9. Which king reigned throughout World War I?
A. Edward VII
B. George V
C. George VI
D. George VII
10. What relation is Prince Charles to George VI?
A. Maternal grandson
B. Paternal grandson
C. Maternal nephew
D. Paternal great-grandson
11. How old was the Queen when she came to the throne?
A. 55
B. 45
C. 35
D. 25
12. Who did the Duke and Duchess of Windsor meet at Berchtesgaden in 1937?
A. Adolf Hitler
B. Charlie Chaplin
C. Tsar of Russia
D. Winston Churchill
13. In which war did Prince Andrew fight as a helicopter pilot?
A. Gulf War
B. Iraq War
C. Falklands War
D. Korean War
14. What was the name of the royal yacht decommissioned in 1997?
A. Britannia
B. Queen Elizabeth
C. Elizabeth and Philip
D. Queen Mary
15. What is Prince Philip’s favorite drink?
A. Bass
B. Brandy (Greek, of course)
C. Boddingtons
D. Bacardi
16. In which war did the Royal Family change their dynastic title from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor?
A. Boer War
B. World War I
C. World War II
D. Cold War
17. What was the maiden name of Diana, Princess of Wales?
A. Lady Diana Spencer
B. Diana, Lady Spencer
C. The Lady Diana
D. The Lady Spencer
18. Why is Prince Michael of Kent not in the line of succession to the throne?
A. He converted to Islam
B. He married a Roman Catholic
C. He became a Zoroastrian
D. He married without the Queen’s permission
19. What was the name of the most famous of Edward VII’s mistresses when he was Prince of Wales?
A. Lily Crabtree
B. Nell Gwynn
C. Mary Robinson
D. Lillie Langtry
20. Which monarch of the House of Windsor has reigned the longest?
A. Edward VII
B. George V
C. George VI
D. Elizabeth II
21. How old was the Queen Mother when she died in 2002?
A. 90
B. 95
C. 75
D. 101
22. Where was the then Princess Elizabeth staying when she heard of the death of her father George VI in 1952?
A. Treetops Game Reserve in Kenya
B. Stardust Casino in Las Vegas
C. Government House in Auckland, New Zealand
D. Ice Station Zebra in Antarctica
23. What post does the monarch hold in the Church of England?
A. Supreme Pontiff
B. Senior Governor
C. Supreme Ruler
D. Supreme Governor
24. Who did the Queen’s sister marry?
A. Antony Armstrong-Andrews, Lord Snowdon
B. Andrew Armstrong-Jones, Lord Mountbatten
C. Andrew Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon
D. Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon
25. What was Prince Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick, later Edward VIII, called by his family?
A. Edward
B. Bertie
C. Albert
D. David
26. Who was prime minister at the time of the Abdication Crisis?
A Stanley Baldwin
B Neville Chamberlain
C Winston Churchill
D Ramsay Macdonald
27. How many prime ministers have served under the Queen?
A. 13
B. 10
C. 14
D. 12
28. Who is The Keeper of the Royal Conscience?
A. The Archbishop of Canterbury
B. Prince Philip
C. The Prince of Wales
D. Ken Clarke
ANSWERS: 1 C. 2 B. 3 B. 4 C. 5 D. 6 A. 7 C. 8 A. 9 B. 10 A. 11 D. 12 A. 13 C. 14 A. 15 C. 16 B. 17 A. 18 B. 19 D. 20 D. 21 D. 22 A. 23 D. 24 D. 25 D. 26 A. 27 A. 28 D (as Lord Chancellor).
Source: The Daily Mail, Jan. 11, 2011
Readers: For more on the British Royal Family on this blog, click here. | https://lisawallerrogers.com/2011/01/11/how-much-do-you-know-about-the-royal-family/?shared=email&msg=fail |
His hopes were not fulfilled to the extent he had expected. A deterioration in the economy caused dissatisfaction among the middle class and the working people, who joined the Catholics, angered by his anti-papal Italian policy, to become a steadily growing opposition. In the elections of 1857 only five members of the opposition had gained seats in the National Assembly; six years later there were 32.
At this very time, repeated bladder-stone attacks temporarily incapacitated the Emperor, who had been in poor health since 1856. He had always insisted on exercising control over all decisions of government; in his ministers he had seen nothing but tools. Now, he became dependent on persons in his entourage who formed groups and intrigued against each other. In 1863 the authoritarian Eugène Rouher, nicknamed the “Vice Emperor,” became prime minister; on the other hand, Napoleon III took the advice of his half brother the Duke of Morny to continue his policy of liberalization. With the help of his uncle Jérôme Bonaparte, who preached a democratic Bonapartism, he tried to win over the workers. But his concessions (freedom of coalition in 1864, freedom of assembly in 1868, extension of the rights of members of parliament, and liberalization of the press laws) were restricted by too many reservations and came too late. He allowed Victor Duruy, his minister of education from 1863, to fight clerical influence in education, yet on the other hand he tried to reconcile French Catholics by working for a compromise settlement in disputes between the papacy and the new Italian kingdom.
In 1861, by proposing to make the Austrian archduke Maximilian emperor of Mexico and by negotiating with the president of Ecuador about a projected “Kingdom of the Andes,” he had begun his Latin-American venture. He had expected material rewards for France and also hoped that the planned kingdom would check the growing influence of the United States in Latin America. Yet, as soon as the United States had concluded its Civil War it forced the French to withdraw. In Europe when the Polish insurrection broke out in 1863, he did not, in spite of his sympathy, dare to support Poland against Russia. Nevertheless, such sympathies led to an estrangement from Russia. Moreover, the great powers refused Napoleon’s proposal of a conference for the reorganization of Europe. Regarding Otto von Bismarck’s policy with a certain benevolence, he kept aloof when Prussia settled the Schleswig-Holstein question by a war on Denmark. He had always sympathized with Prussia and the idea of the extension of Prussia’s power in North Germany. He did not, however, openly tell Bismarck what price he demanded for his help. When in 1866, after routing Denmark, Prussia turned on its former ally, Austria, and defeated it more quickly than Napoleon had expected, he refused any armed intervention in its favour and only acted as mediator. Bismarck, however, was not willing to pay for Napoleon’s neutrality by the cession of German territories. The emperor’s plans to obtain compensation in Belgium failed, as did his attempt to gain Luxembourg in 1867. The retreat of Prussian troops from the fortress Luxemburg was no satisfactory reward: “Bismarck tried to cheat me. A French emperor cannot be cheated,” grumbled Napoleon III, not willing to allow the Prussians to cross the Main River line and extend their power into southern Germany, which was Bismarck’s obvious aim.
Last years
The emperor’s failures in foreign affairs strengthened the opposition. When in the 1869 elections the government received 4,438,000 votes against the opposition’s 3,355,000, Napoleon recognized that a genuine change of the regime was inevitable. In January 1870 he appointed Olivier-Émile Ollivier, whom Morny had recommended as the most appropriate prime minister for a liberal empire. The new Cabinet informed Great Britain and Prussia that France was ready to disarm, but Bismarck refused to cooperate.
On July 2 it became known that a Hohenzollern prince, a relative of the king of Prussia, was a candidate for the Spanish throne. In Paris this was regarded as Prussian interference in a French sphere of interest and a threat to security. Using his favourite means of secret diplomacy, Napoleon played a major part in causing the Hohenzollern prince to renounce his candidature. But then the sick emperor, influenced by the advocates of a belligerent policy, set out to humiliate Prussia by demanding that the candidature of the Hohenzollern prince would never be revived. As a result, war broke out on July 19. At the Battle of Sedan the sick emperor tried in vain to meet his death in the midst of his troops, but on September 2 he surrendered. He was deposed, and on September 4 the Third Republic was proclaimed. | https://www.britannica.com/biography/Napoleon-III-emperor-of-France/Attempts-at-reform |
Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story introduces high school students to a significant but lesser-known figure behind the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s whose influence extended to the fields of race relations, contemplative spirituality, and the practice of non-violence. After watching the film and perhaps exploring excerpts from Thurman’s writing, students will be able to make important connections between Thurman and Civil Rights leaders such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, and U.S. Congressman John Lewis, as well as with Indian Civil Rights pioneer Mahatma Gandhi. Students will be prepared to more thoroughly investigate the central role of religion in the American Civil Rights Movement and to explain Howard Thurman’s imprint on African-American religious culture today.
Questions to Consider
- After viewing the film Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story, what do you see as Howard Thurman’s most important contribution to American society?
- In the film, Thurman scholar Walter Earl Fluker describes Thurman as a “pastor” to civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, and others. What do you think was Thurman’s essential contribution to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s?
- In many ways, Thurman can be seen as a link between the teaching and example of Mahatma Gandhi, who led peaceful resistance to British imperial rule in India in the early decades of the twentieth century, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who led peaceful resistance to policies of racism and segregation in this country in the 1950s and ‘60s. What sort of connection does Thurman provide between these two civil rights leaders?
- Howard Thurman strongly criticized institutional Christianity in America for too often siding with the strong against the weak and for tacitly if not actively supporting racial divisions. Can you pinpoint specific aspects of his argument? Regardless of your own religious affiliation, does Thurman’s critique of institutional Christianity in mid-twentieth-century America seem accurate to you?
- Thurman was a lifelong pacifist, as described in the film, although he said he could not predict how he might respond in some specific situations. Do you consider pacifism and non-violence to be practical responses to violent oppression, as did Thurman, King, and Gandhi? Or is our world simply too dangerous? Can the practice of nonviolence actually change the aggressor, as Thurman thought it could, or is this simply wishful thinking?
- Do you think nonviolence can be an “absolute” value (i.e. the right choice in every situation)? If not, in what kinds of scenarios do you imagine non-violence to be inappropriate or ineffective?
- Howard Thurman also thought of nonviolence as a spiritual discipline. How does considering non-violence in this way affect your thinking about it? What would such a spiritual practice look like in a daily fashion? Is it possible for a person to practice non-violence apart from a religious or spiritual commitment?
- The concept of community was central to Howard Thurman’s thinking. Much of his work was directed toward building community across racial, ethnic, and social boundaries. As indicated by the film, this was especially true in Thurman’s work with the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, which brought people together from many different racial, cultural, and even religious backgrounds.
Do you think Thurman’s idea of community is still possible today? Or is it outdated? (Or even impractical to start with?) Do you believe our nation is more or less culturally divided today than it was in Howard Thurman’s time?
- How would you describe Thurman’s overall role in the Civil Rights Movement and its genesis? Do you agree that his role or influence often has been overlooked or under-appreciated? Why or why not?
- In the film, the Reverend Jesse Jackson asserts that Thurman provided an important “philosophical framework” for the Movement. From your viewing of the film, and perhaps reading of Thurman, what do you think that framework entailed? Do you see similar philosophical frameworks behind social movements today?
- How important was Thurman’s visit with Gandhi in India in 1936? What sort of kinship or common experience did they share? What sort of challenge or encouragement did Gandhi give Thurman about the teaching of nonviolence? In what ways might the meeting with Gandhi be said to have changed Thurman?
- How would you characterize Thurman’s relationship with Martin Luther King, Jr.? What role or roles did Thurman play or seek to play in King’s life? Would you consider Thurman a formative influence on King, even though they did not march together?
- What was Thurman’s influence on other civil rights leaders, including Jesse Jackson, Vernon Jordan, and John Lewis? In the film, these men credit Thurman with providing an essential spiritual foundation for their own work in the movement. Do you agree with that interpretation?
- Fifty years on, do you think of the Civil Rights Movement as a spiritual as well as a political/social movement? Do you think that, if the Movement had not had a spiritual component, it could have been as successful as it was?
- What difference does it make that Thurman was a spiritual resource for the movement and not a front-line activist, given Thurman’s own writings on the problem of racism in America? Does the fact that Thurman did not march negate the validity of his message? Or does it reinforce the importance of having religious or spiritual foundations for activism?
- What do you think is Thurman’s legacy today in terms of issues of race and of racial justice? What does his work have to say to contemporary movements, such as Black Lives Matter? Or debates over immigration and how religious, political, and social groups should respond to that issue?
- How would you describe Howard Thurman’s legacy for African-American culture today? Which aspects of his work do you see as most significant for contemporary African-Americans?
- Howard Thurman was, first and foremost, a preacher and a theologian. But he was also a writer, an accomplished poet, and a skilled interpreter of art and music. How does Thurman’s work in these other fields underscore his legacy? Does it give him a broader appeal? Try to list the fields that Howard Thurman’s legacy could be said to have touched, particularly in regard to African-American experience. What did he do in these other areas that was important?
- Thurman wrote an important early study of nineteenth-century slave spirituals titled Deep River (later reprinted with an earlier essay on the subject titled Deep River and The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death.) For Thurman, the spirituals reflected the slaves’ desire for freedom, their resistance to oppression and their descriptions of life under it, and the promise of redemption. Their cries would be heard, and they would not be left alone. How resonant is Thurman’s interpretation of the spirituals today? Do they have the same or similar meanings for us? What contribution does Thurman’s work on the spirituals make for African-American history? Does he help to put this music into its original context?
- How does Thurman’s pioneering work in civil rights, non-violence, university chaplaincy, and religious leadership reflect the importance of his legacy for African-American history and culture? In what ways was he a “first” (or almost one) in terms of his various accomplishments?
- The film describes a journey Howard Thurman took to Africa late in life. What impact did that journey have on his thought? In what ways was it an attempt on Thurman’s part to reconcile various religious and cultural traditions with which he had struggled throughout his life? | https://journeyfilms.com/ed-hs/ |
A 72-page 2010 publication raises new and troubling questions about a widely used insecticide's potential for harm to bees, beneficial insects, and bird populations. Using imidacloprid as an example, Dutch toxicologist Dr. Henk Tennekes reports on the hazards of imidacloprid to insects and birds. Imidacloprid is a neonicotinoid chemical, and has systemic action in plants. Other European researchers have linked this insecticide to significant risks for honey bee populations, including possible links to Colony Collapse Disorder.
Abstract – During their foraging activity, honey bees are often exposed to direct and residual contacts with pesticides, especially insecticides, all substances specifically designed to kill, repel, attract or perturb the vital functions of insects. Insecticides may elicit lethal and sublethal effects of different natures that may affect various biological systems of the honey bee. The first step in the induction of toxicity by a chemical is the interaction between the toxic compound and its molecular target. The action on the molecular target can lead to the induction of observable or non-visible effects. The toxic substance may impair important processes involved in cognitive functions, behaviour or integrity of physiological functions. This review is focused on the neural effects of insecticides that have repercussions on (a) cognitive functions, including learning and memory, habituation, olfaction and gustation, navigation and orientation; (b) behaviour, including foraging and (c) physiological functions, including thermoregulation and muscle activity.
[Press release Harvard School of Public Health] Imidacloprid, one of the most widely used neonicotinoid pesticides, has been named as the likely culprit in the sharp worldwide decline in honey bee colonies since 2006. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health say their new research provides "convincing evidence" of the link between imidacloprid and colony collapse disorder. "It apparently doesn't take much of the pesticide to affect the bees," says Alex Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology at Harvard's Department of Environmental Health, "Our experiment included pesticide amounts below what is normally present in the environment."
Sudden losses of bees have been observed in spring during maize sowing. The death of bees has been correlated with the use of neonicotinoid-coated seed and the toxic particulates emitted by pneumatic drilling machines. The contamination of foragers in flight over the ploughed fields has been hypothesized. The airborne contamination has been proven, both with bees inside fixed cages around the field and in free flight near the driller. A new trial involving mobile cages has been established and consists of making rapid passes with single bees inside cages fixed to an aluminium bar. The bar was moved by two operators at different distances from the working drilling machine. A single pass was shown as sufficient to kill all the bees exposed to exhaust air on the emission side of the drill, when bees were subsequently held in high relative humidity. The extent of toxic cloud around driller was evaluated at the height of 0.5, 1.8 and 3.5 m and proved to be about 20 m in diameter, with an ellipsoidal shape. The shape may be influenced by working speed of the drill and environmental parameters, and is easily shown by adding talc powder to the seed in the machine hopper. A new driller equipment was evaluated consisting of two tubes inclined towards the soil that direct the exhaust air towards the ground. The survival rate of the bees was not substantially increased using the modified drill and was lower than 50%. Chemical analyses show up to 4000 ng of insecticide in single bees with an average content around 300 ng. Similar quantities were observed at increased distances from the modified or unmodified drillers. This new evaluation of bee mortality in the field is an innovative biological test to verify the hypothetical efficiency (or not) of driller modifications. | http://www.bijensterfte.nl/fr/taxonomy/term/10 |
Colony Collapse Disorder: Still With Us?
He's asked this question a lot.
"Does colony collapse disorder (CCD) still exist?"
Eric Mussen, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at UC Davis says "yes."
But the winter losses are being attributed to many other causes. "Less than 10 percent of the losses are now attributed to CCD," Mussen points out.
CCD surfaced in the fall of 2006 when beekeepers starting seeing their colonies decimated. They'd open the hive, only to find the queen, the brood and the food stores. The adult workers? Gone.
"CCD still exists and it appears as though in cases where multiple other stresses combine to severely weaken the bees, then viruses can overwhelm the immune system and the bees fly away and die," Mussen says. "We do not know what causes apparently-sick bees to fly from the hive, and we still have a difficult time describing how all the bees could become affected so swiftly."
"As colony losses mounted, the beekeepers had to spend even more time monitoring the conditions of their colonies. They noted things that might be done to prevent some problems that seemed to be starting. So, we are better at preventing the losses, but the percentage for about 25 percent of our beekeepers is still way too high."
Mussen says that "the other 75 percent of the beekeepers are doing relatively well (5-15 percent losses), so we have leveled off in national colony numbers. If the 25 percent can better determine what is going wrong, we should see improved data in the future."
Scientists attribute CCD to a combination of causes, including pests, pesticides, viruses, diseases, malnutrition, and stress. The No. 1 problem in the hives, they agree, is the varroa mite. Mussen writes about those topics - and others in his newsletter, from the UC Apiaries and "Bee Briefs." Both are available free on his website.
Mussen, who is retiring in June after 38 years of service, was recently named the recipient of the 2013-14 Distinguished Service Award, sponsored by the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Mussen devotes his research and extension activities toward the improvement of honey bee health and honey bee colony management practices. Mussen, who joined the UC Davis department in 1976, is known throughout the state, nation and world as “the honey bee guru” and “the pulse of the bee industry" and as "the go-to person" when consumers, scientists, researchers, students and the news media have questions about honey bees. | https://www.losangelescountybeekeepers.com/blog/2014/5/28/colony-collapse-disorder-still-with-us.html |
I hereby join Earth Day Network in pledging to no longer use pesticides.
Even more worryingly, reports from beekeepers and scientific surveys estimate dramatic declines in bee populations around the world. In fact, 40 percent of pollinator species such as bees and butterflies are facing extinction across the globe.
The culprits behind the dramatic decline include intensive agricultural practices and pesticide use; alien invasive species; diseases and pests; and climate change. Another phenomenon, known as colony collapse disorder (CCD), has been identified as a major long-term threat to bees and occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear, leaving behind a queen and abundant honey.
There are several factors attributed to CCD, but a growing body of research indicates that pesticides, chiefly neonicotinoids, are a leading cause of the massive bee die-offs across the planet. Neonicotinoids or neonics kill insects by attacking their nerve cells. Many insects poisoned with neonics suffer uncontrollable twitching, shaking, paralysis, or death.
We need bees to keep pollinating our food and ensure healthy sustainable ecosystems now and in the future. We can’t afford to continue contributing to the collapse of pollinator species and the decline of their populations. Help protect pollinators by pledging to go pesticide-free!
Thank you for pledging to stop your use of pesticides. | https://www.earthday.org/pesticide-pledge/ |
Oliver Tickell reports on the fluctuating fortunes of a key species for our countryside and our food.
Photo © A Che / freeimages.com
The hypnotic buzz of bees in flower-filled meadows is one of the sounds redolent of the British countryside. But for how long?
Today’s agricultural landscape of intensive arable monocultures, “improved” grassland, derelict hedgerows and slurry pits all too often resonates with nothing more poetic than the dull grumble of tractors drenching the fields with toxic cocktails of pesticides. The modern countryside has become increasingly silent, bereft of the song of the nightingale, the call of the cuckoo, the rasping cry of the corncrake: made hostile to the wildlife that we took for granted just a generation ago.
It’s not just the chemicals. We have ripped up and drained our ancient herb-rich meadows, permanent pastures and rough grazings – like the culm grasslands of Devon – that have provided a centuries-long home to a huge diversity of flora, together with wild birds, mammals and a broad assemblage of insect and invertebrate life from bees to butterflies. A long process of ecological decline is under way. Piece by piece, our countryside is losing its colour, diversity, richness and resilience.
One particular group of insects – bees – is faring especially badly, perhaps because they’re a canary in the coalmine for the health of our native ecosystems. The UK has lost 20 species of wild bee since 1900, a further 35 are under threat of extinction today, and for years bee colonies have been dying out at an alarming and unsustainable rate.
Their specialist needs – for flowers, nectar, pollen, and undisturbed habitat in which to build their nests and hives – make them a sensitive indicator of ecological health. So too does their vulnerability to agrochemicals, in particular the neonicotinoid insecticides – ‘neonics’ for short – increasingly popular among farmers, who are spending about £1.5 billion on the chemicals worldwide.
There’s a huge body of scientific evidence that links neonicotinoids to bee colony decline, including both honeybees and, more especially, wild bees. Scientists have found that the chemicals can kill bees outright at the concentrations used in farming, but, no less worryingly, that at much lower doses they damage bees’ immune systems and impair their ability to navigate and remember the locations of hives and flowers. These findings led to the European Union’s Regulation 485/2013, approved in 2013, restricting the use of neonics in seed dressings due to the unacceptable risk they pose to Europe’s bees.
Then it got worse: in July 2014 evidence emerged that neonicotinoids are damaging much more than just bees: the toxic impact of the chemicals ripples through the entire farmland ecosystem, taking in not only bees but also earthworms, birds and aquatic invertebrates, exposed to the high levels of chemicals that concentrate in groundwater, ponds and ditches.
According to the Worldwide Integrated Assessment of the Impact of Systemic Pesticides on Biodiversity and Ecosystems, a four-year study by The Task Force on Systemic Pesticides, “a compelling body of evidence has accumulated that clearly demonstrates that the wide-scale use of these persistent, water-soluble chemicals is having widespread, chronic impacts upon global biodiversity and is likely to be having major negative effects on ecosystem services such as pollination that are vital to food security.”
Co-author Jean-Marc Bonmatin of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France observed: “The evidence is very clear. We are witnessing a threat to the productivity of our natural and farmed environment equivalent to that posed by organophosphates or DDT. Far from protecting food production, the use of neonicotinoid insecticides is threatening the very infrastructure which enables it.”
Another worrying discovery followed last October: the neonics are expressed at much higher concentrations by wild flowers in field margins and hedgerows than in crops that have been sprayed or seed-treated with the insecticides. Scientists from the University of Sussex found that wild flowers such as poppies, hogweed and hawthorn blossom contained around five times more neonics than a treated oilseed rape crop, with even greater levels found in wild flower pollen.
As a result, said the authors, “the large majority (97%) of neonicotinoids brought back in pollen to honey bee hives in arable landscapes was from wildflowers, not crops. Both previous and ongoing field studies have been based on the premise that exposure to neonicotinoids would only occur during the blooming period of flowering crops and that it may be diluted by bees also foraging on untreated wildflowers ... [but] exposure is likely to be higher and more prolonged than currently recognized due to widespread contamination of wild plants growing near treated crops.”
And it’s not just bees that are at risk: at these elevated levels neonicotinoids can also harm other wild pollinators, caterpillars and bugs living near arable fields, eroding the entire agro-ecosystem. All this makes one of our standard responses to habitat loss – planting flower-rich field margins to help sustain pollinators – inadequate in the extreme: ‘wildlife-friendly’ field margins could actually help to poison, not protect, our bees and other insect life.
So how has the British government responded to the neonic threat? First, it fought hard against Regulation 485/2013, as it revealed to the Environment Audit Committee: “We opposed these restrictions because our assessment was (and remains) that evidence did not point to risks to pollinators that would justify restrictions.” Its position followed that of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), which holds that neonicotinoids are essential to combat cabbage stem flea beetle on oilseed rape crops.
Last year the NFU applied for a derogation to allow farmers to use neonicotinoids on autumn-planted oilseed rape, claiming that under the regulation it was “becoming nearly impossible for many farmers” to grow the crop. It surprised no one when Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, permitted farmers to plant neonic-treated oilseed rape on 30,000 hectares of arable land, some 5% of the English crop.
But then something happened that strongly suggests there’s no need for the neonic-treated seed at all: England’s 2015 oilseed rape harvest – 100% planted with untreated seed – delivered a bumper crop. Winter yield was 13% above the 10-year average, while spring yield was up 25–30%.
Yet despite this, the NFU applied for an even larger derogation for autumn 2016, applying to plant 195,000 hectares of neonic-treated oilseed rape, about a third of the crop. This time Defra turned down the application flat. Does that refusal indicate a change of heart? Possibly. Or possibly not: its decision followed a devastating critique by Defra’s official adviser, the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides (ECP), so detailed and specific in its dissection of the NFU’s application that any other response would surely have been met with a legal challenge.
After that the NFU submitted further applications covering a smaller area, and the decision came through just as this magazine was going to press: another refusal. According to a Defra statement, the ECP “found that neither of the applications met the requirements for emergency authorisation”, and both were therefore rejected. NFU vice president Guy Smith complained of a “bitter blow”; but Dave Timms, bee campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said it was “great news for bees and other wildlife”.
Good news for British bees and the wider ecosystem, then, and a welcome sign that Defra is at last standing up to agro-industrial interests that all too often get their own way. But we shouldn’t be too excited. Another threat to Britain’s environment, and the bees, looms following the Leave vote in the UK’s EU referendum in June. In the event of a full extrication from the EU, the UK would no longer need to comply with EU directives, including the twin ‘Nature laws’, the Birds Directive and the Habitats and Species Directive, which together form the foundation of our wildlife protection.
But would the government actually want to get rid of its Nature protection laws post Brexit, or weaken them? “The birds and habitats directives would go,” said the farming minister, George Eustice, shortly before the referendum, describing them as “rigid” and “spirit-crushing”. Instead he wants to replace them with more flexible laws and voluntary certification schemes. “If we had more flexibility, we could focus our scientists’ energies on coming up with new, interesting ways to protect the environment, rather than just producing voluminous documents from Brussels,” he told the Guardian.
There’s also good reason to be concerned about genetically modified crops and their impacts. Former Conservative environment secretary Owen Paterson has denounced the EU for holding back the advance of GM crops, levelling charges of “ecoterrorism” and even “witchcraft” at environmental campaign group Greenpeace for its opposition to the technology – indicating a possible post-Brexit direction of travel.
And to judge by the experience of the US, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, GM crops could do serious damage to our wildlife. ‘Roundup-ready’ GM crops resistant to the herbicide glyphosate are implicated in the dramatic collapse of North America’s migratory monarch butterfly, which relies on the once-common milkweed as its main food plant. Milkweed has now been eliminated from huge areas of the US by the massive spraying of glyphosate associated with ‘Roundup-ready’ crops – and something similar could happen here with our own farmland weeds and wild flowers that sustain wild bees and other pollinators.
Insecticidal GM crops that express insect toxins of bacterial origin in their leaves, nectar and pollen represent another hazard to bees and other insects. Studies have shown that these toxins, engineered into maize, cotton, aubergine and other crops, can affect ‘non-target’ species such as bees and butterflies.
Our bees face other threats too: Varroa mites, around 20 known viruses (many of them transmitted by Varroa), and cool, wet summers, possibly connected to climate change. About one in six of Britain’s honeybee colonies died in the winter of 2014/15, according to the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), and a third two winters before. Losses increased last winter to around one in five, the latest figures show – perhaps a consequence of the poor 2015 summer, which saw honey yields fall from 14.5kg to 9.5kg per hive. | https://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article4707-a-is-for-agro-industry.html |
Isabelle Z.
Pesticides that kill bees, birds and butterflies found to be ineffective at increasing crop yields
09/11/2018
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Tracey Watson
Hummingbirds and bumble bees are being exposed to neonicotinoid pesticides at alarming rates
08/30/2018
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Rhonda Johansson
Pesticide residues still prevalent in honey: Recent review of samples from around the world reveals danger to bees
08/05/2018
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Mike Adams
FAKE NEWS exposed: Media attacks Trump over pesticides and GMOs on wildlife refuges, but nobody links to the memo (here’s why)
07/25/2018
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Tracey Watson
Researchers examine how pesticides contribute to the rapid decline in bee populations
07/20/2018
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Vicki Batts
CONFIRMED: Chemical giants have been colluding with regulators to suppress information on the deadly effects of pesticides
06/14/2018
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RJ Jhonson
Honeybees “smell” dead individuals and remove them from the colony to protect their young
06/13/2018
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Jessica Dolores
Environmental pollution affects the scent of flowers, explaining the decline of various plant species and insect populations
06/08/2018
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David Williams
Bee colonies appear to make decisions just like the human brain, say researchers
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Behavior of honeybees found to be influenced by what they can smell
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As global insect population plunges toward total ecological collapse, the corporate-run media still censors the truth about GMOs and pesticides
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New research shows that high levels of pollution negatively affect plants and insects
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Popular pesticides found to damage ability of honey bee pollinators to FLY
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Extensive study finds that organic farming can halt pollinator decline
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Bee pollen is one of nature’s most complete superfoods – here’s why
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Insect population COLLAPSE a death warning for all humanity
Science again confirms the efficacy of ancient medicine: The antibacterial properties of honey found to be effective against resistant MRSA
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Monsanto’s weedkiller BOMBSHELL: It murders honey bees, too, contributing to global collapse of the food supply
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Research finds probiotics are effective at improving survival rates in honey bees exposed to pesticides
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Can floating islands help threatened insects such as bees and butterflies?
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Hedgerows enhance pest control and pollination of crops
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Trained bees successfully locate landmines in Croatia
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By Isabelle Z.
Applied insect ecologist says that neonicotinoid insecticides are used far more heavily than necessary, causing huge ecological damage
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Researchers develop tiny robots that are able to blend into bee colonies and interact with them
Putting it bluntly: If all bees die, humanity will soon follow
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By Vicki Batts
Survival medicine: Are you familiar with the medicinal uses of honey? | https://bees.news/ |
Colony Collapse Disorder
Colony collapse is characterised by the loss of the worker bees of a hive despite there still being abundant food reserves in the hives and the queen and immature brood (the larval stage of bees) being relatively unaffected, however without any workers the hive is unable to sustain itself and will die (1). It’s been a reported phenomenon for a long time with it being documented as far back as 1869 (2) with feral populations of bees drastically declining from 1972-2006 (3). However it was not widely reported as a problem until the winter of 2006-2007 when large number of commercial hives were lost with operators reporting 30-90% of hives lost in some parts of the world (1).
The causes of colony collapse are unknown with it being believed to be a result of many varied stresses such as increased levels of pesticides, parasites, beekeeping practices (e.g. use of antibiotics and trucking of hives by operators), decreasing queen quality as a side effect of selective breeding, and immunodeficiency. It is currently thought that each individual stressor is insufficient but common stresses, such as pesticides, lead to immunodeficiency causing the population to become vulnerable to infections and parasites such as the varroa mite (4).
While staple foods like rice and grains largely rely on abiotic (eg wind) methods of pollination many of the foods we eat are reliant on bees to pollinate them quickly ensuring production of a healthy fruit such as apples, kiwifruit and almonds. Many farmers rely on renting commercial hives that act as pollinators during the initial window when the plants flower to ensure rapid pollination and reduce risk of harm from weather, pests and disease. The loss of hives increases the cost to farmers as either rental of hives costs more or reduces the production of fruit driving up the price of foods that use bees as their primary pollinator.
As with other countries the loss of bees will have a major impact on New Zealand with the bee assisted production being worth an estimated $5.1 billion to the New Zealand economy. In our agricultural industry much of the produce, such as apple and kiwifruit, is a direct result of pollination and indirect effects such as the estimated $1.5 billion worth of dairy products gained from clover pollination (5). Hawkes Bay’s reliance on these sectors means this presents a greater threat to us than many other regions.
In New Zealand there is a lack of wild bee hives due them no longer being able to easily survive without management. We can help combat this problem by making our gardens more hospitable to them. Not using sprays on your garden, having nectar producing plants, mowing the lawn less and offering to host a hive can all help with the problem.
1. EPA report on colony collapse disorder
2. Colony collapse disorder: Have we seen this before? by R. M. Underwood et al.
3. Concerns related to Pollination in relation to colony by Watanabe ME
4. Bee declines driven by combined stress from parasites, pesticides, and lack of flowers by D. Goulsan et al.
5. Briefing on the health of bees by the New Zealand Government's Primary Production Commitee
To learn more or to support bees in your area, click on the pictures: | http://www.environmentcentre.org.nz/bees |
A deadly bee illness called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is sweeping across the US. Just last winter CCD wiped out almost a third of the nation's hives.
We don't know all the factors that cause CCD, but we do know one guilty party: A class of pesticides — known as neonicotinoids — that studies have shown to weaken, disorient and kill honeybees.
Despite the evidence, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just last year approved a new Dow pesticide called sulfoxaflor, which its own research showed was “highly toxic” to bees. To save the honeybee, the EPA needs to step up. And fast.
Demand that the EPA takes its first big step towards saving the bee populations that we all depend on. Tell the agency to ban sulfoxaflor — the newest bee-killing pesticide to hit the market.
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Having problems signing this? Let us know. | https://www.thepetitionsite.com/963/046/110/save-bees-from-sulfoxaflor/ |
Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense. Basically, small particles act differently depending on whether they are being watched, either by a conscious human being or a detector machine (even if the detector is turned on after it has acted). I’m not going to rehash how we know, but the more details you get the more mind blowing it is (Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe has the best easy read description of said details). More and more refined experiments continue to close possible loopholes, so it looks like the crazy is true (despite, among other people, Albert Einstein spending the last half of his life trying to prove it false).
If you said that particles behave this way back before we had evidence for it people would have thought you were nuts which, a priori, should make us more humble about the possibilities in the universe. One of the less sophisticated “atheist bro” arguments points out that our every day life works according to some principle, and some religious belief violates that principle (“how can Mary get pregnant as a virgin? Check mate!”), when on a meta level quantum mechanics teaches us that our everyday operating principles are most certainly not accurate guides for peeling back layers of reality. If quantum mechanics reveals a counterintuitive reality we can measure, how much more counterintive can layers of reality be that we can’t measure? (And yes, I know that quantum mechanics is a highly developed and tested science and virgin births aren’t, but that’s a separate issue).
Additionally, perhaps because the weirdness of quantum mechanics has led to a lot of woo woo, some secularists are often eager to point out that quantum mechanics is just a par for the course scientific mechanistic worldview, but it’s really not.
If it’s atoms all the way down, and my conscious brain or a sophisticated photon detector is also fundamentally just a bunch of atoms in a particular arrangement, there’s no a priori reason why those arrangements should change the present and past actions of a particle without actually touching or otherwise directly influencing them. Quantum mechanics teaches us that abstract, non-physical concepts like “awareness,” whether by us or the detector, are fundamental to the universe, so in a sense we have already scientifically disproven the super physicalist notion that on the most fundamental level there’s nothing more special about one grouping of atoms than another, since we know that certain configurations of atoms can change the nature of reality. Ultimately, I believe quantum mechanics provides us a peek into the reality that is so much richer and capacious with possibility (including religious ones) than anything we could have imagined before. | https://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2022/01/big-science-questions-and-the-gospel-part-iv-quantum-mechanics/ |
New Delhi:
In a historic judgment, Supreme Court on Thursday ensured the right to privacy of every Indian citizen by identifying it as a fundamental right, protected under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
The nine-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar, quoted in the writings of the Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen to illustrate the intrinsic ‘development and freedom’ and establish least government censorship and intrusion in individual's privacy.
Taking references from Sen’s Development as Freedom (2000), The Idea of Justice (2009), and The Country of First Boys (2015), the judgment illustrates importance of freedom in a democratic process through examples of famine situation in sub-Saharan Africa and North Korea.
Also read | SC verdict on right to privacy a blessing for LGBT community
In Indian context, the court took to Sen’s analyses of British colonial regime’s response to Bengal famine of 1943.
The famine “was made viable not only by the lack of democracy in colonial India but also by severe restrictions on reporting and criticism imposed on the Indian press, and the voluntary practice of ‘silence’ on the famine that the British-owned media chose to follow,” the Nobel laureate noted in ‘Idea of Justice’.
The SC, in its judgment, says that his analysis reveals that the political immunity enjoyed by government leaders in authoritarian states prevents effective measures being taken to address such conditions.
Political liberties and democratic rights are hence regarded as ‘constituent components’ of development, Sen had written.
“The causal connection between democracy and the nonoccurrence of famines is not hard to seek. Famines kill millions of people in different countries in the world, but they don’t kill the rulers. The kings and the presidents, the bureaucrats and the bosses, the military leaders and the commanders never are famine victims.
Also read | Supreme Court's nine-judge bench upholds Right To Privacy as fundamental right
“And if there are no elections, no opposition parties, no scope for uncensored public criticism, then those in authority don’t have to suffer the political consequences of their failure to prevent famines.
“Democracy, on the other hand, would spread the penalty of famines to the ruling groups and political leaders as well. This gives them the political incentive to try to prevent any threatening famine, and since famines are in fact easy to prevent (the economic argument clicks into the political one at this stage), the approaching famines are firmly prevented, Send said in Development as Freedom.
The judgment through Sen’s words establishes that there is an intrinsic relationship between development and freedom.
“…development cannot really be seen merely as the process of increasing inanimate objects of convenience, such as raising the GNP per head, or promoting industrialization or technological advance or social modernization… For adult human beings, with responsibility for choice, the focus must ultimately be on whether they have the freedom to do what they have reason to value. In this sense, development consists of expansion of people’s freedom,” the judgment said in words of the economist. | https://english.newsnationtv.com/india/news/development-is-freedom-to-do-what-you-value-sc-quotes-amartya-sen-to-establish-right-to-privacy-180359.html |
Political campaigning and the inevitable politicking by political parties that go with it are an important component of Bhutanese democracy.
It allows for voters to make informed choices, and also gives them an opportunity to observe, at close quarters, their potential leaders in both positive and negative light.
However, drawing from the lessons of the 2008 campaign, and also developments in the 2013 campaigning, politics has left unintended negative consequences.
While it is naive to expect everybody to be just one big happy family with no problems, at the same time, people should not be at each other’s throats over political affiliations and choices.
Party politics in Bhutan, has so far suffered from two main problems. One is that politics in Bhutan, as with many public issues, is a highly personalized matter. There is an inability or maturity to deal with differences and still hold respect for each other’s choices, and remain friends. This, often results in the divisions at the community and at times the family unit level, with painful social and emotional consequences.
Things get so petty with political rivals, that on most occasions, they are unable to sit in the same row without feeling extremely uncomfortable.
For example, in India, its politics, which we like to scoff at; the ruling party leader and the opposition leader fight it out in the Parliament, but treat each other with the genuine deference and respect in social gatherings. This political maturity to separate the personal from the professional matters is sorely missing in Bhutan. This is not only between parties, but also apparent in the relationship of politicians with the media, constitutional bodies, etc.
The second major problem is that party politics in Bhutan is treated like a zero sum game, where the winner takes all, and the loser is expected to accept complete and absolute defeat. As shown in the relationship between the incumbent ruling party and opposition party, there is no room for compromise and no middle path. The incumbent ruling party had also assumed that since it has the mandate of the people, therefore, there is no requirement to consult with them on major issues. Those who have questioned its divine right to rule without question, like the media, are treated as being on the ‘other’ side, and punished using the pliable government machinery.
This kind of trigger happy, vindictive, and prosecutorial style of politics, if not checked, could make Bhutanese democracy similar to other countries where a ruling party’s first job is to prosecute the opposition and individuals that it sees as a political threat and vice versa.
In Bhutan, one of the biggest fears of candidates and party workers is not of just losing, but of the measures the ruling party that comes to power, will impose on them for daring to oppose them. There is already some evidence, like an ACC investigation on the questionable use of CDG, by an incumbent MP to reward party supporters that Bhutan is heading in the direction of zero sum game in politics.
In a healthy democracy, the choice at the ballot box should be based on the different ideologies and parties vision, not one where a win or lose could make you a millionaire or pauper overnight, due to the attitude of the party that comes to power.
Bhutanese politics, for the sake of democracy and the well being of the nation, needs to get out of both the above political black holes.
Be it family members, community members or political party rivals, the people should be able to respect and accept each other’s differing choices, and not label them as the ‘other’. In America, the Republican fathers and Democrat sons get along very well despite their differences.
There is an urgent need for Bhutanese politicians, and even senior officials to grow thick skins, and have an open mind towards criticism or differences. There is also a need for greater political maturity, tolerance and harmony. However, the above should not be confused with the lack of criticism.
Whichever political party comes to power in 2013, it should purse a style of governance that brings together different and contending groups, and one that addresses their concerns in a fair manner. If this is not done then political battle will not end at the ballot box, and politics will become more desperate and dangerous as evident in some nations around the world.
Bhutanese democracy has had a positive and noble start, after the sacrifice of our Kings who gave up vast powers so that ordinary Bhutanese citizens are more empowered to govern themselves, towards a stronger and more progressive nation. It is, now, up to ordinary Bhutanese and political leaders, irrespective of the excuses and drawback – to use this power for either the greater or lesser good? | https://thebhutanese.bt/party-politics-in-bhutan-evolution-or-degeneration/ |
THE ANCIENT PAMAHALAANS
For sure, it is never easy running a village, much more a 16th-century Malayan kingdom. Concerns of law and order, naval and military defenses, tax collections, granaries and supplies, local and international trade diplomacy, and religious affairs were some items in the list of a king’s daily agenda in the olden times.
It was tough work for any ruler, so the padukas, bataras, pangulos, haris, lakans, rajas, sultans, or the kings of the ancient Philippines co-governed their territories with the help of an elite group of noble councilors, which formed the early government systems of the Philippines — the ancient pamahalaans.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION
In the precolonial times, when a victorious datu, a chief of a barangay, sakop, or village, had expanded his territory and other chiefs pledged their support and alliances to him, that victorious datu would ascend to become the datu of datus.
THE LORD PARAMOUNT
Now, this datu of datus, depending on his religious belief, would update his title to signify that he was now the lord paramount — the king of a bayan, banwa, bansa, or nation. And the most recorded titles of the precolonial Malayan Filipino kings are lakan, raja, and sultan.
THE COUNCIL FORMATION
The more villages and islands the lakan, raja, or sultan had or influence over, the more administering he had to perform. Hence, to uphold his rule and manage his growing kingdom, that ruler formed an elite state council, which might be called the Pulong, the Kasapulan, or the Ruma Bichara.
THE PULONG
In Luzon, in the barangay-type, coastal societies of the Tagalogs, their state council might be called the Pulong, also known as Lipon or Lupon, and its council member was titled as kapulong or a kagawad.
THE KASAPULAN
Meanwhile, in the Visayas, which had the banwa-type settlements, their state council might be called the Kasapulan while its council member was called a kasapul.
THE RUMA BICHARA
As for the sultanates of Mindanao that had the banwa-type groups, they referred their councilman as mantiri, and the Tausugs called their state council as the Ruma Bichara, while the Maguindanaons called theirs as the Bichara Atas.
A DYNASTIC ROYAL COUNCIL
The early Malayan state councils were composed of the most royal datus or the barabangsa datus. We emphasize the words most royal, for some datus came from a non-ruling class, or from a mixed parentage of a noble and a commoner, or by appointment, such as the giyulal or gullal datus. And the chances of the giyulal datus in joining these exclusive royal councils are assumed to be near impossible.
THE BARABANGSA DATU
A precolonial state council is also a royal council. And as observed, one must be a barabangsa datu to join a state council, and his bloodline must be of the highest order of nobility since a potential new king might arise from this elite circle to dethrone their current ruler.
More often than not, the state council members belonged in the same family tree of the lakan, raja, or sultan — such as brothers, sons, nephews, cousins, uncles, and in-laws.
THE MAGINOO CASTE
It is evident that political dynasties held power in the past, and this introduced an elite form of social stratification: the Maginoo Caste or the ruling class. These kapulong, kasapul, mantiri councilors were the most powerful, influential, royal datus who had the wealth, armies, farms, villages, and the means to support their ruler kin.
THE STATE COUNCIL
Customarily, a state council was made of one ruler and few councilors — one sultan and four councilors in the early years of the Sulu Sultanate — and its members increased since then and up to the years of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines.
The main role of the lakan, raja, or sultan was to lead, especially in global trade and wars; whereas each kapulong, kasapul, or mantiri councilor had a specific function and an office to administrate.
For certain important state issues, the council members would vote to reach a collective decision. It is documented that the Sulu Sultanate’s state council had their sultan and their crown prince to exercise two votes each, while the rest of their councilmen had one vote each.
The participation of the kapulongs, kasapuls, and mantiris in their respective councils granted them to acquire great profits from the state dealings that they managed with other kingdoms.
POLITICAL STRUCTURE
When the Castilians conquered Luzon and the Visayas in the 16th century, the state councils of the ancient Philippines were destroyed, except for the Mindanao sultanates. The Muslim kingdoms of the Philippines might have these ranks and titles in their state councils:
- Supreme Ruler: Sultan, Raja
- Crown Prince: Datu Raja Muda
- Prime Minister: Wazil
- Palace Commander: Datu Maharaja Adenduk
- Lord Admiral: Datu Raja Laut
- Customs Commissioner: Datu Maharaja Layla
- Council Speaker: Datu Amir Bahar
- Executive Secretary: Datu Tumangong
- Information Secretary: Datu Juhan
- Commerce Secretary: Datu Muluk Bandarasa
- Interior Secretary: Datu Sawajaan
- Finance Secretary: Datu Bandahala
- Inspector General: Mamaneho
- Sultan’s Envoy: Datu Sakandal
- Weapons Commander: Datu Nay
STATE AND RELIGION
Precolonial supreme rulers were also seen as the corporeal representatives of their deities as hinted by their titles, such as the paduka was an incarnate of a Hindu god, the batara was from the god Bathala, and the sultan was the shadow of Allah.
Therefore, depending on their official religion, a royal council was guided by a spiritual leader: babaylan for the animistic kingdoms, while kali for the Moro monarchies.
CONCLUSION
Interestingly, traces of the ancient Tagalog pamahalaan are still felt across the Philippines, for the Lupon Council or the Pulong is still practiced in a modern-day barangay village and is headed by a punong barangay and ministered by the kagawads.
Also, we can celebrate the fact that the ancient Philippine governments are comparable to the European monarchies with subtle Malayan differences, for there were paramount leaders, such as lakans, rajas, or sultans as if kings; the observance of a royal councils made of datus as if lords; and the spiritual guidance from babaylans or kalis as if archbishops.
REFERENCES
- Laarhoven, Ruurdje. The Maguindanao Sultanate in the 17th Century: Triumph of Moro Diplomacy. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1989.
- Majul, Cesar Adib. “Political and Historical Notes on the Old Sulu Sultanate.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 38, no. 1 (1965): 23-42.
- Mednick, Melvin. “Some Problems of Moro History and Political Organization.” Philippine Sociological Review 5, no. 1 (1957): 39-52.
- Scott, William Henry. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994.
- Tiongson, Nicanor G., ed. 1994. CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, Volume II. Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Illustration Sources: The image detail at the top is from Philippines: Sultan of Sulu, Mindanao; The Story of the Philippines by Fiske (ca. 1890), retrieved from the University of Michigan Library Digital Collections; the image remix is brought to you by Datu Press®.
Patronage Note: If our culturally driven endeavors inspire you and give you joy, please consider becoming one of our sustaining patrons. Click here for more information. Join the Revolution! This is a public service of Datu Press®. | https://datupress.com/2019/04/15/the-precolonial-philippine-governments/ |
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India-Nepal Relations: Domestic Politics as a Factor of Indian Interference
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India-Nepal Relations: Domestic Politics as a Factor of Indian Interference
India-Nepal Relations: Domestic Politics as a Factor of Indian Interference
Nepal’s Foreign Relation with India
Nepal is located in between the arch-rivals China and India. Nepal shares its eastern, western and southern border with India and northern border with China. Nepal is a buffer state for both of the neighbors and manifests their concentration of security. These two countries have been practicing two different and rival political systems and have been in fear of using the territory of Nepal for their reverse ends. Since King Prithvi Narayan Shah ruled Nepal, he isolated Nepal from preventing foreign influences even at the cost of economic adversities in the interests of the security of his own reign. n this case we can say that Nepal has exercised the policy of nonalignment, both regionally and globally. However, Nepal’s over dependence on India for trade and transit routes to the south, and both states’ reliance over same water resources make Nepal’s relation with India especially sensitive and vulnerable. The victory of communism in China brought Nepal an India close and treaties were quickly signed in 1950 and Nepal took the principles of nonalignment and peaceful existence. Indian Prime Minister Nehru created these ideas of foreign policies for India but Nepal also adopted them. These terminologies defined Nepal’s traditional foreign policy more clearly and a kind of Indian influence. Since 1950, these relations have pivoted around the Treaty of Peace and Friendship that gives India a significant leverage over Nepal on economic and security matter. V.P. Dutta, a Professor in Delhi University states in his book India’s Foreign Policy:
There are few countries other than India and Nepal to whom the analogy about the lips and teeth applies so demonstrably and aptly. One look at the map brings home the inevitably intimacy of their relationship. The two countries have been bound together by history, geography, kinship, religion, faith, cultural legacy, and linguistic affinity India does not naturally end where Nepal begins. The natural frontier is the Himalayas that surround Nepal in three sides, Nepal leaving the only outlet the continuous territory with India.
This clearly states that Indian foreign policy towards Nepal from the past till date. From this we can assume that India has never treated Nepal as an independent state. Nehru’s idea about the relationship between India and Nepal exhibits another fact that India finds Nepal in difficult situation extending its relation with other countries due to its geographical location. As he once put it:
Himalayas are high mountains, of course but they are something much more to us and more intimately tied up with Indian history, tradition, faith, beliefs, literature, and culture than, to my knowledge, any other mountains anywhere. The Himalayas are something much more than mountains to us; they are a part of ourselves.
These ideas of Nehru about Himalayas express the theory of Indian foreign policy towards Nepal. Since then the intentional or ill-willed thoughts of Indian leaders have been visible overtly or covertly in Indian dealing to Nepal.
This century is the world of cooperation, virtual communities and geographical communities where functionalism and regionalism have been dominant elements of cooperation. India should learn the example from European Union because ‘the European Union represents a new type of international polity but is a regional one’ so as to make South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) stronger and a meeting of economically strong states. If India can help build Nepal and its neighbors stable, democratic and prosperous, this can only lead opinions India in prosperity and it will gain the position in international forums. Nehru’s opinions are compatible with what realists believe that politics has its root in human nature and humans are the ones to exercise the politics. It means the catalyst is the mankind or the governments of India for relations with Nepal and as mankind, Indian governments have not been inherently benevolent, selfless rather self-centered, selfish and competitive. This can be a short term winning game for India however in the long run as Hobbes opined ‘every man is enemy of every man’. India may lose its friends around eventually and become the victim of multiple threats because not only the issue of security but also the issues of clashes of ethnicities, religions, ideologies and renewed desires of fanatical terrorism are ubiquitous in and around. Indian approach refers to politics and human nature as selfish, self-centered and confliction but unless there is an appropriate condition to come to terms with cooperation or alliance no states can have any benefits. However, the themes of realism are clearly incarnated about the Nepalese-Indian relations be it the treaty of 1950 or others concluded from the time India has been independent. Nepal has always been dominated, submissive and loser where India has stood dominant, bold and winner. As Nepal felt that India has always been coercing Nepal, in response to Indian approaches to Nepal, Nepal has long exercised to distance itself away from Indian influence however the obstacles have been so strong that it has not been able to grasp the desired ends because ‘landlocked countries like Nepal and Bhutan hardly can survive economically without India’s cooperation’. Nepal has made several initiatives to disengage itself from the patterns of relation with India that had been imposed by the Indo-Nepal Treaty of Friendship and Peace of July 1050 but to no avail because Nepalese rulers and ministers have little or almost no knowledge about how to resolve such grave issues. The people of Nepal have recently acknowledged that the dominance of India must be resisted to be an independent state. However India is not entirely responsible for this situation, internal conflicts of ruling elites and political parties, Maoist insurgency and currently renewed conflicts and deadlocks are also equally contributing factors for wider role of India in Nepal. Briefly let’s see India-Nepal relation in different historical time in the following paragraphs to understand the reality of Indian interference.
The Treaty of Peace and Friendship 1950 primarily focused on the concern of security and states that ‘neither government shall tolerate any threat to the security of the other by a foreign aggressor’ and if realized ‘consult each other and devise effective counter-measures’ to prevent any such threat. From this, we can assume that Nepal might be bandwagoning with India but in the essence the ruling elites had signed this treaty in their benefit. Although there are many clauses in this treaty, primarily this treaty keeps Nepal under Indian security umbrella and it degrades the state’s independent existence. Following the 1962 Sino-Indian war, the relationship between Nepal and India thawed significantly. India suspended its support to India based its dissidents or opposition forces. In 1969, relation again became stressful as Nepal challenged the mutual security arrangements and asked that the Indian security check posts and liaison group be withdrawn. The resentment was against the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950. India grudgingly withdrew its military check posts and liaison group although the treaty was not abrogated. Still the treaty is in effect although two countries have formed an eminent persons’ group (EPG) to sort out the issues. Indian always fished in the troubled water of Nepal, it continued to support the Nepalese oppositions who were political leaders of Nepal but enforcing their missions from India in Nepal and refused to endorse Nepal as a “Zone of Peace’ which was propose by then King Birendra in 1975, relating the realists issue of security . Further the expulsion case of Nepalese settlers in 1987, gave another shock to Indo-Nepal relation because of India’s dominant behavior. As professor Subedi opined, ’New Delhi remained silent on this issue and when Nepalese were forced to leave north-eastern states’. Relations between the two countries sank tp a low when Nepal signed an agreement with Beijing to purchase weapons soon after a report that China had won a contract for constructing a road in the western sector to connect China with Nepal. Indian embargo in 1989, which was imposed by India, caused another fall in the relationship. However, India tries to justify by saying that India always supported democrats against autocratic king; people of Nepal are less convinced on it. After the restoration of democracy, The Joint Communique of 1990 brought the new concepts like ‘common rivers’and political leaders let India play the greater role in Nepalese politics and its natural resources. The concept of common rivers is very different from the concept of international rivers and ‘could seriously weaken Nepal’s bargaining power with India when it comes to negotiating economic cooperation projects regarding the exploitation of Nepalese rivers to generate hydropower’.
After long civil war, Maoist and Nepal’s political parties reached to the consensus with the help of Delhi government and on 10thApril 2008, the election of Constituent Assembly was held. The Maoist stood as the first party but the assembly could not promulgate the constitution. Second round of election was conducted on 19th November 2013 and recently new constitution has been promulgated. Other countries have welcomed this success but India has just noted it and supporting the regional based parties indirectly. This has also brought the dissatisfaction among Nepali citizens and some political parties. Nepal’s participation in China’s One Belt One Road has been the headache to India. And now, the relationship of Nepal with India has gone deep down although it is not explicit. That is why, to understand the actors in the Foreign policy choices let’s observe theoretical approach.
Neoclassical Realism and Nepal’s Foreign Policy
Known as the youngest version of Realism, neoclassical realism deals about the foreign policy of the states within realist theoretical tradition. The Neoclassical realism was coined by the most prominent realist Gideon Rose. Neoclassical realists also accept the notion of nonrealist theory that the given state’s foreign policy is driven by its place and its relative material power capabilities in the international system. The distinct theoretical system of neoclassical realists is, it adds the domestic factors such as politics, economy, material capability and leaders’ perception to react the structural pressure while making state’s foreign policy choices because in the unit level analysis, each state is free to accept or reject the structural pressure and they are also free to react and redirect the external threats and opportunities within the state’s interests and goals. The basic element of neoclassical theory combines both the classical realist approach and neorealist approach of international politics while explaining and analyzing any given state’s foreign policy. To understand the reality of world politics and how power shapes the state’s intention they often cite Thucydides’ formula “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. For neoclassical realists, the most important theoretical explanation while analyzing foreign policy is the relative material capability of a given state and systemic pressure as an independent variable explaining how these things affect the state’s foreign policy outcome in the realm of world politics. Neoclassical realists assume other several factors in a unit level that could have causal weight into the foreign policy outcomes such as domestic politics and leader’s perception defined as intervening variables. According to Rose, neoclassical realist uses the domestic politics and leaders’ perceptions as ‘transmission belt” to filter the systemic pressure at the unit level that is why they are neoclassical. Neoclassical realists argue that to get the more accuracy and specificity in the foreign policy outcome, one must open the ‘black box’ of the state and see the intervening variables of domestic factors contributing to fulfill the state’s interest and goals of through foreign policy. Here, domestic groups may include the domestic interest groups, state interests, elite perceptions and society in general. Rose states that the country’s foreign policy choices are made by actual political leaders and elites, not by the state as a whole; in this sense relative material power capability is more important to them because accommodation of foreign policy choices is a tricky game if unable to understand the systemic constraints in a domestic level could cause severe consequences.
There is a long history of foreign interference on Nepal’s domestic and foreign policies due to the inefficient internal political culture that often invites external intervention on domestic matters. The domestic political environment was always vulnerable in inviting external influences intentionally or unintentionally. More importantly it seemed true that Nepal’s foreign policy generally runs by leaders; personal imperatives rather than global practicing of diplomacy according to the country’s need and interests.
To study Nepalese foreign policy, one must see its dynamics of relationship with its neighboring states India and China. Since the independence from Britain, India claims itself as a region’s first player and always compares with China’s capability. In the other hand, China is considered as the global level great power. If we consider power is the chief determinant factor in the international system, Nepal is in the least advantageous position. Nepal’s real relative capabilities cannot be compared with India and China in terms of land size, population, economy, and military technology. India and China are the highly influential foreign actors in Nepal’s foreign policy choices as they are the next door neighbors of Nepal and they possess the higher capabilities than Nepal. Nepal’s foreign policy maneuvering was and is seriously constrained by its least relative capability. However, Nepalese statesmen use ‘China Card’ to counter balance India. In such, the monarchy was successful in exploiting Sino-Indian differences, when Indian influence was heightened in Nepal. Neoclassical realist theory is good enough to explain Nepalese foreign policy as it offers various domestic factors with leaders’ perceptions as intervening variables while analyzing and filtering the systemic pressure into decision making process. Since 1950s, various domestic factors like geography, economy, and domestic politics have always played a crucial role in determining Nepalese foreign policy. Along with other domestic variables, Nepalese political and foreign policy development have proved since many decades that the political elites and leaders’ perceptions have the greatest impacts on its external policy choices and decision making processes and outcome. To understand it, let’s see the impact of domestic politics on Indian interference.
Domestic Politics and Indian Interference
We can see the growing political rivalries and mirror images in Nepal from 1950 to till now and it is likely to be in the future as well. The elites who are interested in power politics of Nepal have always been divided into at least two or more than in two groups until 1990 and more than two afterwards. These divisions within have provided the time and space for foreign governments to demonstrate their active roles in Nepali politics. It is one of the results of intra-conflicts between the two groups in Nepal.
The people were deprived of any political, social and educational rights during Rana regime in Nepal which lasted from 1846 to 1950. During Rana regime not only the people but also the Kings of Nepal were victimized. ‘The Ranas did everything they could do prevent dissent. They discouraged the development of education so that literacy rate in 1951 stood only 2 percent. Trichandra College, established in 1918, was open only to the sons of aristocrats. They suppressed ruthlessly any attempts of political change. In 1950, there was the rivalry for power was heading ahead with no sign of cessation among the Kings, Ranas and the elite people for democracy. So King Tribhuvan coupled knot with Nepali Congress, a political party for democracy so that he could enjoy the power again. The King and Congress partnership with the help of India were able to overpower to end the Ranarchy in Nepal. After that the treaty of 1950, opened the way to Indian interference in Nepal. Again in 1990, there was a people’s movement in Nepal for the democracy, this time also India got its upper hand in Nepal because it had supported the political parties to fight against the King. In 1990, then King Birendra introduced new form of democracy and he became ready to remain a constitutional monarch.
Nepal had two parties: one The Kings and another all dissidents of political parties under one umbrella term called ‘forum for democracy’ till 1990. The people’s revolution in1990 could not cut apart the distances, selfishness and greed of political parties in Nepal. The politically elected Nepali politician always thought that India was a savior and that could supply them onto power as long as they tender good service to their rescuer. This again made India as a powerful actor in Nepal.
Governments of Nepal have always been highly unstable and easily dismissing. None of the governments have survived for their assigned term of five years since 1990. There we can see that till this day political parties have not been able to think about the development of the country but thinking just to reach to the power. Even after the Maoist revolt and the election of Constitution Assembly, leaders have not changed their mindset yet. The political parties of Nepal have been suffering from mirror image disease. . These political parties have not had any motive for the national development and leading the state towards the strong economic state conducting first rate guiding principles and by sustaining high quality relation with neighboring countries and others. As Hachhethu has portrayed ‘ the state has become a husk, to be captured by whichever party wins election under Westminster-style winner takes all system that does little to encourage consensus-building and cross party cooperation’.
Political leaders of Nepal have been acting on the basis of their personal interests and they are always dependent towards India in any decision making process of development or of foreign policy. In such case, India is always there to guide and act as a big brother. This situation is created due to the domestic politics of Nepal that is why; India is not only to be blamed. Since the history, Nepalese leaders have always consulted Indian establishment or the political groups for any changes and Indians expect the same even today. To end this chain of interference Nepal’s domestic politics needs to be improved. Political elites or leaders of Nepal must think to break the chain of the longstanding interference.
References
Buzan, B., & Waever, O. (2003). Regions and powers: The structure of international security Cambridge University Press.
Dutt, V. P. (1984). India's foreign policy Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division.
Gellner, D. (2007). Resistance and the state: Nepalese experiences Berghahn Books.
Hobbes, T. (1958). Leviathan, parts I and II, ed. AP Martinich (1651,
Joseph, S. N. (2008). Understanding international conflicts: An introduction to theory and history (p. 59).
Juneau, T. (2010). Neoclassical realist strategic analysis: A statement. European Consortium on Political Research,
Kapur, H. (1994). India's foreign policy, 1947-92: Shadows and substance SAGE Publications, Limited.
Nehru, J. (1961). India's foreign policy: Selected speeches, september 1946-april 1961 Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
Rose, G. (1998). Neoclassical realism and theories of foreign policy. World Politics, 51(01), 144-172.
Rose, L. E., & Dial, R. (1969). Can a ministate find true happiness in a world dominated by protagonist powers? The nepal case. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 386(1), 89-101.
Rose, L. E., & Fisher, M. W. (1970). The politics of nepal: Persistence and change in an asian monarchy Cornell University Press.
Series, I. M., & Comment, I.(2010). India-china power game in nepal and the consequences.
Suvedī, S. (2005). Dynamics of foreign policy and law: A study of indo-nepal relations Oxford University Press, USA. | http://strategicaffairs.com.np/details/india-nepal-relations-domestic-politics-as-a-factor-of-indian-interference |
On January 18, 2009, CIRS began the 2008-2009 spring semester with a Monthly Dialogue lecture entitled “Democrats and Autocrats, Shi’ites and Sunnis: Political Reform and Confessional Identities in Bahrain” given by its Postdoctoral Fellow Katja Niethammer.
Niethammer’s lecture is part of a larger study undertaken in her PhD research and analyzes the differences in goals, strategies and behavior between Shi’ite and Sunni Islamist political organizations in Bahrain. As such, she “shed light on the relationship between Islamist actors and political reform.” Niethammer conducted extensive fieldwork in Bahrain, during which time she conducted interviews with political and religious activists from both Shi’ite and Sunni communities and also spent time within the Bahraini parliament. During these visits, she witnessed parliamentarians “engage in serious confessionalist agitation and occasionally scuffles between MPs erupted sparked by discussions on events in Iraq.”
The study of Islamist groups in general is extremely important in the current political climate of the Gulf states as “Islamist groups are currently – and not only in Bahrain – the most important actors besides the ruling elites.” This is because “they have a wide social base and have extensive religious networks at their disposal.” Niethammer noted that the groups portrayed in her research are legal organizations and promote their goals through non-violent means.
During her lecture, Niethammer proceeded to debunk the two major assumptions currently holding sway over Islamic studies scholarship. The first assumption is that Islamist parties form a natural partnership with ideas of reform and justice and the second revolves around the hypothesis that Islamist parties will lose any extremist edge and become more democratic if involved in serious parliamentary participation.
These assumptions have been proven valid in some Middle Eastern countries, but Niethammer proposed that the situation in Bahrain was far more complex. Because those parties that rejected electoral participation – the Shi’ite Islamist parties – called out for more democratic reform, and those that fully contributed to parliamentary elections – the Sunni Islamist parties – were more concerned about supporting authoritarian rule, other factors must be useful in explaining moderation and reform-mindedness.
Niethammer proposes that one reason why Bahrain does not fit comfortably within the frame-work of these hypotheses is Bahrain’s prevalent sectarian and ethnic fragmentation, which has created dominant and marginalized groups. Hence, the social and economic positions of the Islamists vis-à-vis the ruling elite determine their political goals and strategies to a larger extent than their ideological orientation. She suggests that this might also be the case in other fragmented societies in the Middle East.
In conclusion, Niethammer argued that such experiences from Bahrain suggest that “when Islamists represent a dominant confessional group, they reject meaningful reforms that enhance political representation and participation. When Islamists represent politically marginalized groups, they endorse such reforms.” In other words, Niethammer maintained that Islamist political actors do not exhibit any behavior that is different from their secular counterparts.
Niethammer joined CIRS for the 2008-2009 academic year. During her Fellowship spent within the framework of CIRS’ research and scholarship initiatives, she has been involved in three major projects. | https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/katja-niethammer-political-reform-and-confessional-identities-bahrain/ |
Leadership is one of the essential components inany organization today. According to Sadler, leadership is apractical skill that encompasses an individual or entity’s abilityto organize and guide others through a variety of functions, tasks,or events (5). On the other hand, Sharma and Jain defined leadershipas a procedure by which an individual utilizes his or her influenceto ensure others accomplish certain objectives while directing theorganization in a manner that is more coherent and cohesive (310).The definition of leadership is broad and varied among scholarsbecause it is a powerful concept that conveys much more thanorganization and guidance of people. This essay provides an in-depthlook into leadership, with a particular focus on the history ofleadership, different styles of leadership, theories of leadership,and qualities of a good leader.
History and background
Historically, leadership can be traced back to theadvent of a social man, and it predates agriculture (Sveiby 2). Manyhistorical studies show that the earliest societies had leadershipstructures, commencing at family level up to the community level. Ina family, men have always been viewed as the leaders or the head ofthe family. Even though this view is changing and women are gettingmore recognition in their roles as leaders of the family, the man isstill held accountable for his family and takes on most of theleadership responsibilities within the families. In the ancientcommunities, leadership was also evident in the form of chiefs,emperors, kings, lords, and Queens (O`Sullivan 23). Today, leadershiphas evolved, and communities have turned into countries, which areruled by presidents, prime ministers, kings and other collectivebodies such as parliaments and House of Commons. Leadership is notrestricted to countries, but it is also an essential component in themanagement of businesses and other social organizations (O`Sullivan33).
Leadership theories
For over a century, leadership theories have beena source of fascination to scholars and researchers. Many scholarshave attempted to understand leadership and identify factors thatmake one leader different from another. Consequently, they have comeup with theories that attempt to differentiate the different stylesof leaders and leadership they have observed over time. In themid-19th century, the scholars developed the ‘Great Man Theory,`which was a theory that explained that leadership skills areintrinsic to an individual. As such, the scholars were of the opinionthat a great leader is born rather than created (Northouse 19). Inthe 1930s, another leadership theory, known as the ‘Trait Theory’was advanced. This theory indicated that great leaders are eitherborn or created with qualities that would enhance their leadershipskills. In the 1940s, the ‘Behavioral Theory’ was advanced and itmainly focused on the behaviors of the leaders (Northouse 20). In the1960s, scholars developed the Contingency Theory, which argued that,“there is no particular way of leading and each leadership styleshould be based on the situation” (Northouse 19). Various otherleadership theories have since been advanced with transactionalleadership theory and transformational leadership theories beingadvanced in the 1970s (Northouse 21).
Styles of leadership
Leadership styles often accompany leadershiptheories. According to Adeniyi, leadership styles are approaches thatleaders use in implementing strategies, providing direction,motivating their subjects or subordinates (29). Leadership styles canfall under one of the following four styles: autocratic, democratic,free rein or relationship oriented. Autocratic leadership usuallyentails a centralized power, which is in charge of the entiredecision-making in the organization. This form of leadership iscommon in dictatorships where one leader has all the power.Democratic leadership is a participative form of leadership thatallows leaders to share decision-making. Free-rein leadership allowsleaders to pass decision-making duties to their subordinates. Lastly,“relationship oriented leadership is a form of leadership, whichallows the leaders to focus on relationship amongst members of anorganization” (Griffin and Ebert 135). This type of leadership isoften concerned with the utility that people derive from theirrelationship as well as their wellbeing (Griffin and Ebert 135).Adeniyi is of the opinion that opinion that the appropriateleadership style is often dependent on the situation.
Attributes of a good leader
Good leadership should often be associated withspecific attributes. In the opinion of O’Sullivan, a good leadershould be able to have a degree of self-assessment (56). This impliesthat leaders should periodically assess themselves and determinetheir strengths and weakness in a bid to improve their ability toorganize and guide people. Apart from this, a good leader is expectedto be responsive to the needs of his subjects or subordinates toensure that the majority of his subjects and subordinates supporthim. Good leadership also demands that one should have knowledge ofthe organization they are leading (Northouse 67). For instance,presidents are required to have knowledge of their country andmanagers ought to have comprehensive knowledge of their organization.When these three attributes are combined with leadership values suchas transparency, integrity, honesty, and passion, a successful regimeis born.
Conclusion
Leadership is an important part of today’ssociety because it provides a mean through which people receiveguidance and direction. Different scholars have conducted extensiveresearch on the issue of leadership, and their findings indicate thatleadership predates agriculture. Initially, chiefs, emperors, lords,queens, and queens ruled communities. Today, however, this haschanged with presidents, prime ministers, and sometimes queens andkings ruling nations. In business organizations, the main leaders areusually the managers. Due to the essentiality of leadership, scholarshave developed various theories to explain the different styles ofleadership. Hence, theories such as Great Man Theory, BehavioralTheory, and Contingency Theory have been developed in the lastcentury. These theories have also been accompanied by advancement ofleadership styles such as autocracy, democracy, and free reinleadership styles.
Works Cited
Adeniyi, Michael, Adewale. Effective leadership management: an integration of styles, skills & character for today`s CEOs. Bloomington IN: AuthorHouse, 2007. Print.
Griffin, Ronald, J and Ricky, Ebert, W. Business Essentials. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print.
Northouse, Peter, G. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Washington DC: SAGE, 2013. Print.
O`Sullivan, June. Leadership Skills in the Early Years: Making a Difference. New York: Network Continuum, 2009. Print.
Sadler, Philip. Leadership. 2nd. London: Kogan, 2003. Print.
Sharma, Manoj, Kumar and Shilpa Jain. “Leadership Management: Principles, Models, and Theories.” Global Journal of Management and Business Studies. 3.3 (2013): 309-318. Print.
Sveiby, Kerl-Erik. The first Leadership. Helsinki: Hanken Business School, 2009. Print. | https://coloradofoundation.org/students-name-leadership/ |
We can look at this topic from many facets. Especially since it has been repeatedly discussed both, within the social sciences and by journalists. And yet, the topic does not lose its urgency: the Russian elite is a complex phenomenon, and its current analysis requires clarifications or thorough interpretations. The present essay is also a hasty attempt to do so.
I feel that what I have heard or read about the political elite of modern Russia needs a conceptual framework. The latter can be built on the theories of elites, the approaches of historical institutionalism, and, on the edge of the various social sciences, the theory of civil-military relations that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. This essay will also begin with an interpretation of the ideas taken from these conceptual blocks. Later I will try to attach this framework or skeleton to the "flesh" - in other words, the examples - of relevant Russian reality.
In elite theories, of which academic origins date back to the late 19th century Italian historians and sociologists, the terms political elite and ruling / political class are used interchangeably. So for example, Mosca spoke of the ruling class, Pareto spoke of the ruling elite, while Michels spoke of the term oligarchy as having a universal meaning. Later, this variety of terms, which had caused some ambiguity in the matter, continued, much to the disapproval of Alan Zuckerman in the 1970s. He perceived these terms more or less synonymously and saw the political class or elite as a union of people who compete for control of authoritative decisions. It is not the purpose of the essay to enter into this argument and to claim to clarify the terms. I can only say that due to several circumstances, the peculiarities of the modern Russian governing model make it more convenient to focus not so much on the class, but on the elite. This term more broadly expresses the narrow, patron-client principle of governance, where "camarilla" or "clique" carry a special meaning, which we encounter in Russia and many post-Soviet systems. On the other hand, the middle circle of administrators of the Russian Federation should not be overlooked either. The only reason for this is not that one of the scholars of the Russian political elite, Oksana Gaman-Golutvina, sees not only the important role of personalist clans in Putin's government, but also that of the bureaucratic apparatus.I think that, when discussing the Russian ruling class/elite, the need to show the profile of its second echelon, which the classicist of elite theory, Gaetano Mosca compared to army officers, is due to the following circumstances:
Mosca believed that the army could lose generals and nothing would happen but the loss of officers was a disaster. For him, the second stratum of the "ruling class" had the same function - the leadership of the whole country, on whose stability, solidarity, intellect, and role depends. He considered the core members of the big parties of the liberal state, which were an impartial judge of the upper echelon of the elite, a good analog of the corps of officers.Russia is neither a liberal state nor does it have strong, stable parties focused on the interests of specific social groups. But its elite also needs a foothold and a source of replenishment. Consequently, where the second echelon/strata are considered, how influential it is, whether its social-institutional framework is state bureaucracy or something else is a pressing subject.
As for the definition of elite and the types of its configuration, for that, I rely on the interpretation of John Higley and his colleagues. I also think the post-Soviet specifications of the Russian researcher Vladimir Gelman are relevant. As early as 1990, Higley, Field, and Burton created an interesting framework for interpreting the old theories of the elites, according to which elites are defined as persons who are able, by virtue of their strategic positions in powerful organizations, to affect national political outcomes regularly and substantially.As for typology, these authors further elaborated Putnam’s assumptions and spoke of three types of elites (Consensually Unified, Ideologically Unified, and Disunified). Later and, to some extent, by observing the post-communist world, Higley personally divides the third category into two and speaks of a) fragmented and b) divided elites.I think both Russian and, by the way, Georgian post-Soviet cases have been fluctuating between these two subcategories for the last 30 years. But we will speak more about this below.
Gelman draws on this latter scheme and, as a post-Soviet scholar, inevitably pays homage to historical institutionalism, that is, to the effects of the Soviet legacy on the present. In his view, the Soviet system gave rise to two main institutions: the governing structure and ethnofederalism, meaning the extraterritorial ministries that controlled the sectors of the economy, and the ethno-territorial divisions of the Communist Party. In the post-Soviet era, this laid the groundwork for a new duality of elites - the dichotomy of financial-industrial groups and local clans. I believe that such a picture is quite schematic, though noteworthy. Also noteworthy is Gelman's argument that a fragmented elite was formed directly in the Russian Federation under Yeltsin, while Putin restored a monolithic elite. Higley and Burton place such a "monolith" in the category of "ideologically united" elites, which suits both totalitarian and ethnocratic or sultanist regimes.However, separate sections of modern Russian history do not rule out the type of Hegelian "divided elite."
Lev Gudkov, director of the Levada Center, believes that Putin's system of government is secondary totalitarianism. He does not need large-scale repression (although Alexei Navalny's poisoning, imprisonment, and also the crackdown on demonstrations in his support also shows a relapse of repressions. D.D.). Though the language of the government continues to appeal to the concepts of solidarity, national security, everything foreign is bad and unacceptable. Russia has been declared a millennial organic entity on which the state cares paternally. In this situation, people understand what can be expected from the state and a similar to Homo-Sovieticus adaptation to the reality takes place.
Totalitarianism demands a dominant ideology, and Lev Gudkov sees its existence in modern Russia as well. It is much more eclectic than communism. At the same time, one of the creators, Vladislav Surkov’s concepts of "sovereign democracy" or "deep people" have quite active opponents with certain media platforms. Consequently, talking about totalitarianism can be controversial - at least until the last wave of repression. One way or another, if we talk about the nature of the political regime of Putin's time and the correlation of the elite type, Henry E. Hale's model of "patron policy" is interesting. He also believes that not much has changed in the post-communist world as the state's repressive apparatus and almost monopolistic control over the distribution of resources has been maintained.This leads to the reemergence of patron-client networks. The most important legacy of "communism" throughout the Eurasian space is patronage, Hale concludes.
When talking about the elite of modern Russia, one of the main questions is from whom and how these patron-client networks are formed, or in what form the circulation of elites in Russia took place after the collapse of the USSR. I think that both, the literature and the variety of materials disseminated in the electronic media, speak only about partial circulation.
Currently, it is not disputed that in the Soviet era, the so-called political class or ruling class was created out of the so called nomenclature. According to several calculations, several thousand men were counted in its upper echelon. In total, about 160,000 people were employed in various leadership positions in the party, the Soviet, and executive institutions. Because the system was patron-client, where sometimes patron is dependent on a trusted client, people with informal influence must also be added to these numbers. They were usually a part of the shadow economy, the benefits of which fed the corrupt part of the nomenclature. This situation formed the basis for the formation of joint networks of the ruling elite and representatives of organized crime. A notable example in this regard is the friendship of the wife of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR, Vasil Mzhavanadze (1953-1972) with a shadow entrepreneur, Otar Lazishvili, which allowed the latter to influence nomenclature appointments.
Naturally, Georgia, distinguished by its shadow economy and scale of corruption, was, in fact, no exception. Mzhavanadze, like other Republican leaders, had clientelistic ties with Moscow. When the Soviet Union began to disintegrate due to economic, interethnic, and ideological factors, circulation in both echelons of the political class accelerated and signs of transformation also appeared. I can not speak about all the important details here. I will once again quote Lev Gudkov and say that, in the ruling vertical of Yeltsin's Russia, a prominent place was occupied by the adventurous characters serving the old nomenclature. But gradually they were sidelined by officials of the second echelon of the nomenclature, especially Communist and KGB functionaries. Gudkov writes that they were characterized by the corporatism of the old nomenclature elite, but were free from any ideological stereotypes.
Studies of post-communist transformation in Eastern Europe have coined the term the Revolution of the Deputy Heads.It serves to explain that these transformations inevitably led to the replacement of the famous and odious leaders of the old regime, but the middle link of the same ruling class proved to be adaptable. Its representatives easily gave up their ideological coloration and transformed into liberals, democrats, nationalists. Their advantage was information, connections, management experience. Of course, there were also sincere revolutionaries with some anti-communist experience in the renewed elite. But the Russian case shows that these people were mostly still from the communist party nomenclature (Boris Yeltsin himself), or the relatively successful Soviet intelligentsia (Popov, Sobchak, Starovoitova, Gaidar, etc.).
As mentioned above, random people of adventurous nature were inevitably promoted during revolutionary periods. Lev Gudkov cites Boris Berezovsky as an example. I am reminded of the Georgian example of Murman Omanidze, who belonged to neither the nomenclature nor the dissident or national movement, but reached the post of Foreign Minister in the first post-communist government. I am not talking about such notorious figures in the leadership of the new Georgian state as Jaba Ioseliani and Tengiz Kitovani who had criminal pasts. Criminal skills and networks turned out to be a serious springboard in post-Soviet Russia as well. It seems that criminal structures were ready for the fundamental economic-political transformation that began in 1992 even from the late Soviet period. The St. Petersburg representative of investigative journalism, a previous employee of the unit against organized crime, Evgeny Vyshenkov, who has personally been close to the criminal network and has been convicted, provides interesting information in this regard:
He said both the KGB and the military leadership in St. Petersburg were confused during the August 1991 coup. If anyone organized, these were criminal circles, intending to protect the economic liberalization associated with, Perestroika", and even more their growing influence. Authority was lying in the streets. It could be taken by those who were prepared, Vyshenkov concludes.
Russia is too big to talk about the details of the formation and reform of the political elite across the country. Also, the format of the essay does not encompass this task. But to show the general tendencies and to see the true nature of the Kremlin and the leadership of influential businesses, political or law enforcement agencies close to it, the St. Petersburg case is of particular importance: Putin's mentality and social capital were formed here and then continued in the capital.
I find Vyshenkov's memoirs, as a source, particularly relevant in two directions. First, he makes interesting illustrations of the socio-cultural environment in which Putin grew up, the world of criminalized athletes, the City Hall, of KGB friends, and of the growing business-criminal gangs: all of which took place largely in St. Petersburg. However, there are many other sources on these topics - starting with the materials of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation and ending with the films of Badanin, the editor-in-chief of the TV channel Dozhd. Of course, the information is plentiful in the print media as well. But Vyshenkov emphasizes another circumstance that is interesting for understanding the influence of certain segments of the Russian elite, their sort of legitimacy. I think this circumstance highlighted by Vyshenkov shows the relevance of the elite theory of classics, Mosca and Pareto.
Recently, Western scholars have been explaining post-Soviet politics through rationalist alliances, deal models. That is, the processes are reduced to the pragmatic calculations of paramilitary leaders, other, more institutionalized characters, or politicians who lack any ideological underpinnings, which are followed by alliances and conflicts interchangeably. This model is not devoid of explanatory power. An example of this is the above-mentioned work of Henry E. Hale. Another example of such an approach, which focuses on other post-Soviet countries, is Jesse Driscoll's Warlords and Coalition Politics in the Post-Soviet States. The author believes that the policy outcomes are based on strategic calculations. He does not deny the beliefs and emotions of the participants in this process. But these factors are still considered secondary in comparison with material interest.
Mosca and Pareto, on the other hand, focused on irrationalism in politics, ideas, and derivations of psychotypes — stereotypical thinking. The Pareto division of the elite into "foxes and lions", or Moscas's emphasis on the mobilizing ideologies of society, is an illustration of what has been said. Vyshenkov says that the gangs formed at the turn of the 80s and 90s, which first began to gain economic leverage and then gained political influence, enjoyed a kind of sympathy among ordinary, vulnerable people. According to him, the power of sportsmen groups depended on network connections (in some cases they started making money being restaurant "doormen" and then proceeded to have a share from the manager's income), as well as the "red" (communist d.d.) mentality of the society. If a fighter, a medal-winning athlete for the homeland robs a "cooperator", is there anything wrong with this?! - This is how Vyshenkov conveyed the logic of the then Leningrad pensioners or the working class.
I think this type of view was an important factor both for the formation of the attitudes of a part of the society and for the athletes' self-esteem and attachment. Self-esteem and self-justification have a great influence on people's struggles. Athletes in Georgia did not play such a political-economic role as in Leningrad or other parts of Russia. In the 90s the background here was created more by paramilitary formations. But the logic was the same - they considered the civilian population, especially bureaucrats or start-ups, to be in debt to them.
One more passage from Vyshenkov's narrative, which, at the microhistorical level, illustrates the adequacy of the large-scale social theory. Samuel Huntington's theory of civil-military relations, among other provisions, preaches the dangers of involving officers in economic activity. Business and military affairs are incompatible, as it threatens professionalism and subordination in the latter. This can also easily be said about police officers, special services officers, in short, uniformed people. Vyshenkov recounts how he, the Captain of the Leningrad Criminal Investigation, was summoned by a senior colonel and told him that he was to attack members of the Leningrad illegal business/racketeer. Vyshenkov, who had a long-standing relationship with the latter, wondered if it was an official operation. "Not really," he replied. "Then it will not work," replied the captain to the colonel, if you plan to reach your goal through, “ponjat’sia" rather than law. The narrative shows how the relationship with business and crime (which was difficult to distinguish in Leningrad at the time) was shaking for the state law enforcement system, its hierarchy, how the privatization of law enforcement institutions took place.
The topic of de facto privatization of law enforcement institutions in modern Russia is also found in academic texts. Mikhail Maslovsky quotes Lev Gudkov as saying that Putinism is a system of decentralized use of institutional resources for violence. Structures of violence are appropriated by those in power for personal or group interests.Returning to our topic, this situation indicates not only the authoritarian and criminal nature of the regime but also the social-institutional framework or structure of the ruling elite itself. If the regime is authoritarian and criminal, it is natural that a special place in its ruling class is occupied by law-breakers and abusers, armed individuals, or groups. I think the picture outlined in various sources allows for such a conclusion.
In the immediate aftermath after the collapse of the USSR, civil, democratic individuals also emerged in powerful national-level organizations whose leadership equated to membership of a political elite. The foremost, in this respect, was probably President Yeltsin himself, although he also embodied the living legacy of the Soviet nomenclature. There were sincere human rights defenders in the Duma, the influence of several liberal public figures, journalists, was unseen. The political process was marked by ideological confrontations between liberal, communist, and nationalist ideologues. Their total "elitism" is questionable, but many of them enjoyed either parliamentary status or the support of major media outlets, were recognizable, and influenced public opinion.
There were autonomous dynamics in a number of regions, which was reflected in Yeltsin's famous sentence: Берите столько суверенитета, сколько сможете проглотить (take as much of a sovereignty as you can swallow). This was the time when the Autonomous Republics and Districts of the Russian Federation were holding a "parade of sovereignty". Old clans, new democratic figures, or populist / Ethno-nationalist generals (such as Chechen Jokhar Dudayev, Ingush Ruslan Aushev) emerged in this dynamic. They, together with local business-criminal gangs,formed regional elites that, if we borrow the terminology of Higley, Gelman, Pikulski, were disunified or, at least, fragmented.
As mentioned, Gelman called the Russian political class during Yeltsin's time "fragmented." According to Higley and Pikulski, this term is appropriate for an unconsolidated democracy or a regime of short-lived authoritarianism. However, based on the initial version of his theory, Higley and his colleagues would probably have talked about the abundance of signs of adisunified elite in the Yeltsin era. This type implies the disagreement of the elite factions regarding the rules of the game, on the legitimacy of the institutions. In the conditions of a divided elite, politics is perceived as war. This was the situation in the autumn of 1993 when the fire was opened from tanks to the "White House", the residence of the parliament in opposition with President Yeltsin. The situation then seemed to calm down, but the attacks on his communist opponent by the pro-Yeltsin media during the 1996 parliamentary elections also had the character of war, but an information war.
In such a division of the elite, which was especially acute in the capital, the ideological factor played an important role. The remnants of communism opposed market liberalism. What would have happened if the Communists had won can only be speculated about. But the fact that market liberalism was found to be amalgamated with crime and authoritarianism, showed through experience. The Leningrad / St. Petersburg case provides ample examples to illustrate this point, although nationwide decisions and reshuffles of power took place in Moscow.
There was a lot of eclecticism in the ruling elite, that is, in the part surrounding Yeltsin, which was gaining more and more characteristics of the Mosca "clique". This situation promoted freedom of speech and did not hinder market reforms. But, at the same time, there was war in Chechnya, banditry throughout the country, and corruption in the economy. Media tycoons and oligarchs (e.g. Berezovsky and Gusinsky) fought each other after the communist threat was removed. In their business empires, as private security organizers, the old KGB officers roamed, though there wasn't a lack of them in the corridors of government and parliament. Separately noteworthy are the corps of former Soviet industry captains (e.g., Viktor Chernomyrdin, Oleg Soskovets) and the Democratic Reformers, of whom Anatoly Chubais was probably the longest-serving member of the clique.
Chubais was established as a scholar-reformer in Leningrad. Before joining the government in Moscow, he had relations with the local government and the first Democrat mayor, Anatoly Sobchak. Around the same time, in 1991, Vladimir Putin appeared next to Sobchak, and "Night St. Petersburg" was gradually taken over by the people with whom Putin had been in contact since his youth - the Brotherhood of Athletes.
The sports mafia,was officially persecuted by the militia in the 90s. Unofficially, their gangs were slowly flooding the business world of the entire city. Legends are told about Vladimir Barsukov-Kumarin today. One thing is clear: this former bartender, who created the organized crime group of Tambovites, in which sportsmen were the center players, was nicknamed the Night Governor of St. Petersburg. Among many others, he controlled the fuel supply to St. Petersburg in the late 1990s. Back in 2006, literally with a drumbeat, deputies, and stars of all kinds celebrated the 50th anniversary of Kumarin. Under the command of coumarin was the so-called "Misha Khakhol", a convicted boxer and trainer, later a racketeer, and before his arrest a member of parliament from the Liberal Democratic Party.
Kumarin lost his hand in a mafia brawl and eventually ended up in jail on serious charges. Many athletes, who considered themselves as Praetorians in the 90s, being afraid of only each-other, have been killed. As Vyshenkov says, in an empire, only the emperor should rule.Putin managed to get rid of overly disobedient athletes, as well as other players from other elite social clusters. Thus, for example, the neutralization of Kumarin was preceded by the neutralization of Berezovsky and then Khodorkovsky. Compared to the business and political ambitions of these two, the ambitions of Kumarin were still more modest-regional.
Athletes' "societies" did not take charge of only St. Petersburg. Traces of their groups are everywhere. Otar Kvantrishvili tried to make a political career in Moscow through them. For some time they were not and could not be harassed by the special services, the democrat reformers were either afraid of them or sacrificed their lives to fight them (the murder of one of the democratic leaders, Galina Starovoitova, was blamed on Kumarin. It is not clear whether the accusation was true but it is clear that these two groups of the Russian leadership segment would not be able to harmoniously coexist). The athletes were also not spared by professional criminals of an older tradition, the so-called thieves in law. These are all additional signs not only of the significant criminalization of the Russian elite but also of its fragmentation or disunification in the 1990s. But, as Gelman writes, Putin turned the political class into a monolith. At first glance, "Monolith" was associated with the new ruling party, United Russia ("Edinaya Rossiya").
In reality, the 2000s do not allow us to talk about any fundamental transformation of the elite. The bandits, their friend law enforcement officers and businessmen, have not been replaced by any bureaucratic party structure. This structure was more of a window-dressing and, at the same time, a tool for coordinating/disciplining elite segments. The racketeering or business raiding of the 90s has not been abolished, as the international resonance "Magnitsky case" shows. Simply because of Putin's principle, law enforcement came to the leading line again, and the part of the athletes that survived had to behave like respectable businessmen.
Among people, who had an athletic background and came from St. Petersburg, the ones who turned out to be friends from Putin's youth turned out to be especially lucky.
By and large, Putin was as much a member of the KGB, as a part of the Leningrad / St. Petersburg sports fraternities. The only difference was that instead of the field of sports and street life he chose the path of law school and special services. But when he began to form his own, presidential clique, many Leningraders found themselves in or near it - some from the sports fraternity (such as Arkady Rothenberg, who was particularly fascinated by their mentor-trainer with a criminal past, Leonid Usviatsov, who died in 1994. Rotenberg's had his trainer's tomb inscribed, “мафиа бессмертна” (mafia is immortal. Under Putin's presidency, Rothenberg acquires the bank, obtains construction contracts, and is represented in several other businesses. Petrov, a former partner of Kumarin, is now a business partner of Shestakov, a close associate of Putin and a Leningrad trainer and member of parliament).
The second group of people close to Putin in Leningrad is the cooperative "Ozero"(Озеро), which, while his working in the City Hall, was created in the isthmus of Karelia. Yuri Kovalchuk, later co-owner of Bank Rossiya and owner of the National Media Group, worked with Putin on this project. Finally, we must mention those with a KGB past, which stood by Putin in the City Hall. One of the most distinguished today is Rosneft magnate Sechin and “Rosguard” Commander Zolotov. Gazprom chief Miller and President Medvedev are also from Putin's past at the city hall. . .
Putin's work at the St. Petersburg City Hall, his possible connections to the activities of Kumarin-like criminal businessmen, go beyond the subject matter of this essay. Answering such questions requires the methodology of investigative journalism, and, such investigations are numerous. In conclusion, I would like to say that, if there was a very eclectic composition in the Kremlin's Camerilla under Yeltsin, which was also backed by various social clusters, Putin's "monolith" was mainly headed by his personal clientele. It includes old athletes, representatives of the special services, and the so-called systemic liberals, whose influence is declining amid rising repression and in favor of law enforcement. Another difference from the Yeltsin period is that Putin has almost completely marginalized the democratic wing of different political tastes, ideologically opposed, but also within the political class. In Putin's Russia, the opposition is no longer in the elite. This was not the case in Yeltsin's time. However, the rise of Alexei Navalny's authority and the capabilities of 21st-century networking technology could change the situation. Not only Navalny, but even a YouTube channel owner Dudz has the chance to uninvitedly play a part in the political class if there is a will. However, the risks to both Navalny and any opponent are increasing, because in the "patronal" system they do not welcome strangers.
And one more thing: politics and business are related in democracies, but are still different areas. Consequently, a political class or elite may include the head of a ministry, party, or head of a think tank, who enjoys riding a bike as transport but not a multimillionaire who owns yachts. This is not the case in Russia, where the logic of politics is brotherhood. Consequently, talking about political and economic elites separately makes no sense. Moreover, we can not even talk about the criminal elite separately.
If there is one metaphor that can be applied to today's Russian elite, it is the term from the popular TV series Bandit Petersburg: ,,Thugged Businessmen” (Прибандиченные Бизнесмены).
Zukerman, A. (1977) “The Concept “Political Elite”: Lessons from Mosca and Pareto.“ The Journal of Politics, 39 (2): p. 342 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2130054
Gaman-Golutvina thinks that if, for example, clan-feudal tendencies prevail in the Georgian elite, and a bureaucratic in Belarus, there is a mixed model in Russia. (Gaman-Golutvina, O. (2007), “Political Elites in the Commonwealth of Independent States: Recruitment and Rotation Tendencies.” Comparative Sociology, 6: pp. 136–157, Brill, www.brill.nl/coso).
Mosca, G. (1939) The Ruling Class. NY and London: McGraw-hul Book Company, Inc., pp. 403-404
Ibid p. 413
Field, L. G., Higley, J. and Burton, G. M. (1990) “A New Elite Framework for Political Sociology.” Revue Europeenne Des Sciences Sociales, T 28, # 88: p. 152, http:// jstor.org/stable/40372960
Higley, J. and Pikulski, J. (1999) “Elite Power Games and Democratic Consolidation in Centran and Eastern Europe.” Reprint, Historical Social Research, 37, N1 (139): pp. 294-296 Published: Leibnniz Institute for the Social Research
Gel’man, V. (2008) “Out of Flying Pan, into Fire? Post-Soviet Regime Changes in Comparative Perspective.” International Political Review, 29(2): pp. 163-164
Higley, J. and Michael Burton, M. (2006) Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, p. 18
Gudkov, L. (2018) “Secondary, or recurrent totalitarianism.” Public Opinion Bulletin 3-4 (127) July-December, pp. 255-257
Henry E. H. (2015) Patronal Politics, Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 35
Ibid p. 59
TVC, 2015, Soviet mafia. Father of Georgian corruption [ТВЦ, 2015 Советские мафии. Отец грузинской коррупции], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdJd57IBRGg (Accessed 29 January 2021)
Gudkov, L. (2018) “Secondary, or recurrent totalitarianism.” Public Opinion Bulletin 3-4 (127) July-December, p. 254
Szelenyi S., Szelenyi I., and Kovakh I., (1995) “The making of the Hungarian post-communist elite: Circulation in politics, reproduction in the economy.” Theory and Society 24: p. 706
Евгений Вышенков о детстве, учебе, бандитизме и августе 1991 в Ленинграде #memorandum часть 1, Oct 30, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwiQ6834bew (Accessed 29 January 2021)
Driscoll, J. (2015) Warlords and Coalition Politics in Post-Soviet States. New York: Cambridge University Press
Евгений Вышенков о детстве, учебе, бандитизме и августе 1991 в Ленинграде #memorandum часть 1, Oct 30, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwiQ6834bew (Accessed 29 January 2021)
The term “ponjat’sia” stands for criminal morale and code of conduct. Евгений Вышенков о РУБОП в 90-е, тюрьме, неонацистах и современном Петербурге #memorandum часть 2, 20.11.2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIFCZtg2BXk (Accessed 30 January 2021)
Maslovskii, M. (2015) “The Soviet Model of Modernity and Russia’s Post-communist Political Transformation.” Historicka Sociologie2: 52 <https://historicalsociology.cuni.cz/HS-21-version1-4maslovskii.pdf>
He first said this in Kazan in August 1990, and then confirmed it in Ufa. At this time, in the wake of efforts to reform the Union system, which was also flavored by the famous Gorbachev-Yeltsin confrontation, autonomous republics and regions (oblast) adopted declarations of sovereignty. Yeltsin Center, 15.08.2015 https://yeltsin.ru/news/boris-elcin-berite-stolko-suverineteta-skolko-smozhete-proglotit/ (Accessed 30 January 2021)
For example, the biography of Oleg Teziev, a resident of North Ossetia, is interesting: simultaneously he was the Prime Minister of the South Ossetian separatist enclave of Georgia, partner of the Russian military in the illegal arms trade, organizer of Ossetian business in Moscow. Teziev sometimes opposed and sometimes approached undoubtedly criminal gangs of Ossetian origin. See. Alexei Basayev, Has the "work of Tezieva" become a process of corruption, Criminal Russia, November 6, 2007, Source: Gazeta "Russia", № 19 (181), May 18-24, 1994. Alexei Basayev. from 24.05. 1994 https://kriminal.ucoz.ru/publ/28-1-0-370 (Accessed 9.02.2021)
Of course, in these groups, whose core consisted of wrestlers and boxers with certain achievements or medals, some did not attend any particular sports school. Some of them even reached considerable heights (e.g. former naval officer, then bartender, and antiquarian Ilya Traber). But as a social phenomenon, I think a significant portion of the post-Soviet mafia might be named so because sports schools were one of the foundations for building networks of mafia gangs. | https://www.crs.ge/en/academicessays2021/david-darchiashvili/modern-russian-political-elite---some-facets- |
For land and people: the Kachin conflict in MyanmarBY Costas Laoutides and Anthony Ware
The struggle between the Myanmar government and the Kachin minority group is about much more than ethnicity, argue COSTAS LAOUTIDES and ANTHONY WARE.
Myanmar is undergoing two significant, albeit interconnected, processes—political and economic liberalisation, and a broadly defined peace process that could end 70 years of civil war. Being the more fragile, the peace process is, arguably, more likely to either derail change or finalise the political status of over 100 ethnic identities in Myanmar into a federal state, as envisaged in the current draft of the National Ceasefire Agreement.
The Kachin are one of the most significant ethnic minorities in Myanmar. As one of the best organised and more formidable of 40 armed ethnic groups in the country, the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) has controlled large areas of territory for more than half a century and enjoys relatively strong popular support by its constituency.
Of particular concern is that the KIO broke a 17-year-old ceasefire in 2011, after the new quasi-democratic government was sworn in. While the KIO is now a key negotiator for a national ceasefire agreement and political dialogue, understanding and addressing the Kachin conflict are essential to achieving lasting peace and political transformation in Myanmar.
The Kachin conflict continues to be framed in terms of ethnic identity and national race, mainly because all Burmese constitutions since Independence, including the 2008 constitution, have given special recognition and potential forms of self-rule to minority ethnic national races, embedding and politicising the concepts.
Most studies of ethnic conflict in Myanmar accept that ethnic identities exist as such and, as in the case of conflict in Kachin, difference of ethnic identities constitutes the primary source of conflict. Our research, however, has not assumed ethnicity as the basis of the conflict. Fieldwork we conducted in 2014 indicates that ethnicity is just one of the identity issues driving conflict in Kachin—and Myanmar at large—and that oversimplifying internal conflict as ethnic not only fails to appreciate the complexity of the situation but also misses key factors.
When asked about the deeper grievances, civil society and non-state leaders from Kachin communities, as well as most international observers and some Burman elite, refer to deep-seated paternalistic and chauvinistic attitudes—particularly by the Burman military and ex-military ruling elite—by the majority Burmans towards the Kachin and other ethnic minorities. Several Kachin leaders went further, pointing to a clash of deep-seated ideological differences about sociopolitical organisation.
Burmese as victims
Concerns over Burman paternalism and chauvinism are perceived as widespread. As one Kachin civil society leader expressed it, all Burmans are somewhat chauvinistic, but only since the crackdown on dissent after 1988 have they begun to see themselves as victims too—which has led to some increase in empathy and feeling of a shared struggle against authoritarianism, and an increased recognition of the way minorities have long been treated.
Another Kachin civil society leader noted that ordinary Burmese suffered under military rule too, but argued strongly that they never had to endure the chauvinistic discrimination faced by the Kachin. The Burman majority don’t see themselves as an ethnic group; they are Burman, the rest are the ethnic minority races, implying a subordinate and dependent status. So in some ways the conflict is not only about ethnicity or identity, but about a ruling elite employing ideas about identity to control political power, over both Burmans and, particularly, minorities.
Some Kachin representatives argued that there are fundamental differences between some ethnic groups and the Burmans about the proper order of sociopolitical power structures and the basis of the social contract. They offered the idea that Burmans are still largely bound by a traditional social hierarchy model derived
from Buddhist concepts and employed by the more successful Burman kings of empires past.
Many minority leaders believe the military see themselves as guardians of this legacy, and therefore that their nationalistic duty is to perpetuate this historic vision. This historical model, they argue, has been compounded by the motivation of all post-Independence Burman rulers—civilian and military—to restore Burmese
prestige and international reputation.
By contrast, social ideals are far more egalitarian among Kachin communities. These ideals date to a pre-colonial Kachin rebellion reminiscent of the most egalitarian Anabaptist sects in the Reformation and English Civil War, and have been perpetuated as a mechanism to prevent the formation of a kind of state, or incorporation into other states.
‘The military are fighting for what they believe is nation-building, but in so doing they become a predatory force.’
While these ideals do not preclude hierarchies and power abuse in practice, they suggest the clash is at a deeper, ideological level, with ethnic identity being the manifestation of the conflict and not a root cause. Certainly, since their founding during the Second World War, the Burmese military have defined their mission as being to guard the sovereignty and integrity of the state—perhaps better expressed as gaining and maintaining Independence, ending internal conflict and consolidating the state. As one civil society leader expressed it, the military are fighting for what they believe is nation-building, but in so doing they become a predatory force.
Kachin representatives spoke passionately to us about the land of their forefathers. Territory exercises a hegemonic influence in global political organisation, because of the strength and priority of the notion of the nation–state.
Precondition for survival
At the symbolic level, effective control of territory is the precondition for survival in international politics. The structure of world politics requires communities to exercise effective control over territory, both as proof of their ability to rule themselves and as a means of visibly claiming a place in the world of sovereign communities. Inherent to this idea is the strong presence of territory as the spatial manifestation of the presence and survival of political communities.
During our interviews, the ideas of territory and identity were continually strongly connected, not as a mystical attachment to the land but as a means for cultural survival. As one diaspora academic expressed it, ‘the idea of land and territory expresses life, the life of the people’. In that sense, the continuity of identity is linked to control of territory. The value of the land is in the ability to self-govern and to control the resources required to sustain and develop their society.
It is unsurprising that ethnicity and national identity are employed in this conflict. They are often used as the main narratives for survival in global politics, and ethnicity invests claims to territory with legitimising moral value, and makes the cause imperative and non-negotiable.
In a global context, ethnic and national conceptions of identity seem to be the only qualifiers for citizenship and participation in a territorially demarcated and organised political society. In recent years, some of the Kachin conflict has clearly morphed around the control of resources and resource trade corridors. However, rather than becoming a classic resource conflict, Kachin leaders fear loss of both territory and potential revenue streams for their own development, and hence loss of control and identity as a people. There is a strong feeling that the main reason why the state is less motivated to discuss power-sharing and resolve the conflict is that it is so interested in Kachin natural resources.
Motivation for conflict
The history of the conflict shows that the motivation for the conflict is separate and beyond the natural resources now identified. Kachins collect tax and provide support in health, education and policing, as well as pay their army through resource revenues. While there is concern that some high-ranking Kachin leaders are becoming rich in the process, locals suggest they can tolerate that if it secures benefits for the community. The scramble for the control of resources therefore appears to be more a symptom than the cause of the conflict. Resources and rent seeking have certainly shifted conflict dynamics greatly, but that is not what drives recruitment and tribute to the rebels.
The Kachin conflict would therefore seem to be primarily driven by fears that chauvinistic control by the Burman-controlled state will result in loss of identity through cultural assimilation, and revolves in large part around deep-seated ideological differences about sociopolitical organisation and the basis of the social contract. This being the case, discussions about freedom to practise cultural identity without discrimination, and a renegotiation of the power relations between the Kachin and the state are essential ingredients for lasting peace and the continuation of Myanmar’s political and economic transformation.
Dr Costas Laoutides is Lecturer in International Relations and Dr Anthony Ware is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development, both at Deakin University.
Photo:
Flag of the Kachin Independence Army.
- Published:
- 19th August, 2015
- Tags:
- ethnicity in Burma, Kachin, Kachin conflict, minority groups in Myanmar, Myanmar/Burma
- Category: | http://asaa.asn.au/for-land-and-people-the-kachin-conflict-in/ |
Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike on Friday said the country had not witnessed the level of ethnic and religious divide currently rocking the entire nation.
The governor stated this when he played host to the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero, who was on a courtesy visit to him at Government House, Port Harcourt.
Wike told the Emir of Kano how his late father and other leaders in their time worked so hard in promoting love, peace and national unity among Nigerian People.
He lamented that the current political and religious leaders are not building on those successes.
According to him, the leaders are rather reducing every relationship, appointment, policy and programme of the government to political and religious considerations.
Governor Wike insisted that Nigeria belong to everybody and no one section can assert itself over the other. He said that is why he had provided a conducive environment for all ethnic groups in Rivers State to coexist.
“It is important that where we are now, everybody, particularly traditional rulers, should know that they have a major role to play in ensuring that peace reigns in this country.
“This is the first time in Nigeria when we have so much ethnic divide, so much religious divide. It has never happened like this before. After the civil war, people had seen Nigeria as one country. We have seen ourselves as the same people but what we are facing today is a different thing.
“We are not even talking about the issue of insecurity, but the issue of ethnicity, and religion which have taken centre stage in our life which is not supposed to be.”
The governor accused heads of security agencies, particularly the Inspector General of Police of politicising security by posting Commissioners of Police to the State on the order of a politician in the ruling party.
DO YOU KNOW >>> ‘Power not given on a platter of gold’ – Zwingina tells South-East - 2023 presidency
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The introduction of President Paul Kagame’s daughter Ange Ingabire Kagame to the rest of the world — on the White House red carpet and in that now iconic portrait with the US first couple — captured mainstream and social media attention in the region and to those with interest in Rwanda.
Regardless of what informed the decision by the president to be accompanied by his daughter, it is obvious that it had impact; probably unexpected but laden with meaning beyond her physical attributes.
To most Rwandans, the photogenic Kagame children were first introduced to the public in the last presidential elections as they accompanied their father in his campaigns around the country. Now, the first daughter’s public appearance was followed up with an interview in a pro-regime publication!
Grownup children of rulers in some African countries, especially in what is considered non-democracies, hold both formal and informal power and influence.
In countries considered authoritarian or the military dictatorships that replaced several independence leaders, first sons were a menacing presence.
In Uganda, Taban Amin is remembered for his cruelty to students at the then only university, Makerere. Kongolo Mobutu took over control of his father’s praetorian guard and was a symbol of the viciousness of the regime in its dying days. The Gaddafi sons story is still fresh with three of them biting the bullet as the tyrant came to an ignominious end.
Raw power versus influence
Jean Pierre Habyarimana, one of former president Juvenal Habyarimana’s sons is alleged to have held sway in his father’s regime, building a strong relationship with French elite through Jean Christophe Mitterrand the son of former French leader Francois Mitterrand. Mostly, this was a generation of first sons who used their position to enforce and display raw power.
In most of these cases, the end was not pleasant. Swept away by the winds of change, some languished in exile. Others like the Gaddafi sons were killed or jailed.
It is for this, among other reasons, that people take notice when the children of their political leaders emerge from the shadows and become a visible presence, regardless of their career choices.
Their actions at times give insight into regime psychology and character. The hedonistic, cruel and erratic behaviour of Uday Hussein, the notorious son of Saddam Hussein was an indicator of the excesses and rot that was Saddam’s Iraq. Same with the case of Teodorin Nguema Mangue, of Equatorial Guinea.
However, in recent years, in a number of African countries we have seen a change in how children of the ruling families have exercised their power and influence and somehow influenced how their father’s rule is viewed, at least abroad.
Some are subtle — tactful in what they do. Instead of employing and displaying raw power, they are charming their way through seemingly legitimate business and charity work.
Isabel Dos Santos, the erudite billionaire daughter of Angola’s long serving President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos comes to mind. She has through display of intellect and business acumen indicated that there is more than just being born in the African ruling family and just enjoying the privilege.
Forbes ranks her as the first African woman billionaire. An engineering graduate from Kings College London, without doubt, she has the good fortune of her birth as the anchor of her success. But when she speaks, her intellectual grounding is always on display.
Multi-lingual and eloquent, she has given a humane face to a regime and a ruling family that has stayed put for far too long. Her excessive wealth in a resource rich but poverty stricken nation is easily forgotten and her father sanitised, when she engages the public.
Women are taking a central role in political dynasties. Grace Mugabe and others are foraying into what was previously reserved for the males.
Talk of Girl Power as a new soft power, which seems more effective these days.
Men like Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya and Ian Khama of Botswana owe their rise partly to their family heritage. But the way their fathers exited the political stage, guaranteed them an independent and reasonable chance to make a shot at the top office and succeed many years after the demise of the patriarch.
There is clear evidence of the emergence of political dynasties. There is Kabila, Bongo, Eyadema and others being prepared, most of them cosmopolitan in outlook.
Public role preparation?
When Rwanda’s first son Ivan Cyomoro enlisted at West Point, the leading US military academy that has prepared many for leadership in the army, business and politics, it was perceived as an indicator that Kagame approved of a public role for him. As some of the first children start a life in the glare of the public, they will be open to scrutiny.
It comes as the centre of influence shifts too.
The old generation of the RPF founding leaders and bush war fighters is losing position and influence, both in politics and the army.
In other countries, that share the history of liberation movements, we can discern a pattern where the influence of the comrades in the struggle is replaced with a young generation, mostly woven around the first sons and daughters.
How it pans out in Rwanda, will probably, be more clear depending on whether Kagame leaves or stays in power beyond 2017. | https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/Rwanda/Opinion/Why-it-matters-when-Ange-emerges-into-public-life/-/1433246/2420800/-/aut71p/-/index.html |
Colombia's Ivan Duque – candidate for the far-right party of former President Alvaro Uribe – is in a strong position ahead of the June 17 presidential elections, despite Uribe's long list of human rights abuses and links with paramilitary groups during his presidency.
RELATED:
Colombia's Elections: Let's Talk About Paramilitarism
Duque's rival, Gustavo Petro, has an impressive record of social, political and cultural achievements as former mayor of Bogota. He created 417 parks for children; built a dependency of the District University in the suburbs; opened an office dedicated to women and a 'Citizen LGBTI Center,' and launched other centers providing legal advice for women seeking to interrupt a pregnancy.
Yet Petro is still struggling to gather the number of votes that would secure victory in the second round of the presidential elections, raising the question: why does the left struggle so much to gain a foothold in Colombia?
Unlike the rest of the continent, Colombia was not forced to live under a military dictatorship during the 1960s and 1970s. Still, the country ranks first in the region in regards to the number of forced disappearances. More than 215,000 people were killed and 5.7 million displaced as a result of the conflict between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and national security forces.
1. The armed conflict has contributed to the association of left-wing parties with guerrilla violence
Petro's political enemies have emphasized Petro's past as a member of former guerrilla group M-19 – born in the 1970s and demobilized in the 1990s – because voters in Colombia tend to conflate guerrilla groups and left-wing political groups.
"Carlos Gaviria, the progressives, Navarro Wolf – these political leaders can say 'We aren't FARC, we are social democratic like the European Greens', but regular citizens don't see a difference between them and the FARC," John Fernando Restrepo Tamayo, a professor at the University of Medellin, told Al Jazeera. "People in the cities believe the left parties are emissaries for the guerrillas and the armed struggle."
RELATED:
Santos: 40 Ex-FARC Fighters Killed Since Peace Agreement
Moreover, leftist leaders don't always make clear their ideological or practical divergences with the guerillas for the sake of public opinion.
"Leftist political parties don't differentiate themselves in their statements and propaganda from the armed leftist groups," Carlos Florez Lopez, author of 'Right and Left in Colombia 1920-1936,' told Al Jazeera. "This is because some of them believe in the theory of diversity of tactics."
2. Political and economic elites use the conflict as a way of avoiding having to share power
"Because of the armed conflict, Colombia has been able for years to avoid addressing strong protests or social demands," said sociologist Daniel Pecaut in an interview with El Tiempo. "The armed conflict has contributed to maintaining the social and political structures of the country, and even to increasing the concentration of land property, as well as the unequal distribution of revenues."
As a result, he said, Colombia has paradoxically shown consistent economic growth in the past 30 years, yet maintains the same level of social inequality as existed during the 1930s.
RELATED:
Colombian Officials Admit to Police Killing of Campesinos, 4 Suspended
"Many sectors, not only the governing elites, found out, quite subconsciously, that the armed conflict was not disturbing the cities too much, but only the country's peripheries," he told Semana.
With the recent agrarian strikes that paralyzed Colombia, the ruling sectors of the country started fearing even more the possibility of social reforms – and the peace deal could create the conditions for such reforms.
Such sectors are represented by former President Alvaro Uribe, known for his close ties with paramilitary groups, who has led a consistent smear and fear-mongering campaign against the peace deal.
RELATED:
Campesinos Prepare for Police Repression in Rural Colombia
Uribe and the big landowners would rather risk international isolation – the peace deal was largely supported by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States – than bow to the possibility of even the slightest redistribution of land and wealth. To them, and the paramilitaries who back them, no political dissent can be tolerated.
"A modern country needs to accept social conflict; this is the price of democracy," warned Pecaut, who describes the country's divisions regarding the peace deal as "extremely worrying."
3. The physical elimination of generations of left-wing leaders, activists and supporters
The armed conflict has also resulted in the physical elimination of a whole generation of social leaders, mostly at the hands of paramilitary groups. This has seriously hampered the development of peaceful social movements in urban and rural areas, with trade unions, students, human rights activists and campesinos unable to mount large-scale protests against government policies.
More than 2,800 union activists were assassinated in Colombia between 1986 and 2013, according to the Pulitzer Center, and the pace of killings has increased despite the peace deal being signed in 2016. Social leaders and human rights defenders have become increasingly vulnerable, as zones previously under FARC control have now fallen into the hands of paramilitary groups and drug traffickers.
RELATED:
170 Social Leaders Killed in Colombia in 2017: Report
Nazih Richani, a political science professor at Kean University, told Al-Jazeera: "Right-wing regimes are killing massively the left-wing opposition. How can they organize or advocate for political power?"
Such "political genocide," targeting leftist activists and social elites and orchestrated by the "landed elite," explains more than any other factor the weakness of Colombia's left, Richani said.
4. The situation in neighboring Venezuela used as a scare tactic
Last but not least, Petro's conservative rivals never miss an occasion to play on the fear that this "Castro-chavista" would turn the country into a new Venezuela, putting at risk private property and the Catholic faith, or that Colombians will have to flee the country with nothing left but the clothes they are wearing.
This strategy seems to have paid off, according to a survey conducted by Cifras & Conceptos in March that found that 'Colombia turning into Venezuela' was voters' biggest fear, ahead of other issues such as unemployment, insecurity or health.
Colombians will give their final word on Sunday. | https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/Is-Colombia-Doomed-To-Remain-A-Right-Wing-Country-20180614-0015.html |
To study plasticity, we cultured cortical networks on multi electrode arrays, enabling simultaneous re-cording from multiple neurons. We used conditional firing probabilities (CFPs) to describe functional network connections by their strength and latency. These are abstract representations of neuronal pathways, and may arise from direct pathways between two neurons, or from a common input. Functional connections based on direct pathways should reflect synaptic properties. Therefore, we searched for long term potentiaion (LTP; this mechanism occurs in vivo when presynaptic action po-tentials precede postsynaptic ones with interspike intervals up to ~20ms) in vitro. To investigate if the strength of functional connections showed a similar latency related development, we selected periods of monotonously increasing or decreasing strength. We observed increased incidence of short latencies (5-30ms) during strengthening, whereas these latencies rarely occurred during weakening. Further-more, we saw an increased incidence of 40-65ms latencies during weakening. Conversely, functional connections tended to strengthen in periods with short latency, whereas strengthening was significantly less than average during long latency. Our data suggests that functional connections contain information about synaptic connections, that CFP analysis is sensitive enough to detect it, and that a substantial fraction of all functional connec-tions is based on direct pathways. | https://research.utwente.nl/en/publications/latency-related-development-of-functional-connections-in-cultured |
Dissection of the cellular and molecular mechanisms governing well-established critical periods represents a powerful tool to identify new potential therapeutic targets to restore normal plasticity and function in affected neuronal circuits.
The developing brain is remarkably malleable, capable of restructuring synaptic connections in response to changing experiences.
Critical periods close after a cascade of structural consolidation of neuronal circuits and their connectivity, preventing future plasticity as the brain reaches adulthood.
These sensitive periods of elevated plasticity are times of opportunity but also of great vulnerability for the developing brain.
The underlying cause is still largely unknown and there is no fully effective treatment or cure.
We propose that alteration of the expression and/or timing of critical period circuit refinement in primary sensory brain areas may significantly contribute to autistic phenotypes, including cognitive and behavioral impairments.
Cortical circuits in the brain are refined by experience during critical periods early in postnatal life.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The basic layout of the brain is first established by genetic programs and intrinsic activity and is then actively refined by the surrounding environment in which the individual is immersed .
This experience-dependent sculpting of neuronal circuits occurs during distinct time windows called critical periods . | http://terrem43.ru/adult-vep-cams-video-10784.html |
Written by Michelle Zhang, UTS Bachelor of Nursing student
We all know uni exams can be a stressful time. Here are my top five tips for achieving better productivity:
1. Sleep
It is crucial for memory. You need sleep prior to learning, so that you are physically and mentally ready, to absorb new knowledge and information, and to lay down new memory traces.
You need sleep after learning for memory consolidation (where your new short-term memories get transferred from the hippocampus to the brain cortex and gets ‘saved’ as long-term memory during deep sleep). Moreover, during deep sleep, your memories replay in your brain approximately 10 times faster than during the day, strengthening the memory representation.
Sleeping well during exam periods can help your studies because you will learn and remember more effectively.
2. Monotasking
There are only 2% of people (supertaskers) who can control their multitasking environment. Multitasking distributes your focus among all the things you are doing, so efficiency decreases and quality of results decreases. Eliminating distractions will increase your productivity and concentration levels.
3. Time management and getting organised
We all tend to do things last-minute. This act sometimes causes a lot of unwanted stress, decreases our productivity and even quality when we rush through things. Plan your study times to avoid overwhelming yourself and allow yourself enough time to learn and recall knowledge, then apply to practice.
4. Breaks
Rewarding yourself by taking breaks could help in strengthening your motivation and productivity. You will also have a more positive attitude. You can spend the break resting, eating your favourite food, exercising or go through some memes! The goal here is to know when to switch on and when to switch off.
5. Study groups
Sometimes there may be a lot of content to study for an exam and you struggle to cover all content. I sometimes study with my nursing friends during exam periods, where we each take the responsibility to cover a topic, then teach each other. Studying with friends who are doing the same subjects as you can help you learn from each other, compare study notes, share study burden, learn more and faster!
Good luck in your final exams! | https://utshealth.blog/2020/10/22/my-5-tips-for-better-productivity-during-exams/ |
During the development of neural circuits, excessive synapses are formed in a genetically programmed manner. Neural circuits are refined by the experience dependent pruning of supernumerary imprecise connections and the strengthening of the functional synapses. The molecular mechanisms underlying this process remain largely unknown. In , authors describe the role of ephrin-A2 in regulating experience dependent, NMDA-receptor mediated synaptic pruning through glial glutamate transport during maturation of the mouse cortex.
References : | https://blog.dilawars.me/2013/11/06/notes-on-synapses.html |
Researchers at the Riken Institute in Japan have grown retina tissue out of stem cells and grafted that tissue onto the retinas of rhesus and macaque monkeys with ailing sight. The new technique could be used to treat people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a genetic eye condition that damages the retina to the point of near or total blindness and currently has no cure. A paper detailing the team's findings was published in the journal PNAS.
To cure RP, the transplanted tissue needs to form synaptic connections with host cells to allow electrical and chemical signals to pass from the original retina cells to the new tissue. The lab-grown tissue successfully formed these connections with host cells in some test rats. The same technique was then used on two species of monkey with RP. As with the rats, the lab-grown cells grew and formed synaptic connections with the monkeys' damaged retinal cells. Visual tests conducted three weeks after the procedure found that vision had improved in two of the monkeys.
However, the transplanted cells didn't form synaptic connections with host cells in every case. The team hopes to continue their research to determine exactly what causes the grafted tissue to bond to existing retinal cells, a crucial step if this method is ever going to be used to treat RP in humans. | https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a18729/lab-grown-retina-cells-restore-sight-monkeys/ |
Figure 1: The activity in a cell assembly according to Hebb. Figure and legend are copied from (Hebb 1949). It is not clear from Hebb’s writing whether each node is a single neuron, a group of neurons or a small network of neurons.
The concept of cell assembly was coined by the Canadian neuropsychologist D. O. Hebb (Hebb 1949) to describe a network of neurons that is being activated repeatedly during a certain mental process and in this way the excitatory synaptic connections among its members are being strengthened. In Hebb’s thinking the synaptic strengthening depends on the order of activation, and thus there is a time structure to the activation of cell assembly. Thus, the activity of a cell assembly is characterized by the spatiotemporal structure of the activity of its members. After being formed, activation of the first stage will revive the entire spatiotemporal signature of the cell assembly. Figure 1 (Figure 10 in the original manuscript) illustrates his thinking.
Nowadays the concept of cell assembly is used loosely to describe a group of neurons that perform a given action or represent a given percept or concept in the brain. Typically, one thinks of the group as having strong internal synaptic interactions which set them apart from other groups of neurons. Different users may use this concept with more or less permissive definitions. The examples below may illustrate the boundaries of this concept.
A motoneuron pool (i.e. all neurons whose axons connect to the same muscle) share clear common action, yet one would hesitate to call such a pool cell assembly. A fixed point attractor neural network is clearly a cell assembly. It may serve as a content addressable associative memory, where partial activation of its member will build up to full activation of all its members. Whether a multi layer perceptron is a cell assembly is debatable. On the one hand it may play a clear perceptual role of extracting combinations of simple features to generate a more complex mental representation. On the other hand, the interactions are strictly feed forward, so it may not be justified to treat them as mutual interactions among the assembly’s members.
In the examples above one seems to treat differently excitatory and inhibitory interactions. Neurons within a motoneuron pool do affect each other through mutual inhibition by Renshaw cells, yet we tend not to call them a cell assembly. In the fixed point attractor, the active neurons inhibit the rest of the network, yet we would not call the entire network a cell assembly, but only those neurons that excite each other. Note, that this distinction falls apart in some representations of the original ANN of Hopfield (Hopfield 1982) where the activity of a neuron is marked by +1 if active and -1 if not. There, when an attractor is active the neurons which are quiet (-1 state) excite the neurons which are active, and those which are active (+1 state) inhibit those which are quiet. In the cerebral cortex, neurons have plenty of mutual (direct or indirect) synaptic interactions. One would tend to call a mini-column in the primary visual cortex a cell assembly, yet in most physiological thinking the unit’s orientation selectivity is formed by feed forward connections (but see Ben-Yishay et al. 1995 for a different view).
From the examples above one gets the impression that we expect to see strong mutual excitatory connections among the members of the cell assembly. Yet a network with only inhibitory connections (such as in the reticular nucleus of the thalamus) may also show fixed-point attractors (Golomb & Rinzel 1993).
The bottom line is that there is no clear agreed-upon definition for the term "cell assembly", and one has to understand from the context what is meant.
Hebb D.O. The Organization of Behavior: a Neuropsychological Theory. New York: Wiley, 1949.
Hopfiels J.J. Neural networks and physical systems with emergent collective computational abilities. PNAS 79:2554-2558, 1982.
Ben-Yishai R., Bar-Or R.L and Sompolinsky H. Theory of orientation tuning in visual cortex. PNAS 92: 3844-3848, 1995.
Golomb D. and Rinzel J. Dynamics of globally coupled inhibitory neurons with heterogeneity. Physical Review E. 48:4810-4814, 1993.
Gerstein G.L. and Kirkland K.L. Neural assemblies: technical issues, analysis, and modeling. Neural Netw. 14:589-598, 2001.
This page was last modified on 21 October 2011, at 04:06. | http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Cell_assembly |
This blog post is part of an in depth look at research linking sleep and Alzheimers.
Think about your sleep quality for the past few months. Has your sleep been routinely interrupted or has it been restful? Has your sleep become worse with age? Perhaps the stresses of your daily life have intruded upon your ability to sleep well, or perhaps you have been trading sleep for more work or play.
The quality of our sleep diminishes with age and can be disrupted for many different reasons. Working hours are constantly on the rise, making certain jobs one of the many culprits of sleep restriction in Western societies. For example, intensive care unit health care professionals are often required to work at night, causing them to stretch their capacity to be awake and compromise their nightly sleep, thus becoming sleep-deprived and more likely to make mistakes.
Sleep, a most fundamental need in life, is a universal activity in all mammals but also one of the least understood aspects of all beings. The way you feel while awake depends in part on what occurs while you are sleeping. The health consequences of sleep deficiency can occur in an instant (such as a car crash due to drowsy driving), or they can accumulate over time. Mounting scientific evidence is suggesting that sleep problems and poor-quality sleep may raise the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.
What is sleep and why is it so important?
When you are awake, you are in a state of consciousness supplemented by sharp perception, realistic thinking, awareness of your surroundings and physical activity. In contrast, sleep is a behavioral state characterized by decreased perception, relatively low responsiveness to the environment, and physical inactivity (or rest). Although a resting body is the most noticeable feature of being asleep, the brain remains active at varying levels, during which it controls sleep and completes vital tasks, such as strengthening memories.
The two major sleep states are REM (rapid eye movement) and non-REM (or slow wave sleep). When you fall asleep, your body “cycles” between different stages of both REM and non-REM sleep. For instance, over the course of the night, your body will go through stages of REM/non-REM four to six times, spending an average of 90 minutes in each stage, unless you are sleep-deprived.
“It is thought that the different stages of sleep have different emotional, cognitive and physical functions,” said Yo-El Ju, assistant professor of neurology and sleep medicine specialist at the Hope Center of Washington University. “For example, REM sleep is when most people dream and where the brain processes emotional context in a safe way. In contrast, the non-REM sleep seems to be important for the downscaling or “pruning” of synaptic connections (connections between brain cells).”
As you go about your day, you are forming new memories and new synaptic connections. Letting your mind rest by sleeping affords your brain a period to downscale or “prune” those new connections so that only the strongest and best ones remain.
“For most mammals, sleep is essential for life. If you deprive animals of sleep for very long, they die. We don’t understand why,” said David Holtzman, head of the Department of Neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “We don’t know exactly what is critical during sleep for brain functions such as memory, but there is evidence of synaptic plasticity (the ability to strengthen or weaken brain connections over time) being augmented by sleep.”
Another newly discovered event that occurs during sleep is the activation of a housekeeping routine called the glymphatic system, which is a clearing system that takes away waste products surrounding the brain cells. Although this housekeeping support system is somewhat active during the day, Maiken Nedergaard at the University of Rochester and his team discovered that it is during sleep that this neural cleansing work kicks into high gear, making sleep a key period where debris left over from a busy brain activity day is cleaned away, like taking out the trash at the end of each day.
In part 2, we explore how ongoing sleep deficiency is one of several risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Related Content
- Check out our new healthy sleep portal for articles on sleep science, better sleep and health risks associated with sleep deprivation. | https://biomedicalodyssey.blogs.hopkinsmedicine.org/2018/03/sleep-may-be-a-curious-piece-in-the-alzheimers-disease-puzzle-part-1/ |
- Published:
Spike-timing-dependent plasticity in a recurrently connected neuronal network with spontaneous oscillations
BMC Neuroscience volume 10, Article number: P212 (2009)
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1170 Accesses
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Introduction
Spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) is believed to generate structure in neuronal networks by modifying synaptic weights depending on the spike-time information contained in the spike trains at the scale of milliseconds. In addition to spiking-rate-based information, STDP captures the effect of spike-time correlations at a short time scale (down to milliseconds), which is neglected by rate-based learning. This includes, for example, interaural time difference in auditory pathways and repeated coincident spikes within input trains . The impact of STDP in the presence of periodic neuronal activity has only just begun to be addressed, in particular the investigation of its role in modifying synchronisation in recurrently connected networks [3, 4].
Methods
Extending a previously developed framework based on the Poisson neuron model , we investigate the effect of STPD on the recurrent connections of a neuronal network with no external input that is only driven by spontaneous oscillatory activity. We examine frequencies above 10 Hz, which correspond to the time scale of a typical choice for the learning window function of STDP. In this case, the weight dynamics is affected by the neuronal correlation structure induced by the periodic spiking activity. The asymptotic distribution of the weights is investigated using a fixed-point analysis upon a dynamical system of equations. Numerical simulations are used to support the analytical results.
Results and discussion
The strong competition resulting from STDP leads to the splitting of an initially homogeneous distribution of recurrent weights. In addition, STDP causes the firing rates to stabilise in a similar manner to the case of non-oscillatory spontaneous activity, which also ensures an equilibrium on the mean incoming recurrent weight for each neuron . We consider a network of two identical neuronal groups where only one group (A) has oscillatory spontaneous activity, while the other group (B) has a fixed spontaneous firing rate. The connections within group A and those from A to B tend to become either potentiated or depressed at the expense of the other recurrent connections, depending on the frequency of the oscillatory spontaneous activity for group A. When both groups A and B have oscillatory spontaneous activity, the frequencies and respective phases (if applicable) determine the evolution of the recurrent weights, which can result in the strengthening of within-group connections or the emergence of feed-forward pathways. Our results elucidate the rich interplay between STDP and the spike-time correlation structure in biological-like neuronal networks that have oscillatory activity.
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded partly by NICTA, The Bionic Ear Institute, the Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Project #DP0771815) and BCCN-Munich.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Gilson, M., Burkitt, A.N., Grayden, D.B. et al. Spike-timing-dependent plasticity in a recurrently connected neuronal network with spontaneous oscillations. BMC Neurosci 10, P212 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-10-S1-P212
Published: | https://bmcneurosci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2202-10-S1-P212 |
Improve your memory without effort
The correct mechanism by which rest seems to be beneficial is still unknown, but many of its keys lie in how memories are formed. When they are codified, they go through a consolidation period, and they are stored in an area for a long term. There was a time when it was thought that this took place during sleep, at which point the communication between the hippocampus, the area where memories first formed and the cerebral cortex, intensifies, a process that could fortify the new connections neuronal, which are used later to call those memories. This increase in nocturnal activity may explain why we usually assimilate better before going to sleep.
It is normal for all of us to assume that the more we try to memorize any new information and the more effort we put into it, the more satisfactory the results will be. However, what we might need would be exactly the opposite and instead of trying to learn, pause, relax 15 minutes and remember much better we tried to learn, that if you had been engrossed in using that time more productively.
While it is known that we should not rush when we study, recent research shows that we must register minimal interference during these breaks, deliberately avoiding any activity that may interfere with the task of forming memories. For this, it is recommended not to look at the cell phone, or check emails or surf the Internet. It is about offering the brain the opportunity to recharge batteries without distraction.
This revelation is comforting for people with amnesia or some forms of dementia, as it presents a way to recover a latent, previously unknown, ability to learn. The German psychologist Georg Elias Müller and his student Alfons Pilzecker were the first to document the benefits of rest to improve memory in 1900. In one of his many experiments, Müller and Pilzecker asked the participants to assimilate a list of meaningless syllables. One half of the group was asked to quickly learn the content of a second list, while the other was able to rest six minutes before beginning the task. Once the experiment was over, when both groups were examined an hour and a half later, the two revealed notable differences. Those who made the parenthesis remembered about 50% of the list, while the other part only 28%.
This shows that the newly learned information memory is substantially fragile, has barely been regulated, which makes it susceptible to interference if we receive new information. This finding became more evident in the early 2000s, as a result of a study by the researcher at the University of Edinburgh, in the United Kingdom, Sergio Della Sala, and Nelson Cowan of the University of Missouri, in the United States.
On this occasion, the team wanted to discover if reducing interference could be useful to improve the memory of patients who had suffered neurological damage, using a technique similar to that of Müller and Pilzecker, they gave participants a list of 15 words and they put them to the test 10 minutes later. Some subjects were kept engrossed with cognitive tests and others were left to rest in a dark room. The impact of a mild intervention was much deeper than expected. | https://www.newsgur.com/2018/03/improve-your-memory-without-effort.html |
Synapses are the points of contact at which information is transmitted between neurons. Without them, we would not be able to form thoughts or remember things. For memories to endure, synapses sometimes have to remain stable for very long periods. But how can a synapse last if its components have to be replaced regularly? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried near Munich have taken a decisive step towards answering this question. They have succeeded in demonstrating that when a synapse is formed, all of the components must grow in a coordinated way. This is the only way that a long-term functioning synapse, –the basic prerequisite of learning and memory processes, can be formed. This kind of interactive system must allow for the replacement of individual molecules while the other components stabilise the synapse.
Nothing lasts forever. This principle also applies to the proteins that make up the points of contact between our neurons. It is due to these proteins that the information arriving at a synapse can be transmitted and then received by the next neuron. When we learn something, new synapses are created or existing ones are strengthened. To enable us to retain long-term memories, synapses must remain stable for long periods of time, up to an entire lifetime. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried near Munich have found an explanation as to how a synapse achieves remaining stable for a long time despite the fact that its proteins must be renewed regularly.
Learning in the laboratory
“We were interested first of all in what happens to the different components of a synapse when it grows during a learning process,” explains study leader Volker Scheuss. An understanding of how the components grow could also provide information about the long-term stability of synapses. Hence, the researchers studied the growth of synapses in tissue culture dishes following exposure to a (learning) stimulus. To do this, they deliberately activated individual synapses using the neurotransmitter glutamate: scientists have long known that glutamate plays an important role in learning processes and stimulates the growth of synapses. Over the following hours, the researchers observed the stimulated synapses and control synapses under a 2-photon microscope. To confirm the observed effects, they then examined individual synapses with the help of an electron microscope. “When you consider that individual synapses are only around one thousandth of a millimetre in size, this was quite a Sisyphean task,” says Tobias Bonhoeffer, the Director of the department where the research was carried out.
Synaptic stability – a concerted effort
The scientists discovered that during synapse growth the different protein structures always grew coordinated with each other. If one structural component was enlarged alone, or in a way that was not correctly correlated with the other components, its structural change would collapse soon after. Synapses with such incomplete changes cannot store any long-term memories.
The study findings show that the order and interaction between synaptic components is finely tuned and correlated. “In a system of this kind, it should be entirely possible to replace individual proteins while the rest of the structure maintains its integrity,” says Scheuss. However, if an entire group of components breaks away, the synapse is destabilised. This is also an important process given that the brain could not function correctly without the capacity to forget things. Hence, the study’s results provide not only important insight into the functioning and structure of synapses, they also establish a basis for a better understanding of memory loss, for example in the case of degenerative brain diseases. | https://www.mpg.de/8125352/synapses-stability |
The Bryn Mawr School is seeking remote teachers for our 9th-grade program. Most positions will be part-time, and we anticipate the need to fill several positions to begin August 1, 2022 for the 2022-23 school year. Specifically, we seek qualified candidates who can teach in the following classes and subject areas: History, English, Physics, Algebra 2, Spanish, and Computer Science.
Successful candidates must be able to demonstrate the ways in which inclusive and equitable practices inform their approach to instruction, communication, and course design. Candidates should have an interest in teaching highly motivated girls in a community that values not only intellectual pursuits but also building strong relationships between students and teachers.
The functions and responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:
Provide live, synchronous instruction several times per week in addition to asynchronous student support
Provide support and guidance to manage the learning process
Adhere to communication procedures and policies for student success
Provide timely grading, student feedback, and responses to student questions
Identify and focus on students' individual needs
Provide bi-monthly student progress reports
Monitor student progress and alert the school if a concern arises
Work creatively and collaboratively to develop and plan curricula
Work with and collaborate with mentor teachers
Adhere to the policies outlined in the Bryn Mawr Online Handbook
The qualifications for these positions include:
Bachelor’s degree or higher
Minimum one year of online teaching experience preferred
Relevant credentials in the subject area(s) to be taught preferred
High School teaching experience preferred
Part-time availability with flexibility in the timing of synchronous classes
Experience in developing lesson plans for high school students
Knowledge of proven strategies for student success in the subject area
Comfort using a variety of pedagogical strategies
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Effective organizational and communication skills
Demonstrable use of technology necessary to be successful in an online learning environment
Candidates from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply and will be welcomed into a community that celebrates the uniqueness in each faculty member and student.
Qualified candidates should send a resume and a list of at least three current references to Elaine Swyryn, Associate Head of School, at
[email protected]
. Please enter, “Bryn Mawr Online Faculty” as the title. | https://www.brynmawrschool.org/list-detail?pk=181187&fromId=197696 |
Learning and Teaching Survey
A random sample of 10,000 students are selected to complete this survey every year. The survey runs from the end of September to mid-October.
Learning and Teaching Survey: the basics
Survey opening date: Monday 20 September 2021
Survey closing date: Sunday 10 October 2021
Purpose of survey: The University runs the Learning and Teaching Survey every year so we can understand how things are going for students and make positive changes around the University based on student feedback. This survey is the main way the University gathers information from students about their overall experience of studying at this University, and uses the information to set priorities for the next year(s).
Why doesn't each student get an invitation to participate every year? We generate a random sample of IDs in order to ensure the validity of the survey. Only students who receive a notification and a unique link are able to participate.
If a student didn't receive a link for the student Learning and Teaching Survey this year, they may have an opportunity to participate another year as the University carries out the survey every year.
Prizes: There are great prizes to be won - if you complete the survey you will be in to win one of two iPad Air 256GBs with smart keyboards or one of 20 power banks. Prizes will be drawn after the survey closes. Students will be notified via their University email.
Please note that Survey email invites will have the ‘from’ address: [email protected]
2021 Resources for Staff
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Learning and Teaching Survey Slide. Size: 933.0 kB.
Document Description: Staff can help promote the survey by showing this slide to their students between 20 September and 10 October.
Previous Years' Survey Results
2020
In 2020, despite the survey taking place while students were studying remotely, over 4,000 students participated.
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2020 Learning and Teaching Survey Summary Results. Size: 130.9 kB.
Document Description: This one page summary outlines 10 areas students found were going well and 10 areas for improvement in students' University experience in 2020. Response numbers and follow up actions are explained.
2019
In 2019, 4,047 students completed the 2019 Learning and Teaching Survey. The infographics and tables in the documents summarise what students said in 2019.
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2019 Learning and Teaching Survey Summary Results. Size: 458.0 kB.
Document Description: This one page document reports on 10 areas students found were going well and 10 areas for improvement in students' University experience. The document gives response numbers and a summary of actions that follow on from the survey.
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2019 Infographic Learning and Teaching Survey. Size: 1.2 MB.
Document Description: This infographic summarises key strengths and improvements students perceived in their University learning and teaching experience.
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2020 Closing the Loop. Size: 86.5 kB.
Document Description: This slide lists key actions taking place at the University in 2020 in response to feedback received on previous years' Learning and Teaching Surveys.
How does the University use the student feedback?
Analysis of rated questions and open-ended comments provides important information to the University about students’ experience of learning and teaching. Results are reported to University committees and to faculties and service divisions.
What happens next?
The Pro Vice-Chancellor(Education) meets with each faculty dean and senior staff to review what students have said and what is planned in response. Student feedback is used to help determine University and faculty priorities for the next year.
What is the University doing in response in 2021?
The University has introduced digital course outlines to make course information more accessible and consistent. An early decision was taken to run all examinations online in order to increase certainty for students, regardless of alert level. Bookable spaces and device loans have been implemented.
The University is working on:
- strategies to enhance student engagement and services across the University
- reviewing our provision of flexible and blended learning to ensure online and hybrid teaching is designed and delivered in a purposeful way
- prioritising the consistency of Canvas and course information for students
- focussing with teaching staff on assessment clarity and design
- enhancing FlexIT allowing students to access lab software anytime and anywhere
Download the files above for more information on what students said in the 2020 Learning and Teaching Survey.
Staff Resources for Survey Promotion
Staff can do a lot to help students understand the importance of the Learning and Teaching Survey, and every year the Academic Quality Office creates resources to assist staff to communicate with students about the survey. PowerPoint slides about the survey can be shown to classes, and information will be posted on the University website and on Canvas for students to see.
More about the survey
We ask a random (representative) sample of students for feedback on their experience at the University, so if you have been invited please let us know what you think, so we can build on what we’re getting right and make improvements where things aren’t working.
Questions have an emphasis on the learning and teaching aspects of students’ experience University as well as social factors which support students’ learning. Survey results are reported in aggregate to faculties each year and assist faculties to set priorities and areas of focus in learning and teaching.
See 'Related Links' for more detailed information on how survey results help us to improve the University experience based on students' feedback.
If you have questions about the survey, please contact AskAuckland at [email protected] or on 0800 61 62 63. | https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/staff/learning-and-teaching/teaching-course-development/student-feedback/LearningandTeachingSurvey.html |
As with previous editions of the report, we have continued to build on our qualitative coding system, providing a rigorous statistical basis for the choice of topics for this report. We categorise student comments which relate to a particular aspect of their UCL experience, and note whether they have expressed this negatively, neutrally, or positively.
For this report, we have delved deeper into the areas commented on most frequently, most negatively, and most positively. We have focused on what students have indicated are their highest priorities, and put forward recommendations for action based on a review of individual students’ comments in these areas.
Students provide an enormous amount of feedback to UCL and the Union, both formally and informally, and whilst up-to-date information on the positives and negatives of the student experience has perhaps never been more crucial, it is important to remember that unnecessary requests for feedback can create a sense amongst the student body that nothing is being done on feedback that has already been submitted. This report is not just about providing a snapshot on student issues, but also about digging into it, understanding it, and hopefully taking action on it.
In the current circumstances, listening to what students are saying and acting on this information is as vital as it has ever been, and we hope that this report is useful in painting a picture of student opinion on the academic experience across the whole of UCL, complimenting the individual feedback mechanisms that take place already at programme, department and faculty level.
Ayman Benmati
Education Officer 2020-21
The area of Social & Community was also highlighted in the last two editions of this report. As in these previous reports, students placed a high value on the sense of belonging to a cohort and community on campus, and appreciated effective efforts to help foster this through events and other such initiatives. Despite the enormously challenging circumstances Covid-19 has caused for building this sense of community, students were appreciative of efforts to maintain this sense of belonging online.
The area of Student Development and Employability is new to this year’s report, with students expressing an appreciation when developing skills was made possible either within or alongside their modules. An area which has received particularly positive feedback in meetings that have taken place since the pandemic is Learning Resources, with students giving thanks to those courses and departments who quickly and effectively adapted their resources to online learning.
On the negative experiences highlighted within this report, there are also some consistencies with last year. The issue of Teaching Rooms has now been raised in the last four versions of this report, with many students reporting that the rooms provided were not big enough for the size of the cohort in question.
Issues surrounding assessment have also been raised previously, however the nature of these issues has slightly shifted. This year students have expressed concerns in the areas of Timing of Assessment, as well as issues regarding Assessment Criteria and the Promptness of Feedback once an assessment had been handed in. This paints a worrying picture for a number of areas in the assessment process, especially when compared to last year’s report, which only included issues with Assessment Preparation.
Since the pandemic, there has unsurprisingly been a higher proportion of negative feedback on the issue of Fees & Funding, with many students no longer feeling that they are getting value for money from their UCL experience. Another issue that has been particularly prevalent since the impact of Covid-19 is that of communication, which is understandably challenging for UCL at both a departmental and institution-wide level during this period but which has nevertheless seen many students feeling uninformed and out of the loop regarding changes to their education.
Teaching Delivery
Teaching delivery received the highest number of positive comments within the data analysed for this report, with many SSCC reps going out of their way to pass on praise or positive comments on the quality of teaching within specific modules or programmes.
Many of these comments cover obvious areas of potential good-practice within teaching, such as having lecturers who are engaging and approachable, and students were particularly appreciative whenever these qualities were maintained as teaching moved online. There were also many positive references to the ability of teaching staff to break down difficult concepts and explain them effectively, as well as providing relevant examples and additional resources to aid such explanations.
Students told us:
“The module lead makes sure that all the students understand material covered in each lecture”.
“Content was delivered well with good accompanying resources (comprehensive reading lists and other resources to aid learning)”.
“The lecturer is very organised, clear and recaps difficult concepts a lot”.
“Students enjoyed the lectures very much as they were relaxed and students felt at ease, students were encouraged to talk freely”.
"The Professor was approachable and willing to help students”.
Points of good practice:
- Setting time aside for Q & As to ensure that relevant concepts are understood and that any areas of potential confusion can be worked through, as well as giving students the chance to harness the teacher’s expertise.
- As most teaching has moved online, feedback about whether live or pre-recorded lectures are preferred has been mixed. However, students consistently highlighted as good practice continuing to provide the opportunities for interaction with teaching staff on top of lectures, whether in the form of message boards, responsiveness via email or live Q & As to accompany pre-recorded lectures.
- Building in collaborative teaching methods, including small group teaching in the form of discussion groups or practice tutor groups.
Social & Community
Students were consistently pleased when they were given an opportunity to interact with others, whether this was within their cohort, with different years of study or with students on other courses in their department. These opportunities can come in many forms, ranging from larger events such as away days and residentials to socials on campus. Students reported that these interactions not only improved their sense of belonging at UCL, but also helped with their academic experience by improving engagement with their course and providing a refreshing break from their normal routine.
The moving of most teaching online since March 2020 has significantly increased the challenges of creating a sense of community within courses and putting on effective socials. However, where this has worked well within specific courses or departments, the students have registered their appreciation and enjoyment, helping to reduce their sense of isolation despite the current circumstances.
Students told us:
“Overall, students were very happy with the programme and they highlighted the socials as being a great opportunity to get to know everyone in the Division”.
“Student reps highlighted how group meetings, including the social meetings, have been useful. The meetings help concentration and provide some level of engagement. The email reminders about Science Coffee and afternoon refreshments are useful as they remind everyone that these things are taking place and students are welcome to join. The meetings break up what might be sitting in the same place every day”.
“Students have been appreciative of the Institute arranged online meetings to socialise and provide a Q & A session”.
“Students enjoyed the virtual Open Day as they were able to attend a lecture which they felt they were having withdrawal symptoms from. That the upcoming Taster Day had sold 100 tickets was cited as an excellent result for the Department and existing students were generally very happy that the Department were continuing to run events so that they still felt (and wanted to feel) that they were students at UCL”.
Points of good practice:
- When arranging any events or trips, ensure that they are scheduled away from any major assessment deadlines within the group the event is aimed at, to improve both attendance at the event and the level of enjoyment students have when they are there.
- Make sure promotion and communication for any events or trips is effective and widespread. If an event or trip does not receive high attendance, make sure to check with students as to whether they were aware of the event or not, and if they were aware why they decided not to attend.
- Where possible, open up social events and mixers to the whole department, as students often highlighted being able to meet people outside of their normal cohort as a positive of such events.
- Online events can be difficult to organise and have mixed success, so keep checking in with students about what platforms and event styles work best for them when organising online socials or mixers. Where you have had success with a particular event type or style, try and share this practice with other staff and departments, as they are also searching for the best way to react to the current circumstances.
Skills Development and Employability
Students provided positive feedback on the occasions when they felt like they were developing specific skills as part of their education at UCL. Some of the most positive comments regarding specific modules came when students felt like they had improved not just their knowledge in a particular area but also in their ability to perform a task or function which they were lacking in before. Feedback was especially positive when practising this skill was well-integrated into students’ general learning.
Students told us:
“Students fed back that they were being encouraged to develop their critical and analytical thinking skills by being encouraged to interpret and explain data themselves (rather than having module leads presenting their own interpretations and explanations)”.
“It was noted that there were useful modules on such skills as writing abstracts, poster preparation, managing workload etc. that students could access via the Doctoral School Training programme”.
“A workshop was arranged for report writing which students had found very helpful in writing a 1st class report”.
“The field trip was a good experience in enabling students to see how to apply things in the field”.
“Skills acquired through the core modules were useful and valued”.
Points of good practice:
- Integrate skills development work into existing modules, such as through separate workshops on particularly pertinent areas like report writing, presentation skills or data analysis. Where such areas or skills need to be covered in depth, consider whether providing separate modules on such areas would be beneficial.
- Where work inside the classroom is insufficient to develop a particular skill or ability to conduct fieldwork, give students the opportunity to develop skills through alternative methods, such as through lab work or field trips.
- Ensure that students are aware of existing skills development opportunities that are available at UCL, including those which may be particularly beneficial in aiding their learning for their chosen discipline.
Student Voice
As in the previous version of this report, students were pleased when they felt that their voices were being heard and acted on within the SSCC system. Students reported their encouragement that feedback was acted upon quickly, particularly when this was in time for their cohort to receive the benefit of any changes. Appreciation was also expressed for staff and departments who adapted to more online forms of feedback to accompany existing structures, particularly after the pandemic moved most meetings online and the presence of Unitu increased.
Students told us:
“An MRes student commented that they had a positive experience of being a representative, as they have seen gradual changes to the content of the MRes programme, which was initiated by student feedback”.
“The students were really appreciative that the comments were being addressed during the year and not just for future cohorts”.
“The student representatives discussed how some of the module tutors had asked for mid-term feedback and that they students found this really helpful”.
“It was noted that the recent utilisation of Microsoft Teams to foster communication between the Departmental Tutor/DSSCC Chair and the Student Reps was beneficial, and should be implemented from the beginning of the academic year”.
“Rep stated Unitu was a great platform and it was great at achieving student feedback on a range of issues”.
Points of good practice:
- Students appreciated an iterative feedback process, where changes were made quickly enough for them to feel the benefits of changes rather than just the next cohort. Where possible, implement feedback quickly, and conduct a quick check-in whilst modules are still going on so that any small changes can be implemented before the end of teaching.
- Incorporating online methods of feedback offers new opportunities both during and after the pandemic. Ensure that communication with reps is as effective online as it was offline, and make sure that when Unitu is used that comments are regularly acted on and responded to.
- At a time when gathering up-to-date and indicative student feedback is perhaps more crucial than ever, it is important to bear in mind that many students may be less responsive because of ‘survey fatigue’, feeling like any further feedback is just another form to fil out. With this in mind, try and use information available from existing sources (such as UCL-wide survey results, Unitu, SSCC meetings or even this report) before rolling out any new surveys. Where a new survey is required, ensure that it is concise, easy to use and contains only limited or simple questions wherever possible.
Category which has done particularly well since Covid-19:
Learning Resources
As teaching has had to move online due to the pandemic, students have expressed their appreciation for occasions when learning resources have continued to be provided, and for the extra steps that staff and departments have taken to ensure that resources are available despite the disruption.
Students told us:
“Students confirmed that they are using e-journals and the online library resources available to them”.
“It was welcomed that the department have produced advice on approaches to virtual fieldwork”.
“The students appreciated that the course materials had been kept to date and updated regularly, e.g. reference lists updated”.
“Students have specifically mentioned the workbook provided which students find very useful as it provides a systematic way of working through the content. Specific thanks were made to the team in charge of providing the content for their very useful introductory video clips”.
Points of good practice:
- Make sure that all information that students need for home working is readily available in a and in the appropriate format (e.g. as a searchable PDF document).
- Ensure that students are aware of where they can find additional resources which may be of use, such as in the UCL online library.
- Incorporate digital and video content as additional resources where appropriate.
Timing of Assessment
Students reported issues with how their assessments were staggered and scheduled throughout the academic year, and when the issue of assessment timing was discussed the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. The most negative comments related to assessments being bunched too closely together, causing students stress and making time management and effective preparation for the assessments at hand more difficult. Students also complained about occasions where information on assessment timing was unclear, contradictory across different sources of information or changed at short notice, highlighting the effect these issues can have on their performance in these assessments.
Most of the issues raised within this area pre-date the SSCC meetings which took place after the pandemic, and in meetings since March 2020, similar complaints can be found around assessment clustering and inconsistent communication. However, some students did raise the issue of extensions within certain assessments, particularly coursework, which cause clustering with work scheduled further down the line, so it is important to bear this in mind when considering the changing of assessment timing due to current circumstances.
Students told us:
“Students within these programmes each have four assignments due within a one week period. Students were unable to stay on track and the narrow timescales meant they were not understanding the material. Some assignments had been issued with a one week turnaround time and no prior notice”.
“Some students have commented that the timing of the submission of the dissertation can affect students’ mental health as it clashes with deadlines for other modules, so asked if the deadline could be pushed back”.
“Many students felt unhappy with the short notice they were given for the date and time of their presentation slots, due to work/childcare commitments etc.”.
“To better manage time some students avoid doing coursework on a topic that was more interesting to them in favour of another topic that was taught earlier on in the course”.
“There was some confusion around the submission deadline for the essay. Students received communication about the change of deadline by email, but this was not changed on Moodle”.
Points for improvement:
- Stagger different assessment deadlines so they do not fall too closely together for a large contingent of students within a particular module or course. It is important that this is not just done across one module but across common modules that students in a course or year of study are undertaking, as if this coordination does not happen then students will not feel the benefit of any staggering.
- When any changes need to be made to assessment format or timing, make sure that students are given ample notice and that these changes will not have a detrimental impact on performance. This is particularly important when considering student groups such as mature students and student parents or carers.
- Provide accurate, consistent and up-to-date information regarding assessment timing and deadlines across all relevant platforms, including any module handbooks, on Moodle and via email.
Assessment Criteria
Students raised concerns on not receiving sufficiently clear information on criteria for assessments. There were numerous examples of confusing and even contradictory guidelines on what is required to do well within a particular assessment, with ambiguous mark-schemes causing significant confusion. Students also reported discrepancies between the amount of work required for a form of assessment within a module and the weight this assessment carries within the module as a whole, as well as contradictions between information passed on verbally on assessment criteria and what is available via email or Moodle.
As with assessment timing above, most of the issues within this area pre-date Covid-19, however some students did report confusion in meetings since March 2020 as to what material was going to be assessed, and regarding the required format or material within alternative assessments.
Students told us:
“Some students felt that the marking criteria for assignments is too broad and does not give sufficient indication of what is required”.
“Students found that there were contradictions between what the lecturer said during Q & A session in class about coursework and how it was marked. The feedback during the Q & A session did not reflect the instruction given”.
“Module Leader has advised students that active participation makes up 10% of the grade. However students are not quite sure what this means. Is just attending lectures enough? Subjective measure”.
“Sometimes there was a mismatch between how long it took to complete an assessment and how much weighting it carried, for example a 30% coursework taking substantively shorter time to complete than a 15% review”.
“Important information was communicated in lectures in response to questions as opposed to formally via Moodle where it was accessible to all students”.
Points for improvement:
- Ensure that marking criteria is clear, objective and sufficiently focused, providing students with a clear indication of how to achieve success within a particular form of assessment.
- Communication with students regarding what skills they are expected to demonstrate within a particular assessment, especially when this assessment is in a practical form.
- Weight modules accurately by the amount of work required to prepare for and complete each piece of coursework or exam.
- Where changes to assessment criteria are required, as has been commonplace during Covid-19, provide well-structured and thorough explanations on any form of assessment so that the assessment criteria are clear.
Promptness of Feedback
Many students reported delays in receiving feedback on their work or their assessments, and in some cases suggested that they had not received any feedback at all on work that they had submitted. Section 8.2 of the Academic Manual, which sets an expectation that students should receive feedback within one calendar month of the deadline for submission (including weekends and vacations), was often cited by students, who pointed out that this had not been met in their case.
Students were particularly frustrated when communication was not forthcoming with the department regarding timescales for receiving feedback, including letting students know when the expectation of one calendar month outlined above will not be met (which is also suggested in the Academic Manual). There was also frustration reported when the level of detail provided in the feedback was not commensurate with the amount of time taken for the feedback to be received. This issue was brought up consistently both before and after the disruption caused due to Covid-19, with students reporting anxiety during the long waits and not having the opportunity to understand areas of improvement in sufficient time before subsequent assessments.
Students told us:
“Students are awaiting feedback which they were told would be received before they started the next assessment”.
“Students felt they weren’t provided with enough feedback for online learning activities. For example, one student only got feedback for 1 out of 6 critiques given”.
“As none of the feedback will be returned before all coursework is submitted, it is more likely for someone to repeat the same mistakes”.
“A number of students have mentioned that the formal feedback to assignments should have been more timely. Alternative, a more realistic mark release date should have been communicated. Some students raised that although the admin team communicated estimated mark release date but this had been postponed more than once”.
“The feedback was brief in some cases and it was felt the time taken to give out the results was excessive”.
Points for improvement:
- Ensure that as much feedback as possible on summative work is returned to students within the one calendar month timeframe set out in the Academic Manual.
- Where this turnaround is not possible, keep students in the loop regarding updated and realistic timeframes via email or Moodle. In addition, make sure that students are aware that they can bring this matter to the attention of the Departmental Tutor or Head of Department, as outlined in the Academic Manual.
- Make sure that the level of detail within any feedback received is proportionate to the time students have had to wait to receive feedback.
- When formative work is submitted by students on a regular basis, make sure they receive feedback on a meaningful proportion of this work.
Teaching Rooms
This issue, which is unsurprisingly made up almost entirely of feedback received from before most work moved off-campus due to Covid-19, has now been raised in the last four versions of this report. As noted in these previous versions, many of the issues students raise with regards to their teaching rooms relate to the room size, with students regularly reporting being unable to fit the entire class in the room provided, let alone for everybody to be comfortable whilst teaching is taking place. This had a consistent effect on students’ ability to learn within these environments, particularly when their ability to take notes was compromised because the size of the allocated room was unsuitable.
Students also reported other issues with rooms, with many of these focused on temperature, particularly with lecture halls, teaching rooms or studios that are too cold. Other issues with rooms, such as poor-quality Wi-Fi, technical problems, and lighting issues, were also consistent themes within SSCC feedback, and it important to reflect on the effect these issues may have on different student groups, particularly disabled students.
Students told us:
“Some of the classes that they have our lectures in have a smaller capacity than the class size -students raise safety concerns”.
“There were not enough tables in teaching rooms. Students were in room B at the Wolfson Centre with rows of chairs and just 4 tables at the front, for writing notes by hand or using a laptop this makes it very difficult”.
“Facilities in Logan Hall are deemed inadequate, as there are no pull-out desks/tables for students to write on/take notes on during lectures”.
“The equipment in lecture theatres hasn’t kept pace with technology and there are not enough plugs – despite tutors brining extension cables etc to class”.
“Studio spaces are extremely cold during winter months, and students are resorting to buying their own personal heaters”.
“A main lecture was held at Student Central and students felt that this room was not suitable due to not being able to hear the lecturers”.
“The room was felt to be unsuitable – used as a thoroughfare for deliveries & refuse removal”.
Points for improvement:
- Make sure that rooms allocated are big enough for the number of students who will be present, before the first lecture, seminar or class wherever possible. For this to take place, regular effective communication will be required between departmental staff and UCL centrally.
- As mentioned in last year’s report, every effort should be made by lecturers and departmental staff to ensure rooms are appropriate for the seminars/lectures they will be running, and not rely on students raising it as an issue or complaint when the classes have started.
- Where note-taking is required, allocate rooms with appropriate desks or tables, for either notes taken by-hand or on a laptop.
- When technical problems occur, such as heating, lighting or Wi-Fi issues, make sure that these are reported and resolved by staff as quickly as possible.
Class Timetabling
Many students highlighted issues with their timetables, particularly with clashes for core modules. The timing of the release of the timetable of the academic year was also highlighted as an issue, with this often occurring too late for clashes to be remedied between core and optional modules. This is a particular issue when students only have a small selection of optional modules available to them. Issues of poor communication were also highlighted with regards to any changes in scheduled timetabling, with changes or cancellations either not communicated to students at all or announced at the last minute.
Students painted a clear picture on the consequences timetabling issues had on the effectiveness of their learning and wellbeing. This was particularly true of long days on campus filled with lectures, which were highlighted as draining and not conducive to effective engagement with the subject material. Concerns were also raised over timetabled activities on Wednesday afternoon, which is supposed to be kept free for extra-curricular activities.
The gap between different teaching and the effect this has on the student experience was also mentioned, although different structures to this were suggested in different situations; some students wanted gaps between seminars and lectures so that they could more effectively engage in the material and consider what they’d learned, whereas others doing more practical work wanted lectures and labs to be scheduled close together so that they could put into practise their learning whilst it was still fresh.
Students told us:
“Timetable changes are not communicated”.
“Students have core modules back-to-back with electives that are on different sites”.
“It was pointed out that there are some teaching sessions timetabled for Wednesday afternoons, which are usually kept free for extra-curricular activities”.
“Concerns were raised about the length of the day due to the scheduling of lectures on Wednesdays where there was a 9am start and a 7pm finish”.
“The few programming modules that students could pick clashed with each other”.
“Students advised there have been issues with module clashes. Mostly these have been sorted with students having spoken to module leads and arranged to pick up learning materials on Moodle, or lectures have been rearranged. This has arisen owing to clashes due to lots of optional modules. To have a timetable earlier from module leads would have helped identify the clashes earlier”.
Points for improvement:
- Eliminate timetabling clashes for core modules, and minimise timetabling clashes with optional modules when there is only a small selection available to the cohort (meaning that a significant number of students are likely to experience a clash).
- When timetabling changes are made, make sure that these are clearly communicated and timetables are updated across all platforms.
- When considering how the timetable is structured, find gaps that are consistent with the needs of students within the individual course. Sometimes students want gaps in order to soak in material, whilst in other situations students want to be able to quickly practice what they have learnt in lectures in a practical setting.
- When structuring timetables for students, bear in mind the workload this would require within an individual day. Wherever possible, make sure that Wednesday afternoon is kept free for extra-curricular activities.
Category which has done particularly badly since Covid-19:
Fees & funding
Since the delivery of teaching and assessment has been disrupted due to the pandemic, many students have expressed concerns about tuition fees. The rationale provided is generally the same, with many complaining about paying the same amount of money for an experience they see as radically different to what they expected, and the online delivery of teaching provided is seen as insufficient in many cases, particularly when planned activities such as practical work or field trips had to be cancelled.
There were also increased concerns around students’ ability to continue to fund their studies during the pandemic, often due to the impact of lost earnings from part-time work. Many students were aware of the UCL Student Funding Office and some of the funds that were available to them during this period, however they often reported negative experiences, either due to delays in communication or inconsistencies with how the funds were applied.
Students told us:
“Many students complained about the fees as many projects are now not happening and fees are mainly to cover projects. According to the recent email from the Vice-Provost students ‘should not expect any refund if you are receiving adequate online learning and support’. However, MRes students are not receiving any online learning (due to the lab-based nature of our course), while also not having access to facilities. Many students feel like the extraordinary circumstances require specific review in terms of what they are getting compared to the fees they have paid”.
“An international student had raised the issue of whether student fees would be reduced if face-to-face teaching does not happen going forward. The reason the student left their country to come and study in the UK was, in part, to experience the face-to-face community and to use the library etc.”.
“A request was made for a portion of the tuition fee to be refunded due to the fact that the field trips did not take place. The students would like clarity on what costs have been incurred and for any monies to be returned due to cancelled flights and accommodation”.
“The rep reported that there is concern amongst some self-funded students about continuing to fund their studies due to the impact of Covid-19”.
“Feedback from the MSc student representatives on the UCL Learning Opportunities Fund was that the process used to approve the funding seemed fairly random, as across the cohort there were variations on the funds received and the number of applications that were successful. It was stated that the chances of success depended on what students put in their application which seemed rather unjust. Several students have been upset by the whole process as there was no clarity or justification on why certain applications were not approved”.
Points for improvement:
- Provide students with concrete examples and explanations of how the academic experience they receive, particularly with regards to teaching, has been consistently at the level they would have expected in normal circumstances. If this has not been the case then fee refunds should be considered, or steps should at least be taken so that missed opportunities can be made up for during the remainder of the course (as outlined in the recommendations).
Communication
The issue of communication was also consistently discussed before the impact of Covid-19 was felt, however it has been highlighted more frequently in meetings since March 2020. This mainly centred around students not feeling informed about changes during this period and initial communications being chaotic, with this being suggested as an issue both at course level and across UCL as a whole.
Some students reported gaps or inconsistencies between information they were receiving from their department and communications at an institutional level, with many complaining about a lack of responsiveness from their department during this period, even to acknowledge delays whilst awaiting new information. It is worth bearing in mind that the issues raised cover the time following the immediate reaction to the pandemic, and do not include comments on student views on communication during the 2020-21 academic year.
Students told us:
“The representative reported that before the Covid-19 restrictions the Institute was not regularly updating students with information on research progress or research undertaken by students. Since the restrictions there is less information”.
“Some students felt the pandemic led to some students feeling uninformed of changes and news on campus”.
“In the handbook there was an issue with coursework submission dates. Some dates were changed but because the information is in several different places, not all of them were updated so there was some inconsistency”.
“There had been concerns about a gap between central information and Faculty communications”.
“Communications could have been better, even to report that decisions had been delayed. Some module leaders were better at communicating than others. It was agreed that a weekly email to students would be helpful”.
Points for improvement:
- Provide clear, concise and consistent information to students on changes related to Covid-19 as soon as this information is available. Where information is delayed or not yet available, or when changes are likely but their precise nature has not yet been determined, keep students in the loop wherever possible.
Recommendation 1: UCL Experience
From the findings of this report, particularly in relation to issues raised since the pandemic, it is clear that for many students the UCL experience has not lived up to what they expected. Feedback both before and after disruption due to Covid-19 has shone a light on what students value, and what cannot be replaced. For many if not most students the 2019-20 academic year is full of missed opportunities a normal UCL experience would have provided, and whilst the move to online teaching was a necessary one, it is important to remember what an isolating experience this can be for students.
With this in mind, the institution needs to make sure that the UCL experience remains worth the time and money students invest in it, and that it ensures that missed or lost opportunities can be accounted for. We recommend that UCL should take the following steps:
- Move back to in-person teaching and assessment as soon as it is safe to do so.
- Look at how missed opportunities on campus in 2020, such as labs, studios and field trips, can be made up for, with an action plan for how the institution will address these lost experiences. It is important to ensure that this covers all levels of study, including the Postgraduate Research Student experience.
- Make sure that the expectations for online courses both during and after the impact of Covid-19, including fee levels, is clear and reflects the lack of in-person experience. Any best practice gathered from online learning this year should be harnessed in future distance learning courses, helping to ensure that they are fit for purpose.
- Continue to invest in departmental societies. These societies help strengthen student communities around subject disciplines, supporting academic discourse and inquiry beyond the curriculum to make connections across their subject, with alumni, the world of work and other communities.
Recommendation 2: Assessment Preparation
As highlighted throughout this report, students have reported issues with various elements of assessment, from the timing of this assessment to the promptness of feedback received. The issue of assessment is likely to become even more challenging in future years, given that many first and second year students, as well as future cohorts, will have less exam experience than previous cohorts due to cancellations because of Covid-19. We therefore believe it is necessary for UCL to take effective action now to improve the assessment landscape at the institution, including two recommendations made in 2019:
- Investigate the integration of assessment criteria for modules into the Online Module Catalogue to ensure that students have a clear and accessible route in determining the definitive criteria of which they will be assessed.
- Integrate the review of learning outcomes and assessment criteria into the approval process for modules and programmes, so that the linkage between learning outcomes and assessment criteria is clear and appropriate.
Other recommendations in this area include:
- Coordinate assessment timing with common modules to minimise the clustering of assessment deadlines for students.
- Cascade the recently adopted guidelines for ensuring programme level consistency for summative assessment load, to ensure that students know what to expect and feel their assessment load is fair and proportionate.
- Provide sufficient support on preparation for exams for first and second year students, as well as future cohorts, who have missed out on previous experience of this in school and at UCL because of cancellations due to Covid-19. This many include rebalancing the formative and summative assessments to allow for more opportunities for feedback on assessment performance. | https://studentsunionucl.org/student-priorities-for-education-report-2020 |
Have any of you had a professor who you would like to see recognized for exceptional teaching and engagement beyond the classroom? If so, read on, as there is an opportunity to nominate faculty below:
ThinkAchieve: Beyond the Classroom is accepting nominations for 2018 faculty awards. The Faculty Awards Program provides recognition and monetary awards for faculty members who have demonstrated exemplary teaching and learning practices through contributions to experiential learning at UTC. The outcomes of ThinkAchieve: Beyond the Classroom are for UTC students to, over the course of their university experience, increase their overall critical thinking skills as exhibited by the ability to identify, evaluate, and interpret information; solve problems, develop innovative solutions through creative thinking; communicate ideas and information effectively; and seek ongoing improvement to integrate knowledge and skill through reflection on their thinking and learning processes. Awards to faculty are made annually at $1,000 each.
Selection Criteria: Any part-time or full-time faculty member who has been teaching at UTC for at least 2 years may be nominated. The selection committee will look for evidence of a strong teaching record and a commitment to the student learning outcomes as outlined above. The awards committee will seek evidence that nominees:
· Actively and regularly participate in ThinkAchieve activities (for example: faculty development, ThinkAchieve new student orientation sessions, HIP grants, Beyond the Classroom designated courses, CAT grading, etc.);
· Excel at teaching and value learning. This may be demonstrated through activities that advance best practices in teaching and learning in the classroom and beyond the classroom with a focus on experiential learning.
Nomination Process: UTC faculty members, staff, and students are encouraged to nominate candidates. Nominators should submit the ThinkAchieve Cover Sheet and a nomination letter. Nomination letters should introduce the candidate and provide information that supports the selection criteria outlined above. Nominators are strongly encouraged to submit additional supporting materials such as letters of support (up to two) and course materials (examples of coursework, projects, syllabi, etc.) that highlight how the faculty member incorporates activities that engage students in critical thinking and experiential learning. Students submitting nominations may contact [email protected] for assistance in providing supplementary materials. The cover sheet, letter, and supporting materials should be sent electronically to [email protected] by March 9, 2018. | http://www.mocsnews.com/2018/02/12/recognize-utc-faculty-with-think-achieve-award/ |
Friends,
The following information regarding student fees for the spring 2020 semester was shared with students today:
We hope this message finds you well, and that you are adjusting to the significant changes in your learning environment. We all miss seeing you on campus and sharing in the events of our community.
During the past few weeks, so many of the normal processes related to education at SIUE have been disrupted by the COVID 19 pandemic. We appreciate your patience, your flexibility, and your spirit of determination to continue learning in a vastly different world and one in which there are numerous challenges.
SIUE faculty, staff and administrators have worked diligently adjusting support mechanisms for students, particularly in the last month. Class formats have been changed to try to meet your educational needs and grading processes have been temporarily altered to aid you during this extraordinary time. We continue to monitor how those adjustments are working from your and your professors’ feedback on Starfish. If you need assistance in your classes, please let us know by “raising your hand” in Starfish.
Earlier this week, we announced specifics relating to housing and meal plan refunds for those affected. We also established a Student Emergency Assistance Fund for students experiencing severe hardships related to food, housing and healthcare needs, as well as other necessities. We hope you will consider applying for support, as needed. Information on how to apply can be found at siue.edu/student-affairs.
Many of you are also concerned about fees. We will issue partial refunds of the general student fees, services and course fees as follows:
Parking Services – Students will receive a 10% refund on their spring 2020 parking hangtag fee. The specific amount is dependent on the type of parking hangtag purchased. Refunds will range from $8 to $19.
General Student Fee – Students will receive a 7.4% refund on the spring 2020 fee. The refund represents $7.68 per credit hour, such that a student taking 12 credits would receive $92.16. Others will receive more or less depending upon their individual credit hour registration.
Course Fees – Students will receive a partial refund on some course specific fees related to unused materials and supplies depending on how much of the original materials were unused. This will be determined by the Provost's Office in consultation with the faculty and administrators in those areas.
Refunds associated with these fees should be posted to student accounts in the next few weeks.
The fees listed above constitute areas of service and support that cannot be fully accessed due to the current situation. Students simply are not able to use facilities and materials due to spaces being inaccessible, most students being displaced off campus and classes being delivered online. Therefore, it seemed fair to refund fees where normal services could not be provided.
The refund reflects a reduction of services in certain areas such as the Fitness Center and the Morris University Center. Many of the other fee areas such as IT support, textbooks, intercollegiate athletics, facilities and health service are being offered in normal or even expanded ways because of recent changes. Particularly, IT software and staffing have been increased during the last month to provide necessary resources and additional personnel to answer questions, support instruction and provide technology, such as laptops in the current online environment. Health Service is another example of a fee-supported service that is responding in unprecedented ways.
You should also be aware that additional support for students is included in the recently approved CARES Act. We are currently seeking guidance on how these funds may be used to help students and will make that funding available based on information provided by the U.S. Department of Education in the next few days.
If part of your fees were covered by financial aid, including certain grants, scholarships and veteran programs, the Financial Aid Office will review your account carefully and make any required adjustments based on the type of aid received. If you have an outstanding balance on your student account, your refund will be credited to the account. Any remaining funds will be refunded via the typical Bursar refund process. Please review your student account activity regularly to see when your refund is posted.
Thank you for your patience during this challenging time. If you have questions about refunds, please contact the Bursar's Office at 618-650-3123 or [email protected].
Be safe. Stay healthy. | https://www.siue.edu/about/announcements/coronavirus/updates-status/messages/student-fee-refund-information.shtml |
Svarog: God Of Cosmic Fire And Ruler Of The Sky In Pre-Christian Slavic Pantheon
A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - Svarog (Swarog ) is one of the most important deities in the Slavic pantheon. He is the Slavic god of celestial fire and patron of blacksmiths.
He is the Supreme Heavenly God who always sleeps and yet, he controls the flow of Life and Universal Order and governs the World of Yav, the 4-dimensional realm of physical beings. He entrusted this world to Perun, God of Heaven and Lightning.
One day when Svarog wakes up, it will be the end of the world.
Svarog is a ruler of the sky, fire and is associated with the sun. His role as a guard of the cosmic fire represented by the sun was widely worshiped by the ancient Slavs in the east and west, as the god of the sky (heaven). The root of his name (“svar” means bright, clear) is related to the Sanskrit word "swar" (sun, glow, sky).
See also:
Controversial Ancient Book Of Veles Remains An Unexplained Mystery
Secrets Of The ‘Worlds Of Prav, Nav And Yav’ Revealed – Ancient Slavic Wisdom Confirms The Multiverse Theory
Svantevit – Four-Headed War God Of The Slavic Peoples Of Central Europe
Veles And Perun: Most Powerful Slavic Gods In Conflict Between Powers Of Light And Darkness
A long-lasting and important habit of bowing and praying to the rising sun, as well as the saint's oath to the sun was still widespread after the Christianization was introduced in the Slavic countries.
In many Slavonic countries, rural folk still preserve deep respect for fire, which has always had a sacred character among these people, who addressed prayers to fire. For example, the old forbade the young to swear or shout at the moment when the fire was being lighted in the house.
Some old myths confirm that Svarog, after reigning over the universe, transmitted his creative sovereign power to his children and a Byzantine chronicler, John Malala (490-565) summarized cosmogony of the Slavic pagans in these terms:
'After Svarog reigned his son, named Sun who was also called Dazhbog. The Sun is the king and son of Svarog; he is named Dazhbog, for he was a mighty lord.' The other son of Svarog, Fire (or “ogon” which can be compared to the Sanskrit agni) is mentioned in ancient work entitled 'Unknown Admirer of Christ'.
Svarog was also considered the guardian of the Slavic home fire and the sacrificial fire, also associated with other gods such as Perun and Weles. As a divine blacksmith, Svarog throws lightning bolts and helps Perun to fight his antagonist, Weles.
According to Bruno of Querfurt (c. 974 – 1009 AD), a sainted missionary bishop and martyr, who was beheaded near the border of Kievan Rus and Lithuania while trying to spread Christianity in Eastern Europe, Svarog was widely worshiped in the region of the pre-Christian Slavs.
In a hidden temple surrounded by sacred forests, special priests performed divination and took care of the sacred horse. They had a tradition of human sacrifices that usually took the form of beheading, which may suggest that sacrificial blood was apparently of importance. One of their victims was the Bishop of Mecklenburg on Jan. 10, who died in martyrdom. The Svarog cult was also confirmed by another chronicler, Adam of Bremen, who lived in the second half of the 11th century.
Known under different names, Svarog has also been sometimes identified with Hephaestus, the god of fire and blacksmith, one of the 12 Olympian Gods, who was a mechanical engineer, a god of metallurgy and the craftsman. However, it is uncertain to what extent the Greeks gods were thought to resemble their Slavic counterparts.
When it comes to the mighty god Svarog, there has always been a true problem with the identification of this mythological figure. His name is mentioned in many old writings but without references to his activities. To talk about Svarog means to rely on various tales and songs about him, but these sources cannot be verified.
Written by – A. Sutherland AncientPages.com Staff Writer
Copyright © AncientPages.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.comExpand for references
References: | https://www.ancientpages.com/2017/08/15/svarog-god-of-cosmic-fire-and-ruler-of-the-sky-in-pre-christian-slavic-pantheon/ |
March 10, 2022
In Norse mythology, the end of the world culminates in a battle between the Gods and demons known as Ragnarök. Fire and flood overwhelm the heavens and earth as the fate of the Gods concludes with their death. It is a famous prophecy, one told in the poem Völuspá. Odin is slain by Fenrir, the giant wolf and child of Loki. Thor defeats the world serpent Jörmungandr, but dies from the venom coursing through his veins. Freyr, the God of fertility and harvest, is killed by a fire giant known as Surtr, and it is this Jötunn that serves as the main antagonist of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök.
The sheer wealth of source material Ubisoft has at their disposal is liberating. They have already featured Norse mythology heavily in AC Valhalla, but this expansion is much larger than anything that has come before. Eivor takes on the role of Havi, more commonly known as Odin. Your son has been captured by the fire giant Surtr, and it is up to you to traverse Svartalfheim, realm of the dwarves to find him. It’s an ambitious expansion, but by far one of the best Ubisoft has released so far. While there’re still the same sort of side stuff to do and find, the combat has improved drastically with the inclusion of Divine Powers.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök: Special new abilities
These new powers all you to embrace the Hugr-Rip. It’s a new piece of kit that feeds of fallen foes and fills up a new gauge. Once the gauge is filled, a range of new abilities can be used. These new abilities range from shape shifting into a raven; rising fallen enemies to fight by your side; teleport to specific areas; embody the identity of the Muspels and walk across lava; and freeze foes, breaking them into tiny pieces. Holding R2/RT will bring up the Hugr, then pressing left or right uses up the powers you’ve equipped. You still have access to powers assigned to the trigger buttons. It just means you’ve got even more abilities at your disposal.
Playing around with them and working out your favourites is only part of the fun. Instead of raiding monasteries, there’re Mylnas (or mills) scattered around Svartalfheim. In these Mylnas is Silica, a new kind of material that helps to upgrade your Hugr-Rip. There are tons of other materials, too, and by collecting them you’ll add further improvements to your Divine Powers. An unreachable area can be visited as a raven. A doorway surrounded by lava can be walked across when embodying the Muspels. You get to use them all throughout Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök.
A brave new world
On top of the awesome new abilities, the realm of Svartalfheim feels unlike anything before. The dull and dank towns of England pale in comparison to the wanders of the dwarven world. Huge monoliths float in the sky. Statues of the great dwarven ruler Motsognir stand tall throughout the land. Incredible feats of dwarven architecture made from gold, and lush forests fill up Svartalfheim. There’re also dangerous strongholds and snow-capped mountains that threaten Havi’s journey as well. It’s a dense and wonderous realm that make you realise previous locations in the game don’t even compare.
Dwarves play a huge roll in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök. Not just because you reside in their home, but the stories they tell and how they’re entwined with the tale of Odin. You work alongside the dwarves and become their friends. Find solace in their shelters and upgrade your weapons at their blacksmiths. There’re new tattoo designs, weapons, armour, and so much more. Befriending these new allies is not just about progressing the story. They’ll provide you with some great gear and items if you take the time to immerse yourself in their home.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök: A battle to end all battles
Some of the hardest battles I’ve ever fought in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla take place in the Dawn of Ragnarök expansion. New enemies like the Muspels are fire-based monstrosities. There’re also the Jotnars who wield ice to their advantage. Then there’re the boss fights. One of which proved so difficult, but thanks to the range of Divine Powers I was able to defeat her. These enemies are challenging, but I was grateful for it. It made the stakes feel high. It made the journey to save Baldr worth it.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök is packed with content. From the new abilities to the engaging story, this expansion is the best yet. Delving into Norse mythology and getting to live among the Gods and explore the dwarven realm of Svartalfheim was a dream come true. At times it feels like more of the same, but with such an interesting environment and new enemies to fight, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. Ubisoft continue to build upon the foundations of Valhalla with yet another great expansion.
Divine Powers are excellent
Svartalfheim is gorgeous
A great take on Norse mythology
Familiar side content
Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök is the biggest and most ambitious expansion yet, with great new powers to utilise. | https://www.godisageek.com/reviews/assassins-creed-valhalla-dawn-of-ragnarok-review/ |
The gods, us humans, and all the stops in between
Part 3 in a series exploring Bart Ehrman's, "How Jesus Became God," in which we cover the continuum of the divine realm in the minds of ancient Greeks and Romans.
This is an ongoing series exploring Bart Ehrman’s bestselling book, How Jesus Became God.
CHAPTER 1: DIVINE HUMANS IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME
The goal of Chapter 1 is to introduce the reader to the idea that the ancient view of the divine realm looked very different than it does today.
Up until the third or fourth century AD (when the Christian religion flattened out its various theological ideas into a singular, unified vision for what orthodox belief ought be), people more or less saw the human and the divine realm as existing on a sort of spectrum. Not only were there various degrees of divinity (some gods were up at the top of the hierarchy, other lesser gods under that, still other kinds of divine or semi-divine figures further down, and so on), but it was commonly believed that a being or person might move up and down the ladder of divinity.
In other words, a human being might move up in the divine spectrum and be seen as divine, and/or a divine being might travel downwards toward the human realm and be understood as now being (more) human.
Today, when you and I think about something like a divine realm (a place where God or gods might exist) we typically imagine a vast chasm between that realm and our human realm. Humans exist here, in this space, and God (or the gods) exist out/up there in an entirely different space. Not only do the two not really overlap, but it’s a very distinct difference between the realms.
As mentioned in Part 1 in this series, the question at the heart of the book, “How did Jesus become God,” sounds strange to many people’s ears because not only do many people start with the assumption that Jesus has always been “God,” but we also impart our view of the human/divine realm on to such a question. Meaning, we hear that question and we think it must mean that people believed that Jesus started as a human (here in our realm) and then made a significant leap into an entirely different and vastly separate realm (the heavenly, divine one). But, as Chapter 1 points out, this kind of thinking was not the dominant view in Ancient Greece or Rome (or even Israel, as the next chapter will show).
In the ancient worldview, the differences between human and divine were a matter of degrees, not the binary we think of today. Rather than ask, “Did these ancient people think of so-and-so as divine,” we will more closely get to the heart of ancient sensibilities by asking, “In what sense did they think of them as divine?”
That clause, “in what sense,” is key to understanding Ehrman’s thesis in this book. The original disciples of Jesus came to believe that Jesus was divine in a different sense than what later (in the fourth century) became codified as orthodox Christology.
This “continuum of the divine realm,” as Ehrman calls it, points to the way in which people in Ancient Greece and Roman believed that one might be understood as “divine” even if they weren’t simultaneously thought of as God in the highest, strictest sense. A being/person might ascend up the continuum, toward the highest point, aka, the Biggest Most Powerful Creator God, and yet still be thought of as, and even worshiped as, “divine” along the way.
Understanding the existence of this “continuum of the divine realm” matters not only because, as I mentioned in Part 2 of this series we must understand the historical and cultural context of ancient literature such as the Bible if we are to have any hope of understanding what was originally intended or understood, but also because Ehrman posits that the earliest Christians—when thinking about the divinity of Jesus—did so within the “continuum of the divine realm” mindset. This will come up in later chapters, but to illustrate what I mean Ehrman suggests that some of the first followers of Jesus, upon reflecting on the resurrection story, concluded that Jesus was an Angel of the Lord.
Divine? Yes.
Worthy of worship? You bet.
But one and the same as God the Father and Creator? Not so much.
In our modern minds, this doesn’t make sense. One is either divine or not.
But in Ancient Greco-Roman minds, divinity is a spectrum.
Now, you might want to push back and say, “Well sure, I can appreciate that ancient Greeks and Romans believed in many gods, and demi-gods, and gods having sex with humans and making half-gods, and humans believing that other humans became like gods and so on... but Jesus was Jewish, and Christianity emerged out of Judaism, so why does any of that matter?”
Fair question. And that was also my thought while reading this chapter, too.
So I’ll end with the Ehrman’s final words from Chapter 1,
“Even though Jews were distinct from the pagan world around them in thinking that only one God was to be worshiped and served, they were not distinct in their conception of the relationship of that realm to the human world we inhabit. Jews also believed that divinities could become human and humans could become divine.” (pg 45)
Oh. Alrighty then.
That’s where we’ll pick it up next week.
READ THE REST OF THE SERIES
Part 1: Did you hear the one about Jesus “becoming” God?
Part 2: We Can't Just Simply Read the Bible (Alone) and Declare It Sufficient for Comprehension
THANKS FOR ALL THE LOVE
Last week I retired my live-streaming show, The Alter. In response, you all poured out so much love and encouragement and kindness. Thank you for understanding that it was time for me to move on to other endeavors.
Speaking of other endeavors, I’ve been in the lab cooking up something I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT.
But it’s not ready to discuss publicly just yet 😁
Trust me. You’ll know when it’s time. | https://www.perspectiveshift.co/p/the-gods-us-humans-and-all-the-stops-395 |
A total of eight battles were going to be held tomorrow . Four battles of the second round of Conferred Gods Group, and four battles of the third round of Losers Group .
Although they were already mentally prepared, everyone from the Flame God Realm felt their hearts sink down upon seeing the name of Huo Poyun’s opponent in the match-up list .
Huo Poyun didn’t change the expression on his face, but his hands slowly clenched into fists .
Yan Juehai and Huo Rulie glanced at each other . They were very clear about the strength of the “Sword Sovereign’s Successor” who was also “one of the Eastern Region’s Four God Children . ” They had come into close contact with the master-disciple pair in the Snow Song Realm before arriving at the Eternal Heaven Realm . Jun Xilei was still of a young age, but the aura of the way of sword accumulated within her body made even two great Divine Sovereigns such as them feel inwardly apprehensive .
It was absolutely not possible for Huo Poyun to be her opponent .
Huo Poyun slowly nodded his head, but didn’t say anything .
Yun Che glanced sideways at Huo Poyun . He knew very well that the true pressure for Huo Poyun didn’t originate from the expectations of the Flame God Realm, but from his own .
In the second round of the Conferred Gods Group, the first battle between the God Children of the Eastern Region was finally going to take place—Luo Changsheng VS Lu Lengchuan .
The battles between the Four God Children of the Eastern Region was undoubtedly going to be the greatest showdowns between the Eastern Divine Region’s younger generation .
Yun Che was at once taken aback when he saw the match-up list of the second round of the Conferred Gods Group .
It was easy to imagine the great strength possessed by those who were still left in the Conferred Gods Group . Luo Changsheng, Jun Xilei, Shui Yingyue, and Lu Lengchuan together monopolized half of those places, and Meng Duanxi as well as Chao Feng were both at the ninth level of the Divine Spirit Realm . They all were absolute experts who had firmly occupied a place in the top ten lists in the preliminaries .
Comparatively speaking, Huo Poyun’s profound strength at the seventh level of the Divine Spirit Realm was definitely near the bottom level among the thirty-two Conferred God Candidates . So he could be called an exception for still being in the Conferred Gods Group . In the opinion of the majority, luck was the biggest reason for such a thing to happen . After all, both of his opponents so far hadn’t lost because of him showing his amazing strength, or anything of the sort . One of them, Lu Chenyuan, was caught unprepared due to his arrogant and conceited attitude, and didn’t even get the chance to display his true strength . The other was Luo Changan, whose profound strength was at the bottom level compared to the other contestants, and had entered the Conferred Gods Group without having to fight a battle . It was nothing amazing to defeat such an opponent .
On the first day of the competition, he had immediately left after conceding, and he wasn’t even present at the battle site the day before . Therefore, he knew nothing about the other fights of the Conferred God Battle . He didn’t see Shui Meiyin’s name in the match-up list of the second round of the Losers Group this day, and naturally thought that she had been eliminated… After all, although she managed to enter the group of Thirty-two Conferred God Candidates with tricks, her profound strength was only at the first level of the Divine Spirit Realm . So, it was only natural for her to be immediately eliminated in the Conferred God Battle .
He was completely unable to understand what he was seeing at this moment . Not only was she not eliminated, her name was actually in the match-up list of the second round of the Conferred Gods Group tomorrow .
“Palace Master Bingyun, how did Shui Meiyin… win in her previous battle?” Yun Che asked Mu Bingyun as he looked to her .
“…” Yun Che’s strength was far beyond the level of his profound strength, which was mainly because he possessed the unique inheritance of a Creation God; he had the heaven-defying Evil God’s Profound Veins . But what was Shui Meiyin relying on that made her so strong?
Yun Che was startled once again . Mu Bingyun clearly sounded as if she was implying that Shui Meiyin might win in the battle tomorrow, too .
“You had better pay attention to your opponent tomorrow,” Mu Bingyun said in a serious tone .
In the match-up list of the third round of Losers Group, Yun Che found his name at a glance .
Just as Yun Che raised his head, his gaze met with a malevolent one . Wu Guike was sitting at the side of Wu Sanzun, the Divine Martial Realm King . There was surprise in his eyes, but they contained even more ruthlessness . He almost lost all his standing and reputation because of helping Yun Che to “cheat,” after all .
“One hundred percent,” Yun Che immediately replied without the slightest hesitation .
Mu Bingyun revealed surprise in her eyes, before she said in warning, “Be sure to not underestimate Wu Guike . The profound art of the Divine Martial Realm is extremely hard, fierce, and domineering, which makes it difficult to execute . However, not only is Wu Guike proficient enough to easily execute it at such a young age, he has also cultivated it to a very high realm . His battle power will greatly surpass an opponent of the same level .
Following the end of the Conferred God Battle for this day, sixteen people were eliminated . Only sixteen were left out of the thirty-two Conferred God Candidates .
But, who would have thought that it would actually be Yun Che that caused the biggest sensation and attracted the most attention .
He had completely defeated Luo Changan, sixth level of the Divine Spirit Realm, with profound strength at the eighth level of the Divine Tribulation Realm . Moreover, he had ignored the enormous might of the Holy Eaves Realm as he humiliated Luo Changan a hundred times more than he himself had been, on the Conferred God Stage . Either of these two facts was enough to make everyone change the expressions on their faces, and many even had looks of shock .
Even the experts from the great star realms, including the great realm kings, didn’t dare to believe their eyes .
Yun Che obviously expected things to turn out this way, but he didn’t worry about it in the least . While his actions had caused monstrous waves and lead to countless speculations in the profound strength cultivation world of the Eastern Divine Region, he returned to his residence and sat at the side of the pond where he had quietly passed a night earlier, silently thinking things through .
It was because of the rule that no outsiders were allowed to visit or disturb the Conferred God Candidates during the Conferred God Battle period that the residences of both the Snow Song Realm and the Flame God Realm were particularly quiet . Otherwise, it was certain that a large number of people would have visited Yun Che after his performance on this day .
After every two rounds, the contestants would obtain a time wheel pearl to treat their physical injuries and recover profound strength, so long as they didn’t get eliminated .
Furthermore, given his recovery ability, which was far more extraordinary than an ordinary person’s, it would be enough for him to completely recover in a night’s time, even if he had exhausted most of his strength .
“…Then, why do you have your master’s aura on your body?” Mu Bingyun slowly closed her beautiful eyes, as she found it difficult to calm the surging thoughts and emotions in her mind .
“The medicinal power of the Universe Penta Jade Pellet was too fierce, and I was basically unable to refine it with my own energy . Therefore, it was Master who assisted me through the whole thing . ” Yun Che replied, as he felt doubtful in his heart… There was no reason for Mu Bingyun to be unaware of it .
Mu Bingyun’s heart had always been calm like still water . Her voice was mild like clouds, and as light and slow as fog . But, Yun Che actually sensed deep chilliness in her voice at this time when she spoke these words .
“…” Yun Che stood dazed in place, with a blank look on his whole face . He watched the back of Mu Bingyun who was already moving away, far into the distance at a slow pace . Afterwards, she disappeared from his sight .
Amidst the quiet surroundings, Yun Che kept looking ahead blankly for a long time . There was absolutely some deep meaning hidden within Mu Bingyun’s words… He vaguely remembered that two years ago, when Mu Xuanyin had captured him at the Illusory Sea Island and brought him back to the Snow Song Realm, Mu Bingyun seemed to have spoken in a similar tone… when he saw her upon awakening .
Yun Che again sat back at the side of the pond with his brows knitted . Very soon, he closed his eyes and started to attempt recalling the details of the refining process of the Universe Penta Jade Pellet inside the time wheel barrier .
It took quite a long time for the Universe Penta Jade Pellet to be refined completely . When he had finally opened his eyes, the time wheel barrier had still existed, but there was only a very thin layer of it left . It was evident that the barrier was on the verge of dissipating . Hence, he didn't dare delay any longer and had at once focused his mind on fusing the Ice Phoenix divine soul that the Ice Phoenix girl had given to him .
Given his special profound veins and soul, the process of the fusion of the Ice Phoenix divine soul was naturally extremely fast . The whole process had finished successfully in less than three days . But it was not that he had woken up on his own, but it was Mu Xuanyin's shout that had awakened him instead… The time wheel barrier had disappeared by the time he woke up, and the time for this day's Conferred God Battle to begin was drawing closer .
He was brought to the teleportation profound formation by Mu Xuanyin and had rushed to the Conferred God Stage at his top speed, but was still about to be late for the battle .
During this whole period, he had sometimes sealed his senses, sometimes fully concentrated his mind to cultivate, and sometimes burned with impatience . There had naturally been no time for him to carefully think about things until now .
But at this time, he finally recalled the memories of him refining the Universe Penta Jade Pellet as he was feeling doubt . He at once sensed something odd just after thinking a bit about the refining process .
Yun Che stood up all of a sudden as if his body had come into contact with electricity . He stared blankly ahead for a long while, and his brain was in mess .
Chapter 1181 - As if Awakening from a Startling Dream.
The successor of the Sword Sovereign, one of the Eastern Region’s Four God Children, Jun Xilei!!.
The atmosphere remained tense for a short while, after which Huo Rulie relaxed his brows . He heavily patted Huo Poyun’s shoulder as he said smilingly, “Yun’er, you just have to give it your best in the battle tomorrow . It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose . You have already surpassed my expectations by a hundred, no, a thousand times by being able to come this far, and have also won unprecedented glory for our Flame God Realm . Therefore, you don’t need to feel pressure any longer . ”.
[Note: Should be the “second” round as mentioned above, not the “third” round . It seems to be a mistake made by the author . ].
She’s actually… still not eliminated? Moreover, she is in the Conferred Gods Group!?.
But why was Shui Meiyin… still in the Conferred Gods Group?.
Among the eight people of the Conferred Gods Group, four were at the tenth level of the Divine Spirit Realm, and two were at the ninth level of the Divine Spirit Realm . Huo Poyun was already considered an exception, so for someone like Shui Meiyin to be there with her profound strength of the first level of Divine Spirit Realm was simply….
Was there something really fishy going on?.
Mu Bingyun replied, “Shui Meiyin indeed relied on her strength to remain in the Conferred Gods Group . Although her profound strength is only in the early stages of the Divine Spirit Realm, her strength cannot be measured according to normal conventions… the same as in your case . ”.
“…” Yun Che’s strength was far beyond the level of his profound strength, which was mainly because he possessed the unique inheritance of a Creation God; he had the heaven-defying Evil God’s Profound Veins . But what was Shui Meiyin relying on that made her so strong?.
“As for how she fought her opponent… You will be able to see it for yourself in the battle tomorrow . ”.
She would win against Meng Duanxi, who was at the ninth level of the Divine Spirit Realm?.
Battle 1: Divine Martial Realm 【Wu Guike】（Eighth level of the Divine Spirit Realm）VS Snow Song Realm【Yun Che】（Eighth level of the Divine Tribulation Realm）.
Other than surprise and ruthlessness, there was some fear within them too… Yun Che had two great blackmailing items with him!.
Yun Che shifted his gaze away, and said in a low tone, “We’re truly fated, huh . ”.
Mu Bingyun found no trace of seriousness on Yun Che’s face . She asked in a low tone of voice, “How confident are you in obtaining victory against an opponent of Wu Guike’s level?”.
“The reason he has fallen into the Losers Group is due to him getting beaten by none other than Luo Changsheng . ”.
“Yun Che . ” Mu Bingyun soundlessly walked over to him . She spread open her palm in front of Yun Che, “This is your Time Wheel Pearl that was distributed yesterday . ”.
Yun Che said as he took it, “Thank you, Palace Master Bingyun . ”.
Mu Bingyun retracted her snow white hand, “Are you not planning to use this Time Wheel Pearl to adjust your condition? Your opponent tomorrow will absolutely be much stronger than Luo Changan . ”.
“No need,” Yun Che said with a faint smile . “I hardly exhausted my strength while fighting Luo Changan . ”.
Mu Bingyun’s gaze showed a slight surprise at his reply . After hesitating for a brief moment, she asked once again, “Can you give me approximate estimation of your current strength?”.
Yun Che shook his head slightly, “I don’t know . Once I witness the four battles of the Conferred Gods Group tomorrow, I will have a rough idea about it . However, it should not be too difficult to win against Wu Guike . ”.
What Mu Bingyun felt from Yun Che wasn’t arrogance due to the great increase in his strength and thoroughly defeating Luo Changan . It was an unshakable confidence that he harbored in his heart . However, seeing him so calm and confident actually caused the look in Mu Bingyun’s eyes to grow complicated . She shifted her gaze away and suddenly asked in a faint voice, “Yun Che, it seems that you are really not clear about the one that gave you the strength you possess right now . ”.
Yun Che was startled . He said in puzzlement, “Umm… My profound strength greatly increased because of the medicinal power of the Universe Penta Jade Pellet that I had refined inside the time wheel barrier . What is Palace Master Bingyun trying to say?”.
“…So you mean to say that you had sealed your external senses during the refining process of the Universe Penta Jade Pellet?”.
Yun Che nodded his head, the medicinal power of that Universe Penta Jade Pellet was several times fiercer than I had expected it to be, so I didn’t dare to let myself be distracted by external influence . Furthermore, I was still surrounded by perils despite trying to be so careful . If it was not for Master guiding her energy into my body to help me refine the medicinal power, my life would have very likely been in danger . ”.
“Guiding her energy… into your body?”.
Mu Bingyun’s chest heaved heavily . She let out a very light sigh and turned away, “The Universe Penta Jade Pellet can certainly boost the cultivation of a profound practitioner by a great extent before they reach the Divine Tribulation, but in your case, you had already entered the Divine Tribulation Realm . Do you truly believe that just by relying on a Universe Penta Jade Pellet, you could raise your cultivation from the early stages of the Divine Tribulation Realm up to its late stages? Besides… your profound veins are very abnormal compared to ordinary people, and hence would require much greater energy to raise your cultivation compared to others . ”.
“…” Yun Che slowly stood up, but he could only see the back of Mu Bingyun, “Although there is one other reason behind the increase in my profound strength, the medicinal power of the Universe Penta Jade Pellet was indeed a bit extraordinary . Palace Master Bingyun, do you mean that… Master executed some other secret method on me while helping me to refine the medicinal power?”.
Mu Bingyun didn’t reply, and instead said lightly, “If she hasn’t told you anything, it shows that she doesn’t want you to know about it… or anyone else for that matter . Therefore, you don’t need to inquire any further . Don’t ask your master about it, either . ”.
“You only need to remember one thing . ” Mu Bingyun’s voice became faintly chilly all of a sudden . “I owe you a great favor for saving me, so it is natural for me to help you in various ways . But… your master doesn’t owe you anything . She has assisted you in so many ways because she wants to be good to you . Don’t you ever… do anything… that would let her down . ”.
What exactly was the meaning of her words?.
The aura that had surged every time the medicinal power went out of control….
It was clearly an external aura but it could perfectly fuse with his own… Later, whenever it appeared, it would be slightly weaker than the previous time… The most important point was that the moment it appeared within him, he immediately found it familiar for some reason….
Yun Che suddenly thought back to the time in the God Burying Inferno Prison . Inside the Primordial Profound Ark, he had to commit an immoral act so as to not let Mu Xuanyin be hurt by the blood of the horned dragon in her severely injured state . He had violated her ten-odd times… The aura that had flowed in reverse up to his body on its own every time he raped her, and caused his profound strength to breakthrough from the Divine Origin Realm to the Divine Soul Realm….
How could… How could Master…?. | https://www.readlightnovel.org/against-the-gods/chapter-1181 |
Slavic Mythology – which is almost a internet celebrity when it comes to his images of Slavic history with motives of our mythology.
God Veles. Veles is a major Slavic supernatural force of earth, waters and the underworld, associated with dragons, cattle, magic, musicians, ...
Belobog is the Slavic god of Light and Hope. His name literally means "White God". He is usually depicted as an old man dressed in white, with a long white ...
In Slavic mythology, Perun (Cyrillic: Перун) is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning.
Perun: Seen as the highest god in the pantheon, god of thunder and lightning. Perun is another deity that I work with often. Associated with mountains, wind ...
Hierarchy of the divine, with the two categories proceeding from the supreme God, as illustrated by Georg F. Creuzer and Franz J. Mone. Baltic Slavs
Slavic gods thunder into the the ranks of ancient mythology coins with the Mint of Poland's own series
Duch Gór (The Mountain Spirit), also Karkonosz, Liczyrzepa - he is the legendary lord of Karkonosze mountains, he is responsible for the weather and ...
Svarog- a slavic god, who is credited with a relationship with the heaven, sun and the fire and also the blacksmithing. He's the only deity, whose existence ...
In addition to Chernobog, Hi-Rez has begun a new event called Divine Uprising. The event is pantheon-focused due to the launch of the new Slavic pantheon, ...
Veles, Perun and Svarog are featured as characters in the Croatian developed video game "Lords of Dawn". The previously mentioned first Croatian and Slavic ...
Four Headed God Svetovid - Svetovid is the Slavic god of war, fertility and abundance. He is four-headed war god. Svetovid's four heads stand for the four ...
He is one of the most important gods in the Slavic pantheon. “Svarga” in Sanskrit - is the sky, the firmament, “Var” - is fire or ...
One of the main slavic deity, often acting as a head of other gods (like Zeus or Odin, unfortunately, slavic gods aren't as well known).
... my own relationships with the gods. I thought I would share some of my experiences and what I've learned. I hope you might be able to find this helpful! | http://picpoci.pw/slavic-gods.html |
The Continent Zone returned to normal. Zhao Feng’s deeds were soon spread throughout the zone and were widely talked about. Even children only a few years old now knew his name. He wasn’t merely the strongest expert of the Continent Zone, but also its savior!
As for the pseudo-four-star Grand Imperial Hall, it gradually returned control of the Great Gan Dynasty back to the Hall of Gods.
The existence of Zhao Feng made the Hall of Gods a holy ground for the Great Gan Dynasty – for all of the Continent Zone. Every day, numerous factions would come to pay their respects, and numerous top-class experts would desire a meeting with Zhao Feng.
Within the Spacetime Robe, Zhao Feng was focused on cultivating and ignored all this. Now that he had finally comprehended a sliver of a Space Law, he seized the moment to further deepen his understanding.
After spending six years in the Spacetime Robe, Zhao Feng ended his seclusion. He indeed furthered his understanding of the Space Law.
Besides comprehending the Law, Zhao Feng had also strengthened his other Intents. He had brought his Time Intent to Level Nine and his other Intents to around Level Eight.
“Even if I don’t use the power of the God Eye, I can still defeat a First Heaven God Lord!” Zhao Feng was rather delighted.
The improvement to his Intents and his comprehension of the Space Law had made his Chaos Origin Divine Power so powerful that even the Divine Power of a top-class First Heaven God Lord was inferior.
After ending his seclusion, Zhao Feng went to another part of the Spacetime Robe Dimension. There were nine people, either cross-legged in meditation or cultivating combat skills.
These were the people he had chosen for his Demigod plan.
Supreme Emperor Dark Night was already a Demigod at this time. Three more were at the Sacred King level and needed some more time to become a Demigod.
Besides that, the four Emperors had now reached the Sacred Lord level.
These people were rising very quickly in terms of cultivation, and they were also very strong among cultivators of the same level. This was because the resources they consumed had all been carefully selected by Zhao Feng from the Heaven’s Legacy city. In addition, they could also seek instruction from the Black Destruction Dragon or one of Zhao Feng’s clones.
“The Demigod plan is nearing completion. It’s about time for me to leave!” Zhao Feng left the Spacetime Robe and regarded the vast world before him.
“But how do I even get back to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods?” Zhao Feng suddenly thought of a problem. He had fallen asleep to return to the Continent Zone, so how would he get back?
Although the people from outer dimensions could create a path to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods, that chance only came once. Once one had completely merged with the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods, they would be considered as a person of that realm. Returning to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods would have to be done through another method.
When major factions sent people to outer dimensions, they would need to expend vast sums to open a passage. When these people wanted to go back, they needed their faction in the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods to open a new passage.
But Zhao Feng had inexplicably found his way to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods, and he had no means of contacting the Spiritual Race back in the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods. This also meant that the most common method was implausible for him.
If he wanted to get back to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods, Zhao Feng would have to rely on himself.
“Now that I’ve comprehended the Space Law, I might be able to open a passage on my own!” Zhao Feng suddenly had an idea.
But after making several attempts, he realized that this was extremely unsafe. The Continent Zone could not endure this power, and if the passage broke midway, Zhao Feng would suffer a backlash of Space energy. Besides that, the spatial passage would need to cover a vast distance, and since Zhao Feng had no experience in this aspect, a problem was liable to occur.
“Will I have to just fly to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods?” Zhao Feng became rather depressed.
He had no idea how vast this distance was or how long it would take to traverse. Moreover, he had heard that “primal chaos rapids” existed between the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods and the outer dimensions. These were so dangerous that even God Lords had an extremely high chance of dying if they carelessly tried to venture into them.
In short, there were only two methods: creating his own path or flying over. However, both of these methods were extremely dangerous.
“Ah, it would be great if I could just go back by going to sleep.” Zhao Feng sighed.
Suddenly, his eyes flashed. Perhaps it really was possible. After all, Zhao Feng fell asleep to return to the Continent Zone in the first place.
The God Eye was in the middle of evolving at the time. Thus, Zhao Feng conjectured that the Dream God Eye was connected to his ability to return. In other words, the Dream God Eye had some sort of ability that could send him back to the Continent Zone.
With this idea in mind, Zhao Feng gave up on the previous two methods and began to explore a third option.
But in researching this ability, Zhao Feng could think of only two crucial points: sleeping and dreaming. Although this was rather unreliable, these were the only things Zhao Feng could work on.
He returned to the Spacetime Robe Dimension, seated himself cross-legged on the ground, and began to sleep.
Cultivators could easily fall asleep and maintain a pseudo-sleeping state. Pseudo-sleeping referred to how one was still able to maintain some consciousness while sleeping, allowing one to watch out for any danger.
Zhao Feng quickly managed to fall asleep. When he didn’t notice anything strange, Zhao Feng immediately mobilized his Origin energy.
A series of images began to appear in Zhao Feng’s mind, all of them covered in a dazzling dreamy light. The contents of these images were all thoughts that were going through Zhao Feng’s mind.
When Zhao Feng thought of the Azure Flower Continent, a place in the Azure Flower Continent would appear before him, and when he thought of the Spiritual Race, the landscape of the Spiritual Race would appear.
These scenes were all incredibly real, just like the scenes in the Dream Dimension. This meant that, as long as he fell asleep, he could easily create all kinds of Dream Dimensions.
At this moment, Zhao Feng could even use Intrusive Dream and pull others into his dream. If he killed an enemy in his dream, they would die in reality.
But now was not the time to research Intrusive Dream. Rather, he needed to research a method to get back to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods.
“I remember that, back then, I was dreaming about returning to the Sky Sacred Qin Palace in the Continent Zone, and then I appeared there!”
Zhao Feng suddenly understood that it was all based on the intense thoughts in his mind. This was very similar to his Realization and Dreamification abilities and used his Thought power.
“Azure Flower Continent, Broken Moon Clan!” In order to prevent any mishaps, Zhao Feng used another place in the Continent Zone for an experiment.
Zhao Feng began to think about the Broken Moon Clan, its buildings and its scenery. Gradually, a dreamy Broken Moon Clan appeared in his Dream Dimension, appearing extremely lifelike.
Zhao Feng then began to think about a strong desire to go to the Broken Moon Clan.
Swish!
The cross-legged form of Zhao Feng in the Spacetime Robe disappeared Whoosh!
Suddenly, Zhao Feng felt a swelling pain in his head, which jolted him out of his dream.
In a flash, Zhao Feng was stunned and surprised. The landscape before him was clearly that of the Broken Moon Clan.
“I really went to the Broken Moon Clan?” Zhao Feng’s mouth was agape. He just wanted to try it out, never thinking that he would succeed.
By just sleeping, he really had gone to the Broken Moon Clan. This ability was truly absurd and incomprehensible.
“What’s going on?” Several disciples in the Broken Moon Clan realized that the weather had suddenly become rather strange and eerie.
Bzzzz!
Zhao Feng vanished into the void.
“If all this is real, then I can safely return to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods!” Zhao Feng was extremely excited as he left the Broken Moon Clan.
He went to a deserted area and fell asleep. This ability was too powerful, and Zhao Feng found it rather difficult to believe, so he needed to try a few more times.
The second time he went to sleep, Zhao Feng consumed some Origin energy but failed. It was only on his fifth attempt that he was able to return to the Hall of Gods.
Only then was Zhao Feng sure that this ability was real. He called it Thought Teleportation. If he thought of a place, he could go there.
But this ability was not stable.
Zhao Feng spent the following days continuing his research on Thought Teleportation. In his tests, there were even situations where he went off course. When he was clearly thinking about the Broken Moon Clan, he would end up in a place very far away from it.
But as he made more and more tests and gained a better understanding of the ability, his success rate increased. He could now reach his target eight out of ten times.
In addition, Zhao Feng realized that, if the area he was thinking had undergone a large transformation, the teleportation would fail. For example, Zhao Feng wanted to go to the Great Gan Imperial Palace, but the palace had been rebuilt after the war and was very different from how Zhao Feng remembered it. In this situation, Thought Teleportation was bound to fail.
Three years later, in the Spacetime Robe, all four former Sacred Lords had become Demigods. Together with Supreme Emperor Dark Night, there were five Demigods in total. With this, the Demigod plan was complete.
When five Demigods appeared in the Hall of Gods, the entire Continent Zone was stunned. In just a few years, five Demigods had appeared in the Hall of Gods? Everyone knew without even thinking that this had to do with Zhao Feng.
With these five Demigods, the Hall of Gods became the number one faction of the Continent Zone in both name and reality!
“I am giving these things to you to distribute.” Zhao Feng took out an interspatial dimension and handed it to Bi Qingyue.
There were resources useful from the Sacred Lord level to the Demigod level, all of which he had exchanged for in the Heaven’s Legacy city within the Imperial Tombs.
Bi Qingyue’s abilities had long ago obtained Zhao Feng’s acknowledgment. He trusted that Bi Qingyue would able to distribute these resources well without any specific orders from him.
“Master, are you going to leave?” Bi Qingyue had some understanding of Zhao Feng and could guess at a little.
“Mm. If you are able to enter the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods in the future, you can come and find me.” Zhao Feng nodded.
At the same time, he told Bi Qingyue and the five Demigods that if they were to enter the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods, they should do their utmost to go to either the Gulong Zone or the Ziling Zone.
People from outer dimensions would usually end up on the perimeter of the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods. There was a higher chance of them reaching the Gulong Zone. He could entrust the Blazing Fire Golden Sheep Race to take care of the people from the Continent Zone.
If they didn’t end up near the Gulong Zone, they could head to the Ziling Zone.
After doing all this, Zhao Feng silently left the Hall of Gods.
After finding a deserted area, Zhao Feng lay down and fell asleep.
“It will definitely work!” Zhao Feng was rather nervous.
After all, he had only been using Thought Teleportation to travel around the Continent Zone. He still wasn’t sure if he could go from the Continent Zone to the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods.
“The Ziling Zone is in the center of the Ancient Desolate Realm of Gods, so I’ll try for the Gulong Zone on the edge.” Zhao Feng gradually fell asleep. Dreamy light shimmered in his mind as a set of images gradually took form.
Considering that the Blazing Fire Golden Sheep Race might have changed, Zhao Feng placed his target as the Exchange Spiritual Hall from back then.
“Blue Ocean Bay, Exchange Spiritual Hall!” This thought emerged in his mind.
Suddenly, Zhao Feng vanished like a popping bubble. | https://stories.waploaded.com/story/498538/king-of-gods-s01-e1455 |
How the Norse gods created through destruction
The story of the creation of life in Norse mythology is a story of fire, ice, and darkness. That story took place before any human had taken his first breath. Before the worlds were created. Even before the Norse gods came into being.
A world of ice and fire
At the center of the universe was Ginnungagap, a dark abyss of nothingness. It was just a black hole that was filled with emptiness. And yet, it was in this place that life would start.
South of Ginnungagap was Muspelheim, the realm of fire. This was a place filled with fire and lava, burning and melting away at anything that came to be. It was inhabited by a tribe of fire giants, who were called the “Sons of Muspelheim”. Their leader was the fire giant Surtr, who would stand still amongst the fields of fire, as a mortal would stand in a field filled with daisies. The sons of Muspelheim would wait for the future to unfold. Their destiny was to destroy the world that was soon going to be created. Sounds like a cozy place right?
Potentially even worse than Muspelheim was Niflheim, which was to the north of Ginnungagap. It was the realm of mist and ice (the name means “home to the mist”). Where Muspelheim had fire giants, Niflheim was completely void of any life. It was home to eleven poisonous rivers, all coming from a single source: a giant maelstrom called Hvergelmir. Close to the maelstrom, the rivers would flow strongly. Yet, the biting cold was so extreme that even the rivers themselves would turn to ice further down the stream. The huge blocks of ice that were transported by the stream would result in an ever-growing expansion of Niflheim.
Filling the void
So an ever-expanding realm of ice and mist to the north and an ever-raging realm of fire to the south. A dark abyss in the middle of it suddenly does not sound so bad anymore. As both Niflheim and Muspelheim were steadily growing larger at an extremely slow pace, the fire of Muspelheim would slowly start melting the blocks of ice at the edge of Niflheim. The melting water that resulted from this would flow into Ginnungagap.
We often see that water is seen as a natural basis of life. Norse mythology is no exception to this rule, as from this melting water the first two living creatures of Ginnungagap would emerge: Ymir and Audhumbla. Ymir was a magnificent creature, the first giant to roam the abyss. He really was a giant, filling almost all of Ginnungagap. The second creature was almost as magnificent: Audhumbla was a primordial cow. She would lick the blocks of ice to feed herself, and in turn, Ymir was nourished by the milk that she produced. All was well.
Go forth and multiply
Ymir was not just any giant. He possessed the ability to produce children without a wife. The sweat droplets that formed in his armpits and knee cavities during his sleep would form his Jotun children. This seems plausible, as Ymir himself came into existence from droplets as well. In case you find this hard to believe, do note that the child that was formed from his knee cavity was a six-headed son. Imagine waking to the sound of his wails, in sixfold.
The children of Ymir started to produce more baby giants. Meanwhile, Audhumbla kept on licking the blocks of ice. And by doing so, she uncovered another primordial giant who was buried deep within the ice. This was Búri.
This is where things started moving fast. The realm started to become a little bit crowded, but this did not stop Búri to take on another giantess as his lover. Together, they produced another son, called Bor. And Bor took on another giantess (Bestla) as a lover and produced three sons: Odin, Vili, and Vé.
Do not wake a sleeping giant
Odin, Vili, and Vé looked at the world around them and observed how little space there was left. The three brothers had ambitions to rule, and so they decided that they would have to get rid of Ymir. That would give them the space to create the worlds as they imagined them. So they waited for Ymir to fall asleep. They figured that even primordial giants do not stand a chance of survival when you stab them in their sleep. They were right.
We will come to learn at a later stage that Odin was a crafty trickster, so what follows might have been part of his plan all along. When the brothers killed Ymir, blood gushed out of his wound with such ferocity that it flooded the realm. All giants drowned in the process. So by killing Ymir, the brothers had committed mass genocide amongst the jötnar race. Quite pleased with themselves, the three brothers appointed themselves to be gods.
Never waste a dead giant
After all the killing, the brothers decided that it was indeed time to start creating the realms. And so they did what Scandinavians do best: they recycled everything. They cut up Ymir’s body in bits and pieces and used his parts to create the different aspects of the world. His flesh was used to create the earth and his bones were used to create the mountains. They used his blood to create the oceans, lakes, streams, and rivers. His teeth and bone splinters were used to create rocks and pebbles. All trees and plants were created from his hair. His skull was used to create the heavens. The clouds that float around in it are Ymir’s brains, while the stars are fire sparks from Muspelheim. And us humans? We live in a world called Midgard, which is fashioned from Ymir’s eyelashes.
Turns out two giants survived the flood, Bergelmir and his giantess wife. The gods decided to fashion a world for them to live in and called it Jötunheim. These two giants would live out their days in that realm in a special place called Útgard. They would populate that world, becoming the forefathers of all giants.
The origins of dwarfs
Creating the universe from a dead guy’s body might seem challenging enough already. Yet when Odin and his brothers were finished, they noticed that the body started rotting. As the decomposition process kicked in, several maggots started wriggling out of Ymir’s body. The gods gave these maggots intelligence, hereby turning them into the first dwarfs: Norðri, Austri, Suðri, and Vestri. The gods tasked them with holding up the rotting body of Ymir so that the universe would not collapse. Each of the dwarves was given a wind direction (north, east, south, and west).
And so it was that the universe came to be. This is the story of how the Norse gods created through destruction. The story of how they created life through murder and mass genocide. And frankly, this was only the start. | https://mythsandsagas.com/2020/10/26/how-the-norse-gods-created-through-destruction/ |
Whats zeus roman name
In the table below is a list of the Greek Gods and Heroes and their Roman equivalents: Greek Name, Roman Name, Role. Zeus · Jupiter, King of the Gods. The Greek mythology names and the Roman mythology names of each culture Like the Christian god, Jehovah, Zeus/Jupiter was considered the all-mighty. Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter. .. When Rhea realized what was going on, she quickly saved their youngest child, Zeus. Having escaped, Zeus was spared because of the.
Greek god, Relationship, Role, Attribute, Roman Counterpart. Zeus Jupiter. Hera, wife and sister of Zeus, Queen and mother of gods; women, marriage, . What had been cyclical with the Great Goddess becomes cut so that instead of being. A list of the Greek gods and their equivalent names in Roman mythology. Zeus (Roman name: Jupiter). The most powerful of all, Zeus was god of the sky and the king of Olympus. His temper affected the weather, and he threw.
Get information on Greek and Roman mythology, including names of gods and goddesses Aeacus: One of three judges of dead in Hades; son of Zeus. .. Zeus (Jupiter): Chief of Olympian gods; son of Cronus and Rhea; husband of Hera. Zeus, Jupiter (Roman Name). Realm of Power: he is king of the gods and king of mankind. God of sky, heavens, thunder and rain. Symbol(s) of Authority. This is a list of the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. Roman Mythology uses different names, calling Zeus by the name of Jupiter, and Aphrodite by the. Zeus was the king of the ancient Greek gods, and the god of the sky, weather, law and order, destiny and fate. He was depicted as His Roman name was Jupiter. | https://tilsuppnidi.tk/sport/whats-zeus-roman-name.php |
A prerequisite for the mechanistic understanding of how nervous systems orchestrate behavior is a phenomenological description of those behaviors, in terms of the relevant features of the external stimuli and the animal's internal state. This is particularly challenging in experiments where the animal experiences very rich stimuli and generates complex behaviors, as opposed to experiments where the stimulus and measured responses are highly constrained. Here we describe a new approach that models turn-making decision process of the fruit fly Drosophila using machine learning techniques applied to a large dataset of free-flight 3D movement trajectories through a large environment. Our technique reduces the dimensionality of a complex visual input stream to a single variable that best predicts the decision to turn and successfully much of the structure in turn statistics in the tested environment. This analysis places bounds on the relative importance of various factors contributing to the fly behavior. In particular, the statistics of searching behaviors have alternately been attributed as either reactions to exogenous stimuli or as the direct behavioral manifestation of an intrinsic stochastic source with statistical properties matched to the search task. Our analysis suggests that flies will predominantly use such sensory cues to guide search rather than relying predominantly on an endogenous stochastic source as an important behavioral mechanism. We argue that a similar relationship is likely to be found for any searching organism endowed with sensory abilities. | http://sicb.org/meetings/2012/schedule/abstractdetails.php?id=1483 |
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Batel Buaron, Daniel Reznik, Roee Gilron, Roy Mukamel; Lateralized modulation of self-generated visual stimuli. Journal of Vision 2018;18(10):424. doi: 10.1167/18.10.424.
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Sensory stimuli triggered by voluntary action are perceived differently and evoke differential neural activity in sensory regions, relative to identical stimuli triggered by an external source. Such modulations are suggested to occur through corollary discharges sent from the motor system to sensory regions prior to re-afferent stimulus arrival. Given the strong laterality of the motor system, it is plausible that the magnitude of such sensory modulation will also exhibit a laterality effect, depending on the stimulus-triggering hand (right/left). In the auditory domain, we have recently provided evidence in support of such a mechanism. The aim of the current study was to further probe this model in the visual domain. In a behavioral study, 24 subjects judged the relative brightness of self-generated visual stimuli to identical stimuli triggered by the computer. Self-generated stimuli were triggered using either right or left hand and presented either in right or left visual field. Some subjects reported experiencing the self-generated stimuli as brighter and others as darker relative to the externally generated visual stimuli. However, examining the absolute modulation magnitude (proportion of trials) demonstrates that it depended on the relation between stimulus-triggering hand and stimulated visual field. In the left visual field, perception of stimuli triggered with the left hand was more strongly modulated than perception of stimuli triggered with the right hand. In the right visual field, no such effect was found. We further probed this issue using fMRI. Preliminary results from 10 subjects show differential neural response in both visual cortices for identical visual stimuli, depending on the triggering hand. Our findings support the model predicting lateralized modulation of sensory regions, consistent with the known laterality of the motor cortices. | https://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2699416 |
This learned response that she developed to the sound of a refrigerator door is referred to in psychology as classical conditioning. This process is known as generalization. Theclassic example is with Pavlov's dogs. There is no such thing as unconditional love. She squints because of the bright light, which is the unconditioned stimulus. In classical conditioning, this happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Conditioned Stimulus Defined Jenny drives the same route to work every day.
Yet, it is not unheard of on earth. It is corresponding to the conditions we live in. The model predicts a number of important phenomena, but it also fails in important ways, thus leading to a number of modifications and alternative models. The stimuli triggered the dogs to drool, as they knew they were going to be fed. In this example, the insult is the unconditioned stimulus. However, there are limits to this chain reaction. In operant conditioning, behavior is modified by rewarding or punishing it after it is performed.
I never had to train her to enjoy carrots. Take a dog for example. The phototactic stimulus is the light itself regardless of whether the organism moves towards or away from it. So after a few weeks of my guinea pig living in my apartment, I discovered that I couldn't surprise her any more with a carrot because as soon as she heard the sound of the refrigerator door being pried open, she was already acting excited, even before I gave her a carrot. And remember, classical conditioning is a type of learning. These results suggest that conditioning techniques might help to increase fertility rates in infertile individuals and endangered species.
In general, cues can both prompt us towards or stop us from engaging in a certain course of action. You jump because the sound startled you. For Example, you could use a torch if you aredoing a scene of a play when you have to search for something orsomeone in the dark. Now, as an adult, he feels upset whenever he sees a ruler. What is an Unconditioned Stimulus? I also noticed that when I would open the refrigerator to make a snack for myself, she'd respond to the sound of the door by acting excited, even if she wasn't going to get a carrot. Rewards, like a dog treat, would not be sufficient for operant conditioning if they did not inherently please the dog.
For government spending as stimulus: see fiscal policy. So that's the idea behind classical conditioning. This method has also been used to study timing ability in animals see. So I'm going to write S for stimulus. Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology.
Test sessions now show that the rat presses the lever faster in the presence of the sound than in silence, although the sound has never been associated with lever pressing. Eventually they would salivat … e at the sound of thebell alone. This paper reviews one of the experimental paradigms used to study the effects of cues, the Pavlovian to Instrumental Transfer paradigm. This is a signature feature of incentive salience. Little Albert was shown a white rat, and he had no reaction to it.
With the exciting and positive environment of a game show, the viewer may then start to generate an exciting response to the advertisement because of the association with the environment. Lesson Summary In classical conditioning, a conditioned stimulus is something that elicits a reaction because it is associated with something else. In this respect, no new behavior has been learned yet. Once a sensory stimulus is witnessed astimulus from one of the 5 senses , the cell hits an actionpotential, and the response is carried out. Easier way of saying: thirst and hunger are internal and something hitting you is external.
Examples of aneutral stimulus is a song, an animal, or a flower. In particular, they look at all the stimuli that are present during testing and at how the associations acquired by these stimuli may interact. Such models make contact with a current explosion of research on , and. This is sometimes the case with caffeine; habitual coffee drinkers may find that the smell of coffee gives them a feeling of alertness. Jane experiences these feelings because she was conditioned to react to the brand; the brand is a conditioned stimulus. | http://congressoanbimadefundos.com.br/the-unconditioned-stimulus.html |
The UK Government has announced plans to commence a research programme comprising of 15 new studies to develop new therapies for long Covid and enhance diagnosis.
As per the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance, long Covid is a condition in which signs and symptoms continue or develop after acute Covid-19.
The UK Government will provide funds worth $27.54m (£19.6m) through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to aid researchers to assess long Covid in people with long-term effects.
According to data from NIHR studies reported last month, up to one in three individuals who had Covid-19 report long Covid symptoms.
The new programme will focus on understanding long Covid, assessing the efficacy of various care services and developing effective therapies such as drugs, rehabilitation and recovery to treat chronic symptoms.
In addition, the studies aim to detect and understand the effect of specific long Covid symptoms, including breathlessness, brain fog and a person’s decreased ability to exercise.
UK Health and Social Care secretary Sajid Javid said: “This new research is absolutely essential to improve diagnosis and treatments and will be life-changing for those who are battling long-term symptoms of the virus.”
“It will build on our existing support with over 80 long Covid assessment services open across England as part of a £100m expansion of care for those suffering from the condition and over £50m invested in research to better understand the lasting effects of this condition.”
As part of the programme, the STIMULATE-ICP trial with £6.8m funds will enrol more than 4,500 subjects at University College London.
Said to be the largest long Covid study, STIMULATE-ICP will assess the efficacy of presently used therapies for treating the condition while MRI scans will be analysed for detecting potential organ damage.
Meanwhile, Cardiff University will study the immunologic and virologic determinants of the condition using approximately £800,000 funds.
ReDIRECT trial at the University of Glasgow with nearly £1m funds will analyse if a weight management programme can mitigate disease symptoms in obese patients.
With £3.4m, the University of Leeds will conduct LOCOMOTION trial to detect efficient care that could be used as a gold standard in the UK.
Another project, EXPLAIN, will be carried out at the University of Oxford using £1.8m funds to diagnose ongoing breathlessness in outpatients with Covid-19.
This study will use hyperpolarised xenon MRI to detect airway damage in the lungs or in regions where oxygen enters the bloodstream. | https://www.worldpharmatoday.com/news/uk-to-launch-research-studies-to-develop-long-covid-therapies/ |
Our mission is to improve the lives of the world’s one billion adult smokers by eliminating cigarettes
As a leading developer of products intended to eliminate combusted cigarettes, JUUL Labs recognizes the health risks associated with smoking. Over the years, our scientists have performed rigorous testing and a thorough investigation of cigarette alternatives to improve the lives of the one billion smokers worldwide. Our goal is to better understand the effects and impact vaping products have in the long term, while also discouraging new users, and to share those results with the scientific community. The research conducted by JUUL Labs and the independent research it supports are intended to accelerate our mission to eliminate combusted cigarettes globally.
We’re dedicated to producing research that is relevant to the public health community. JUUL Labs has a global network of research facilities that allow us to conduct studies that are geographically unique and specifically relevant to worldwide consumers and regulators. International policies, public health experts, and conferences all influence our studies and help uncover useful information around cigarette alternatives.
If you have questions or would like to contact us, please email [email protected]. | https://jliscience.com/about-us |
Throughout Chiropractic’s history, the profession has conducted clinical research despite limited funding. Chiropractic does not use implantable medical devices or pharmaceutical drugs, so it has not received research funding from device or pharmaceutical companies, unlike conventional medicine. Most chiropractic colleges have self-funded their research programs with support from chiropractic foundations.
Federal support for chiropractic research began in 1992 with the establishment of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health.
The majority of clinical research in chiropractic has focused on its effectiveness in caring for spine-related injuries and complications from spinal stress. These studies have focused on the most common complaints treated in chiropractic offices: low back pain, neck pain and headaches, and peripheral nerve problems. The studies usually compare a typical chiropractic regimen with commonly utilized pharmaceuticals, or combinations of therapies. Any lasting effects of treatment are measured over time.
The major studies have found clinical benefit to the participants from chiropractic treatment, some showing superiority of short and long-term effects.
Here are three examples of analyses of pools of research:
- Bronfort, G., Haas, M., Evans, R., Kawchuk, G., Dagenais, S. (2008). Evidence-informed management of chronic low back pain with spinal manipulation and mobilization. Spine Journal, 8(1), 213-225.
- Bronfort, G., Nilsson, N., Haas, M., Evans, R., Goldsmith, C.H., Assendelft, W.J.J. & Bouter, L.M. (2004). Non-invasive physical treatments for chronic/recurrent headache. The Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews.
- Gross, A.R., Hoving, J.L., Haines, T.A., Goldsmith, C.H., Kay, T., Aker, P., Bronfort, G. (2004). Manipulation and mobilization for mechanical neck disorders. The Cochrane Database of Systemic Review.
What about studies on the preventive effects of chiropractic?
It is far easier to study chiropractic as a treatment than as an approach to wellness. When a patient has a specific complaint that can be measured by level of pain or certain limitations, different interventions can be compared in their ability to affect changes. But how does one measure wellness?
This is one of the elusive issues in research. What should the measures be and how does one control for the confounding effects of daily living? The currently accepted standard of sound clinical research is the randomized controlled trial, but in order to study wellness, other approaches will need to be devised and validated. Because of these issues, there is little research on the preventive effects of chiropractic.
Where can I get more information about research?
To find studies on the use of chiropractic and other alternative approaches, such as acupuncture for specific conditions, go to PubMed and conduct a search, using both the word chiropractic and the name of the condition. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine supports a CAM search engine for PubMed publications.
ClinicalTrials.gov, the National Institutes of Health website devoted to current clinical trials, lists several chiropractic trials that are currently recruiting patients for major studies. | https://www.drrepole.com/services---health-solutions/chiropractic/what-does-the-research-say.html |
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Should you have a genuine medical emergency and require a doctor urgently Monday - Friday before 8.00 am or after 6.30 pm or at anytime over the weekend or bank holidays, please telephone the out of hours emergency number which is 111.
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Sen. Warren Questions Trump Administration’s Efforts To Understand & Inform Americans About COVID-19
The following is a media release from Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office. She was elected by voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to serve the state in Washington DC in the US Senate. She is a Democrat.
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WASHINGTON DC – United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Special Committee on Aging, sent a letter with her Senate HELP Committee colleagues Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) to Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the Trump Administration’s Coronavirus Task Force, requesting information on what the administration is doing to identify, address, and communicate with policymakers and the public about the chronic health effects of COVID-19.
In the letter, the senators raise questions and requests clarification from Vice President Pence on what administration officials are doing to monitor and understand the long-term health impacts of COVID-19 and also expresses concern about the Trump Administration’s ongoing efforts to downplay the risks of the disease.
Several new studies have revealed numerous potentially severe chronic health impacts from COVID-19, but, “in the face of this mounting evidence President Trump and other White House officials have falsely and dangerously continued to belittle the risks of the growing pandemic,” wrote the senators. “As CDC and NIH continue to conduct and coordinate research efforts, it is critical that the agencies collect and disseminate data on the long-term impacts and severity of the disease, conduct research to understand the risks, and appropriately inform policymakers, the public and medical professionals of them.”
President Trump has falsely tried to assure the public that “99%” of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” and has repeatedly claimed that the virus will one day just “disappear.” Similarly, Vice President Pence claimed that Americans can “take some comfort in the fact that fatalities are declining all across the country,” calling it “very encouraging news” that an increasing number of coronavirus cases are occurring in younger victims.” Peter Navarro, a top adviser to President Trump, called “a falling mortality rate … the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening.”
Despite the White House’s efforts to downplay the severity of COVID-19 based solely on mortality data, growing evidence reveals that the virus can have chronic long-term health impacts in many people. Individuals who have contracted COVID-19 have reported suffering from lung scarring, strokes, embolisms, blood clotting, heart damage, neurocognitive and mental health impacts, and childhood inflammation. CDC is investigating reports that the disease has been associated with Kawasaki-like symptoms in children.
It is not clear that the administration is doing enough to monitor and understand the long-term impacts of COVID-19, and to factor those risks into decisions about opening schools, businesses, and other parts of the economy.
Senator Warren and her colleagues have requested a response to their letter no later than July 31, 2020. | https://framinghamsource.com/index.php/2020/07/24/sen-warren-questions-trump-administrations-efforts-to-understand-inform-americans-about-covid-19/ |
CARING for Children with COVID efforts aim to better understand SARS-CoV-2 infection, which leads to COVID, in children. The collaboration also allows the supporting institutes to coordinate research related to COVID in children and to capitalize on well-established infrastructure.
CARING studies will answer the following research questions:
- Why are some children more likely than others to get infected with SARS-CoV-2?
- Why do different children show different symptoms of COVID?
- Why do some children who become infected with SARS-CoV-2 have more severe illness, like multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C)?
- What are the long-term outcomes for children who have become infected with SARS-CoV-2?
Prospective Longitudinal CARING Cohort Studies
The CARING for Children with COVID program aligns multiple cohort studies to improve understanding of the effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection and MIS-C on children. Using common clinical elements among the protocols makes data integration possible and helps accelerate analysis. Additional data collection will improve understanding of the immunology and multiple organ systems involved in responding to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Current CARING prospective longitudinal cohort studies include the following:
Long-TerM OUtcomes after the Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome In Children (MUSIC)
A program of the NHLBI, this study leverages the Pediatric Heart Network (PHN). It focuses on cardiovascular complications of MIS-C, but also collects data on all aspects of childhood and adolescent health in affected participants.
Enrollment in MUSIC is closed, but more information about the criteria used can be found here:
https://covidmusicstudy.com/how-to-join/
Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, and Safety Profile of Understudied Drugs Administered to Children per Standard of Care (POP02)
A program of NICHD, this study leverages the Pediatric Trials Network. It focuses on understanding the treatment of children diagnosed with COVID-19 or MIS-C with medicines that have shown promise in adults with COVID-19.
Learn more about participant eligibility here:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04278404?term=pop&age=0&draw=2
Pediatric Research Immune Network on SARS-CoV-2 and MIS-C (PRISM)
Sponsored and funded by NIAID, this study aims to evaluate the short- and long-term health outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection in children, including MIS-C, and to characterize the immunologic pathways associated with different disease presentations and outcomes.
Enrollment in PRISM is closed, but more information about the criteria used can be found here:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04588363?term=prism&cond=covid&draw=2&rank=1
Learn more about the networks conducting CARING cohort studies on the About page of this website.
Data sharing among CARING prospective longitudinal cohort studies
CARING for Children with COVID is also supporting the collection of a core set of clinical data across prospective longitudinal CARING cohort studies to ensure robust and interoperable cloud-based data sharing on three platforms.
- NHLBI’s BioData Catalyst cloud-based ecosystem
- Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource Portal
- NIAID’s ImmPort Shared Data
Datasets on these platforms will be made widely available to allow more researchers to conduct additional analyses and make more discoveries. Some early data are expected to become available in the first half of 2021.
NIH is investing in Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) to advance the sharing and use of CARING for Children with COVID data. These resources will facilitate data analysis between research cohorts, enabling researchers to construct a bigger “virtual” cohort or to identify smaller cohorts or subpopulations to answer specific research questions.
CARING Cohort Translational Research
Predicting Viral-Associated Inflammatory Disease Severity in Children with Laboratory Diagnostics and Artificial Intelligence (PreVAIL kIds)
Supported through NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics – radical (RADxSM-rad) initiative, and led by NICHD, PreVAIL kIds is developing cutting-edge approaches for understanding the underlying factors that influence the spectrum of conditions that may occur in children infected with SARS-CoV-2. Research includes studies of genetic, immune, viral, environmental, and other factors that influence the severity of childhood COVID-19 in diverse cohorts of children and leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand the disease patterns and rapidly hone in on risk factors for developing MIS-C. Once biomarkers or combinations of these called biosignatures, reliably predictive of risk of severe illness are identified, the goal is to test and validate these approaches in larger cohorts of children from diverse backgrounds and geographic areas so they can be approved for use by healthcare providers. This will help clinicians better tailor and guide treatments most appropriate for each child’s constellation of findings when they are seen. Awards for PreVAIL kIds were issued in December 2020. | https://caring4kidswithcovid.nih.gov/research.html |
On 07 June 2000, Vidyya brought you detailed information from the FDA on the FDA's concerns about the possible harmful effects of cellular telephones and the organization's recommendations on future research. Today, the FDA announced collaborative efforts with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) to fund research to examine the problem.
Under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) signed today, the FDA will provide research recommendations and research oversight and the CTIA will fund research into the health effects of radio frequency (RF) emissions from wireless phones. The research itself will be conducted by third parties.
Initial research will include both laboratory studies and studies of mobile phone users focused on whether RF emissions from mobile phones pose any health risk. The CRADA will also include a broad assessment of additional research needs in the context of research developments around the world.
FDA will review the WTR research, as well as other cell phone research, identify the scientific questions which merit attention, propose research to address those questions, and provide detailed recommendations on the conduct of the studies.
The CTIA will then issue requests for proposals for the studies from third parties interested in conducting the research.
The research will be conducted over the next three to five years. FDA will convene meetings of an internationally-renowned group of scientists to help in oversight of the research. Meetings of the group will be announced in the Federal Register.
Today's agreement reflects FDA's continued efforts to assure that thorough research is conducted on mobile phones. | http://www.vidyya.com/archives/0609_3.htm |
Julie Swain, MD, is the Vice Chair for Clinical Performance for the Mount Sinai Health System. In addition, she serves as Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery and Director of Clinical Research in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Swain’s in-depth career experience includes:
Expertise in clinical trial design and regulatory experience
• Academic cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon for more than 21 years.
• University-based surgical practice in adult cardiac, thoracic, vascular surgery and intensive care unit medicine.
• Designed and conducted clinical research trials.
• Led cardiovascular physiology basic science laboratories.
• Collaborative research with US, European, Russia, Japanese, and Chinese scientists.
• Publications in cardiovascular and pulmonary basic science and translational clinical research.
• Consulted with industry and membership on Scientific Advisory Boards.
Long-term advisor to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• Served as advisor to FDA for more than 20 years.
• Member and Chair of FDA Cardiovascular Advisory Panel (8 years), also served on FDA Urological and GI Devices Advisory Panel.
• Special Assistant to the Director, Division of Cardiovascular Devices (12 years) working with all of the Divisions in the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health/Office of Device Evaluation, and with experience in the Center for Biologics and the Center for Drugs.
• Working with industry (US and International), academics, and other government agencies in developing policy and in designing clinical study protocols, analyzing and interpreting data, and preparing Advisory Panel presentations.
• Co-author of FDA Guidance on Clinical Trial Design.
• Lead clinical reviewer for transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement studies from the inception of the field to 2013. Worked with companies to design the studies, analyzed and reviewed the data from the studies, presented at the Advisory Panels.
• Lead clinical reviewer for Mechanical Circulatory Assist devices from 2002-2009. Developed performance goals for bridge-to-transplant and worked with companies to design studies, analyzed the data, and gave the FDA clinical presentation at Advisory Panel meetings.
• Lead clinical reviewer for medical devices for the fields of heart failure, treating myocardial ischemia, closing the left atrial appendage, PFO’s and septal defects, embolic protection, ECMO, therapeutic hypothermia, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
• Experience in developing and interpreting clinical studies for vascular grafts, neurological devices, stroke studies, infusion/implantation of biologics and cellular therapy for heart failure and angina, atrial fibrillation, vascular stents, pressure monitors, organ preservation, and pulmonary devices for treating emphysema.
• Particular interest and expertise in neurological effects of cardiovascular devices and studies for stroke, TIA, and migraine.
• Highly experienced in databases (STS, INTERMACS, and TCT).
• Developed performance goals and objective performance criteria for left ventricular assist devices and for transcatheter heart valves.
• Broad experience in working with statisticians on statistical design and interpretation of clinical trials.
• Long-term experience working with FDA epidemiologists on design and conduct of post-market studies.
• Extensive experience in working with engineers and veterinarians on preclinical study issues.
• FDA representative on the Valve Academic Research Consortium and the Mitral Valve Academic Research Consortium developing trial design, endpoint, and adverse event definitions for transcatheter valves.
• Advised FDA management on new trends in medical device development and use.
• Worked closely with CMS on reimbursement issues for medical devices.
• Membership on Data Safety Monitoring Boards for large NIH studies. | https://profiles.mountsinai.org/julie-swain |
Design and conduct of the CALERIE study: comprehensive assessment of the long-term effects of reducing intake of energy.
Published
Journal Article
BACKGROUND: In a robust and consistent manner, sustained caloric restriction (CR) has been shown to retard the aging process in a variety of animal species. Nonhuman primate studies suggest that CR may have similar effects in longer-lived species. The CALERIE (Comprehensive Assessment of the Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy) research program is the first systematic investigation of CR in nonobese human beings. In the phase 2 study, it is hypothesized that 2 years of sustained CR, involving a 25% reduction of ad libitum energy intake, results in beneficial effects similar to those observed in animal studies. This article presents the design and implementation of this study. METHODS: The study is a multicenter, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial. A sample of 225 participants (22.0 ≤ body mass index [BMI] < 28.0 kg/m(2)) is being enrolled with 2:1 allocation to CR. RESULTS: An intensive dietary and behavioral intervention was developed to achieve 25% CR and sustain it over the 2 years. Adherence is monitored using a doubly labeled water technique. Primary outcomes are resting metabolic rate and core temperature, and are assessed at baseline and at 6-month intervals. Secondary outcomes address oxyradical formation, cardiovascular risk markers, insulin sensitivity and secretion, immune function, neuroendocrine function, quality of life and cognitive function. Biologic materials are stored in a central repository. CONCLUSIONS: An intricate protocol has been developed to conduct this study. Procedures have been implemented to safeguard the integrity of the data and the conclusions drawn. The results will provide insight into the detrimental changes associated with the human aging process and how CR mitigates these effects.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Rochon, J; Bales, CW; Ravussin, E; Redman, LM; Holloszy, JO; Racette, SB; Roberts, SB; Das, SK; Romashkan, S; Galan, KM; Hadley, EC; Kraus, WE; CALERIE Study Group, | https://scholars.duke.edu/display/pub758778 |
The goal is to conduct innovative, multidisciplinary research to identify the major sources of As and Hg exposure and to elucidate the protracted effects of early life exposure to As and Hg on human health. The ATSDR has identified As and Hg as the number one and number three environmental chemicals of concern with regard to human health. As exposure in the young increases the rates of diabetes, respiratory disease, and reproductive and developmental disorders. Methylmercury (MeHg) is a major contaminant in the food supply, particularly fish. For fetuses, infants, and children, exposure to MeHg has severe, adverse effects on the developing nervous system and interferes with cognitive thinking and memory. Despite growing concern and increasing research focus on As and Hg, there are significant knowledge gaps, especially with regard to very low levels of exposure in the US. Accordingly, the Dartmouth SRP is dedicated to obtaining new information on the effects of exposure to very low levels of As and Hg and thereby provide a foundation for science-based risk assessment leading to more informed, effective and comprehensive public health policies.
The specific aims are to: (1) Elucidate how As is taken up and accumulated in rice and to use this information to identify new rice cultivars that assimilate lower amounts of arsenic;(2) Elucidate how MeHg accumulates in fish and how environmental changes in temperature, salinity, and carbon content influences MeHg in marine ecosystems;(3) Identify the dose dependent and relative effects of inorganic and organic As on the innate immune response of the lung to bacterial infections;and (4) Understand the effects of maternal and fetal As exposure on the development of metabolic syndrome and inflammation in mothers and newborns, the most at risk in our population. The research will be supported by a Training Core, a Trace Elements Analysis Core, and the Research Translation and Community Engagement Cores that will communicate our research findings to our stakeholders and communities, respectively.
The Dartmouth Superfund Research Program will conduct studies to determine how two of the most dangerous toxins in the environment lead to long-term deleterious health consequences, to develop innovative models for understanding the fetal basis of adult disease as it relates to in utero As exposure, and to integrate this knowledge with mechanistic information, and with exposure assessment information to understand the effects of As and Hg on human health. INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH PROJECTS PROJECT 1: Arsenic Uptake, Transport and Storage in Plants (Guerinot) DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) Rice (Oryza sativa), a staple food for over half the world's population, represents a significant dietary source of inorganic arsenic (As), a non-threshold, class 1 human carcinogen. It is imperative that strategies to reduce grain As are developed, and establishing the mechanisms that enable As to reach and accumulate within the rice grain is key to this endeavor. This project will elucidate the genetic control of As homeostasis in plants to enable the development of plants that do not accumulate As. The first specific aim tests the hypothesis that genetic diversity in rice can be exploited to lower grain As levels by mapping genes in accessions known to vary in grain As content. The second aim asks more generally what genes are involved in transferring As to the grain and the third aim tests strategies to limit the movement o As to the shoot/grain based on information gained from study of rice, Arabidopsis and the As accumulating fern Pteris vittata. The long-term goal is to prevent As accumulation in the edible portion of rice grain, but the work will also potentially provide information on genes responsible for transporting As and other contaminant metal(loid)s into the tissues of other edible plant organs. In addition to identifying the causal loci, synchrotron X-ray fluorescence microanalysis (SXRF) will be used to precisely localize and speciate As in plants, an innovative approach that has been used successfully to examine seed loading of As. Public Health Relevance: The investigators'efforts to select rice cultivars that restrict As accumulation in the grain offers one of the simplest and most cost effective approaches to solving the problem of As contamination of rice and rice-based products. These cultivars could immediately be used in As contaminated regions, as well as being suitable genetic stock for breeding programs to introduce low grain As into varieties suitable for commercial rice production. | http://grantome.com/grant/NIH/P42-ES007373-19A1 |
Not many of us are proficient in English language. We still doubt what a foreign language has to do in a country like India. Kindly bear in mind that, English is the universal language. Hence it has become mandatory to be good at English in this highly viable world. You would not have seen a single exam without testing the candidate’s expertise in handling English. Such is the significance this language holds in our nation, although our national language is Hindi. Also, the government circulars are released in both Hindi and English. Which means, both are equally purposeful in nature. Now, don’t you think your knowledge in English ought to be tested in SSC CGL exam?
There are sections namely English Language; and English Language and Comprehension in Tier 1 and Tier 2 respectively. The Tier 1 carries 2 marks each for 25 questions while Tier 2 carries I mark each for 200 questions. No matter, which Tier you are appearing for, the syllabus is almost the same.
As SSC CGL 2018 is likely to happen pretty soon, the preparations have to be begun in a trice. There are a few must read books every candidate has to purchase and be thoroughly read. They are of course advisable for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 levels. Here is the list of suggested reads:
Word Power Made Easy (Norman Lewis)
This is not a book a SSC CGL aspirant should just have in his shelf. Every time, there is a tendency for the candidate to cross check the etymological meaning and phonetic pronunciation of a definite word, this would be helpful and serves the purpose of a reference book, indeed. The exercises that follow each section are very much beneficial and help build the vocabulary too easily.
High School English Grammar and Composition (Wren& Martin)
Not many of us are good at English grammar. All of us forget that grammar is the basis for every language. English language too has many grammatical guidelines to be followed. This book helps out with sentence building, proper usage of words and teaches how to write composition. There are a few exercises put up right after the chapters so that English Comprehension section can be easily aced. Verbs, nouns and forming sentence structures are all part of the book that is in a way very helpful for scoring high in SSC CGL. Candidates seeking for basic learning for English should have a look at this.
From Plinth to Paramount
Neetu Singh’s book is more for advanced learners. If you think you are pretty good at English and have a strong grip over the language, this is a must have. Chapters covering almost all grammatical rules followed by practice exercises of high standard make the book lively and easy understandable.
Objective General English
This is another gem for SSC CGL candidates preparing for competitive exams. The author of the book, S.P. Bakshi has clearly divided the book into four sections where in English grammar and descriptive writing in English are given true priority. The objective questions/answers that are likely to be seen in SSC CGL are part of the book.
The whole English language section can be divided into three.
- Grammar
- Vocabulary
- English Comprehension
|Grammar||Vocabulary||English Comprehension|
|a. Cloze test
|
b. Articles
c. Propositions
d. Simple and Compound sentence
e. Indirect and Direct speech
f. Active and Passive Voice
g. Conjunctions
|1. One word substitution
|
2. Spellings
3. Sentence improvement
4. Fill in the blanks
5. Root words
6. Synonyms
7. Antonyms
8. Finding errors
9. Idioms and Phrases
|a. Comprehension Passage|
Having viewed the outline of the syllabus, you might have understood the things to be concentrated on.
Grammar
- Articles: A, An and The are the articles in English language. They are mainly used to emphasize a noun.
- Propositions: In, On, About, For, Of, To etc are propositions. They are used to link two words.
- Simple& Compound Sentence: A simple sentence means a cluster of words having one clause while compound sentence is a simple sentence coupled with coordinating conjunctions such as for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
- Indirect& Direct Speech: Direct speech is in the mode of conversation put in double quotes, often. While in indirect speech, the speaker is changed.
- Active& Passive Voice: SVO (Subject+ Verb+ Object) is the recognized sentence structure in English language while in Passive voice, it simply become OVS.
- Cloze Test: A passage with many missing blanks and the candidate is requested to fill up those blanks. Only a person who has strong command over English can ace it.
Vocabulary
To improve the vocabulary, newspaper reading is a must. Also the aforementioned recommended books have to be put to full use.
- One word substitution: An appropriate and meaningful word to be replaced with the word given.
- Spellings: A careful reading and understanding of almost every single word you come across is mandatory to learn spellings.
- Sentence improvement: A part of the sentence given in bold letters might not be suitable for the given sentence. The sentence needs to be improved by choosing the correct word to be replaced.
- Fill in the blanks: The blank space has to be filled with the most suitable choice out of the four alternative answers.
- Root words: While learning the etymology of every word, prefixes, suffixes and root words have to be mugged up. It would help improve the vocabulary.
- Synonyms: Maybe the choices given appear similar in every candidate’s eyes. So to find out the appropriate answer, the candidate should have a keen eye for detail.
- Antonyms: This is as similar as dealing with synonyms.
- Finding errors: To find out an error, systematic usage of sentence structure has to be understood.
- Idioms and Phrases: SSC CGL exams normally have questions based on the idioms and phrases. Only a careful reader can make out the meaning of the sentence given.
English Comprehension
A concentrated and skillful reading of the passage is mandatory. Reread the passage twice or thrice. But don’t forget that the time is very minimal. So during your preparations, you must learn to gauge the speed and accuracy. Start reading at a slow pace and gradually increase your speed later on. 3 minutes of dedicated reading is inevitable to crack all the questions coming under this segment.
Always remember that nobody can improve one’s language in 24 hours. So please begin preparing from this very moment. If possible, befriend someone who speaks good English and has excellent hold over it.
Download SSC CGL app in Hindi to get free study material, notes, mock test, quiz, and previous year question papers of SSC CGL exam.
Please check our NCERT Solutions app which we have released recently for Class 6 – Class 12.
Attention Please : 5 Lakh Plus Installs with 4.9 Ratings Install JKUpdates App for all Govt or Private Jobs Updates, Breaking & Latest News, Results & Current Affairs, Free Mock Tests - Click me! | https://jkadworld.com/advertisement/how-to-prepare-english-for-ssc-cgl-tier-i-tier-ii-exam/ |
Pregroup grammar is a mathematical model of natural language grammar introduced by Lambek, it is part of the categorial grammar tradition.
As defined in Lambek 1999, Lambek 2008, a pregroup is a partially-ordered monoid such that every object has left- and right-adjoints . Explicitly we have the following four axioms:
In other words, a pregroup is a rigid monoidal category which is thin and skeletal. Note that a commutative pregroup is simply a group. Here are a few variants of pregroups that appear in the literature, see Coecke 2013:
In linguistic applications, one starts with a poset of basic types (e.g. sentence and noun) and then takes the free pregroup generated by . For a basic type , iterated adjoints are called simple types; an arbitrary type may then be given as a sequence of simple types. The following lemma makes the parsing problem for free pregroups decidable — i.e. given a sentence type and the types for a sequence of words , is ?
Switching lemma (Lambek 1999): For any pair of types , if then there is a type such that without expansions and without contractions, i.e. free protogroups recognise the same language as free pregroups.
In Preller, Lambek 2007, Preller and Lambek generalise the free pregroup construction above to free compact 2-categories in order to capture proof relevance. This allows to distinguish between the distinct parsings of ambiguous phrases such as “(men and women) who like maths” vs. “men and (women who like maths)”.
Note that the compact 2-categories of Lambek and Preller differ from compact closed 2-category in that they are not required to be symmetric. A non-symmetric compact closed 2-category with one object is simply a rigid monoidal category.
Given a poset of basic types , the objects of the free rigid monoidal category are the same as that of the free (quasi-)pregroup, the arrows may be described as planar string diagrams. Given two types , we have that if and only if there is an arrow in .
A pregroup grammar is a tuple where and are finite sets called the basic types and the vocabulary respectively, is a relation called the dictionnary and is a designated sentence type. We require that is finite, i.e. the set of possible types is finite for each word . The language of is then given by:
i.e. a sequence of words is said to be grammatical whenever there is a dictionnary entry for each word such that . One may simplify this by redefining where is the free rigid monoidal category with:
That is, a sequence of words is grammatical whenever there exists a string diagram going from the sequence of words to the sentence type. Note that traditionally the identity wires for words are omitted, hence dictionnary entries are depicted as triangles with no input. Contractions are depicted as cups, e.g. from and we get the following diagram:
Theorem (Buszkowski, Moroz 2008): For each pregroup grammar , there is a context-free grammar such that . Furthermore, may be computed in time polynomial in the size of .
The opposite direction also holds, hence pregroup grammar and context-free grammar are said to be weakly equivalent: the translation preserves only the generated languages, it does not preserve the structure of syntax trees.
One may give a semantics to a pregroup grammar by defining a strong monoidal functor , where is the free rigid monoidal category described in section 2. is a suitable rigid monoidal category, e.g. or , depending on the application. Note the similarity with a Lawvere theory as a monoidal functor from a syntactic category to .
We require the image for all words to be the monoidal unit , hence the image for each dictionnary entry is given by a state . The meaning for a sentence with grammatical reduction may then be computed from the individual meanings of the words, following Frege's principle of compositionality. This has been developed in Preller 2005 as well as in a series of papers by Bob Coecke and others, see categorical compositional distributional semantics.
Joachim Lambek, Type Grammar Revisited, Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics (1999)
Anne Preller, Category Theoretical Semantics for Pregroup Grammars, Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics, 5th International Conference, LACL 2005 (pdf)
Anne Preller, Joachim Lambek, Free Compact 2-Categories, Mathematical Structures in Computer Science, Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2007 (pdf)
Joachim Lambek, From Word to Sentence: A Computational Algebraic Approach to Grammar, Polimetrica 2008 (pdf)
Wojciech Buszkowski, Katarzyna Moroz, Pregroup Grammars and Context-free Grammars, Computational Algebraic Approaches to Natural Language, Polimetrica (2008) (pdf)
Bob Coecke, An alternative Gospel of structure: order, composition, processes, Introductory chapter to C. Heunen, M. Sadrzadeh, and E. Grefenstette. Quantum Physics and Linguistics: A Compositional, Diagrammatic Discourse. Oxford University Press, 2013 (arxiv:1307.4038)
Last revised on September 13, 2019 at 13:17:22. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it. | https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/pregroup+grammar |
SBI Clerk Preparation 2021: Preparation Strategy
Let us first take a look at the detailed syllabus for the English language in SBI Clerk 2021 prelims. Following are some important topics:
Many candidates find preparing for the English language section difficult. And it’s only valid! Unlike numerical ability or Reasoning Ability, English does not have a fixed syllabus. Here, we would be looking at the following:
Exam pattern
Important topics for the English language
Preparation tips
Let us first take a look at the detailed syllabus for the English language in SBI Clerk 2021 prelims. Following are some important topics:
Vocabulary – Antonyms and Synonyms
Sentence Completion
Basic English Grammar
Tenses, Articles, Prepositions, Subject-Verb Agreement, Parts of Speech
Reading Comprehension
Error Spotting
Cloze Test
Sentence Rearrangement
Para Jumbles
Phrases and Idioms
Fill in the Blanks
As we mentioned in the previous section, SBI Clerk Prelims have sectional time limits for each section. Thus, it’s important to understand that it’s imperative to make good use of the 20 minutes that you will be spending on this section to achieve a good score. In the following section, we will be discussing the preparation strategy for the English language section.
Grammar forms the basis of important question types such as Sentence Rearrangement, Idioms & Phrases, Error Spotting, Sentence Correction etc. To build on your grammar by referring to helpful books such as Wren & Martin. These help you with your preparation as they cover exactly what is covered in the exam.
The expected questions types would be Reading Comprehension, Single Filler, Cloze Test, Error Spotting, Spelling Errors, Phrase Replacement.
Use the following tips as a guide to prepare for or to attempt RC A good reading speed gives you an edge to score well in the exam, so make sure while preparing for RC you also work on your reading speed.
Strictly stick to what is given in the passage and assume NOTHING else; even if it is true in day today Do NOT make any assumptions whatsoever.
It is essential to balance speed and accuracy to score well in any competitive exam. The best way in which you can gauge this is via practising multiple mock tests. Mock tests not only condition you for the real-time exam but also help you analyse your areas of strength and weaknesses.
RC passages can range from a variety of topics such as Philosophy, Psychology, Economics, Politics or even We never know what might come our way. Hence, it is important that we establish a level of comfort with all such genres by reading from multiple sources. Newspapers, especially the editorials and the weekend specials are a good place to start.
A major problem that all candidates face while solving RC questions is that they get confused between 2 This happens because we read to understand only what the statements say; whereas the RC questions demand our understanding of the writer’s/author’s perspective as well (this is known as reading between the lines).
Just as for grammar, vocabulary is tested both directly and indirectly in the exam. There might be difficult words in the passage that may make it difficult for you to understand what is being talked about (indirect testing of vocabulary). There may be direct questions on synonyms, Hence, reading from a variety of sources is a must. Make sure you add at least 10 new words every day. | http://bweducation.businessworld.in/article/SBI-Clerk-Preparation-2021-Preparation-Strategy/29-04-2021-388144/ |
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