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Most of us are aware of potentially harmful substances in our environment such as pollution, exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke. We even know some cleaning products, paint and glues can be hazardous. Scented products are generally perceived as pleasant, a harmless means of self expression and certainly not a health concern. Therefore, we do not think twice about using them.
Perfume, as we know it, has changed from the formulations around 1970 to 1980. Today, they are approximately 95-100% synthetic (man made.) Using crude oil or turpentine oils as the base material, these synthetics are usually derived from chemical reactions. An abundance of these chemicals are listed on the EPA’s Hazardous Waste List. This list includes numerous carcinogenic chemicals, neurotoxins and respiratory irritants. There are hundreds of untested and unregulated petrochemicals, which can act as hormone disruptors.
For many people, breathing in fragrances from perfumes, colognes, household products and cleaners can just be a little annoying. But for a growing number of others, these smells, called “emissions of volatile organic compounds,” can be a form of torment that throws their bodies into reactive overdrive. One whiff of a chemical cocktail-coming from perfumes and detergents but also from fabric, paint, and cleaning supplies can result in a vast array of debilitating symptoms. | <urn:uuid:d3afde0f-33e4-4fe2-8bcf-8f1a83875985> | {
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Career & Technical Education Department
The Career and Technology Education (CTE) Department at Bethlehem Central includes programs in business education, family and consumer science, technology education, and school-to-work. READ MORE ABOUT CAREER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION PROGRAM INFORMATION »
In our swiftly changing and increasingly technical world, it is vital that our citizens be technologically literate. If people in a society are knowledgeable about current technologies, we are more likely to make rational decisions about the use of technology. Students in our technology classes practice solving hands-on, real world problems using the informed design process. We use math and science knowledge in a practical manner throughout the design process.
While we strive to make all students aware of the
importance of basic technological literacy, we also encourage them to
consider careers in engineering and other technical fields. From the
energy crisis to the crumbling state of infrastructure across our
country, our society
continuously faces serious problems. Through our technology program, we will endeavor to show students what a tremendous positive impact engineers can have in the world as they work on finding solutions to these problems.
Career & Technical Education Links
CAREER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION teacher web pages
Click on the links below to view teacher pages.
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Objects are characterized by behavior, state and identity. The state of an object depends
on its current activity or condition. A state machine diagram shows
the possible states of the object and the transitions that cause
a change in state.
Our example diagram models the login part of an online banking
system. Logging in consists of entering a valid secret security
number (SSN) and personal id number (PIN) then submitting the information
Logging in can be factored into four possible non-overlapping states:
Getting SSN, Getting PIN, Validating, and Rejecting. For each
state a set of transitions determine the
States are rounded rectangles. Transitions are arrows from one state
to another. Events or conditions that trigger transitions are
written beside the arrows. Our diagram has two self-transitions: Getting SSN and Getting PIN.
The initial state is a black circle.
Final states terminate on black circles with an outer ring.
The action that occurs as a result of an event or condition is
expressed in the form /action. While in its Validating state, the
object does not wait for an outside event to trigger a transition.
Instead, it performs an activity. The result of that activity
determines its subsequent state.
States in state machine diagrams can be nested. Related states can be
grouped together into a single composite state. Nesting states
inside others is necessary when an activity involves concurrent
The following state machine models an auction with two
concurrent sub-states: processing the bid and authorizing the payment
Entering the Auction requires a fork at the start into two separate
start threads. Each sub-state has an exit state to mark the end of
the thread. Unless there is an abnormal exit (Canceled or Rejected),
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Illness & Conditions - Special Health Issues
Living With a Spinal Cord Injury
What is a spinal cord injury?
A spinal cord injury is damage to the spinal cord . The spinal cord is a soft bundle of nerves that extends from the base of the brain to the lower back. It runs through the spinal canal, a tunnel formed by holes in the bones of the spine . The bony spine helps protect the spinal cord.
The spinal cord carries messages between the brain and the rest of the body. These messages allow you to move and to feel touch, among other things. A spinal cord injury stops the flow of messages below the site of the injury. The closer the injury is to the brain, the more of the body is affected.
A spinal cord injury may be complete or incomplete. A person with a complete injury doesn't have any feeling or movement below the level of the injury. In an incomplete injury, the person still has some feeling or movement in the affected area.
What causes a spinal cord injury?
A spinal cord injury usually happens because of a sudden severe blow to the spine. Often this is the result of a car accident, fall, gunshot, or sporting accident. Sometimes the spinal cord is damaged by infection or spinal stenosis, or by a birth defect, such as spina bifida.
What happens after a spinal cord injury?
At the hospital, treatment starts right away to prevent more damage to the spine and spinal cord. Steps are taken to get your blood pressure stable and help you breathe. You may get a steroid medicine to reduce swelling of the spinal cord. A number of tests are done. These include X-ray of the spine, CT scan , MRI , and ultrasound of the kidneys. These tests are repeated over time to check how you are doing.
A few days after the injury, you will be tested to see how you respond to pinpricks and light touch all over your body. The doctor will ask you to move different parts of your body and test the strength of your muscles. These tests help the doctor know how severe the injury is and how likely it is that you could get back some feeling and movement. Most recovery occurs in the first 6 months.
As soon as you are stable, rehabilitation (rehab) starts. The goal of rehab is to help prepare you for life after rehab and help you be as independent as possible. What happens in rehab depends on your level of injury. The rehab team will help you to learn how to:
There is a lot to learn, and it may seem overwhelming at times. But with practice and support, it will get easier.
What is life like with a spinal cord injury?
Having a spinal cord injury changes some things forever, but you can still have a full and rewarding life. A saying among people who have a spinal cord injury is, "Before your injury, you could do 10,000 things. Now you can do 9,000. So are you going to worry about the 1,000 things you can't do or focus on the 9,000 things you can do?"
After they adjust, many people with spinal cord injuries are able to work, drive, play sports, and have relationships and families. Your rehab team can provide the support, training, and resources to help you move toward new goals. It's up to you to make the most of what they have to offer.
Adapting to life with a spinal cord injury can be tough. You can expect to feel sad or angry at times or to grieve for your lost abilities. It is important to express these feelings so they don't keep you from moving ahead. Talk with family and friends, find a support group, or connect with others online. Talking to other people who have spinal cord injuries can be a big help.
It's hard to enjoy life if you have ongoing pain or depression. If you do, tell your doctor. There are medicines and other treatments that can help.
Caring for a person who has a spinal cord injury can be both rewarding and difficult. If you help take care of someone who has a spinal cord injury, don't forget to take care of yourself too. Find a local support group, and make time to do things you enjoy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Often a spinal cord injury (SCI) is caused by a blow to the spine , resulting in broken or dislocated bones of the spine (vertebrae.) The vertebrae bruise or tear the spinal cord , damaging nerve cells.
When the nerve cells are damaged, messages cannot travel back and forth between the brain and the rest of the body. This causes a complete or partial loss of movement (paralysis) and feeling.
At the hospital
A person with a potential SCI is taken to an emergency department and then to an intensive care unit. The first priority is stabilizing blood pressure and lung function, as well as the spine, to prevent further damage. When a spinal cord injury is caused by a serious accident, treatment for other injuries is often needed.
The following tests may be done right away to help find out the extent of the injury. They may also be done routinely throughout and after you leave rehabilitation (rehab).
A few days after the injury, your doctor will ask you questions. Also, he or she will test not only the strength of key muscles but also your response to light touch and pinpricks all over your body.
Classifying a spinal cord injury
An SCI can be classified based on how much feeling and movement you have or where the damage occurred. When a nerve in the spinal cord is injured, the nerve location and number are often used to describe how much damage there is.
The vertebrae and spinal nerves are organized into segments , starting at the top of the spinal cord. Within each segment they are numbered.
People with SCIs often use a segment of the spine to talk about their functional level. (Your functional level is how much of your body you can move and feel.) For example, you might describe yourself as a "C7."
The nerves around a vertebra control specific parts of the body. Paralysis occurs in the areas of the body that are controlled by the nerves associated with the damaged vertebrae and the nerves below the damaged vertebrae. The higher the injury on the spinal cord, the more paralysis there is.
Damage to the spinal cord can be complete or incomplete.
Some recovery of feeling and movement may return after the injury—how much depends on the level of injury, the strength of your muscles, and whether the injury is complete or incomplete. Most recovery occurs within the first 6 months of the injury.
For the family and caregivers
After a traumatic SCI, your loved ones will often ask questions about the injury and what it means. Keep your answers short, simple, and honest. You cannot give a complete answer, because it's often hard to know how serious the injury is and how much you will recover. This typically is not known until swelling and bleeding are reduced and the doctors can find out where the spinal cord has been injured.
Moving into rehab
After emergency treatment and stabilization, you will move into rehab. A rehab center helps you adjust to life, both physically and emotionally. The goal of rehab is to help you be as independent as possible.
Your rehab depends on your level of injury. You may have to learn how to manage your bowel and bladder, walk with crutches, do breathing exercises, and move between a wheelchair and another location.
As soon as you are stabilized after your spinal cord injury (SCI), your transition into rehabilitation (rehab) begins. The initial focus of rehab is to prevent complications related to your SCI and for you to relearn how to do daily functions, sometimes by using different muscle groups.
Rehab centers help you adjust—physically and emotionally—to life with less mobility and feeling than you previously had. What rehab does depends on which part of your spine was injured. Rehab can include learning how to:
Rehab for an SCI generally takes place in a special center. You and your family work with a rehab team, which includes your doctor, rehab nurses, and specialists such as physical and occupational therapists. Your rehab team designs a unique plan for your recovery that will help you recover as much function as possible, prevent complications, and help you live as independently as possible.
Choosing the right rehab center is important. Be sure that you choose one that meets your specific needs. Before choosing a rehab center, ask questions about its staff, accreditation, and activities, and how it transitions you back into your community.
Good bladder management can improve your quality of life by preventing bladder problems, which is one of the biggest concerns for people who have spinal cord injuries (SCIs).
Normally, the kidneys filter waste products and water from the blood to form urine, which is stored in the bladder . When the bladder is full, a message is sent from the bladder to the brain. The brain sends a message back to the bladder to squeeze the bladder muscle and relax the sphincter muscles that control the flow of urine. After the bladder starts to empty, it normally empties all of the urine.
After an SCI, the kidneys usually continue to filter waste, and urine is stored in the bladder. But messages may not be able to move between your bladder and sphincter muscles and your brain. This can result in the:
Not taking good care of your bladder can lead to urinary tract infections (UTIs) , kidney and bladder problems, sepsis (a bloodstream infection), and, in rare cases, kidney failure. For information on testing for, treating, and preventing UTIs, see the topic Urinary Tract Infections in Teens and Adults.
A bladder management program lets you or a caregiver empty your bladder when it is easy for you and helps you avoid bladder accidents and prevent UTIs. You and your rehabilitation team decide which bladder management program is best for you. You need to consider where your spinal cord is injured and how it has affected your bladder function. You also need to consider your lifestyle, how likely you are to get bladder infections, and whether you or a caregiver is able to use a catheter.
The most important things in bladder management are monitoring the amount of fluids you drink, following a regular schedule for emptying your bladder, and being sure that you empty your bladder completely. Your rehab team will help you set up a schedule based on your needs and the amount of fluids you typically drink.
Common ways to manage bladder function include the following:
You may use just one method or a combination.
A number of medicines are available to help you manage your bladder. These include:
Research continues on bladder management. New methods include surgically implanted components that stimulate the bladder through a radio control.
Note: Bladder problems can trigger autonomic dysreflexia, which causes sudden very high blood pressure and headaches. If not treated promptly and correctly, it may lead to seizures , stroke , and even death. These complications are rare, but it's important to know the symptoms and watch for them.
You or a caregiver can manage your bowel problems to prevent unplanned bowel movements, constipation, and diarrhea. Although this often seems overwhelming at first, knowing what to do and establishing a pattern makes bowel care easier and reduces your risk of accidents.
A spinal cord injury generally affects the process of eliminating waste from the intestines, causing a:
When choosing a way to deal with bowel problems, you and your rehab team will discuss such things as the type of bowel problem you have, your diet, whether you or a caregiver will do the program, and any medicines that may affect your program.
For best results:
It is important to be clean and gentle when inserting anything into the anus.
Note: Bowel problems can trigger autonomic dysreflexia, which causes sudden very high blood pressure and headaches. If not treated promptly and correctly, it may lead to seizures, stroke , and even death. These complications are rare, but it is important to know the symptoms and watch for them.
When you have a spinal cord injury, the nerves that normally signal discomfort and alert you to relieve pressure by changing position may no longer work. This can cause pressure sores, which are injuries to the skin and the tissue under the skin. They often develop on skin that covers bony areas , such as the hips, heels, or tailbone. Pressure sores can also occur in places where the skin folds over on itself. They are described in four stages that range from mild reddening of the skin to severe complications, such as infection of the bone or blood. They can be hard to treat and slow to heal.
Pressure sores may be caused by:
Preventing pressure sores
You or your caregiver can help prevent pressure sores. These steps can help keep skin healthy:
For more information on prevention, see the topic Pressure Sores: Prevention and Treatment.
Signs to look for
Watch for early signs of a pressure sore. These can include:
Contact your doctor if you:
Treating pressure sores
General treatment for pressure sores is to keep the area dry and clean, eat well, and reduce pressure. All pressure sores need to be treated early. If a sore progresses to stage 3 or 4 , it is hard to treat and can lead to serious complications. Specific treatment depends on the stage of the pressure sore.
For more information on treatment, see the topic Pressure Sores: Prevention and Treatment.
Note: Pressure sores can trigger autonomic dysreflexia, which causes sudden very high blood pressure and headaches. If not treated promptly and correctly, it may lead to seizures , stroke , and even death. These complications are rare, but it is important to know the symptoms and watch for them.
Breathing is usually something we do without thinking. But a spinal cord injury (SCI) may affect some of the muscles needed for breathing. This makes it hard to breathe, cough, and bring up mucus from the lungs, which leads to a greater risk of lung infections such as pneumonia .
How your breathing muscles are affected and what it means to your ability to breathe depends on which part of your spine was injured.
Preventing lung problems
There are things you can do to help prevent lung problems.
And there are things you can do that aren't directly related to your lungs.
Choking: What to do
Choking is a danger if you have an SCI, because the usual cough mechanism may not be strong enough to bring up the item that is choking you. If choking occurs, your caregiver should:
Intimacy and Fertility
All spinal cord injuries are different. How they affect intimacy and sexual function—and how people will react to the change—varies. Because of this, you need to make your own observations and evaluate your experiences to understand your changes in sexual function and how to best deal with them.
After a spinal cord injury (SCI), how you look and what you are able to do changes. An SCI may also affect how your sexual organs work. These changes often result in frustration, anger, and disappointment, all of which can strain a relationship. People with SCIs may wonder if they will be able to maintain the relationship they are in or develop new ones.
But being intimate means more than just having sex. Your interests, ideas, and behavior play a greater role in defining you than your appearance or your ability to have sex. A relationship depends on many things, including shared interests, how you deal with personal likes and dislikes, and how you treat each other.
The most important thing in a relationship is how well you communicate. Talk to your partner. Be honest about how the SCI has affected your sexual function and how you feel about it. Always keep in mind that people with SCIs can have relationships and marry, have an active sex life, and have children.
Desire and sexual arousal
Usually, men and women are sexually aroused through two pathways: direct stimulation of the genitals or other erotic area or through thinking, hearing, or seeing something sexually arousing. In men, this usually causes an erection, and in women it causes lubrication of the vagina and swelling of the clitoris. An SCI can affect either of these pathways and may change a person's physical response to arousal. Most people remain interested in sexual activity after an SCI, although the level of interest may decrease.
Many men with an SCI resume sexual activity within about 1 year of the injury. Men who are able to have an erection may find that the erection isn't rigid enough or doesn't last long enough for sexual activity. Some have retrograde ejaculation, in which semen goes into the bladder instead of out through the penis.
Women may have some, or complete, loss of vaginal sensation and muscle control. Both men and women can achieve orgasm, although it may not be as intense as before the SCI.
Your sex life will probably be different after your spinal cord injury, but sexual intimacy is still possible and encouraged. Your rehabilitation center may have a counselor or other health professional who specializes in sexual health after an SCI. He or she may be able to help you and your partner with these issues.
Treating sexual problems
Always talk to a doctor familiar with SCIs before using any medicines or devices. Discuss the location of your injury, possible side effects, and any other medical conditions you have.
You also need to watch for autonomic dysreflexia, which causes sudden very high blood pressure. If not treated promptly and correctly, it may lead to seizures , stroke , and even death. These complications are rare, but it is important to know the symptoms and watch for them.
Men who can't get an erection can use the treatments for erection problems (erectile dysfunction) . These include:
For information on the treatment of erection problems, see the topic Erection Problems.
Women who have problems being aroused and have little or no vaginal lubrication may use:
Both men and women can use sensual exercises that you do with your partner to find areas of your body that react to stimulation.
Fertility in men
Most men with SCIs have poor sperm quality and have trouble ejaculating. To have children, men with SCIs can use penile stimulation to obtain sperm for assistive reproductive technologies . Vibrators are available that are specially made to induce ejaculation in men with SCIs.
Vibrators can damage your skin. Use them carefully if you don't have feeling in your penis.
If vibrator stimulation isn't successful, rectal probe electroejaculation (RPE) is an option. In this procedure, your doctor inserts an electrical probe into the rectum to stimulate ejaculation.
Fertility in women
An SCI usually won't affect a woman's ability to get pregnant. You may have a brief pause in your menstrual cycle after an SCI. But after your period returns, you will probably be able to get pregnant.
If you are sexually active after your injury, make sure to use birth control if you don't want to get pregnant.
If you do want to get pregnant, make sure to be aware of the special medical, psychological, and social issues involved in an SCI pregnancy. Work with doctors who understand these issues. Common concerns and complications during pregnancy include: 1
Life With a Spinal Cord Injury
Grief is one of the many challenges of adjusting to life after a spinal cord injury. It's your reaction to loss, and it affects you both emotionally and physically. But letting your emotions control you can result in unhealthy decisions and behavior, a longer rehab, and taking longer to adjust to your spinal cord injury (SCI). Feeling and naming your emotions, and talking to others about them, will help you feel more solid and in control.
Talking to a professional counselor who understands the challenges of living with an SCI can be very helpful during tough times.
For more information on the grieving process, see the topic Grief and Grieving.
Pain in an SCI can be complicated and confusing. You may feel pain where you have feeling. But you may also feel pain in an area where otherwise you have no feeling. The pain may be severe at some times. But at other times it may disappear or bother you only a little.
The most common type of pain is neuropathic pain, caused by damage to the nervous system. Other types of pain include musculoskeletal pain (in the bones, muscles, and joints), and visceral pain (in the abdomen).
Don't ignore your pain. Talk to your doctor about it. He or she can help figure out the type of pain and how to manage it. Also, pain can signal a more serious problem.
The best treatment depends on the type of pain. But you will probably need to:
For more information on managing pain, see the topic Chronic Pain.
Strength and flexibility
Movement is what keeps your muscles strong and your joints flexible. So if you cannot move your muscles and joints easily, you may lose strength and some of your range of motion. This will make it harder to perform daily activities, such as getting dressed or moving between your wheelchair and other locations. With exercise, you can keep or improve your flexibility and reduce muscle spasticity. Exercise can also help prevent heart problems, diabetes, pressure sores, pneumonia, high blood pressure, urinary tract infections, and weight problems.
What exercises you can do will depend on what part of your spinal cord was injured. You may be able to do:
Taking part in sports is an excellent way to exercise. And there are often leagues or groups to promote wheelchair basketball and racing and other activities. Staying active provides both physical and emotional benefits.
Note: Exercise may trigger autonomic dysreflexia, which can cause sudden very high blood pressure and headaches. If not treated promptly and correctly, it may lead to seizures , stroke , and even death. These complications are rare, but it is important to know the symptoms and watch for them.
Eating a healthy diet can help you reduce your risk of some complications and can make other tasks, such as bowel management, easier. And it can help you reach and stay at a healthy weight. Being either underweight or overweight increases your risk of pressure sores .
For more information on a healthy diet and weight, see:
Mobility is an important aspect of a spinal cord injury. Mobility devices, such as crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, and scooters, can help you be more independent. They may allow you to work, shop, travel, or take part in sports.
Moving from a wheelchair to another location is known as a transfer. Your injury and strength will determine what type of transfer you can do. You may be able to do it yourself, or you may need help. There are some important things to know for safe transfers, such as to lock your wheelchair and make the distance between the transfer surfaces as small as possible.
Adapting your home
As your rehab ends, you and your loved ones need to start thinking about what you need to do when you are at home. Because you may have to use a wheelchair (lowering your height) and have limited movement and feeling, you may have to adapt your home.
Considerations for adapting your home include ramps and widened doorways, special utensils for eating, and special devices for dressing and grooming.
Thinking of the future
Today, with improved medical care and support, the outlook for people with SCIs is better than ever. In many cases, 1 year after the injury, life expectancy is close to that of a person without an SCI. 2
If you are planning to work, you have the same legal rights as before your injury. People with spinal cord injuries who want to work are legally protected from discrimination by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Plan ahead for possible serious and life-threatening complications. You, your family, and your doctor should discuss what types of medical treatment you want if you have a sudden, life-threatening problem. You may want to create an advance directive to state your wishes if you become unable to communicate.
For more information, see:
When to Call a Doctor
There may be a time when you have a medical emergency and need to contact a doctor.
Be prepared to call your spinal care injury provider, 911, or other emergency services if you or the person with the spinal cord injury has the symptoms of autonomic dysreflexia, which causes sudden very high blood pressure. If it isn't treated promptly and correctly, it may lead to seizures , stroke , and even death. Symptoms include:
Call 911 or other emergency services if you fall or have another accident and you notice:
Call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of a urinary tract infection . These include:
Depending on your level of injury, you may also feel burning while urinating and/or pain or discomfort in the lower pelvic area, belly, or lower back.
Call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of pneumonia . These include:
Call your doctor for an appointment if you have a pressure sore and:
Concerns of the Caregiver
Your first experience as a caregiver for a spinal cord injury (SCI) usually comes during rehabilitation (rehab). Although the rehab team takes the lead at this point in your loved one's recovery, there are some things you can do to help.
Before your loved one returns home, a decision has to be made about who is to be the main caregiver. You or another family member may feel that you should be the main caregiver. But there may be reasons why this could be hard, such as:
Discuss with the rehab team what it means to be a caregiver. They can help you see what the full impact of caring for someone with an SCI will be. And if you cannot be a full-time caregiver, the rehab team can help you find a nursing home, an assisted-living facility, or in-home help. They can also give you training in helping your loved one, even if you aren't the full-time caregiver. You may need to help him or her do exercises, move in and out of the wheelchair, and get dressed, for example.
Whether or not you are the main caregiver, you need to attend to your own well-being.
Whether or not you are the main caregiver for your loved one, living with and/or caring for him or her can be both rewarding and difficult. Watching someone deal with such a serious injury can be painful but also inspirational. Sharing the small and large victories can provide a shared pleasure and forge a stronger relationship. But setbacks and "bad days" can be frustrating and traumatic.
The key to working through frustrations is communication. It is important that both you and your loved one talk about what bothers you and about what your expectation are. In a sense, you are in a new relationship: roles in your family may have changed dramatically. Discuss what you are feeling about the changes, and explain them. This can help you understand each other's needs and foster a healthy relationship. Love and support are key to your loved one's recovery and to your well-being as a caregiver.
The Search for a Cure
In the past, the results of a spinal cord injury were considered permanent, but new research is changing this outlook. There may be a cure for paralysis some day.
Major research areas for SCIs include ways to stimulate activity in damaged nerve cells (neurorestorative), stimulate growth in damaged nerve cells (neuroregenerative), transplant new nerve tissue into the spinal cord (neuroconstructive), and insert genes into the spinal cord (neurogenetic). Research is also looking at ways to improve what people with SCIs can do physically (functional research).
Spinal cord injuries are extremely complex. And research must move from theory to practical and from animal studies to human studies. When a treatment is being studied in humans, it must be proved beneficial and safe. And it can take years before a new treatment reaches the public.
Other Places To Get Help
Last Revised: November 7, 2013
Author: Healthwise Staff
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (2002, reaffirmed 2005). Obstetric management of patients with spinal cord injuries. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 275. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 100(3): 625–627.
National SCI Statistical Center (2012). Spinal cord injury facts and figures at a glance. Birmingham, AL: National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Available online: https://www.nscisc.uab.edu.
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
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Aug. 30, 2012 -- Children and batteries are a dangerous and increasingly common combination, according to a new CDC report. In 1998, while battery-related injuries sent 1,900 children to the emergency room, 4,800 cases were reported in 2010.
Overall, more than 40,000 children were admitted to ERs nationwide between 1997 and 2010. Almost three quarters of them were 4 years old or younger. One in 10 children required hospitalization; 14 of them died.
The CDC singled out button batteries as the most potentially harmful type of battery for young children. These are the round, button-sized batteries often used to power watches, hearing aids, and other small devices. They are easy to swallow and can get stuck in the esophagus, leading to serious injury or death.
Twelve of the 14 deaths were attributed to button batteries; the remaining two deaths also likely involved them.
“This information is consistent with recent reports showing an increase in severe or fatal outcomes with button battery ingestions from 1985 to 2009,” write the authors of the report.
The data, primarily from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, were collected and analyzed by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). That agency, the report states, “is urging the electronics industry and battery manufacturers to develop warnings and industry standards to prevent serious injuries and deaths from button batteries.”
Potentially Fatal Complications
Swallowed batteries may pass through the intestines and safely out of the body. However, they often get lodged in the esophagus. When that happens, a buildup of the chemical hydroxide may occur, causing dangerous burns within a couple of hours. Batteries stuck in the throat may also leak alkaline electrolyte, a corrosive chemical.
Even if the battery does not leak, it can cause harm. Direct pressure can cut off blood flow to the area where the battery is stuck, leading to tissue death.
The symptoms of battery ingestion include vomiting, abdominal pain, fever, and diarrhea, as well as difficulty breathing and swallowing. Such symptoms, which can be attributed to numerous causes, make it difficult to diagnose battery ingestion quickly. This is especially true, the report’s authors point out, when a child swallows a battery when no one is around to see them do it.
“Another complicating factor arises when incidents are not witnessed or the diagnosis or treatment of battery ingestion is delayed, as it was in at least nine of the 14 fatal cases,” the report states. “It is also important to recognize that children might be reluctant or unable to say that they ingested a battery or gave one to a sibling.”
Battery safety standards for children’s toys are dictated by law. All batteries must be inaccessible in toys designed for children under age 3, while toys for kids under 12 must make inaccessible batteries under a certain size.
At least three of the deaths noted in the report were caused by batteries from devices not meant for children, including a remote car alarm, a garage door opener, and a radio remote control. A new law being considered by Congress may require child-proofing for button battery enclosures on all consumer products.
“Parents and caregivers should be aware of the potential hazards associated with battery exposure (particularly ingestion of button batteries) and ensure that products containing them are either kept away from children or that the batteries are secured safely in the product,” the report’s authors conclude.
If a child swallows a battery, the CPSC advises that you immediately contact your local poison control center, your family doctor, or the 24-hour National Battery Ingestion Hotline at 202-625-3333. | <urn:uuid:c4d4e4f6-84ad-447d-ae61-1099a00f9982> | {
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And childhood obesity is a key culprit, study says
WEDNESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- The path to heart disease begins in childhood, and that means preventive measures must be embraced by those at risk long before adulthood, researchers report.
Two of the biggest threats to heart health that trace back to childhood are prehypertension -- blood pressure just below the official high blood pressure reading of 140/90 -- and obesity.
"The message of the Bogalusa Heart Study is that coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension and heart disease all begin in childhood," said study director Dr. Gerald Berenson, a professor of cardiology at the Tulane Center for Cardiovascular Health, in New Orleans.
Berenson was to present the findings Wednesday at the American Society of Hypertension annual meeting, in New Orleans.
The goal of the Bogalusa (Louisiana) Heart Study is to tease out the early natural history of cardiovascular disease. It's the longest and most detailed study of a biracial population of children and young adults in the world.
One aspect of the study was to evaluate the importance and impact of prehypertension, a term Berenson dislikes because "it may give somebody an idea that they don't have a disease and don't need to be treated for it. It should not be looked on as innocuous."
Indeed, people in the study with prehypertension had more risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including obesity, high levels of blood fats such as cholesterol, and diabetes.
A report on a group of 1,379 young adults in the study showed that 27 percent of them had prehypertension, while 13 percent had true high blood pressure. There were significant gender and racial differences, with prehypertension found in 35 percent of the men compared with 22 percent of the women. Black males were more likely to have high blood pressure -- 28 percent -- than while males, 12 percent.
All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:f004e570-6eb7-45e1-8538-6097290b5892> | {
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Plants and Pb
benjinsl at astro.ocis.temple.edu
Sun Sep 3 21:27:01 EST 1995
There was an article in The Wall Street Journal about two weeks ago (I
think there was also an article in Science as well) about what is now
called "phytoremediation", or the use of plants ("phyto"-plant from
latin, I believe) to remedy. In this case they are used to remedy soils
contaminated with extremely toxic/radioactive heavy metals.
The plants used in the case mentioned in the article were some species of
the mustard family (Brassica ssp.).
I also know that some water treatment plants use water hyacinth to
"clean" sewage water.
More information about the Plantbio | <urn:uuid:45dd1d30-0090-44df-94fb-a2a3b838d206> | {
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The manuscript map collections of the British Library are among the finest of their kind. Most of this material is to be found in the Department of Manuscripts but there are significant exceptions, notably King George III's Topographical and Maritime collections, held by the Map Library, and those in oriental scripts curated by the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections.
Diogo Homem, Queen Mary Atlas. 1558. Department of Manuscripts. Add. Ms. 5415A. fols. 13v. and 14. Copyright © The British Library Board
Manuscripts Collections Most manuscript maps are preserved by the Department of Manuscripts and are searchable on the Manuscripts Online Catalogue. These are viewable only in the Manuscripts Reading Room.
Maps Collections The manuscript maps of King George III’s Geographical Collection, as well as manuscript maps which relate directly to printed mapping, are held by the Map Library. These maps may be searched and ordered in Explore the British Library, and must be viewed in the Maps Reading Room.
Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections Manuscript maps from the Far East and Asia contained in Oriental scripts are searchable in Explore the British Library. Materials may be examined in the Asian & African Studies Reading Room.
The majority of manuscript maps are listed together in the following (no longer updated) printed resources, available for consultation in both the Maps and the Manuscripts Reading Rooms.
Catalogue of Manuscript Maps, Charts and Plans ... (1844-60, reissued 1962). 3 Volumes, HLR 912.016. Organised geographically, with an added index for searching by author, this printed catalog brings together all manuscript maps in the collections in 1962.
Indexes to Manuscript Maps (1992). Maps Ref Z.1.(1.) / also MSS open access. Organised according to date, cartographer, and geographic location, this three-volume printout of a database contains entries for all manuscript maps (but not views) in the British Library collections acquired before 1992
Trench map of Fricourt, 1916 from: Siegfried Sassoon, Autobiography & miscellaneous related material 1913-46. Add. MS 62550C, f.43. Copyright © The British Library Board
Maps in the Department of Manuscripts
These collections run to many hundreds of volumes containing maps, as well as several thousand separate charts, maps and plans. They include medieval copies of Roman cartography and range from the tenth century to the twentieth. The primary importance of this material is for the study of the development of west European terrestrial cartography up to the mid-seventeenth century (with special reference to Britain). The collections are also strong in marine cartography (including portolan charts from the fourteenth century) and large-scale military and civil mapping of the United Kingdom, western and central Europe, the Americas and Australia in the period up to 1860. Mapping by nineteenth-century African explorers is also well represented.
The following collections include significant holdings of maps: Althorp, Arundel, Cotton, Harleian, King's (i.e. George III's library, as distinct from his topographical collections), Lansdowne, Royal (i.e. the 'Old' Royal Library presented by George II in 1757), Sloane and Stowe. Several of these incorporate other, older collections. The largest number of maps is, however, to be found in the 'Additional' and 'Egerton' series of manuscripts, which themselves comprise numerous collections and archives since the 1750s.
A number of important printed maps are to be found among the holdings of the Department of Manuscripts, most notably perhaps, the proofs for Saxton's county maps of the 1570s.
- Finding Manuscript Maps in the United Kingdom. British Library Map Library guide, online, 2005.
- How to find manuscript maps in the British Library. British Library manuscript map guides No. 2. 1989.
- How to find estate maps in the British Library. British Library Map Library guides no. 2. 1998.
- M A E Nickson. The British Library: guide to the catalogues and indexes of the Department of Manuscripts. Third edition revised, with additional bibliographical information, by J Conway. British Library, 1998. Maps Ref Z.2.(4.) | <urn:uuid:535abb53-abd2-4634-b5f6-d7c46c908110> | {
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PCB Layout/Routing is the next step after component placement in PCB design work. It is the actual physical point-to-point connection of nets driven by the circuit schematic. All of this design work from schematic capture to component placement until PCB routing are done through EDA CAD software tools (Cadence Allegro in our case).
PCB layout topic is a very broad field and involves many steps and guidelines to complete the design process. Discussions here will be limited to aspects relating to embedded design systems. PCB layout work, in general, is not just connecting traces but also includes making a specification of the PCB that meets the requirements of the project. This involves determining what PCB technology to use (double-sided or multilayers, through-hole vias or blind/buried/laser vias, trace width/spacing, layer stack-up, etc). It all depends on the complexity of the circuit and its required features. After making a PCB specification, connectivity work can begin until all nets are connected. The final output of this is generating, what are called in the PCB industry as Gerber Files and fabrication drawings, which are then being sent to a PCB fabricator to build the PCB.
In summary, PCB layout is the final electrically-related design work of putting the whole project concept into its physical reality. Though this is schematic-driven from circuit design, it can also “make or break” a project if its not done properly.
PCB layout stages:
Determining the electrical requirements
Embedded systems can have the same features as a normal desktop PC have, depending on its target application. Though it may be slower in speed compared to most modern PCs, it still employs the same basic circuit requirements (CPUs, SDRAMs, Memory storage, etc.) and interfacing options (LCDs, USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS/GPRS, Power-over-Ethernet, power supplies, etc.). Most of these have circuits that are critical in nature and employ high-speed electrical signalling (CPU to SDRAM interface, high-speed clock lines, differential signalling for USB/Ethernet and LVDS for certain types of LCDs, RF antenna traces, analog/audio signals, etc.) which require high-speed and mixed RF/Analog-Digital PCB layout techniques to be employed during routing and specifying PCB requirements (see PCB Design Guidelines). This usually requires controlled-impedances (single-ended/differential impedance) on traces carrying these signals and matching length these traces during layout. This will also determine the number of layers and layer-stack configuration build-up of the PCB. This will form the bulk of the PCB specification along with the required mechanical dimensions, PCB material and finish, silkscreen, soldermask and drill tolerance.
Determining the nature of electronic components used (fine-pitch surface mounts or through-hole)
Because of the requirement of the final product of most embedded systems to be small in size, small fine-pitch surface-mount components (BGAs, QFNs, DFNs, FCSP, etc.) are generally used. Development boards don't have this same restriction as the final product, so they may end up using standard component packages (SOICs, QFPs, through-hole connectors, etc). Knowing these components is another requirement that will determine the trace width/spacing and through-hole or blind/buried vias to use in the PCB. As the board gets very dense and highly complicated, so does the cost of building the PCBs and this will increase the cost.
Verifying the PCB specifications with a PCB manufacturer
When working with new PCB manufacturer or when special PCB requirements are needed (such as special PCB material for RF Gigahertz speed application), it is always best to check with the intended PCB manufacturer whether the PCB can be manufactured or if tweakings are needed at their end to meet the desired specification. This step is not necessarily needed if the designer is using a specific PCB vendor for quite some time and is already familiar with their capabilities.
PCB layout or routing
Having the prerequisites (electrical requirements and PCB specifications) determined in the first two steps above, the actual connection of nets or layout can commence keeping in mind all the critical circuits or areas that needed special care and applying good engineering practices when dealing with high-speed digital, RF/analog or a mixed of both. It generally make sense to route these difficult areas first and by-hand rather than relying on an Autorouter. In small embedded systems where you have limited space or room, doing the layout by-hand is almost always the best approach. Autorouter usually comes into play when routing non-critical areas of the board and when working with large development boards where space or room is not an issue. Another important thing to consider is Design for Manufacturability (DFM see Design for Manufacturability for details) to ensure that the overall PCB, from component placement to layout, is manufacturable.
PCB layout review
This is always done in concurrence with the circuit design engineer and sometimes, people from manufacturing and assembly for large volume production. For very critical boards, it is always best to do a review after the critical areas are done and another review when the whole layout is completed.
- Gerber generation/netlist verification, fabrication drawing
Gerbers are standard output files from PCB CAD software (Cadence Allegro) sent to a PCB fabricator and used to build the PCBs. Before these are sent, it is always advisable to do some visual checkings on these files as these are the link between the design files and actual PCB. Another method of checking is IPC356 netlist verification. It extracts a netlist out of the gerber files, compares this netlist from an IPC356 netlist format generated by the PCB CAD tool and generates error reports if it finds any discrepancies. This is a more sure way of verifying that gerber files and PCB design files are in sync.
This involves putting all individual PCBs in one PCB outline (panel) to make the PCB production and assembly efficient. This is mostly beneficial to mature products with large volume productions. Panelisation requires familiarity with PCB assembly house's capability such that the creation of the panel complies with their requirements and is optimised to get the most benefit. But most PCB assembly houses have the same basic requirements except in some situations where the product itself requires complicated PCB fab and assembly.
Bluewater Systems Experience
Bluewater Systems has designed a wide range of embedded system PCBs from very small form-factor and highly dense (e.g. Snapper System Modules) to fairly reasonable size development boards which are fairly densed and highly populated PCBs such as Rig 200 and DDS XM-100 storage series. The Snapper module PCBs, despite its very small form-factor of just 40x70mm, are packed with wide range of features and using very fine-pitch SMT components (BGAs, QFNs, etc.), was designed to be built just using conventional PCB fabrication methods, thus keeping cost in check. The PCB is 10-12 layers, impedance-controlled, 8mil drill through-hole vias and 4mil trace width/spacing. The PCB layout could have been easier if it was designed to be build using High Density Interconnect (HDI see Coombs' Printed Circuits Handbook which usually involves highly sophisticated microvia, blind/buried microvia laser drilled and requires unique fabrication methods, but this would drive the cost higher.
In one particular Snapper module, called Snapper270, two 56-ball BGA at 0.65mm pitch were used because of their small size. This is a very fine-pitch BGA. To fan-out the pads, it would normally require laser-drilled blind/buried microvia. But through careful component placement, pinout assignments and routing strategy, we were able to get away with it and just use conventional through-hole vias during fan-out and kept the cost low (see snapshot of this below with the fine-pitch BGAs highlighted.
Rig 200 PCB Layout
The Rig 200 PCB, with its form-factor derived from a standard 5.25 inch CD-ROM bay, measures 199mm by 140mm. But packed will all the features one can think of, ended up being a highly-densed populated board and so does the routing with the addition of a Snapper SO-DIMM version support. | <urn:uuid:0e9e1fdb-deb6-4bd7-8dec-b0081bf1cd37> | {
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Of Mice and Men Topic Tracking: Animal (Lennie Described as an Animal)
Animal 1: The first time we see Lennie, he is immediately compared to an animal:
"...and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws." Chapter 1, pg. 2.
Throughout the novel there will be many such comparisons, and also occasional comparisons to children and the insane. But it is references to animals that occur most frequently. Such representations of Lennie as an animal color how we respond to him and how accountable we hold him for his actions. Therefore, it is significant that Steinbeck immediately mentions an animal when he first describes Lennie.
Animal 2: After walking into the clearing, Lennie's first action is very animal-like. He falls to his knees and slurps water from the river, just as a horse might, or a dog drinking water from a bowl. George comments:
"You'd drink out of a gutter if you was thirsty." Chapter 1, pg. 3.
Here we have the image of a man who is not intelligent enough to check if the water is fresh, but who also drinks in a very animal-like fashion. Lennie's mental retardation comes across clearly, as he is presented as almost less than human.
Lennie tries to hide his mouse from George, but it is no use. George demands the mouse. In the exchange is another animal comparison which also reveals something about George and Lennie's relationship:
"Slowly, like a terrier who doesn't want to bring a ball to its master, Lennie approached, drew back, approached again." Chapter 1, pg. 9.
The task of caring for Lennie has fallen to George, who like a dog's "master", must watch Lennie every moment.
Animal 3: In the description of how he used to play tricks on Lennie, the comparison between Lennie and George as dog and master is reinforced. George tells Slim that Lennie will do anything he tells him to, even jump into the river when he doesn't know how to swim. Much like a faithful dog, Lennie's love is unconditional. He follows orders, even when he doesn't know the harm they might cause.
Animal 4: During the fight between Curley and Lennie, both dog and sheep are used to describe Lennie:
"Lennie covered his face with huge paws and bleated with terror." Chapter 3, pg. 63.
Animal 5: While taunting Lennie with the idea that George might not come back, Crooks predicts Lennie's fate without George:
"Want me to tell ya what'll happen? They'll take ya to the booby hatch. They'll tie ya up with a collar, like a dog." Chapter 4, pg. 72.
Animal 6: After Lennie kills Curley's wife, he attempts to hide what he has done:
"He pawed up the hay until it partly covered her." Chapter 5, pg. 92.
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Polygons - Concept 14,836 views
Polygons are closed plane figures formed by three or more line segments. If a figure is open or curved, it cannot be considered a polygon. Concave polygons have at least one diagonal that does not pass through the interior of the polygon; all of the diagonals in a convex polygon are contained within the figure. Equiangular polygons have all angles congruent; equilateral polygons have all sides congruent.
Polygons are discussed throughout Geometry, so it's important to know their characteristics. First of all, a polygon is a closed figure. So if I drew a figure down here, this would not be a polygon because as you can see, there's this open space here. However, if I drew in a line segment then it would be a polygon because now it is closed. The second thing about polygons is that it has at least three sides. If you have less than three, you can't close any figure. And none of the sides are curved. So if we go back to this figure I drew originally, and let's say instead of drawing a straight line, I drew some sort of curved line. This would not be a polygon because, yes three are the lines are straight, but you have one curved side, so this would not be a polygon.
And the third thing is that they're classified by the number of sides. So what you're going to need to do is memorize a table, that's probably found in your textbooks, that lists the number of sides and the name for that polygon. This is something that you're going to have to memorize because you're going to see it on tests and quizzes throughout geometry.
Now there are two different types of polygons, convex and concave. And the difference is in the diagonals. Remember a diagonal is a segment that connects non consecutive vertices. So in this polygon, if I drew in my diagonals, you'll notice that all of those diagonals are contained within that polygon. So it would be considered convex.
To be concave, you need at least one diagonal that is outside of your polygon. So here, I can draw in a diagonal that is not within this polygon. It just so happens that we have two in this polygon. But you only need one to be considered concave.
Now the last key thing about polygons is how do you name them. Well that's pretty easy because all you have to do is pick one vertex. So let's say I pick D. If I start with D, I can go in, clockwise or counter clockwise, but going to have to be consecutive. So if I start with D, there are two ways that I can name this pentagon. I can go D, C, then B, then A, and then E. So that's one way to name that polygon.
The other one, if I'm starting with D, is to go in the opposite direction. So I could say this is D, E, A, B, and C. So when you're naming a polygon, pick any vertex and go in a consecutive order, either counter clockwise or clockwise. Remember when you're asked that on your true and false questions, the key things about polygons are closed figure, three sides, none of which are curved, and you classify it by how many sides it has. | <urn:uuid:559b0530-05e7-416c-bfd8-2e36d5407e8e> | {
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Wilhelm Johann Eugen BlaschkeArticle Free Pass
Wilhelm Johann Eugen Blaschke, (born Sept. 13, 1885, Graz, Austria-Hungary—died March 17, 1962, Hamburg), German mathematician whose major contributions to geometry concerned kinematics and differential and integral geometry.
Blaschke became extraordinary professor of mathematics at the Deutsche Technische Hochschule (German Technical University), Prague, in 1913 and two years later accepted a post at the University of Leipzig. In 1917 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Königsberg. He accepted a professorial post with the University of Hamburg in 1919.
Blaschke discovered kinematic mapping, which later became important to the axiomatic foundations of various geometries, and established it as a fundamental technique in kinematics. He also originated topological differential geometry, the study of invariant differentiable mappings. His more important works include Kreis und Kugel (1916; “Circle and Sphere”); Vorlesungen über Differentialgeometrie , 3 vol. (1921–29; “Lectures on Differential Geometry”); Vorlesungen über Integralgeometrie , 2 vol. (1935–37; “Lectures on Integral Geometry”); Grundlagen von Einsteins Relativitatstheorie (1921–23; “Foundations of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity”); and Analytische Geometrie (1948; “Analytical Geometry”).
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PeterboroughArticle Free Pass
Peterborough, city and unitary authority, geographic county of Cambridgeshire, England. At the core of the city and unitary authority is a historic region called the Soke of Peterborough, which encompasses the original town of Peterborough and an area extending west between the Rivers Welland and Nene; the Soke of Peterborough is part of the historic county of Northamptonshire. The city and unitary authority also embrace an area to the east, around Thorney, within the historic county of Cambridgeshire, and an area south of the Nene, within the historic county of Huntingdonshire.
Peterborough lies along the River Nene, which is navigable for small vessels to and from the North Sea. It also lies on the margin, or “shoreline,” of the Fens, a low-lying area of peat and silt, which was for many centuries intermediate between land and sea but which was drained and reclaimed between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Today the Fens is an area of great fertility and massive agricultural output, and a number of the region’s products are processed in Peterborough’s factories.
The flat city site is dominated by St. Peter’s Cathedral, a structure begun in 1118 and consecrated in 1238. It is in part a good example of Late Norman style; but it was added to in virtually every succeeding architectural period, and the total effect is discordant. The cathedral contains the Hedda Stone, an Anglo-Saxon sculpture some 1,200 years old, and the tomb of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. Apart from the cathedral, gatehouses, and the Church of St. John (1407), there are few other buildings of interest.
The draining of the Fens, the coming of the railway, and the development of some of England’s largest brickworks on the south bank of the Nene contributed to Peterborough’s 19th-century growth. In the mid-20th century its designation as an expanded town led to further substantial growth. Situated on the main rail line between London and Edinburgh, at a point of junction with cross-country routes, it is a choice location, particularly for warehousing and distributing trades.
Under the expanded town plan, the formerly concentrated city was surrounded by a ring of dispersed suburban communities linked by fast motor routes. The city and unitary authority, which stretch 20 miles (32 km) from east to west and some 8 miles (13 km) from north to south, also include extensive wooded and rural areas. Area 132 square miles (343 square km). Pop. (2001) 156,061; (2011) 183,631.
Do you know anything more about this topic that you’d like to share? | <urn:uuid:fda738f2-cf4e-4c40-98e3-f70608edcd81> | {
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Frankfurt am Main, English Frankfurt on the Main, The J. Allan Cash Photolibrary, Londoncity, Hessen Land (state), western Germany. The city lies along the Main River about 19 miles (30 km) upstream from its confluence with the Rhine River at Mainz. Pop. (2003 est.) city, 643,432; (2000 est.) urban agglom., 3,681,000.
There is evidence of Celtic and Germanic settlements in the city dating from the 1st century bce, as well as Roman remains from the 1st and 2nd centuries ce. The name Frankfurt (“Ford [Passage or Crossing] of the Franks”) probably arose about 500 ce, when the Franks drove the Alemanni south, but the first written mention of Franconofurt stems from Charlemagne’s personal biographer, Einhard, in the late 8th century. The Pfalz (imperial castle) served as an important royal residence of the East Frankish Carolingians from the 9th century through later medieval times. In the 12th century the Hohenstaufen dynasty erected a new castle in Frankfurt and walled the town. The Hohenstaufen ruler Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa) was elected king there in 1152, and in 1356 the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV (the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire) designated Frankfurt as the permanent site for the election of the German kings.
Frankfurt am Main was a free imperial city from 1372 until 1806, when Napoleon I made it the seat of government for the prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1810 the city became the capital of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, created by Napoleon. From 1815, when Napoleon fell, Frankfurt was again a free city, where in 1848–49 the Frankfurt National Assembly met. From 1816 to 1866 the city was the seat of the German Bundestag (Federal Diet) and thus the capital of Germany. After the Seven Weeks’ War in 1866, Frankfurt was annexed by Prussia and thereby lost its free-city status. It was only after its integration into a united Germany that Frankfurt developed into a large industrial city.
Until World War II, Frankfurt’s Old Town, which had grown up around the imperial castle, was the largest medieval city still intact in Germany. The Old Town was mostly destroyed by Allied bombing campaigns in 1944, however, and was subsequently rebuilt with multistory office buildings and other modern structures. Among the city’s most famous old structures are the Römer (“the Roman”; formerly the site of the Holy Roman emperor’s coronation ceremonies and now Frankfurt’s city hall) and two other gabled houses on the Römerberg (the city square surrounding the Römer). Other historical landmarks include the 155-foot- (47-metre-) tall Eschenheimer Tower (1400–28); the red sandstone cathedral, which was dedicated to St. Bartholomew in 1239; and the Paulskirche, which was the meeting place of the first Frankfurt National Assembly.
© Einstein/Shutterstock.comInternational trade fairs have been held in Frankfurt since 1240, and the city is now a leading commercial, financial, and high-technology centre. There is an important stock exchange (first established in 1585). The Rothschild family started building its international banking empire in Frankfurt. The city also is the home of the European Union’s central bank. Annual book, automobile, and computer fairs are popular events, and there are many other fairs held throughout the year. Manufactures include automobiles, machinery, chemical and pharmaceutical products, printing materials, and foodstuffs. The city is traditionally known for its production of high-quality sausages (frankfurters).
Frankfurt has long been a key stopping point for river, rail, and road traffic from Switzerland and southern Germany northward along the Rhine River to the Ruhr region and across the Main River to north-central Germany. It is still the chief traffic hub for western Germany and has also been an important inland shipping port since the canalization of the Main in the 1880s. Frankfurt Airport is the largest airport in Germany and one of the busiest in Europe.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt (1914) is among the largest institutions of higher education in Germany. The Frankfurt am Main City Zoological Garden is one of the country’s finest zoos. Among the city’s other attractions are the Städel Art Institute and Municipal Gallery, the Senckenberg Natural History Museum, and the Liebighaus Museum of Sculpture. The birthplace of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was burned to the ground in World War II but was later restored. Adjoining it is the Goethe Museum and Library. | <urn:uuid:83045ac6-ee33-4a19-9768-af2e1a405186> | {
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papaya, also called papaw, or pawpaw, APG.R. Robertssucculent fruit of a large plant (Carica papaya) of the family Caricaceae that is considered a tree, though its palmlike trunk, up to 8 m (26 feet) tall, is not as woody as the designation generally implies. The plant is crowned by deeply lobed leaves, sometimes 60 cm (2 feet) across, borne on hollow petioles 60 cm long. Normally, the species is dioecious, male and female flowers being produced on separate plants; but hermaphroditic forms are known, and numerous irregularities in the distribution of the sexes are common. Male flowers are borne in clusters on stalks 90 cm long; the flowers are funnel-shaped, about 2.5 mm (0.1 inch) long, and whitish, and the corolla is five-lobed, with 10 stamens in the throat. The female flowers are considerably larger, on very short stalks, and often solitary in the leaf axils; they have five fleshy petals that are united toward the base and a large cylindrical or globose superior ovary that is crowned by five fan-shaped sessile stigmas.
The fruit is commonly spherical to cylindrical in form, is 75 to 500 mm or even more in length, and sometimes weighs as much as 9 to 11.5 kg (20 to 25.5 pounds). In general character it strongly resembles a muskmelon. The very juicy flesh is deep yellow or orange to salmon-coloured and about 25 mm thick. Along the walls of the large central cavity are attached the numerous round, wrinkled black seeds, the size of peas.
Though its origin is rather obscure, the papaya may represent the fusion of two or more species of Carica native to Mexico and Central America. Today it is cultivated throughout the tropical world and into the warmest parts of the subtropics.
The papaya fruit is slightly sweet, with an agreeable musky tang, which is more pronounced in some varieties and in some climates than in others. It is a popular breakfast fruit in many countries and is also used in salads, pies, sherbets, juices, and confections. The unripe fruit can be cooked like squash.
The unripe fruit contains a milky juice in which is present a protein-digesting enzyme known as papain, which greatly resembles the animal enzyme pepsin in its digestive action. This juice is used in the preparation of various remedies for indigestion and in the manufacture of meat tenderizers.
Papayas are usually grown from seed. Their development is rapid, fruit being produced before the end of the first year. Under favourable conditions, a plant may live five years or more. | <urn:uuid:36ec39b6-c56d-4a7a-a9b8-883303b89fb1> | {
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Sue Morse and Young Conservationists in training observe a bear-climbing sign on a beech tree. / Stephen R. Swinburne
Sue Morse, wildlife ecologist and nationally recognized expert in scent tracking, has been researching three generations of bobcats in Vermont for several years. She said these animals often exist in close proximity to humans.
“I call them quintessentially wild, yet wonderfully near us,” Morse said.
Bobcats represent a theme of her work. Through story telling, photography and teaching, Morse presents just how near and dear the wild is to humans.
Morse grew up in rural Pennsylvania on a 2,499-acre farm. She would wonder through a backyard composed of old-growth Hemlock trees while she and her grandfather studied the forest together.
Morse tracks animals by following their scent and markings. She was hearing-impaired for a period of time and jokes that she developed a keen sense of smell during this handicap.
“When I’m out tracking elk, I smell them long before I see them,” she said.
However, she is not just sniffing through the forest’s corridors. She studies the etches made by the claws of a bear or a tree’s bark frayed by the antlers of a deer. These signs carry the scents that mark an animal’s property line.
Morse said her 40 years of research have perfected where to begin looking for animals across large habitats.
“I know where to look,” she said. “Half of tracking is knowing where to look, the other half is looking.”
Morse graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in English. She continued her studies at the University of London where she studied Shakespeare.
She was most influenced by scholars who advocated for the preservation of the wilderness, such as Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost and William Faulkner.
“In wilderness is the preservation of the world,” Henry David Thoreau wrote. She said that this is one of the philosophical tenets that guide her work.
For the past five years, she has been on several Arctic explorations documenting the impact of a changing climate.
She is inspired by the work of Edward S. Curtis, an American photographer who documented diminishing American Indian culture following the displacements of the 19th century. Morse hopes to illustrate conditions in an Arctic region threatened by climate change.
She described the process of photographing an Arctic fox. She suited up in camouflage, ditched her tripod, tucked a 200mm telephoto lens in her pocket, and crawled out into the northern tundra, frequently checking the direction of the wind with a pocket-lighter so as to not alarm her subject.
“I’m crawling on the tundra, from rock to rock,” she said. “I got within 50 feet of an Arctic fox eating a wolf kill.”
Aside from taking photographs, she said she has been absorbing the impact of industrial energy production and climate change on the region.
“I’m just immersing myself in Arctic habitats,” she said. “I’m just driven by the need to see it and document what I see.”
She said she hopes to prevent this landscape from becoming a network of oil pipelines and wells. “It’s not for me to tell Quebec how to manage their land, but it seems to me that this is a world resource,” she said.
Morse does not support industrial energy production, including wind farms that she says disturb wildlife habitats. Instead of just clean energy solutions, she said that people should use less energy.
“We can’t keep stealing from nature,” she said. “We have to look to ourselves for solutions to the problems.”
In 1994, Morse founded Keeping Track, an organization that provides wildlife training to professional and citizen scientists alike. She said the organization empowers citizens to make decisions on wildlife issues in their community.
She recalled working on a conservation committee where she felt powerless and unable to contribute in the decision-making process.
“I realized how powerless I felt. Call it the ‘tragedy of the commons,’” Morse said. “I think the biggest failing we have is that the majority doesn’t always have the information at hand.”
These committees no longer have to depend on Fish and Wildlife or any other state agency for expert advice. Instead, ordinary citizens can offer solutions, she said.
“There is a standing army in every committee. It’s called the citizenry,” Morse said. “The conservation that is now being done is not being done by government. It is being done by citizens, land trusts, conservation groups, and willing land owners.”
Her home projects her passion for the outdoors and her knowledge of natural history. Books stacked from floor to ceiling circle the interior of her house, tables and chairs support stacks of three-ring binders composed of pictures and research articles, mittens, hats, and snowshoes are suspended from her ceiling, and her cat lays stretched on the floor, warmed by the wood stove.
However, her true home is in her backyard. Her loyalty is to the wilderness.
Know of a career you’d like to see profiled in Sunday Jobs? Email ideas to [email protected] | <urn:uuid:510ca0b2-03b8-4bd9-83a0-07900f0834f1> | {
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Understanding the Basics of County and City Revenues / Entendiendo los Ingresos de los Condados y las Cuidades
Understanding the Basics of County and City Revenues provides a plain language explanation of where revenues to fund California county and city services come from. This resource is available in English and Spanish.
This publication is available online in the box at right without charge. The Institute updated the publication in late 2013.
For those local agencies interested in helping their communities understand these issues (for example, as part of local agency budget transparency efforts), the Institute welcomes links from agency websites to these resources.
Thank you to Los Rios Community College student Intern Khristy Martinez and Sacramento State University Alumna Angela Marin, MPPA for their contributions in making this publication available in Spanish. | <urn:uuid:62737928-7030-41bb-b893-7f82aed6532c> | {
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This indicator looks at substandard housing which includes those occupied residences which lack kitchen facilities and complete plumbing facilities.
This indicator is part of Safe, affordable housing.
Substandard housing includes those occupied residences which lack kitchen facilities and complete plumbing facilities. In order for plumbing to be considered complete, the residence must have hot and cold running water, a flush toilet and a bathtub or shower, all located within the dwelling. Another hallmark of decent, safe housing is a reasonable occupancy rate, which is considered one person per indoor room.
Rollover and click the interactive graphs to make comparisons
Why is this indicator relevant?
Overcrowding, along with substandard housing, are each health and safety concerns for any community. Substandard housing effects quality of life for residents, and also puts neighborhoods at risk. Substandard housing can lead to neighborhood blight, which includes high crime levels and other undesirable effects, including lower property values.
American Community Survey, US Census Bureau.
What can we tell from the data?
- Albuquerque is about average when compared to peer Southwest cities of housing that does not have complete kitchen or plumbing facilities.
- Albuquerque has the third highest rate of occupied residences which lack complete kitchen facilities, and is the third highest for residences lacking complete indoor plumbing facilities.
- Albuquerque has the second lowest percent of residences which are considered overcrowded.
For Help in understanding this page, see Understanding Indicators. | <urn:uuid:6d3798a1-ae40-49e7-8fc1-b272582b9f62> | {
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Achievement and Demographics of Homeschool Students
This report presents the results of the largest survey and testing program for students in home schools to date. In Spring 1998, 20,760 K-12 home school students in 11,930 families were administered either the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) or the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (TAP), depending on their current grade. The parents responded to a questionnaire requesting background and demographic information. Major findings include: the achievement test scores of this group of home school students are exceptionally high--the median scores were typically in the 70th to 80th percentile; 25% of home school students are enrolled one or more grades above their age-level public and private school peers; this group of home school parents has more formal education than parents in the general population; the median income for home school families is significantly higher than that of all families with children in the United States; and almost all home school students are in married couple families. Because this was not a controlled experiment, the study does not demonstrate that home schooling is superior to public or private schools and the results must be interpreted with caution. The report clearly suggests, however, that home school students do quite well in that educational environment. | <urn:uuid:25826ae4-53b7-4d34-a899-06994ab92c2b> | {
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David's Story: One Student's Challenge to Voting
David, a sophomore at Ohio Wesleyan University, four weeks before the 2010 mid-term elections, came across a voter registration table sponsored by a local TV station. He and several other students took the two minutes it takes to fill out a voter registration form, putting the name of the dorm as their address, and turned the forms over to the volunteers at the booth. They told David he was all set to vote.
However, the day before the election, David realized he had not received a voter registration card from the County Board of Elections. When he contacted the Board of Elections office he was told that his name did not appear in a search of the database. They informed him that the registration contained an error. To register to vote you need an actual street address - not the name of the dorm. The Board of Elections office told David there were dozens of other cases just like his from the Ohio Wesleyan campus. It is not clear if those students were ever contacted to correct their registration.
Ultimately, David went to his precinct on Election Day, filled out a new voter registration form with the street address of his dorm. He was given a provisional ballot to vote but told it would be reviewed at a later time to determine if it would be counted. However, since Ohio does not have same day registration, his vote most likely was not counted.
David's story highlights the importance for colleges, student organizations, and local groups to reach out to students and provide them with accurate information they need to register and vote - including how to fill out the voter registration form. If David was provided accurate information from the start, his vote would have been counted. | <urn:uuid:493d74b7-5ffa-44e5-889c-9507fb7a21d9> | {
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- How is acute lymphocytic leukemia treated?
- Chemotherapy for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Targeted therapy for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Surgery for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Radiation therapy for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- High-dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplant for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Clinical trials for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Complementary and alternative therapies for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Typical treatment of acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Response rates to treatment for acute lymphocytic leukemia
- What if the leukemia doesn’t respond or comes back after treatment?
- More acute lymphocytic leukemia treatment information
Radiation therapy for acute lymphocytic leukemia
Radiation therapy uses high-energy radiation to kill cancer cells. It is not usually part of the main treatment for people with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), but it is used in certain situations:
- Radiation is sometimes used to treat leukemia that has spread to the brain and spinal fluid or to the testicles.
- Radiation to the whole body is often an important part of treatment before a bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplant (see the section, “High-dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplant for acute lymphocytic leukemia”).
- Radiation is used (rarely) to help shrink a tumor if it is pressing on the trachea (windpipe) and causing breathing problems. But chemotherapy is often used instead, as it may work more quickly.
- Radiation can also be used to reduce pain in an area of bone invaded by leukemia, if chemotherapy hasn’t helped.
External beam radiation therapy, in which a machine delivers a beam of radiation to a specific part of the body, is the type of radiation used most often for ALL. Before your treatment starts, the radiation team will take careful measurements to determine the correct angles for aiming the radiation beams and the proper dose of radiation. Radiation therapy is much like getting an x-ray, but the radiation is more intense. The procedure itself is painless. Each treatment lasts only a few minutes, although the setup time – getting you into place for treatment – usually takes longer.
The possible side effects of radiation therapy depend on where the radiation is aimed. Sunburn-like skin changes and hair loss in the treated area are possible. Radiation to the abdomen can sometimes cause nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. For radiation that includes large parts of the body, the effects may include fatigue and lowered blood cell counts, which can lead to an increased risk of infection.
Last Medical Review: 07/10/2013
Last Revised: 02/07/2014
- What Is Leukemia - Acute Lymphocytic (ALL) in Adults?
- Causes, Risk Factors, and Prevention
- Early Detection, Diagnosis, and Staging
- Treating Leukemia - Acute Lymphocytic (ALL) in Adults
- Talking With Your Doctor
- After Treatment
- What`s New in Leukemia - Acute Lymphocytic (ALL) in Adults Research?
- Other Resources and References | <urn:uuid:d1501b95-6ce2-4fff-8b9b-13df504c8b9b> | {
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Throughout history there has been a consistent fear of bank runs, particularly regarding large institutions during times of crisis. The financial crisis of 2007-09 was no exception. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission,which was created after the crisis to investigate its causes and triggering events, highlighted no less than 10 cases of runs at individual institutions. Those runs were a major consideration in the shifting policy responses that authorities employed during the crisis.
In the early stages of the crisis, troubled institutions facing runs were dealt with through a scattered blend of voluntary mergers, outright closures, and bailouts. By late September 2008 and thereafter, panic had descended on the Treasury and the major financial agencies. That resulted in the decision to backstop the full range of large institutions,as government officials feared a collapse of the entire financial system. However, serious analysis of the risks facing the financial sector was sorely lacking and outright misstatement of the facts was evident.
It did not have to be that way. Simple rules elaborated by Walter Bagehot and Anna J. Schwartz involving a systemic review of the condition of the financial system, prompt intervention, and consideration of the condition of individual institutions could have prevented the numerous ill-advised bailouts. Additionally, evidence that the runs were not indicative of a pending collapse of the system, but were rather a simple matter of migration of deposits from weaker institutions to stronger institutions, were apparently not considered or ignored. Application of these considerations could have avoided the panic by the authorities and the strategy of bailouts for the megabanks. | <urn:uuid:a4b55bce-9f26-407a-85e2-583758cc3a58> | {
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One of the most common questions in cow/calf production is what vaccines are necessary on an annual basis to keep the herd healthy. The guidelines set forth in this article are designed to help answer that question but the details of what products to use and when to administer them are best decided by the producer and his or her veterinarian. Technology is constantly changing and updating science to make today’s vaccines safer and more effective than any time in the history of cattle production. However, the sheer number and types of vaccines and dewormers available today can make the correct selection of products challenging at the very least. Every farm is different with regards to the disease risk the cattle face and the challenges of labor and facilities needed to work the cattle. Your veterinarian is equipped with the knowledge and skills to determine what will work best for your unique situation.
Consult your veterinarian before instituting any health protocol.
Cows and Bulls 4-6 weeks Prior to Breeding
1. Viral respiratory vaccine (IBR, BVD, PI3, BRSV) with Campylobacter fetus (Vibriosis) and 5-way Leptospirosis- Fetal Protection (FP) product preferred. If the cow is pregnant at the time of vaccination, use a killed vaccine product to reduce the risk of accidental abortion. Certain modified live vaccines can be used in pregnant animals but only if used strictly according to label directions.
2. 7 way Clostridial (Blackleg)-necessary if under 2 years of age. Optional after that depending on the exposure risk of the herd.
3. Deworm-perform at least twice per year (spring and summer). If only once is possible, deworm in late June or July. Deworming in the fall is a good practice to reduce the number of worms that overwinter in the cow but is not as important as the spring and summer when larvae are active in the pasture.
4. Tag cattle for identification and/or re-tag those that have lost tags.
5. Breeding Soundness Exams are highly recommended for herd bulls.
Heifers 6 weeks Prior to Breeding
1. Viral respiratory vaccine (IBR, BVD, PI3, BRSV) with Campylobacter fetus (Vibriosis) and 5-way Leptospirosis-Modified live or killed product. Fetal Protection (FP) product is preferred. Follow label directions; some vaccines require a booster and some do not.
2. 7 way Clostridial (Blackleg)
3. Deworm with a branded (not generic) product. A heifer is under increased nutritional demand because she is still growing herself and trying to reproduce. Young animals do not have the immunity to parasites that adult cattle possess; therefore it is important to use effective dewormers. | <urn:uuid:297a1580-e3dd-4303-a59c-d69b6734d7d2> | {
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Colombia’s civilians have been caught in the middle of turf battles between leftist guerilla groups and right-wing paramilitary organizations for decades. In 2003, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe took a step to quell the violence associated with at least one of those actors when he signed a peace deal with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or the AUC, the country’s largest paramilitary group. Over thirty thousand combatants have demobilized since the agreement, and judicial proceedings to try top commanders are in process. Yet political scandals revealing the extent of paramilitary infiltration of Colombian security forces and the upper ranks of the government have rocked the country. In addition, new criminal organizations have emerged in the wake of the AUC that bear a striking resemblance to their paramilitary predecessors. Colombia has long received significant assistance from the United States, primarily for counternarcotics, but the paramilitary scandals have prompted legislative scrutiny of this aid, as well as of a proposed free trade agreement.
History of Paramilitaries
The most notorious of Colombia’s paramilitaries, the AUC, was formed in 1997 as an umbrella organization to consolidate local paramilitary groups. Such groups, however, had existed in loose form since the late 1960s, when legislation was passed that allowed for the formation of local self-defense groups. Some paramilitaries emerged directly from these groups, while others were formed by drug lords, local political and economic elites, and organized crime. All paramilitaries sought to protect their own interests—whether land, a business, or political office. Most also operated under the ostensible ideological banner of combating members of the leftist guerrilla groups the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish acronym, FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). While paramilitaries liked to position themselves as a necessary counter to Colombia’s leftist insurgents, ordinary Colombians were often victimized—instead of protected by—the paramilitaries. The armed groups displaced indigenous communities from their land, massacred civilians, and kidnapped political figures. As human rights groups have documented, some paramilitaries even charged “taxes” in local areas and regulated how citizens could dress.
The AUC unified what had been a disparate array of paramilitary groups. Under the leadership of Carlos Castano, the organization expanded in numbers and diversified its revenue streams. It also became increasingly entwined with the drug trade. For instance, some leaders of Los Pepes, a collection of drug traffickers formed in the early 1990s to fight the legendary kingpin Pablo Escobar, later assumed high-level positions in the AUC. Within three years of its formation, the AUC’s numbers had doubled (to roughly eight thousand combatants) and it had made significant inroads into the cocaine trade. It tapped fuel pipelines to sell oil on the black market, extorted payments from multinational corporations such as Chiquita, and expanded into the gambling and construction industries. In 2001, the U.S. government designated the AUC a foreign terrorist organization. By 2003, when Uribe signed a peace deal with the AUC, it had penetrated over seven hundred of Colombia’s roughly eleven hundred municipalities.
The Promise and Pitfalls of Demobilization
Since 2003, approximately thirty-one thousand paramilitary members have been disarmed. Between 2003 and 2005, violence committed by paramilitaries dropped sharply; for instance, assassinations dropped from 1,240 to 329, according to a research organization in Bogota. But it’s unclear if the underlying operating structures of these groups has been crippled. In February 2006, a senior U.S. military official told the International Crisis Group that many paramilitaries maintained control over drug trafficking and illegal assets.
The legal framework under which the paramilitaries were demobilized has been strongly criticized. The AUC agreed to a peace deal because the government promised to restrict the legal action that could be taken against its members. The original law submitted by Uribe to Colombia’s congress, however, did not meet international humanitarian standards. After lengthy congressional debate, the Justice and Peace Law passed in 2005. It allowed for the possibility that those who committed serious crimes could escape prosecution, obstructed efforts to dissolve paramilitary structures, and did not guarantee victims’ rights to reparations and truth.
After its passage, Amnesty International suggested that by providing de facto amnesties for human rights abusers, the law may even make things worse. A New York Times editorial said it should be called the “Impunity for Mass Murderers, Terrorists and Major Cocaine Traffickers Law.”
Some took a more pragmatic view. It is important to “reconcile justice and realpolitik,” a diplomat in Bogota told the International Crisis Group in January 2006.
In May 2006, Colombia’s Constitutional Court amended the Justice and Peace Law. Though it upheld many provisions of the law, most critics of the original legislation agreed that it corrected some significant flaws. The revision allowed victims to participate in all stages of legal proceedings, removed sentence reductions for those who commit crimes again or do not cooperate with the legal process, and required that paramilitary members confess fully. “The court has finally given the law some teeth,” said José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch.
Surveys conducted by the International Center on Transitional Justice indicate Colombian citizens want a robust prosecution (PDF) process for the paramilitaries. Among those surveyed, nearly 75 percent believe the government must prosecute paramilitary members, and roughly 50 percent considered themselves either direct or indirect victims of the conflict.
But implementation of the law has suffered from inadequate funds, insufficient staffing in the attorney general’s office, and the lack of a clear framework that encompasses all demobilized persons, says an October 2007 report (Word Doc) from the Organization of American States, which is monitoring the demobilization process.
The government offices charged with the paramilitary justice process are “working triple overtime,” says Adam Isacson, director of the Center for International Policy’s Colombia program, but the law limits the number of prosecutors that can work on the paramilitary unit to twenty. Though the revised law only applies to about 2,600 people—top- and mid-level paramilitary commanders who committed the most egregious crimes—this still works out to an overwhelming case load for each prosecutor. Of the few confessions that have been heard thus far, paramilitary commanders have been unwilling to discuss stolen or illegally obtained land and property even though the law requires them to surrender those assets for victim reparation. “They are determined to hang on to these assets,” says Isacson. “Land is going to be the biggest problem” in the paramilitary justice process, he says.
Broad Reach of the Paramilitaries
Despite its problems, the demobilization process has revealed the degree to which paramilitaries have infiltrated the highest levels of Colombian politics. Investigations by the Supreme Court and the attorney general’s office have brought to light startling information about collusion between paramilitary commanders and Colombian security services, military commanders, and high-ranking politicians. In November 2006, the attorney general’s office set up a special unit to investigate links between public employees and paramilitaries.
Human rights groups have long accused Colombian security forces of working in tandem with paramilitary units (Declassified U.S. government documents requested by the National Security Archive confirm this connection). But in 2006 and 2007, a series of scandals broke that implicated top public figures. The former foreign minister, at least one state governor, several legislators, and the head of the national police have all been tainted by the “parapolitics” scandal. In March 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that the head of the army collaborated with paramilitary groups on military sweeps to eradicate left-wing militias.
As of April 2007, fifty politicians had been implicated. The widening scandal has cast doubts on President Alvaro Uribe, but some say it is the natural byproduct of the paramilitary demobilization process. “The charges underscore the remarkable independence that Colombia’s newly reformed judiciary is exercising,” says a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Funding for the judiciary has increased markedly under President Uribe.
Multinational corporations have also been linked to the paramilitaries. In 2007, Chiquita Brands admitted in U.S. court that it paid nearly $1.7 million to paramilitary group over eight years. Other corporations including Coca-Cola and Drummond are now under investigation.
Evolution and Fragmentation
In September 2007, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe told the United Nations that in Colombia, “today there is no paramilitarism. There are guerrillas and drug traffickers.” Many observers—from the United Nations to Colombian analysts—disagree. On the contrary, they say, the paramilitaries are smaller, more clandestine, and operating with just as much impunity as before the AUC’s demobilization.
The Colombian government admits that there is a problem with “criminal organizations,” but it does not identify these groups with the paramilitaries. In a May 2007 report on Colombia’s armed groups, the International Crisis Group says that regardless of what one labels these groups, they all have ties to drug trafficking and criminal networks.
It documents three types of armed groups: paramilitaries that did not demobilize; groups in collusion with drug cartels; and criminal gangs that have arisen to fight for a share of the drug trade. Sergio Caramagna, head of the OAS mission in Colombia, told NPR, “the danger is that these groups have a big fountain of revenue that comes from narcotrafficking that allows them to develop and recruit people and continue affecting the population.”
The new groups, however, do not seem to have infiltrated regional politics to the same degree as the paramilitaries, and lack a strong command structure or ideological bent. Some analysts suggest that public opinion in Colombia has forced the paramilitaries to develop new strategies; whereas the population used to be sympathetic to their counterinsurgency cause, most no longer are. Gustavo Duncan of Colombia’s Security and Democracy Foundation, author of a book on the paramilitaries, predicts in a column in El Pais the rise of “more discrete armed structures, focused on the control of specific spaces and transactions, appealing to the logic of clandestine infiltrations into power structures, instead of an overt military and political dominion.”
With AUC demobilization far from complete, concluding that the paramilitaries have reformed would be premature. In its most recent mission report, the Organization of American States expressed concern that some mid-level paramilitary commanders remain in hiding and continue to exert influence. Further, armed units have seized control of areas formerly controlled by paramilitaries in a process known as paramilitary “recycling.” The current proliferation of groups may “presage an atomization of criminal organizations” similar to what happened after Colombia’s drug cartels were destroyed, says the International Crisis Group report. The Center for International Policy’s Colombia blog uses Google maps to display the rise of the new armed groups.
A Role for the United States
It is impossible to separate U.S. policy toward Colombia from the war on drugs, a battle the United States has spent roughly $500 billion on since the 1980s. Cocaine cultivation in Colombia was perceived as a major threat, and the United States worked to arrest drug traffickers such as Pablo Escobar and fund police in Colombia to prosecute cocaine growers. In 1999, with left-wing guerrillas using drug money to fund their fight against the Colombian government, the United States decided to significantly up its military aid to Bogota, an initiative that become known as Plan Colombia.
Currently, Colombia is one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid. Under Plan Colombia, the United States has provided nearly $5 billion over six years. Yet these funds have primarily funded eradication and interdiction, as opposed to economic development or regional security efforts. Back in 2001, Colombia expert Winifred Tate wrote in the Brown Journal of World Affairs that “the failure to address paramilitary violence is the fatal flaw in Plan Colombia” (PDF). Dissolving the paramilitaries, Tate argues, should be a U.S. priority.
The U.S. Congress, concerned over the parapolitics scandal, has held up the passage of a free trade agreement with Colombia that was signed in 2006. Legislators want the Colombia government to make more progress on prosecuting paramilitary commanders and curbing labor abuses. Some experts suggest that the United States should help the Colombian government with these efforts. In a report for the Congress for American Progress, Columbia University’s Aldo Civico writes that Congress should increase its funding for Colombian judges and prosecutors investigating the parapolitics scandal, the body charged with reintegrating former paramilitary combatants, and social development programs for internally displaced Colombians.
In the 2008 foreign aid bill, Congress mandated that at least $20 million must go to the office of the prosecutor-general. In the fight against both drug traffickers and organized criminals, “there is recognition in Congress that the weak link is the justice system,” says Isacson. Still, of Colombia’s 2008 aid, 65 percent will be military. | <urn:uuid:e7a8c7f8-fc2e-4d7a-9f88-d39ef2a21b22> | {
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Imagine powering your cell phone by simply walking around your office or rubbing it with the palm of your hand Rather than plugging it into the wall you become the power source Researchers at the ... - Read More
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Researchers have created a new type of ultracold molecule using lasers to cool atoms nearly to absolute zero and then gluing them together a technology that might be applied to quantum computing precise sensors and ... - Read More
For the first time researchers have shown that freestanding metal membranes consisting of a single layer of atoms can be stable under ambient conditions This result of an international research team from Germany Poland and ... - Read More
An ultra fast and ultra small optical switch has been invented that could advance the day when photons replace electrons in the innards of consumer products ranging from cell phones to automobiles The new optical ... - Read More
Researchers have developed a new approach to simulating the energetic processes that may have led to the emergence of cell metabolism on Earth a crucial biological function for all living organisms The research which is ... - Read More
Most modern electronics from flat screen TVs and smartphones to wearable technologies and computer monitors use tiny light emitting diodes or LEDs These LEDs are based off of semiconductors that emit light with the movement ... - Read More
In a relatively recently discovered class of materials known as spin orbit Mott insulators theorists have predicted the emergence of new properties at points just beyond the insulating state when electronic manipulation can transform these ... - Read More
A team of MIT researchers has used a novel material that's just a few atoms thick to create devices that can harness or emit light This proof of concept could lead to ultrathin lightweight and ... - Read More
There have been plenty of fad diets that captured the public's imagination over the years but Harvard scientists have identified what may be the strangest of them all sunlight and electricity Led by Peter Girguis ... - Read More
There's promising news from the front on efforts to produce fuels through artificial photosynthesis A new study by Berkeley Lab researchers at the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis JCAP shows that nearly 90 percent of ... - Read More
When the sun sets on a remote desert outpost and solar panels shut down what energy source will provide power through the night A battery perhaps or an old diesel generator Perhaps something strange and ... - Read More
Have you ever wondered why your laptop or smartphone feels warm when you're using it That heat is a byproduct of the microprocessors in your device using electric current to power computer processing functions and ... - Read More
Radio waves are used for many measurements and applications for example in communication with mobile phones MRI scans scientific experiments and cosmic observations But 'noise' in the detector of the measuring instrument limits how sensitive ... - Read More
University of Cincinnati researchers are discovering how to manipulate light to one day better view the world's tiniest objects through a super lens as well as how to hide an object in plain sight Masoud ... - Read More
Advances in renewable and sustainable energy including mimicking photosynthesis and optimizing lithium ion batteries are the topics of three plenary talks at the 247th National Meeting & amp Exposition of the American Chemical Society ACS ... - Read More
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As smartphones tablets and other gadgets become smaller and more sophisticated the heat they generate while in use increases This is a growing problem because it can cause the electronics inside the gadgets to fail ... - Read More
Photovoltaic energy conversion offers one of the best means for the future of renewable energy in the world The efficiency of solar cells depends heavily upon the light absorbing materials they use Photovoltaic systems based ... - Read More
Using the interaction between light and charge fluctuations in metal nanostuctures called plasmons physicist have demonstrated the capability of measuring temperature changes in very small 3 D regions of space Plasmons can be thought of ... - Read More
Tell us what you think of Chemistry 2011 -- we welcome both positive and negative comments. Have any problems using the site? Questions?
Chemistry2011 is an informational resource for students, educators and the self-taught in the field of chemistry. We offer resources such as course materials, chemistry department listings, activities, events, projects and more along with current news releases.
The history of the domain extends back to 2008 when it was selected to be used as the host domain for the International Year of Chemistry 2011 as designated by UNESCO and as an initiative of IUPAC that celebrated the achievements of chemistry. You can learn more about IYC2011 by clicking here. With IYC 2011 now over, the domain is currently under redevelopment by The Equipment Leasing Company Ltd.
Are you interested in listing an event or sharing an activity or idea? Perhaps you are coordinating an event and are in need of additional resources?
Within our site you will find a variety of activities and projects your peers have previously submitted or which have been freely shared through creative commons licenses.
Here are some highlights: Featured Idea 1, Featured Idea 2.
Ready to get involved? The first step is to sign up by following the link: Join Here. Also don’t forget to fill out your profile including any professional designations. | <urn:uuid:bf0c7b28-3222-4bc1-ab30-7d202003e1e2> | {
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International System of Units during our International Year of ChemistryIdea by Sally Mitchell | added on Jan 28, 2011 12:10AM Suggestion
SI is the international system of units used by chemists all over the world to communicate. Unfortunately, many citizens do not know this language and struggle to communicate with the rest of the world. Demand metric only measurements used in all public schools in the USA. Make 2011, a truly international year.
The International System of Units (Modern Metric System) is the measurement system used in chemistry. Unfortunately, many students in the USA struggle with measurement because they are taught a dual-system of measurement and because the general public is not exposed to its use at home and in everyday life. If the USA would just stop and reflect on science and technology, we would realize that the USA is a metric nation. We need to put the "Inch-Pound System of measurement" into the history books and move forward with educating our nation so that we can communicate with the rest of the world in areas such as chemistry. We need to stop teaching the Inch-Pound system and finally get on board with the rest of the world with this coherent system of measurement. | <urn:uuid:6f295a01-306d-41c9-80ed-3158df2e9824> | {
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The results are dismaying because they come after a decade of No Child Left Behind. If that law forces teachers, as critics allege, to “teach to the test,” it is not this test they are teaching to.
The test is divided into three parts, critical reading, writing and math. A perfect score on each section is 800 — 2400 if the student aces all three. But mean national reading scores were 496, a 40-year low, 34 points below 1972. Math was flat at 514, roughly unchanged since 2007. And writing was 488, down nine points since that section was added to the test in 2006.
Over half, 57 percent, did not achieve a combined score of 1550, the level at which a student is deemed ready for college-level work. The results were even worse at ACT, the other major college entrance exam, where 75 percent of the students failed to meet the readiness standard.
Scores across every racial group, except those of Asian descent, have declined since 2006.
Educators advanced ancillary reasons for the poor showing: a record number of students, 1.66 million, took the test; 27 percent were from low-income families; 28 percent said English was not their first language; and one-third were from families where the parents had not attended college.
But overwhelmingly, the single greatest factor correlating to achievement was household income. Students from families earning $20,000 or less had a mean combined score of 1322. The scores increase in stair-step fashion with each additional $20,000 in family income. But the threshold readiness figure of 1550 wasn’t reached until household income approached $100,000. The mean combined score for students from families earning $200,000 or more was 1722.
This suggests that most of the much-discussed education reforms — more testing, stricter teacher evaluations, smaller classes, charter schools — might result in improvements, some of them perhaps significant, around the margins, but that one of the most effective reforms would be a rising and prosperity for all. Easier said than done, of course, and not likely to happen under the economic policies of the current administration in Washington.
The other missing ingredient in education improvement is an increase in the number of parents closely involved in their students’ education. Yet once again, that’s easier asked for than achieved. | <urn:uuid:ffb581ed-1deb-4b25-a543-d364787b4248> | {
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Hand Feeding Definition ... manually inputting fluid (water/milk) and substance food (pellets/hay) into a chinchilla.
Hand feeding a chinchilla can seem quite an ordeal especially if it is a sick chinchilla that is used to feeding themselves or a new born kit rejected by its mother/siblings.
In all instances when a chinchilla cannot feed themselves it is imperative that you step in and hand feed a chinchilla as they loose weight rapidly! If a chinchilla does not eat for a while their gut movement also begins to slow down, which can cause the onset of G. I. Statis that is fatal to chinchillas if ignored.
It is seriously important to weigh chinchillas that are being hand fed on a regular basis of every 2-3 days. Making weigh-ins more regular than the usual once a week will ensure no massive weight losses go unnoticed.
Hand feeding must be done very carefully as to not let food go down the trachea or windpipe, which can cause the onset of Pneumonia or drop into the nostrils as to strangle the chinchilla.
When hand feeding older chinchillas care must also be taken to ensure the chinchilla does not bite off the end of the syringe and swallow it.
Hand Feeding a Sick Chinchilla...
Chinchillas can stop eating for various reasons and at any time a chinchilla chooses to stop feeding itself, immediate medical intervention must be sought to diagnosis the underlying health issue.
Some chinchillas have the onset of tooth issues, which will prevent them eating properly as they find crunching onto hard pellets to painful to tolerate, if this is the case, before you commence hand feeding, try the following two methods:
- Crush down the pellets using a coffee grinder until the pellets resemble crumbs and see if the chinchilla can consume the crumbs, if not...
- Add a couple of drops of water to the pellets until they are mushy but not completely wet.
The above can be offered from a spoon or food bowl but if the chinchilla refuses this method of eating, then hand feeding a 'liquid feed' on a regular basis will need to start with the aid of a feeding syringe or pipette.
There are liquid foods available for chinchillas that can be bought from a professional veterinary surgery and these food forms can be hand fed to a chinchilla via a feeding syringe. The common hand feeding brands are Science Supreme Recovery and Critical Care. Both come in sealed sachets and are classed as 'complete foods' in powder form. They contain all the essential nutrients a chinchilla would normally acquire from their normal diet of pellets and hay although the level of protein, carbohydrates and fibre are increased as required by a sick or unable chinchilla that is being hand fed.
Most syringes for small animals are 1ml of content, this should be remembered when hand feeding a chinchilla to ensure they are acquiring the full amount - a sick chinchilla may eat less but monitor the amount you hand feed daily. Science Supreme Recovery suggests you hand feed one sachet per kilo of chinchilla body weight per day.
If a chinchilla does not like the taste or texture of the liquid food you can try and make your own liquid supplement and see how you get on. Make a BASIC chinchilla mix using chinchilla pellets, water (to liquefy) and add a small amount of Nutrobal (calcium and mineral supplement) and Avipro Plus (probiotic) to the formula. Mix well together and offer to a chinchilla through a syringe or pipette.
Hand Feeding a Chinchilla Kit (Baby) ...
Please refer to our section on Weaning & Hand-Rearing A Chinchilla Kit.
Hand Feeding Method:
Firstly when hand feeding a chinchilla, the most important aspect is to relax and allow plenty of time for the feeding process. Try not to make the chinchilla feel like it is being hand fed and make sure everything is prepared first. Place everything on a tray: liquid feed, syringe of water (if not drinking), medications, tissue paper for cleaning up and keep it all to hand.
A chinchilla may take directly to a syringe whilst running about and you should try this first but if not you will need to pick the chinchilla up and hand feed them manually.
Fill the syringe with a hand feeding liquid-food such as Science Supreme Recovery or Critical Care and expel any air bubbles before you gently pick the chinchilla up.
Hold the chinchilla close to your body with their face towards you and wait until they stop struggling and settle down. Place the tip of the syringe into the mouth by entering from the side, into the gap (diastema) behind the front teeth, and slowly depress the syringe allowing a TINY amount of liquid food to enter the mouth cavity.
As soon as a small amount of food is expelled into the chinchilla’s mouth, immediately remove the syringe to give the chinchilla time to swallow and not choke from too much food.
If at any point during hand feeding the chinchilla begins to struggle, stop for a few minutes and restart hand feeding again when the chinchilla has relaxed. When you have finished hand feeding your chinchilla, wipe away any spillage and repeat the procedure until all the food has been digested. After a couple of goes, you will know how much your chinchilla willingly consumes in one go and each hand feeding session will become easier and easier as time goes on.
NOTE: If the liquid food is smooth enough and a chinchilla is still able to drink water, the liquid food can be offered via a separate water bottle attached to the inside of the cage.
It is important not to rush hand feeding and expel too much liquid food into a chinchilla’s mouth as this can cause choking and food that is inhaled can cause lethal pneumonia! Young kits can also die from over feeding whilst being hand fed as owners offer too much liquid food without knowing.
Be patient and you will win. No chinchilla chooses to be hand fed and it will take some patience and time for them to adjust but you must not give up as a chinchilla's life will depend on you!
Further Reading Relating To Hand Feeding A Chinchilla:
Holding a Chinchilla, Illness Sickness & Disease, Nutrition (Food & Diet), Weaning & Hand-Rearing A Chinchilla Kit, | <urn:uuid:36aeb873-c97c-4ca3-aa24-b4094d3c1785> | {
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Apr 4, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – In a major effort to track influenza viruses in nature and learn more about how they interact with the human body, the federal government this week announced a $23-million-a-year program to fund research centers at six institutions around the country.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) unveiled the 7-year plan to fund six "Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance" at universities and other institutions from New York City to Los Angeles.
"The goal of the newly created centers is to provide the federal government with important information to inform public health strategies for controlling and lessening the impact of seasonal influenza as well as an influenza pandemic," the NIAID said in an Apr 2 news release.
Research under the NIAID contracts will range from monitoring of Americans' responses to flu vaccination to identification of possible targets for new antiviral drugs and testing of pigs and wild birds. Each center will collaborate with a number of other agencies and institutions.
The new initiative builds on a program launched by the NIAID after the original human outbreak of H5N1 avian flu in Hong Kong in 1997, the agency said. In that program, led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, researchers studied flu viruses in waterfowl and live bird markets in Hong Kong, shedding light on the natural history of the viruses. St. Jude is one of the six centers named this week.
The six centers, with their principal investigators and main areas of research as described by the NIAID, are as follows:
- St. Jude, Dr. Robert Webster. Research areas include antiviral drug regimens, factors in flu virus resistance to antivirals, virus transmissibility, and human defenses against the H5N1 virus. The center will also maintain surveillance for SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in Southeast Asia.
- University of California, Los Angeles; Dr. Scott Layne. Researchers will monitor animal influenza internationally and in the Pacific Northwest and will maintain a high-throughput laboratory network for studying circulating flu viruses and antiviral resistance.
- University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Dr. Marguerite Pappaioanou. Scientists will monitor flu viruses in migratory birds, conduct human flu surveillance in Thailand, and monitor US farm workers who work with swine. (See further information below.)
- Emory University, Atlanta; Dr. Richard Compans. Researchers will study how flu viruses adapt to new hosts and are transmitted between different hosts and will examine human immune responses to flu vaccination and infection.
- Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City; Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Sastre. Researchers will conduct molecular studies to identify viral genes associated with pathogenicity and the adaptability of flu viruses in birds and mammals.
- University of Rochester, New York; Dr. John Treanor. Investigators will monitor communities in New York for seasonal flu infections and study the effectiveness of annual immunization programs, among other efforts. (See further information below.)
At the University of Minnesota, Pappaioanou said the center will collaborate with a number of other groups to test wild birds for flu viruses throughout the Central Flyway, with studies weighted toward the Upper Midwest. Partners in the effort include the University of Georgia in Athens, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the US National Wildlife Health Center in Madison (Wis.), the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, and Cargill Corp., she said.
Depending on results, the bird surveillance may lead to testing of pigs and possibly testing of people who work with pigs, Pappaioanou, an epidemiologist and veterinarian in the School of Public Health, told CIDRAP News. "If we find birds that are positive, we'll look at swine that are nearby. We'll be interviewing people who own those operations and their employees. If there are reports of human illness that could be flu, we'll be testing specimens from [the patients]."
In addition, the center will team up with Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, which has battled H5N1 outbreaks in recent years, for a human flu surveillance project in rural Thailand, Pappaioanou said. Researchers will be looking at risk factors for H5N1 exposure and also test people for antibodies indicating past exposure to the virus.
Pappaioanou said the center will receive NIAID funding of about $3 million a year under a contract that requires various "deliverables" along the way. The latter include things like detailed information on the viruses collected plus laboratory reagents and protocols developed. The data generated will be deposited in GenBank and other public databases.
"My role is largely going to be coordinating this, making sure things happen, providing scientific oversight, and making sure we deliver our deliverables to the NIH [National Institutes of Health]," she said.
At the University of Rochester, scientists are planning research to help in the development of a single vaccine that can work against many different flu strains, Treanor commented in a news release.
The Rochester center will study five topics in particular: (1) how white blood cells recognize qualities shared by many different flu strains, (2) the identity of viral proteins that turn on "helper" T cells, causing them to attack infected cells, (3) communication between immune cells, (4) the nature of changes in the viral protein hemagglutinin when flu viruses jump from birds to mammals, and (5) the qualities of viral polymerase, the enzyme the virus uses to copy its genetic material.
As part of the effort, "Researchers will follow college students, healthy adults, and 150 families with young children in the Rochester area for seven years, monitoring them for exposure to flu and responses to vaccination," the release states.
The Rochester contract is worth a total of $26 million, officials said. The university will collaborate with Cornell University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and community partners.
Apr 2 NIAID news release
University of Rochester news release
St Jude Children's Research Hospital news release | <urn:uuid:284752a3-1023-4b4a-9678-e6a3cbd4e157> | {
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In an increasingly technical world, the computer science department strives to bring technological understanding and contemporary professional skills to the Computer Information Systems major.
The coursework provides students with a solid foundation in computer principles, from computer literacy through advanced computer science topics. Through utilizing the best tools available for learning, students develop critical analytical skills for informed decision making. The curriculum provides students with the practical, theoretical and ethical foundations for lifelong learning in the field through a variety of group and hands-on learning experiences. Students are able to comprehend rapidly changing developments in technology and incorporate these changes into their own career-specific preparation.
The computer science and computer information systems curricula are designed to provide students with the theory and skills to be prepared for a variety of computing careers and lifelong learning. Upon completion of major requirements, students will be able to:
- Create original work in analysis, design, testing and implementation of programming systems.
- Demonstrate expertise in computing information theory and practice in preparation for graduate study and professional careers.
- Work independently and collaboratively in a professional and ethical manner.
- Communicate technical information effectively in oral and written form, utilizing a variety of media.
- Research current technical issues and present their findings to their peers.
- Understand the ethical and moral responsibilities and implications of computing. | <urn:uuid:42d8c1f5-586d-4b89-9e8a-83229113b54f> | {
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Blubbr is a free website that makes it possible for you to create and play trivia games with embedded videos. Blubbr calls the games trivs. You can play trivs in different categories, from celebs and music to sport and education. Click on the image below to play a sample triv now.
I setup my Blubbr account (I’d be glad for you to connect with me) and gave it a test drive. It seems that at its core, Blubbr is about making interesting things into fun games. I see many potential educational connections and personal uses.
Here are a few ideas that might be useful to teachers and students.
- You and your students can create trivs focused on the unit you’re currently studying.
- Students can develop a triv focused on personal interests and then extend that into research, writing, journaling, etc.
- It can be a useful strategy for pre-testing, review and as a study guide.
- Trivs can be an engaging alternative strategy for book reports, science presentations, social studies reports, and more.
- Allowing students to design quizzes puts them in the role of the teacher. This technique can encourage higher-order thinking.
- You and your students can create trivs to introduce yourselves at the beginning of the year.
- Developing trivs can be a fun way for students to reflect on a novel, science unit, historical event, poetry, or the highlights of their school year.
You can challenge your students and their families by sharing trivs on your website, via email, through social networks, or by sharing the links in your print-based newsletter.
In addition to it’s many educational uses, Blubbr can also be used for fun with family and friends. Here are a few ideas that I considered.
- Develop a triv about your parents and share it with your family to celebrate your parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.
- Prepare for the sights you’ll be visiting during vacation by sharing a triv with your travel companions.
- Show your support for your favorite team or athlete with a triv about them.
- Challenge your family to a scavenger hunt with a series of trivs that will lead them to a surprise.
You can challenge your family and friends to complete trivs by sharing them on your blog, through Google+, Facebook, and Twitter, or via email.
Blubbr is simple and fun. With well-designed activities it can make significant educational contributions. So what are you waiting for? Go triv something…and share your trivs in this post’s comments so that we can play, too.
- Blubbr – Create Interactive Quizzes Using YouTube Clips (freetech4teachers.com)
- Play & create video trivia games (philbradley.typepad.com)
- Blubbr – Create Interactive Quizzes Using YouTube Clips (lovetoreadlovetolearn.wordpress.com) | <urn:uuid:d31dd9f6-120a-4f58-9582-61afe1e76e1f> | {
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Clearing the Amazon rainforest for soy or cattle does not bring long-term social or economic benefit to local communities and threatens the environment, according to a study published Friday.
Huge swaths of the Brazilian rainforest are cut down, burnt or cleared each year, at an average rate of 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres) -- about the size of Kuwait -- because the land is worth more when deforested.
Deforestation is moving at a sobering rate of over four football fields per minute. Since 2000, 155,000 square kilometers (over 59,800 square miles) of the Amazon have been cleared.
But an international team of researchers that studied 286 Amazon municipalities with varying levels of deforestation found that the benefits of forest clearing, responsible for 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, were short-lived and really more akin to a "boom-and-bust" scenario.
"The 'boom' in development that deforestation brings to these areas is clear, but our data show that in the long run these benefits are not sustained. Along with environmental concerns, this is another good reason to restrict further deforestation in the Amazon," said Rob Ewers of Imperial College London.
"However, in areas that are currently being deforested, the process needs to be better managed to ensure that for local people boom isn't necessarily followed by 'bust.'"
The conclusions dealt a blow to the argument for deforestation in the Amazon basin, Brazil's least economically developed region home to 40 percent of the remaining rainforests in the world and a key roleplayer in biodiversity and climate cycles.
The study published in Friday's issue of Science found that quality of life -- measured through levels of income, literacy and longevity -- rapidly increased in the early stages of deforestation as locals capitalized on newly available resources.
But the researchers from Brazil, Portugal, France and Britain found that the improvements were short-lived and that after natural resources have been exploited, the level of development returned to below the national average, reaching values indistinguishable from virgin lands.
"It is generally assumed that replacing the forest with crops and pastureland is the best approach for fulfilling the region's legitimate aspirations to development," lead author Ana Rodrigues of France's Center of Functional and Evolutionary Ecology said in a statement.
"This study tested that assumption. We found (that) although the deforestation frontier does bring initial improvements in income, life expectancy and literacy, such gains are not sustained."
The economic decline that returns to deforested lands after natural resources are exhausted is also often followed by the lands being abandoned. Since the early 1990s, a third of areas cleared for cattle have been left vacant.
Population growth further complicates the matter, with more people relying on an ever-scarcer supply of resources.
Reversing the pattern, according to Andrew Balmford of the University of Cambridge, "will hinge on capturing the values of intact forests to people outside the Amazon so that local people's livelihoods are better when the forest is left standing than when it is cleared."
Although tremendously challenging, he said, the undertaking could be achieved through international agreements by which richer countries could pay Brazil to maintain its forests in order to combat climate change while also providing livelihood for locals.
Similar discussions are taking place in preparation for major UN-sponsored climate change talks in Copenhagen in December set to hammer out a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when expires in 2012. | <urn:uuid:df847558-b19b-4a2c-b3f2-06ef4585192a> | {
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Minds Beyond Brains: New Experimental Evidence
June 15, 2013 By davidjones
By RUPERT SHELDRAKE—
Where are our minds located? We have been brought up to believe that they are inside our heads, that mental activity is nothing but brain activity. Instead, I suggest that our minds extend far beyond our brains; they stretch out through fields that link us to our environment and to each other.
Mental fields are rooted in brains, just as magnetic fields around magnets are rooted in the magnets themselves, or just as the fields of transmission around mobile phones are rooted in the phones and their internal electrical activities. As magnetic fields extend around magnets, and electromagnetic fields around mobile phones, so mental fields extend around brains.
Mental fields help to explain telepathy, the sense of being stared at and other widespread but unexplained abilities. Above all, mental fields underlie normal perception. They are an essential part of vision.
Look around you now. Are the images of what you see inside your brain? Or are they outside you – just where they seem to be?
According to the conventional theory, there is a one-way process: light moves in, but nothing is projected out. The inward movement of light is familiar enough. As you look at this page, reflected light moves from the page through the electromagnetic field into your eyes. The lenses of your eyes focus the light to form upside-down images on your retinas. This light falling on your retinal rod and cone cells causes electrical changes within them, which trigger off patterned changes in the nerves of the retina. Nerve impulses move up your optic nerves and into the brain, where they give rise to complex patterns of electrical and chemical activity. So far, so good. All these processes can be, and have been, studied in great detail by neurophysiologists and other experts on vision and brain activity.
But then something very mysterious happens. You consciously experience what you are seeing, the page in front of you. You also become conscious of the printed words and their meanings. From the point of view of the standard theory, there is no reason why you should be conscious at all. Brain mechanisms ought to go on just as well without consciousness.
Then comes a further problem. When you see this page, you do not experience your image of it as being inside your brain, where it is supposed to be. Instead, you experience its image as being located about two feet in front of you. The image is outside your body.
For all its physiological sophistication, the standard theory has no explanation for your most immediate and direct experience. All your experience is supposed to be inside your brain, a kind of virtual reality show inside your head. That means your skull must lie beyond everything you are seeing: if you look at the sky, your skull must be beyond the sky! This seems an absurd idea, but it seems to be a necessary implication of the mind-in-brain theory.
The idea I am proposing is so simple that it is hard to grasp. Your image of this page is just where it seems to be, in front of your eyes, not behind your eyes. It is not inside your brain, but outside your brain.
Thus vision involves both an inward movement of light, and an outward projection of images. Through mental fields our minds reach out to touch what we are looking at. If we look at a mountain ten miles away, our minds stretch out ten miles. If we gaze at distant stars our minds reach out into the heavens, over literally astronomical distances.
Sometimes when I look at someone from behind, he or she turns and looks straight at me. And sometimes I suddenly turn around and find someone staring at me. Surveys show that more than 90% of people have had experiences such as these. The sense of being stared at should not occur if attention is all inside the head. But if it stretches out and links us to what we are looking at, then our looking could affect what we look at. Is this just an illusion, or does the sense of being stared at really exist?
This question can be explored through simple, inexpensive experiments. People work in pairs. One person, the subject, sits with his or her back to the other, wearing a blind-fold. The other person, the looker, sits behind the subject, and in a random series of trials either looks at the subject’s neck, or looks away and thinks of something else. The beginning of each trial is signalled by a mechanical clicker or bleeper. Each trial lasts about ten seconds and the subject guesses out loud ‘looking’ or ‘not looking’. Detailed instructions are given on my website, http://www.sheldrake.org/Onlineexp/o...xperiment.html
More than 100,000 trials have now been carried out, and the results are overwhelmingly positive and hugely significant statistically, with odds against chance of quadrillions to one. The sense of being stared at even works when people are looked at through closed-circuit TV.
Animals are also sensitive to being looked at by people, and people by animals. This sensitivity to looks seems widespread in the animal kingdom and may well have evolved in the context of predator-prey relationships: an animal that sensed when an unseen predator was staring would stand a better chance of surviving than an animal without this sense.
Educated people have been brought up to believe that telepathy does not exist. Like other so-called psychic phenomena, it is dismissed as an illusion. Most people who espouse these opinions, which I used to myself, do not do so on the basis of a close examination of the evidence. They do so because there is a taboo against taking telepathy seriously. This taboo is related to the prevailing paradigm or model of reality within institutional science, namely the mind-inside-the-brain theory, according to which telepathy and other psychic phenomena, which seem to imply mysterious kinds of ‘action at a distance’, cannot possibly exist.
This taboo dates back at least as far as the Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century. But this is not the place to examine its history (which I discuss in my book The Sense of Being Stared At). Rather I want to summarise some recent experiments, which suggest that telepathy not only exists, but that it is a normal part of animal communication.
I first became interested in the subject of telepathy some fifteen years ago, and started looking at evidence for telepathy in the animals we know best, namely pets. I soon came across numerous stories from owners of dogs, cats, parrots, horses and other animals that suggested that these animals seemed able to read their minds and intentions.
Through public appeals I have built up a large database of such stories, currently containing more than 3,500 case histories. These stories fall into several categories. For example, many cat owners say that their animal seems to sense when they are planning to take them to the vet, even before they have taken out the carrying basket or given any apparent clue as to their intention.
Some people say their dogs know when they are going to be taken for a walk, even when they are in a different room, out of sight or hearing, and when the person is merely thinking about taking them for a walk. Of course, no one finds this behaviour surprising if it happens at a routine time, or if the dogs see the person getting ready to go out, or hear the word ‘walk’. They think it is telepathic because it seems to happen in the absence of such clues.
One of the commonest and most testable claims about dogs and cats is that they know when their owners are coming home, in some cases anticipating their arrival by ten minutes or more.
Continue to read: | <urn:uuid:2bfca3d8-48e6-43bc-a6ba-7cbf9c8ec0e7> | {
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Last year, a scientist cracked the mystery of howusing futuristic technology. This year, dedicated scientists have finally revealed an explanation for how Rudolph, Santa's lead reindeer, got his red nose.
If you recall the legend, Rudolph was a bit of an outcast thanks to his bright and shiny red nose. All of the other reindeer might not laugh and call him names if they knew his nose was really the result of an issue with the microvascular flow in his nasal mucosa.
A collection of Dutch scientists contributed to a paper titled "Microcirculatory investigations of nasal mucosa in reindeer Rangifer tarandus (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Cervidae): Rudolph's nose was overheated."
According to the paper, "The exceptional physical burden of flying with a sleigh with Santa Claus as a heavy load could have caused cerebral and bodily hyperthermia, resulting in an overworked nasal cooling mechanism that resembles an overheated cooling radiator in a car: Rudolph suffered from hyperemia of the nasal mucosa (a red nose) under more extreme heat loads during flight with a sleigh."
Of course, scientists don't like to put all their scientific eggs into just one basket of science. The paper's authors acknowledge other theories for the red nose, including the common cold, alcoholic intoxication, or a parasitic infection of the nostrils. I think the overheating explanation is the least likely to make little kids cry.
Thank you, scientists, for sucking some of the magic out of Christmas while simultaneously making it just a little more awesome. | <urn:uuid:f8000030-3966-4c7f-bac3-37ec8e647a2c> | {
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I first learned about Hugo Liu's research around three years ago when I was looking into NLP, commonsense data, artifical intelligence code and theory. His work, and others at MIT, is debatably the latest and greatest in today's research and very useful, at least informative, for any program designer. Most of the projects available from MIT are not written in Microsoft Visual Studio .Net and I am attempting to make use of ConceptNet for educational, research purposes, and just to have fun with the technology involved.
What is ConceptNet?
ConceptNet¹ is a commonsense knowledgebase, composed mainly from the Open Mind Project, written and put together by Hugo Liu and Push Singh (Media Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology). ConceptNet 2.1 (current version at the time of this composition) also includes MontyLingua, a natural-language-processing package. ConceptNet is written in Python but it's commonsense knowledgebase is stored in text files. To read more specific details about the complete overview of ConceptNet, read Liu and Singh's outstanding paper (pdf).
What is so Unique about ConceptNet?
Unlike other projects like WordNet or Cyc, ConceptNet is based more on Context. ConceptNet makes it possible, within the limit's of it's knowledgebase, to allow a computer to understand new concepts or even unknown concepts by using conceptual correlations called Knowledge-Lines (K-Lines: a term introduced by Minsky, cf. The Society of Mind (1987)). K-Lines may be thought of a list of previous knowledge about a subject or task. ConceptNet actually puts these K-Lines together using it's twenty relationship types that fall into eight categories (including K-Lines)to form a network of data to simulate conceptual reasoning. What really makes all this possible is ConceptNet's Relational Ontology (the eight categories and twenty relationship types).
ConceptNet is structured around MIT's Open Mind Common Sense Project knowledge base. ConceptNet uses it's data in two processes: The Normalization Process and the Relaxation Process. The Normalization Process involves all the predicate to get filtered and undergo lexical distillation (Verbs and Nouns are reduced to their basic baseforms). Also ConceptNet removes determiners("a", "the", etc.) and modals("may", "could", "will", etc) in this stage. It also uses Parts Of Speech Tagging to validate well structured word orders. (The Normalization Process is not demonstrated in this demo. Please feel free to use your own POS Taggers with this Class Library) The Relaxation Process raises or "Lifts" heavily weighted common sense predicate nodes (one line from the predicate file(s)) and duplicate nodes are merged. This is reflected in each predicate's "f" and "i" metadata tags. Where f equals the number of utterances and i equals the number of of times inferred.
ConceptNet's Relational Ontology
ConceptNet's power of linking subjects together is attributed to twenty relationship types defined by it's Relational Ontology. Here is 2.1's twenty relationship types and eight categories:
(Courtesy Hugo Liu and Push Singh, ConceptNet: A Practical Commonsense Reasoning Toolkit)
• K-Lines: ConceptuallyRelatedTo, ThematicKLine, SuperThematicKLine
• Things: IsA, PartOf, PropertyOf, De.nedAs, MadeOf
• Spatial: LocationOf
• Events: SubeventOf, PrerequisiteEventOf, First-SubeventOf, LastSubeventOf
• Causal: EffectOf, DesirousEffectOf
• Affective: MotivationOf, DesireOf
• Functional: CapableOfReceivingAction, UsedFor
• Agents: CapableOf
Example lines from ConceptNet's 2.1 predicate files:
(UsedFor "ball" "throw" "f=4;i=0;")
(LocationOf "popcorn" "at movie" "f=7;i=0;")
(CapableOfReceivingAction "film" "place on reel" "f=2;i=0;")
(IsA "guitar" "musical instrument with string" "f=2;i=0;")
(SubeventOf "talk" "debate" "f=2;i=0;")
(CapableOf "person" "write book" "f=11;i=1;")
(MotivationOf "audition for part" "act in play" "f=2;i=0;")
(PropertyOf "bacteria" "small" "f=2;i=0;")
Let's get started and get the fun rolling!
What is Needed and Where to download it...
Again, please remember that ConceptNet 2.1 is written in the Python programming language and not C# but it's commonsense knowledgebase data is in text file format totalling around 96mb when uncompressed. You must download the ConceptNet text files by agreeing to it's user agreement (this of course goes for all of the projects listed below for download) and then downloading the entire ConceptNet Python Project.
My VS.Net C# ConceptNet Class Library
This is a very simple No-Fills Class Library written in MS VS.Net. I have quickly thrown it together mostly because I just downloaded ConceptNet for the first time yesterday and noticed a shortage of VS.Net friendly code. For some reason, I don't remember there being a public download of ConceptNet before, which I may be mistaken, however I have known about this project for some time. It's papers have been available via MIT.
There are two projects in the solution ConceptNet Demo App and ConceptNetUtils. ConceptNetUtils is the ConceptNet Class Library and consists of three Classes: FoundList, Misc, Search.
Holds search result data in an index format.
Base Classes: Object
protected string LineFound static public int size = 999; public string this Count() Reset() public int get_f(int index) public int get_i(int index)
Created for Misc Methods
Base Classes: Object
public string RemoveCategoryString(string R_TYPE)
public string XMLGetNode(string path_xmlfilename,
public string XMLGetAttribute(string path_xmlfilename,
string elementname, string attributename)
Takes care of Searching ConceptNet text files.
Base Classes: Object
public bool CreateTextFile(string fullfilename)
public string GetFoundListLine(int index)
public int GetTotalLineCount()
public void SearchFor(string fullpathfilename,
public static string Predicatefile1;
public static string Predicatefile2;
public static string Predicatefile3;
public static string Predicatefile4;
public static string Predicatefile5;
public void SearchFor(int index,
public void XMLSearchForChecked(string path_xmlfilename,
public static string GetPredicatePathtoFilename(int index)
public void XMLLoadFilePaths(string settingsxmlfile)
public static int getnode_f(string node)
public static int getnode_i(string node)
public void Sort_f(ArrayList inList, out ArrayList rankedList)
public void Sort_i(ArrayList inList, out ArrayList rankedList)
public class Compare_f : IComparer
public class Compare_i : IComparer
How to Run the Demo
1.) Make sure you have downloaded and installed ConceptNet 2.1. (I installed it into path ...\My Documents\Python Projects\conceptnet2.1\)
2.) Download and unzip this article's .Net Solution and project files.
3.) Navigate to the location "...\ConceptNet Demo App\bin\Release" and run the ConceptNet Demo App.exe. It will automaticly open the "Set Location of Knowledgebase Files" dialogbox and, on it's first run, you must click the browse button to a predicate file (ConceptNet or other) then click ok. Following runs will remember the location of checked predicate files you wish to search.
4.) You are now ready to a)Enter a word, b)Choose a relationship (ConceptNet looks at IsA, then PropertyOf), c)Click the Search button to display found nodes. You may then sort them by clicking the "Sort by f" or "Sort by i".
Automate the demo's process of locating the concept2.1 files.
Add combobox to choose which predicate files to search.
- Add MSBNx
COM (or some other BN) for creating, assessing, and evaluating Bayesian Networks, and to easily output to XML format.
- Add more methods to the class library.
- Create some more Lifting methods.
ConceptNet 2.1 can be a tool to create personalized commonsense knowledgebase networks. Hopefully this MS VS.Net Class Library project can be informational, useful, and fun.
The 0.x version posted on this article will no longer be under development. I am working on an updated version using Microsoft Visual C# Express 2005 with .Net 2.0 framework and will serve as the latest version of the ConceptNet Class Library in C# that I am working on. It will probably make use of the IronPython library. If you are interested, here is a small peek into getting ConceptNet Mini-Browser (written in Natural Python code) to execute using IronPython:
My wdevs blog post with some code.
I am just working on it whenever I have free time.
¹ Liu, H. & Singh, P. (2004) ConceptNet: A Practical Commonsense Reasoning Toolkit. BT Technology Journal, To Appear. Volume 22, forthcoming issue. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
ConceptNet: A Practical Commonsense Reasoning Toolkit, Hugo Liu and Push Singh Media Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Investigating ConceptNet, Dustin Smith; Advisor: Stan Thomas, Ph.D. December 2004
Open Mind Common Sense Project
Hugo Liu website
- Added Method in Form1.cs to change the word to lowercase on leaving the textbox. Searches must be performed in lowercase.
- ConceptNetUtils.Search.SearchFor automatically changes incoming SubjectWord to lowercase.
- Fixed minor drawing problem with Combobox. (Please email me if you experience this bug.)
- Added To Do section.
- Uploaded ConceptNet Demo App version 0.01032006.2rc1 - Uploaded ConceptNetUtils binary version 0.01032006.2b1
- For the Demo, the loading of the predicate files are now xml stored and automated. They are no longer hardcoded. I added FileOptionsForm.cs to take care of this. I also added an ImageList.
- For the ConceptNetUtils Class Library, I added XML capability. The demo creates a Settings.xml file to hold the locations of the predicate files and now the class library can read xml files.
- Search.cs: Added SearchFor() overload, XMLSearchForChecked(), GetPredicatePathtoFilename(), XMLLoadFilePaths().
- Misc.cs: Added XMLGetNode(), XMLGetAttribute()
- Uploaded ConceptNet Demo App version 0.01092006.0rc2 - Uploaded ConceptNetUtils binary version 0.01092006.0b2
- Added some details about ConceptNet's Normalization and Relaxation Processes in the "What is so Unique about ConceptNet?" section.
- For the Demo, I added two new buttons "Sort by f" and "Sort by i", this demonstrates "The Relaxation Process" of the ConceptNet project.
- For the ConceptNetUtils Class Library, I added some methods needed to accomplish the "The Relaxation Process" of ConceptNet. I also fixed some problems when it had to search more than one predicate file.
- Search.cs: Added getnode_f(), getnode_i(), Sort_f(), Sort_i(). Two IComparer Classes were also added to assist with the sorting/Lifting of the knowledge, Compare_f : IComparer, Compare_i : IComparer.
- FoundList.cs: Added get_f(), get_i().
- Notified MIT's ConceptNet team of this article via email.
- Emptied \doc folder with VS generated documentation from project.
- Uploaded ConceptNet Demo App version 0.01142006.0rc4 - Uploaded ConceptNetUtils binary version 0.01142006.0b3
- Edited Introduction section.
- Edited Search.cs XMLSearchForChecked method documentation.
- Modified ConceptNetUtils.Search.SearchFor() to only return word only results. For example, a search for "eat" was also returning "theater" etc.
- Uploaded ConceptNet Demo App version 0.01152006.0rc5 (build 2206.41738) - Uploaded ConceptNetUtils binary version 0.01152006.0b4 (build 2206.41736)
- Edited the "How to Run the Demo" section to reflect the new version of the demo and class library.
- Edited the link to IronPython-1.0-Beta3 in the "What is Needed and Where to download it..." section (was Beta 1).
- Added "New Version" section. 0.x is no longer under development and a new ConceptNetUtils class library (that is .Net 2.0 / IronPython based) is being developed. | <urn:uuid:8099f891-f32b-42d3-9f30-c596dba3d5eb> | {
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Extreme care should be taken when working with ignitable wastes.
Conduct activities outdoors or provide adequate ventilation by opening windows and doors and/or turning on a room fan. Stay away from potential ignition sources like pilot lights or sparks of any kind.
Protective clothing such as chemical resistant gloves, eye protection and long sleeves should be worn, and care should be taken not to breathe any fumes.
Carefully filter old fuels through two layers of lint-free cloth or coffee filters to remove contaminants like dirt, rust or “varnish.”
If needed, add an octane booster (available at auto supply stores or gas stations) to restore lost ignitability.
If the fuel is contaminated with small amounts of water, add a water dispersant (ethyl alcohol) or "dry gas" (isopropanol) (available at auto supply stores or gas stations) to break up the water so it doesn't enter the engine all at once.
If the fuel is contaminated with larger amounts of water, the water will sink to the bottom of the container. Mechanically siphon the product floating above the water into an approved fuel container and rejuvenate it using the process above. The residual water and fuel remaining in the original container will have to be stabilized for disposal.
The rejuvenated fuel can then be mixed with new product at a ratio of 1 part old to 5 parts new and used as intended.
Two-stroke mixtures may be rejuvenated by filtering as above, adding about 1 quart gasoline to each gallon of two-stroke mixture, then adding enough oil to bring the mixture up to the proper ratio. A water dispersant or “dry gas” may be added to the rejuvenated mixture if needed.
Carefully filter used degreasers through two layers of lint-free cloth or coffee filters to remove contaminants.
The cloth or coffee filters used to strain the degreaser should be laid out to dry outdoors in a well ventilated area away from potential ignition sources, children and pets. The dried cloth or filters can be disposed of in the regular trash.
Pour the used thinner into a glass jar. Tightly seal the jar and label it with the type of product and a warning not to open the jar. Allow the paint solids to settle to the bottom of the container. Then carefully pour the clear thinner into another container for continued use. Make sure the new container is properly labeled.
Dry the solids in the bottom of the first container by mixing them with an absorbent like clay-based kitty litter. The dried solids can then be disposed of in the trash.
These procedures are intended for small quantities of fuel, degreaser and paint thinner from a household only. | <urn:uuid:1c7e99d1-d609-4cf4-a5a1-56e693b759cd> | {
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Giant Walmart vs. the Small Farmer
India is a land of small farmers. According to the United Nations, the smaller the farm, the higher the productivity.
Small farms grow biodiversity. They are falsely described as unproductive because productivity in agriculture has been manipulated to exclude diversity and exclude costs of high chemical and capital inputs in chemical industrial agriculture. When biodiversity is taken into account, small farms produce more food and higher incomes.
In the heated debate on FDI in retail, those promoting it repeatedly claim that the entry of corporations like Walmart will benefit the Indian farmer. Reference is made to getting rid of the middleman.
Any trader who mediates in the distribution of goods between producers and consumers is a middleman. Walmart is neither a producer nor a consumer. Therefore, it is also a middleman; it is a giant middleman with global muscle. That is how it has become the world’s biggest retailer, carrying out business of nearly $480 billion. So the issue is not getting rid of the middleman but replacing the small arthi with a giant one. The Walton Family is the global arthi located in the US, not in the local community. And this new kind of arthi combines the functions of all small traders everywhere from wholesale to retail. Instead of millions of small traders taking a two per cent commission at different levels, Walmart gets all profits. If three small traders mediate at two per cent between the producer and consumer, the difference between the farm price and consumer price is just six per cent. When Walmart enters the picture, the difference jumps with the farmer getting only two per cent of the consumer price and Walmart and its supply chain harvesting the 98 per cent. So the issue is not the number of middlemen but their size and their share of profits. It was to avoid this concentration of power over the agricultural produce market that India created the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act.
Our mandis are governed by cooperatives, which include farmers. No trader can buy more than a certain amount. This prevents monopolies. It creates a decentralised, democratic distribution system from wholesale to retail.
The government, especially the Planning Commission, has been trying very hard to dismantle the APMCs and mandis to facilitate the entry of big business in agriculture. The announcement of FDI in retail will radically change Indian agriculture. It threatens the survival of the small Indian farmer and the diversity of our farming systems.
Given the size of Walmart, it creates a monopsony through its buying power. It does not go to each small farmer and buys the five sacks of extra produce. It works through giant supply chains and giant suppliers which have no place for the small. Walmart and the small, independent farmer cannot coexist. When Walmart dominates, agribusiness dominates. Industry and corporations start to control agriculture.
We can already see early attempts at the industry takeover of agriculture to match centralised and giant production systems with centralised and giant retail. On March 5 this year, the government announced a new policy for the corporate control of agriculture called Public-Private Partnership for Integrated Agricultural Development (PPP-IAD) — a scheme for facilitating large-scale integrated projects, led by private-sector players in the agriculture and allied sectors, with a view to aggregating farmers, creating critical rural infrastructure, introducing new technologies, adding value and integrating the agricultural supply chain.
The department of agriculture and cooperation has launched the PPP-IAD, which is proposed to cover 10 lakh farmers across India during the period 2012-17. Each of the integrated agricultural projects would involve engaging a minimum of 10,000 farmers. The scheme would accept proposals from private corporate entities on integrated agricultural development projects with the proviso that intervention must cover all aspects from production to marketing.
Subsidies will now go to corporations, not the farmers. In effect, 10,000 farmers will no longer be independent producers, but bonded to the corporation. These corporations will be Walmart’s partners, not the small farmer.
This scheme , and the policy framework of which it is a part, is in effect a subversion of both land reforms and our food security. Land reforms in India got rid of zamindari and put land in the hands of the tiller. Land ceiling was introduced to ensure there would be no concentration of ownership over land. What the government is calling “reforms” are, in effect, anti-reform reforms, aimed at undoing every policy and law that we have put in place in independent and democratic India to ensure the rozi roti of the last person.
Walmart will harm and wipe out small farmers and businesses in India the way it has harmed farmers and retailers in the US. And because the density of small farmers and small retailers is higher in India than anywhere else in the world, the destructive impact will be magnified manifold.
The argument that we need FDI in retail was made when the government allowed Walmart to enter wholesale business in 2007. No infrastructure has been built, even though five years have passed. In any case, the government has given away crores in subsidies for warehouses and cold storages since it introduced “reforms”. We need a black paper to assess all the public money that has already been spent on what the government says only Walmart can do.
And the more the government pushes policies towards monopolies and monocultures, the more committed I become to defend our economic democracy and diversity as a saner, more sustainable, more just alternative to the disease of giganticism.
© 2012 The Asian Age | <urn:uuid:907ff12a-d488-4c0e-9261-2e5057c50309> | {
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Essay:Towards a multi-racial society
America was founded by white men. United by a vision of attaining freedom from tyranny, the Founding Fathers risked everything to defy the British crown and build a representative democracy. Most of the founders wanted to end slavery from the beginning, but they took an eight decade detour to ensure the participation of Virginia. Unity was the top priority.
Slavery tore this country apart, and only a miracle held it together during the great Civil War. For that, we are profoundly thankful. God has blessed this land, and crowned its good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. Coming out of the depression, America began coming together as a nation of all colors during World War II. Race segregation was declared unconstitutional in schools; President Kennedy and his brother supported the Civil Rights Movement. Traditional sports such as baseball and even ice hockey began to have black players. A man of color became the nation's greatest golfer.
Even some of the highest seats of power have been given to men and women of color. President Clinton appointed a black man to his cabinet. President Bush appointed Powell and Rice. And now we have elected our first black president, Barack Obama. | <urn:uuid:ce3fde47-be4b-4e1b-9fba-f69f133f4f4e> | {
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Fireworks, jackhammers, and ambulance sirens can be painfully hard on your ears. But the risk to your hearing from everyday activities might be greater than you think. Someone whose day includes a workout at a noisy gym while listening to music with in-ear headphones, lunch at a noisy restaurant, a subway ride, a few hours of mowing the lawn, and a night out with friends at a dance club can easily end up with a dose of noise exposure that over time can be damaging.
Lawn and yard gear: 86 to 99 decibels
Loud noises can temporarily or permanently damage the microscopic hair cells in the inner ear that convey sound to the brain. Those cells can bounce back from an occasional assault, such as a rock concert. But if you live a habitually loud life, some of those cells might eventually stop working for good.
Hearing loss might progress for many years before you become aware of the problem. It usually starts with a loss of soft consonant sounds such as "f" and "sh," making speech more difficult to understand.
Movie theaters: 72 to 104 decibels
How much noise is too much?
Some ears can withstand loud noises better than others, and individuals' exposures are variable and difficult to track. Noise is measured in decibels, with 0 being the quietest sound a person can hear, 60 a normal conversation, and 140 (fireworks or a gunshot at close range) a level that can cause immediate, permanent damage.
Rock concerts: 89 to 120 decibels
Every additional 10 points on the scale represents a doubling of
perceived loudness. At loud volumes over long periods, an increase of
even a few decibels adds to your risk of hearing loss. If the noise
around you makes it difficult to carry on a conversation without
shouting, it's too loud.
Sporting events: 89 to 115 decibels
What you can do
The more you're exposed to loud noise, especially for extended periods, the greater your risk of hearng damage. Above 85 decibels you should use hearing protection. For example, if you're going to spend time operating a 90-decibel lawn mower, wear earplugs or earmuffs. Foam earplugs can reduce your noise exposure by about 20 decibels.
Our tests have shown that noise-canceling over-the-ear headphones and insert-type rubber-tipped earbuds, properly sized to fit your ear canals, can be good at blocking background noises that lead to higher listening volumes. Just don't use them in places where you need to stay alert, such as city streets and airports. | <urn:uuid:9848da2b-86b5-487a-b86d-edb8576b5ce8> | {
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Industry expert Tony O’Lenick asks: What is the difference between residual monomer concentration in radical polymerization vs. condensation polymerization techniques?
The term polymer describes a large number of classes of molecules consisting of repeating structural units, or monomers, connected by covalent chemical bonds. Polymers are made up of many repeated monomers linked together using various polymerization processes.
One type of process relates to the radical polymerization of reactive vinyl groups to form polymers. An example of this is the polymerization of acrylamide to form polyacrylamide (-CHCHCONH2-). This polymerization reaction is conducted by reacting the double bonds in acrylamide CH2=CH-C(O)NH2.
The level of residual monomer acrylamide needs to be low since it is a neurotoxin. Polyacrylamide is not toxic, but unreacted acrylamide can be present in the polymerized acrylamide. Even within the class of radical polymerization, there are a number of different types. The nature of the monomer, how the process is carried out, and post-treatment methods all affect residual monomer. In this type of polymerization, the residual monomer content is monitored carefully.
In contrast, there are polymers that do not form by reaction of vinyl monomer—an example of which is a polyester. Unlike polyacrylamide, polyesters are examples of a class of polymers called condensation polymers that are formed using classical organic chemistry, not radical chemistry.
In one process, a difunctional acid is reacted with a difunctional alcohol, or for easier reaction conditions, a di-acid chloride and a di-alcohol can be used. For example, a polyester results when polyoxyethylene glycol HO-(CH2CH2)xOH is reacted with dodecanedioic acid HOOC-(CH2)10-COOH. The resulting material is a polyester polymer HO-[(CH2CH2)xOOC-(CH2)10COO]-.
This type of polymer is neither made with vinyl reactants nor radical processes. It is made using common organic reaction techniques; consequently, the question of residual monomer is not very important, but the removal of byproducts becomes the important issue. Without the removal of byproducts, high molecular weight polymers cannot be obtained.
Polymers are made using different processes and raw materials. It is the selection of these that dictate not only functional properties of the polymer, but also the need for additional analysis including residual monomer content. | <urn:uuid:bfd5918c-71a0-4507-8992-53d83e9c3232> | {
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Solar System Solved? 08/30/2007
This has been a stumbling block for 30 years, said Mordecai-Marc Mac Low, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, of planet formation theories. The reason is that boulders tend to fall into the star in a celestial blink of an eye. Some mechanism had to be found to prevent them from being dragged into a star.Surely writer Dave Mosher did not mean to imply literally that boulders were conspiring to defend themselves from doom. But the problem is evident: without some sort of ad hoc speculation to insert into the models, astronomers know that small pieces of dust and rock dont naturally form planets. They fall into the star in a very short time. Alan Boss, another modeler, agreed with this characterization: Overall, the calculations present an encouraging approach to understanding how something happened that we know must have happened, at least for the terrestrial planets. (The article continued by saying that the gas giants need another mechanism to form.)
For small dust grains and rocks in orbit, the game is over in just a few hundred times around the merry-go-round with the vacuum cleaner in the center making a large sucking sound. Mac Low said his explanation was like a group of semi trucks on a highway creating a friendly pocket of air behind it that other semis can travel in without using up as much fuel. Still, he has to have the small rocks combine into planetesimals large enough to attract more material by gravity. The new model is far from a complete theory. At this point, it is a little more than a chuckle during the usual grief session.
This is a real-life demonstration of the Harris cartoon that shows a scientist doing a derivation with complex equations on the blackboard, with one intriguing step inserted, Then a miracle occurs. Titling this story Planet Formation Mystery Solved yields an even bigger chuckle.Is the Universe Hole-y? 08/29/2007
Cosmologists are trying to avoid a void. Since astronomers at U of Minnesota announced a gaping hole in a distant part of the universe, representing a region of space devoid of matter a billion light-years across, others are scrambling to discern what it means. The issue was discussed on EurekAlert, BBC News, Science Now, and Space.com. It even made the nightly TV news.
The Minnesota team compared observations from the Very Large Array of radio telescopes with WMAP data, and looked closer at a region showing a remarkable drop in the number of galaxies in a region toward the constellation Eridanus. Other voids have been detected in the past, but never one this large. Astronomers dont know why the hole is there, said science writer Robert Roy Britt. Others dont know that its there.
Cosmological observations are so deeply intertwined with theory, it is often hard to tell the one from the other. The hole could be real, or it could be an artifact of the theory and techniques used. Some cosmologists (see the BBC article) are claiming this a confirmation of dark energy. ScienceNow said it contradicts the inflation theory. And it quoted one astronomer who thought the conclusion was premature. The Minnesota team said their announcement will need independent confirmation, so it is unwise to lean too heavily on the reports. Still, its fun to see scientists get surprised once in awhile.Your hairy ears provide optimum sensitivity, from 08/09/2004.
Solar System News 08/28/2007
These are great days for discovery about our solar neighborhood. So much is happening in planetary science, its hard to take it all in. Be sure to separate the observations from the speculations. Sometimes thats like trying to unbutter toast.Tales of Two Footprints 08/27/2007
Footprints in the sands of time have been found at two different locations. What tales do they tell?
One is a footprint of a Roman soldier. EurekAlert described how the sandal print was uncovered at Hippos, or Susita, on a hill east of the Sea of Galilee. It hints that soldiers participated in building the walls of the city. The Israel newspaper Haaretz contained some more details about the find, and Todd Bolen commented on its limited tie-in to Biblical history on his Bible Places Blog.
Another print is claimed to be far older. The BBC News reported what may be the oldest human footprint ever found. The article did not describe the print, but called it human instead of ape-like. The problem is that it is claimed to be two million years old, or more as much as 3 million, maybe even older than Lucy. The secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, is calling it possibly the most important discovery in Egypt. Others are not so sure what to think of it.
You, too, could leave tracks that will allow future scientists to speculate. For fun, leave a note with your next footprint saying, Todays date is August 28, 1,598,251 BC.Evolution Takes Credit 08/24/2007
It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but evolution often just takes. The following news stories show evolution taking credit for a variety of phenomena when it is not quite clear how it earned it.
We need to understand how the Darwin Party achieves its consensus that evolution is a fact. They do it by assuming it. Like the campers in the woods trying to figure out how to open their tuna can, they simply state, assume a can opener. Assumption performs the miracles without all the hard work. Say this often enough, and every camper can get on handsomely by assuming can openers and whatever other tools real campers used to have to pack.Fossil Gorilla Forces Hominid Ancestor Earlier 08/23/2007
A set of gorilla teeth found in Ethiopia pushes the evolutionary story of a split between apes and humans back almost twice as far as previously thought. Nature reported the fossil announcement that estimated the date of the teeth as 10.5-11 million years old.1 The prior estimate for a human-ape divergence was about 6 million.
The authors named the fossil a new species, but Rex Dalton in the same issue of Nature2 reported the team lead saying that the teeth are collectively indistinguishable from modern gorilla subspecies in form, size, internal structure and proportion.
Both papers alluded to an extreme paucity of fossils from the period of 7 to 12 million years on the evolutionary time scale. Dalton claimed this fossil helps to fill in a huge gap in the fossil record. Yet the original paper admitted that Phylogenetically, these fossils represent the first Miocene ape species to be recognized as a strong candidate for membership in the modern gorilla clade, because the teeth are indistinguishable from those of modern gorillas except that they show a large size variation.
National Geographic put a good-news-bad-news spin on the story. The good news, to them, was that the discovery fills an important gap in the fossil record but at the same time, unfortunately for paleoanthropologists, it could also demolish a working theory of human evolution. Why? It means that everything has to be put back farther in time than expected. This gorilla was essentially modern at least 2 million years earlier than the alleged common ancestor was thought to exist. The common ancestor, therefore (for which there is no fossil evidence), had to live even earlier by millions of years.
1Suwa et al, A new species of great ape from the late Miocene epoch in Ethiopia, Nature 448, 921-924 (23 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06113.
2Rex Dalton, Oldest gorilla ages our joint ancestor, Nature 448, 844-845 (23 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/448844a.
If you take out the evolutionary dates and assumptions, the facts show this: modern-looking gorilla teeth of unknown age were found fossilized in water-laid sediments in Ethiopia. Where is the evolution? There is none. The ancestry/phylogeny talk is all inference based on the usual dogmatic evolutionary rules that require every fossil bone to decorate Charlies tree somehow, even if the fit is poor.Hollywood Film to Expose Darwin Dogma 08/22/2007
Darwin is going to get a surprise on his birthday next year. Ben Stein is releasing a film on Feb. 12, 2008, entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The gift may not be what Darwin wants. The press release subtitle asks, Whatever happened to free speech? Apparently Premise Media decided to document the trend among Darwinists to crush any dissent:
What freedom-loving student wouldnt be outraged to discover that his high school science teacher is teaching a theory as indisputable fact, and that university professors unmercifully crush any fellow scientists who dare question the prevailing system of belief? This isnt the latest Hollywood comedy; its a disturbing new documentary that will shock anyone who thinks all scientists are free to follow the evidence wherever it may lead....The Discovery Institute, one of the frequent targets of the Big Science Darwinian machine, is looking forward to this documentary with cautious optimism. The movie trailer can be found at ExpelledTheMovie.com. It shows Ben in shorts and a tie blowing the bullhorn on suppression. The site contains a blog, newsroom and other resources for involvement.
Well, this is an interesting development. Will the Darwin attack machine try to take on Ben Stein, or just ignore him? Do we finally have a courageous reporter unafraid to ask the hard questions and stand up to institutionalized suppression? What will the NCSE do to forestall a media crisis, right when they are trying to make Darwin Day an international event? They certainly have ample warning, so this will be a battle royale worth watching. We just hope that the comedy-documentary format will not detract from the scientific and philosophical flaws of Darwinism. These need airing in serious circles among trained minds. Still, sometimes a media focus can help shake a stalled discussion loose. Steins appeal to the rebel instinct may attract some youthful bystanders to ask questions.Editorial 08/21/2007: A stinging indictment of Darwinist tyranny by David Warren appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on Aug 19.
Crows Use Tools on Tools 08/21/2007
Lets be good empirical Darwinists and take the evidence where it leads. Chimps evolved into birds, which evolved into humans. Mustnt let species bias cloud our reasoning, now. Darwinists have made a big deal over intelligence as evidence of our evolutionary kinship to apes. Now, having to eat crow at this finding, they must be feeling in the mood for some Old Crow at the Crow Bar.Two Ways to Look at a Fin 08/21/2007
Two science articles this month showed very different ways to look at a fish fin. One looked for evolution; the other looked for design. One tried to trace an evolutionary story with no practical application; the other tried to find ways to improve our lives.
The evolutionary story involved a fossil coelacanth. Science Daily reported that a fossil coelacanth fin found by researchers from University of Chicago fills a shrinking evolutionary gap between fins and limbs. Yet it was unclear how it did so, since the article went on to say that both the fins of coelacanths and lungfish, once thought to be ancestral to tetrapods, are in fact actually specialized. Matt Friedman, the team leader, denied even that coelacanth was a living fossil. It was also unclear how this fossil helped the evolutionary story. With things like this [fossil], he said, were beginning to hone in on the primitive conditions of fins that gave rise to limbs later on. This indicates that they do not have evidence of primitive fins only of advanced fins that could not have been part of an assumed evolutionary sequence leading to limbs.
The other story, a press release from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, described how a team is trying to imitate the swimming action of fish fins. Inspired by the efficient swimming motion of the bluegill sunfish, MIT researchers are building a mechanical fin that could one day propel robotic submarines. The sunfish can hover, turn, and store energy. This particular species is able to propel itself forward with no backward drag. As part of their research, the team broke down the fin movement of the sunfish into 19 components and analyzed which ones are critical to achieving the fishs powerful forward thrust. Then they built an artificial fin using advanced polymers to mimic the motion. Some day, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) may use these principles to achieve greater maneuverability at less energy cost. This effort gives us the potential to build machines or robots in a manner closer to how nature creates things, said one, and will help engineers figure out how to best adapt natures principles to designing robotic vehicles.
Compare the benefit of biomimetic research with the utter uselessness of Darwinian speculation. The nonsense going on at U of Chicago, the Center of Tetrapod Evolution Fability (01/16/2007 commentary), is wasting our time. They cannot connect the fossil dots in any believable sequence between fish and amphibians, but have the gall to lie to us: first, about the shrinking evolutionary gap between fins and limbs, and secondly by denying coelacanth is a living fossil. Do they even know what a living fossil is? Here was a creature known only from the fossil record, thought to be extinct from the age of dinosaurs, that was found alive and well in 1938. It doesnt matter whether it is considered a transitional form now, because it was thought to be so by all evolutionists then. When they found that it does not use its fins for supporting its body on land, they had to quickly change their fable in light of the facts in front of them. Theyve learned nothing in the intervening 70 years and have done no one any good. Evolution is useless, vapid, evanescent speculation about things they cannot know and cannot prove, holding us hostage to promissory notes about insight that turns out to be positively anti-knowledge (see Luther Sunderland comments).Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Let Darwin Take Over 08/20/2007
Jack Szostak (Harvard Medical Center) wins this weeks prize for a comment in an Associated Press article (see PhysOrg) claiming that scientists will create life in a test tube within 10 years. Szostak was explaining the process of creating a cell membrane to the reporter:
His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.Several international organizations, such as ProtoLife in Venice, are in the competition to create life from scratch, the article claims. Creating synthetic life will need to overcome three hurdles: the membrane, the genetic code, and the metabolism. Its the membrane that Szostak had said was not a big problem.
Mark Bedau of ProtoLife tried to assure the reporter that artificial life will not get out and run amok. He claims artificial cells will be too weak to pose a risk: But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen.
One of our readers thought that Szostaks entry deserved to be called Stupid Evolution Quote of the Century. But then, there are already too many entries in that category. Tryouts are opening for the millennium class.Can atheism survive an anthropic universe? from 08/16/2005.
Mystery of the Ultraconserved Elements, Cont. 08/18/2007
1Katzman, Kern, Bejerano et al, Human Genome Ultraconserved Elements Are Ultraselected, Science, 17 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5840, p. 915, DOI: 10.1126/science.1142430.
2Ahituv et al, Deletion of Ultraconserved Elements Yields Viable Mice, Public Library of Science: Biology 5(9): e234 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050234.
Evolutionists had predicted that once genes could be deciphered, there would be a clear branching pattern of evolution retracing the assumed millions of years of steady evolutionary change. The more diverged the groups, the more the genetic differences would be found. Well, that picture has not materialized. So now, Darwinites, since you have displayed ineptitude in finding the way to the future of biology, will you get out of the drivers seat?SETI Camp Promotes Make Believe 08/17/2007
Every kid loves to play make believe, wrote Lisa Grossman for Space.coms SETI Thursday feature. How did Lisa spend her summer? Playing make believe with 16 undergraduates at a NSF- and NASA-funded SETI camp. For many of us, the experience was nothing short of fantasy fulfillment, she cheerfully said in her report entitled, How I Spent My Summer at SETI. The SETI Institute organized the event.
Her report, in fact, seemed long on make-believe and short on evidence. For Grossman, fantasizing began in third grade and carried through non-stop to SETI Camp (or, more formally, the Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates).
I imagined a universe full of tiny, hardy life. Why not? Microbes can live comfortably in the most absurdly unfriendly reaches of the planet. If these little creatures can survive in volcanoes, at the bottom of the ocean, embedded in glacial ice, and even in countless human guts, then they must be able to exist on other planets! Life must be absolutely everywhere!(Cf. 03/29/2007 entry.) She mentions what some fellow campers worked on: searching for extrasolar planets, studying the geology of Europa, working on a Mars lander instrument, watching meteors, and other projects. Nothing Grossman mentioned, though, provided any direct evidence for life beyond Earth. What the projects did do was to harness youthful euphoria for otherwise mundane research:
Another student spent her days studying the geology of Europa, one of Jupiters moons. Scientists believe that it has a vast liquid water ocean beneath a layer of ice at the surface. She analyzed images of Europa from the Galileo mission, looking for areas of the surface whose appearance changed over time and trying to determine if those changes are what you would expect if there were a liquid ocean. She thinks the possibilities for life on Europa are especially exciting. As soon as I heard about Europa, I thought, Oh, awesome. Lets look for lobsters! she said. So far, she hasnt discovered any Europan crustaceans, but shes enjoyed learning more about geology and approaching biology and chemistry from an astronomy perspective.Grossman discussed all the fun the others were having with their experiments not one of which found any evidence for life out there. Just the possibility that might play some role in the hunt was enough to make their scientific work a thrill of lifetime. Why, its just like in the movies:
All of us got to take a week-long field trip to the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, home of the Allen Telescope Array, where Jill Tarter, SETIs director of research and the inspiration for Carl Sagans novel Contact, explained how the telescopes work and what research theyll be used for. Several of us even camped overnight in tents under the array. It wasnt very scientifically useful, but it was definitely something to write home about.So the hunting came up entirely empty; Nevertheless, whether we continue on in astrobiology or not, this summer of playing alien hunters will stay with us. Thanks for the memories; sorry about the data. She ended on a missionary appeal, encouraging readers to spread the word about next years SETI Camp.
Heres a suggestion for them. The name Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates is way dullsville and has no catchy acronym. Nor does it convey what the SETI Camp is all about. It fails to encapsulate the experience of being there. They need something that connotes vivid imagery and action, where anything can become vibrant and moving and animated, where even stars, bubbles and volcanos can spring to life. Maybe they should call it Fantasia.Artificial Selection Is Not Natural Selection 08/16/2007
From Nature1 comes this point to ponder:
Evolution has crafted thousands of enzymes that are efficient catalysts for a plethora of reactions. Human attempts at enzyme design trail far behind, but may benefit from exploiting evolutionary tactics.The subheading summarized a commentary by Michael P. Robertson and William G. Scott (UC Santa Cruz) on directed evolution experiments by Burkhard Seelig and Jack Szostak, reported in the same issue of Nature.2 The commentary began:
Chemical reactions in living organisms are catalysed by enzymes, the vast majority of which are proteins. These finely tuned catalysts are the result of billions of years of evolution, and far surpass anything yet created by humans. Indeed, our ability to design enzymes, on the basis of our knowledge of protein structure and reaction mechanisms, can most charitably be described as primitive.Burkhard Seelig and Jack Szostak used an iterative selection process to yield useful enzymes, but did not claim this is how nature did it. They had a goal: product formation as the sole selection criterion, they said, meaning they were watching for a match to an intelligently chosen standard. Though they called this directed evolution and selection, it was clear that the scientists were doing the directing and selecting. Yet the commentary by Robertson and Scott said this was just like nature did it:
Although proteins have won the fitness contest of natural selection to become the pre-eminent enzymes, billions of years ago life may have started with RNA enzymes ribozymes in a putative RNA world that pre-dated proteins and DNA.4 The RNA bond-forming (ligation) reaction is a favourite of those studying evolution from an RNA world, because it is presumed to be the crucial chemical step of RNA self-replication. Szostak and fellow molecular biologist David Bartel were the first to isolate a ribozyme ligase, using artificial selection. Their technique is the prototypical method for the in vitro evolution of ribozymes, and has been adapted for protein enzymes by Seelig and Szostak in the current study.Artificial selection toward a goal, however, is very different from natural selection as conceived by Darwin. Natural selection has no goal, no direction, no retained knowledge, and no reward.3 Even Darwin worried about his term natural selection, because it seemed to imply an intelligent selector. He later acquiesced to Herbert Spencers term, survival of the fittest, as a better encapsulation of his idea.
The confusion between artificial selection and natural selection continued to the end of the article, where Robertson and Scott said, Designing a selection process that includes ground-state interactions (as Seelig and Szostaks study does) and transition-state interactions (as the previous catalytic-antibody approaches did) might yield even better-designed enzymes.
1Michael P. Robertson and William G. Scott, News and Views: Biochemistry: Designer Enzymes, Nature 448, 757-758 (16 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/448757a.
2Burkhard Seelig and Jack W. Szostak, Selection and evolution of enzymes from a partially randomized non-catalytic scaffold, Nature 448, 828-831 (16 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature06032.
3Survival cannot be considered a reward in Darwinism. Reward implies a rewarder and a goal that a contestant strives for. In the value-neutral, materialistic world of blind natural selection, nobody could care if an organism survives or not. For these reasons, the commentators characterization of a fitness contest won by evolutionary tactics is misleading.
4For problems with the RNA World scenario for the origin of life, see the 07/11/2002 and 02/15/2007 entries.
Even a middle school biology teacher or an NCSE staff member would know this is not natural selection. How can the premiere science journal in the world allow this egregious an example of the fallacy of equivocation to make it into print? Happens all the time, folks. If the logical inconsistency was obvious to you, youre wiser than eggheads at UC Santa Cruz and the editors of Nature.Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Shark Chefs and Finger Food 08/15/2007
A press release from University of Florida wins this weeks prize for trying to make dogmatism funny (or at least appealing to snackers):
When the first four-legged animals sprouted fingers and toes, they took an ancient genetic recipe and simply extended the cooking time, say University of Florida scientists writing in Wednesdays issue of the journal PLoS ONE.But sharks dont have fingers, you say? Right; they just had the recipe but never used it: the genetic processes necessary to muster fingers and toes existed more than 500 million years ago in the common ancestor of fish with cartilaginous skeletons and bony fish more than 135 million years before digits debuted in the earliest limbed animals, the article says.
And what were these finger genes doing 135 million years before they were used? Just making fins, apparently. ...sharks and many other types of fish do not form more dramatic appendages during this late phase of Hox gene expression because it occurs briefly and only in a narrow band of cells, compared with the more extended time frame and larger anatomical area needed to prefigure the hand and foot in limbed animals.
So for 135 million years, no animal ever tried the latent innovation. But when it was time for fingers and toes to debut, their appearance was an extremely dramatic, important point in evolution that has captured the interest of many. Otherwise we would be playing finball instead of handball.
The finding shows what was thought to be a relatively recent evolutionary innovation existed eons earlier than previously believed, the article says. The following paragraph makes it all so plausible:
Weve uncovered a surprising degree of genetic complexity in place at an early point in the evolution of appendages, said developmental biologist Martin Cohn, an associate professor with the UF departments of zoology and anatomy and cell biology and a member of the UF Genetics Institute. Genetic processes were not simple in early aquatic vertebrates only to become more complex as the animals adapted to terrestrial living. They were complex from the outset. Some major evolutionary innovations, like digits at the end of limbs, may have been achieved by prolonging the activity of a genetic program that existed in a common ancestor of sharks and bony fishes.Question: What was the observation that gave rise to all this kitchen prose? Scientists at UFL watched the pattern of expression in Hox genes in living sharks, and discovered a phase of gene expression in sharks that was thought until recently to occur only when digits began to form in limbed animals. Well, then, (snap fingers): evolution is the only possible explanation.
Its the only possible answer because it is the only answer the Darwin Party will allow in the arena, which has become a circus. Lets all do Steve Martins rendition of When the shark bites... while re-reading the quote at top right of this page.Largest Dinosaur Mass Grave in Switzerland Found 08/15/2007
As many as 100 plateosaurs may be buried in a mass grave in Switzerland, reported the Reuters news service. The finds show that an area known for Plateosaurus finds for decades may be much larger than originally thought as much as a mile in width in the town of Frick, near the German border. An amateur found bones while investigating a construction site.
The article mentions that Germany has two other large plateosaur burial sites. It described the animals as peaceful herbivores that lived along a river delta. Plateosaur fossils are common in Europe. The four-legged herbivores, classified as Triassic, grew over 30 feet in length and could weigh as much as 1500 pounds.
Must have been a bad day in dinotopia. Anyone know of a modern example of hundreds of large animals like elephants or giraffes all being buried at the same time over many miles while grazing peacefully along a river bank? We were once taught the present is the key to the past. Remember the specimen found under the North Sea? (04/25/2006).Gophers: natures rototillers, from 08/02/2004.
Gratitude Protects Against Health Loss 08/15/2007
Gratitude is a healthful attitude. Its a Biblical attitude. The Bible is filled with admonitions to be thankful (e.g., I Thessalonians 5, Philippians 4, Colossians 3). Even in a hospital, there are many things to be thankful for. The patients in this study should have been grateful that donors made their organs available for transplanting, and that medicine has advanced far enough to make transplanting a life-saving option, and that the body is filled with wondrous repair mechanisms (see next entry). It should be easy to list dozens of blessings. How many things can you count right now? Dont do it just for preventive medicine; really be thankful. If you do it just for the health benefits, youre not being grateful; youre being selfish.DNA Repair Is Highly Coordinated 08/14/2007
The remarkable ability of cells to repair DNA damage has been the subject of several recent articles. As a long, physical molecule subject to perturbing forces, DNA is subject to breakage on occasion. If repair mechanisms were not in place, the genetic information would quickly become hopelessly scrambled and life would break down. Studies are revealing that multiple levels of control are involved in maintaining genomic integrity.
Isnt the cell wonderful? We each have trillions of them, but each one deserves our love and respect. None of these articles, as usual, tried to explain how blind evolution could have produced all this coded information with its self-healing mechanisms. Instead of Darwinizing it, maybe we should Pasteurize it: use the research to cure disease and improve the human condition, and to stand in awe of God. Like Louis Pasteur said, The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator.Science Confronts Philosophy, or Vice Versa 08/13/2007
Practicing scientists often disdain philosophy. To them, it seems like mumbo-jumbo with convoluted arguments telling them why they dont exist or why two-ness cannot be represented on a chalkboard. To a scientist dealing with real lab rats or chemicals off the shelf, such ramblings seem detached and worthless. Who would know more what science is than a scientist? Philosophizing about science seems far less productive than just doing science. One described philosophy as incomprehensible answers to insoluble problems.
Philosophys domain is all-encompassing. It attempts to address, in a systematic and rigorous manner, questions about what exists (ontology), how we know things (epistemology), and how we should live our lives (moral and political philosophy). Philosophers ask the pointed questions that give precision to our thoughts. A fairly new branch of philosophy is the philosophy of science. The question what is science? is not and cannot be a scientific question. It is a statement of philosophy about science, describing the limits of its epistemology and the nature of its ontology.
On the rare occasions when the scientific journals discuss philosophy of science, they usually delve into it only long enough to come back to a reassuring verdict that objectivism is still the only philosophy worth believing (i.e., that our sensations of the world correspond to what is objectively real). Here were some examples in the form of book reviews in Science magazine.
1Peter Lipton, Philosophy of Science: The World of Science, Science, 11 May 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5826, p. 834, DOI: 10.1126/science.1141366.
2Christoph Adami, Philosophy of Mind: Who Watches the Watcher?, Science, 25 May 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5828, pp. 1125-1126, DOI: 10.1126/science.1141809.
These book reviews have been in the queue for three months but finally needed airing, because they are important. Scientists cannot escape philosophy. They are embedded within it, whether they like it or not. To pretend philosophy has no bearing on their work is itself a philosophy. The question is not whether a scientist practices philosophy, but how well he or she does it. These two did not do it very well. Both appealed to emotion and flights of fancy to defend objectivism and materialism.Oil made from marble, from 08/13/2002.
Immune System Appeared Early 08/12/2007
One way to estimate the characteristics of the organism that went before those that were multicellular is to look for characteristics that are present in two, three or all four of these main groups, he said.Kuspa did not describe how this might have come about by a blind process of random mutation and natural selection. Astrobiology Magazine picked up on this story, adding this comment to its article, We Are one
The evolution of multicellular organisms on Earth was an important step in the diversification of life on our planet. Understanding these important moments in the history of life can help elucidate the mechanisms through which life develops and evolves, which in turn can help astrobiologists determine the potential for lifes development on distant worlds.The original work was published in Science.1,2 Kuspa and his team only speculated about the evolutionary significance of their description of sentinel cells. They said that this first glimpse of an immune-related signaling system might represent an ancient function in the common ancestor of plants and animals, but they did not explain how it arose; in fact, their discovery represents another layer of complexity to the cellular cooperation observed in the social amoeba. They ended with more speculation about this as a function present in the hypothetical common ancestor: If true, it would suggest that this system of pathogen recognition was advantageous to organisms before the evolution of multicellularity. Mitch Leslie said amen in his commentary: the results suggest an early beginning for the specialized immune system now seen in multicellular organisms.
By contrast, another paper on the immune system in Science the prior week said nothing about evolution.3 Ira Mellman wrote that immune cells often exhibit remarkable degrees of specialization and adaptation. The system comprises a variety of cell types whose activities must be carefully regulated to act as a coherent unit for the purpose of host defense. Because of the emerging complexity of the field, he encouraged cell biologists and immunologists to get their heads together to try to understand how immunity works.
1Chen, Zhuchenko and Kuspa, Immune-like Phagocyte Activity in the Social Amoeba, Science, 3 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5838, pp. 678-681, DOI: 10.1126/science.1143991.
2Mitch Leslie, A Slimy Start for Immunity?, Science, 3 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5838, p. 584, DOI: 10.1126/science.317.5838.584.
3Ira Mellman, Private Lives: Reflections and Challenges in Understanding the Cell Biology of the Immune System, Science, 3 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5838, pp. 625-627, DOI: 10.1126/science.1142955.
As usual in evolutionary fables, the observation-to-assumption ratio is so low, the paper is indistinguishable from fiction. They assume the millions of years, they assume a hypothetical progenitor, they assume neo-Darwinian mechanisms can invent an immune system, and they assume it can evolve into the highly-functional immune systems of higher animals and plants. Whats the only observation? that an organism observed today (not millions of years ago) has a clever way for ridding itself of harmful bacteria and toxins. Those not infected by Darwin narcosis might think this to be evidence of design.We have no idea why these galaxies grew so large so soon 08/11/2007
Five full-sized galaxies have been detected at the edge of the visible universe, reported Science Now. This continues a trend over the last few years where astronomers have been detecting old objects at young ages (e.g., 07/25/2007, 09/24/2006, 08/18/2006, 03/31/2006). The galaxies, which are forming stars very rapidly, are big for their age, meaning that astronomers might have to rethink current ideas about galaxy formation.
Rethinking looms big as a theme in the article. The first stars were supposed to coalesce slowly into the first galaxies, but this process was supposed to take billions of years. A team using data from Hubble, Spitzer and Keck telescopes confirmed these are Milky Way sized galaxies, not small members of a cluster. We have no idea why these galaxies grew so large so soon, remarked Giovanni Fazio of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I think we still have a lot new to learn about whats happening in the early universe,
This is not a surprise to creationists. It is a surprise to big-bang secular cosmologists. We hope the astronomers will rethink current ideas, but for significant progress, they will have to think outside the bang.Weird-Science Origin-of-Life Theories 08/10/2007
Two news articles on the origin of life seem bizarre at best. One even used the word bizarrely in its own self-evaluation.
The second article failed to deal with the difficulties of assembling ribose and amino acids of the right handedness on the surface of a dead planet, explaining the origin of genetic information, getting it packaged into a meteorite, and delivering it unharmed to Earth in sufficient quantity and safety where it would not be destroyed the moment it splashed down. The article dismissed the idea that building blocks of life were delivered by comets, but then presented a similar idea (that they were delivered from Mars in a meteorite by a chance process) as plausible.
The 15th Intl. Conference on the Origin of Life will be held a year from this month in Florence, Italy.
The gutless science reporters, who should be gatekeepers of rationality, let anything and everything pass as long as it is materialistic and Darwinian. This, folks, is the sorry state of science reporting in our world today. These same reporters will attack creationists in the worst vituperative rhetoric, and portray them as the enemies of science wanting to bring on the dark ages, but in the same breath will let weird Frankenstein tales pass right on through unopposed as long as they assume evolution. The only controversies they occasionally report is when two Darwinists disagree about whose Darwinian tale is better. We have a lot of work to do.Homo habilis Contemporary with Homo erectus 08/09/2007
Homo habilis couldnt have been the ancestor of Homo erectus, because they lived side by side. This has been all over the news since it was announced in Nature yesterday: see the Times UK, PhysOrg, the BBC News, Reuters Africa, National Geographic, and MSNBC News, which says the new discovery paints a messy view of human origins: Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man.
OK, what happened? Meave Leakey found a small female Homo erectus skull in Kenya that dates from the same period as Homo habilis, or handy man, long thought to have been a predecessor:
In 2000 Leakey found an old H. erectus complete skull within walking distance of an upper jaw of the H. habilis, and both dated from the same general time period. That makes it unlikely that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis, researchers said.But this should not cast evolutionary science into doubt, the article A.P. article was quick to point out: All the changes to human evolutionary thought should not be considered a weakness in the theory of evolution, [Bill] Kimbel [Arizona State] said. Rather, those are the predictable results of getting more evidence, asking smarter questions and forming better theories, he said.
Yet it is hard to see how this helps the evolutionary story of progress between apes and humans. This upset is similar, Kimbel said, to the revised story of Neanderthals, which also used to be considered human ancestors. This effectively removes Homo habilis from consideration as an ancestor, leaving a gap where paleoanthropologists thought they had a link. National Geographic speculated that the two hominid forms might have originated two and three million years ago, which is a well-known gap in the fossil record. The evidence for human evolution, therefore, has been reduced, not just messed up.
Although the skull was found in 2000, it often takes years for a research team to clean, date, and document the find. Another claim from the announcement is that apparently males were larger than females (sexual dimorphism), but see commentary and picture from the 08/02/2007 entry about the flaw of drawing conclusions from limited samples. Leakey and team believe the two forms lived contemporaneously and in proximity, as do chimpanzees and gorillas, for half a million years.
Ann Gibbons wrote in Science2 the next day about this find. She noted that the blurring of distinctions between H. habilis and H. erectus makes ripples with another famous fossil, too: Homo ergaster:
The skull also shows features that had previously been seen only in Asian fossils of H. erectus, such as a keeling (or ridge) on its frontal and parietal bones. These traits had persuaded a growing number of researchers in recent years to split the fossils of H. erectus into two species, with H. erectus from Asia and H. ergaster from Africa. But the skull's mix of traits shows H. erectus cannot be easily divided between two species from Africa and Asia, says Spoor. Kimbel and Arizona State graduate student Claire Terhune reached a similar conclusion after studying the temporal bones of 15 H. erectus skulls, in a paper published in the July issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
1Leakey et al, Implications of new early Homo fossils from Ileret, east of Lake Turkana, Kenya, Nature 448, 688-691 (9 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature05986.
2Ann Gibbons, New Fossils Challenge Line of Descent in Human Family Tree, Science, 10 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5839, p. 733, DOI: 10.1126/science.317.5839.733.
These people do not know who begat whom, and they cant tell dates with any credibility; they keep losing links into gaps and moving things around, yet they expect us to believe they are the Masters of Enlightenment when telling us where we came from.Science Journals Make Dogmatic Atheist Statements 08/08/2007
Science is supposed to be restricted to the physical and observable world, but the major journals do not hesitate to state ardent, dogmatic opinions about the non-existence of God. Often they assert without debate that belief in God is an artifact of human evolution. Here are some recent examples:
1Georg Striedter, Brain botch, Nature 447, 640 (7 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/447640a.
2Editorial, Evolution and the brain, Nature 447, 753 (14 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/447753a.
3Editorial, Meanings of life, Nature 447, 1031-1032 (28 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/4471031b.
4Kevin Padian, The case of creation, Nature 448, 253-254 (19 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448253a.
5Sean B. Carroll, God as Genetic Engineer, Science, 8 June 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5830, pp. 1427-1428, DOI: 10.1126/science.1145104.
6Scott Atran, The Nature of Belief, Science, 27 July 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5837, p. 456, DOI: 10.1126/science.1142653.
7Letters, Evolution and Group Selection, Science, 3 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5838, pp. 596-597, DOI: 10.1126/science.317.5838.596d.
The debating tactic of the Darwin Party in the public marketplace of ideas is unchanged since Huxley: ridicule, attack, threaten, marginalize, and hoard power. None of the ideologues above have a scientific leg to stand on to claim that their brains evolved, because if that were true, they could never know it or claim it was true. By asserting that their claims are true, and that religion and creation is false, they have affirmed that there is a world of knowledge outside the realm of particles that is eternal and does not evolve. This cannot be possible within their own world view. They have therefore shot themselves in the brain; their position is self-refuting, and necessarily false.The World Is a Free Lunch 08/07/2007
One of the strangest Darwinian models to be put forth recently has to be a paper by James V. Stone (a psychologist at Sheffield U, UK), published in PLoS Computational Biology.1 He basically says that evolution is a free lunch. Brains and whole body types can emerge if an organism can learn parts of adaptive tasks, provided the rest of the task has enough built-in substeps that will fall into line. Despite his whiz-bang mathematics, does he prove the point that you can get something from nothing? He says so.
Some lines from his paper qualify for Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week. Heres a Well, duh line in the Authors Summary:
Some behaviours are purely innate (e.g., blinking), whereas other, apparently innate, behaviours require a degree of learning to refine them into a useful skill (e.g., nest building). In terms of biological fitness, it matters how quickly such learning occurs, because time spent learning is time spent not eating, or time spent being eaten, both of which reduce fitness....He continues with a synopsis of his thesis:
Using artificial neural networks as model organisms, it is proven that it is possible for an organism to be born with a set of primed connections which guarantee that learning part of a skill induces automatic learning of other skill components, an effect known as free-lunch learning (FLL). Critically, this effect depends on the assumption that associations are stored as distributed representations. Using a genetic algorithm, it is shown that primed organisms can evolve within 30 generations. This has three important consequences. First, primed organisms learn quickly, which increases their fitness. Second, the presence of FLL effectively accelerates the rate of evolution, for both learned and innate skill components. Third, FLL can accelerate the rate at which learned behaviours become innate. These findings suggest that species may depend on the presence of distributed representations to ensure rapid evolution of adaptive behaviours.Stone attempts to prove his thesis with various computer runs that measure fitness and penalize errors. According to William Dembskis book No Free Lunch,2 however, introducing a fitness function sneaks information into the back door that cannot be assumed in any realistic Darwinian scheme, because the essence of Darwinism is that evolution be undirected and purposeless. With that restraint, there is no free lunch: any evolutionary algorithm is indistinguishable from blind search.
This difficulty seems to have been lost on Dr. Stone, however. In his final paragraph he waved his FLL (free-lunch-learning) as a possible solution to one of Darwinisms biggest problems, the Cambrian explosion:
It has been demonstrated that FLL accelerates the evolution of behaviours in neural network models. Given that FLL appears to be a fundamental property of distributed representations, and given the reliance of neuronal systems on distributed representations, FLL-induced behaviours may constitute a significant component of apparently innate behaviours (e.g., nest-building). Results presented here suggest that any organism that did not take advantage of such a fundamental and ubiquitous effect would be at a selective disadvantage. Finally, if FLL accelerates evolution in the natural world, then it may have been involved in the Cambrian explosion, an explosion that began when brains (and therefore learning) first appeared.An astonishing claim by any standard: you can get a brain as a free lunch.
1James V. Stone, Distributed Representations Accelerate Evolution of Adaptive Behaviours, Public Library of Science: Computational Biology, Aug 3, 2007, doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030147.
2See ARN for info on this book.
Dont be fooled by the math. This is absolutely insane. To think that inventing a term like FLL will generate brains and whole new body plans in nature is wonderfully weird. Apparently Dr. Stone needs to learn some physics, particularly thermodynamics and information theory. Even Julie Andrews could help: Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could.Can Life Survive for Millions of Years? 08/06/2007
How long can cells and tissues last? Two different yet related stories should raise questions about the dates claimed, because the observations are astonishing.
Either give up the long ages, evolutionists, or give up your credibility. Some of us have long ago given up our credulity.Monkeys Prefer the Sound of Silence 08/05/2007
Given a choice, chimpanzees choose silence over music. The Random Samples page in Science1 mentioned experiments by scientists from MIT and Harvard where monkeys were given a choice of booths playing a flute lullaby, a Mozart concerto, techno-rock, and silence. Between the musical booths, The monkeys spent an average of about two-thirds of their time on the lullaby side, showing that they prefer slower tempos, the article says. But when given the choice of silence, lullabies, or a Mozart concerto, they spent most of their time avoiding music altogether. Eight human subjects, by contrast, all preferred the lullaby over silence.
Isabelle Peretz (U of Montreal) remarked that this shows humans have a natural, or innate, inclination to engage with music. The scientists who performed the experiments had earlier found that monkeys show no preference between harmony and dissonance (cf. 12/13/2004). To the scientists, the new experiments suggest that humans music responses may reflect a unique evolutionary history of selection for cognitive processes linked to emotion and motivation.
The snippet is accompanied by a picture of a chimpanzee with his hands over his ears. The article, titled Monkeys have tin ears, began, A new study finds that monkeys prefer silence to music, suggesting that some of the acoustic preferences that underlie music are unique to humans.
1Random Samples, Science, Volume 317, Number 5838, Issue of 03 August 2007.
The evolutionary explanation is dissonant cacophony. Are they claiming chimpanzees have no emotion or motivation? Monkeys show a lot of emotion when they screech, and a lot of motivation when they want a banana. Besides, no amount of emotion or motivation is going to affect neo-Darwinisms capacity to produce the random mutations needed for a brain containing a music appreciation module.Four Evidences of Cosmic Youth 08/04/2007
Astronomers and planetary scientists routinely talk in millions and billions of years. Three recent science news reports raise questions about how to fit apparently young objects into a vast timeline.
1Matthew M. Hedman, Joseph A. Burns, Matthew S. Tiscareno, Carolyn C. Porco, Geraint H. Jones, Elias Roussos, Norbert Krupp, Chris Paranicas, and Sascha Kempf, The Source of Saturns G Ring, Science, 3 August 2007: Vol. 317. no. 5838, pp. 653-656, DOI: 10.1126/science.1143964.
2Jennifer Meyer and Jack Wisdom, Tidal Heating in Enceladus, Icarus, Volume 188, Issue 2, June 2007, Pages 535-539.
Every once in awhile, it bears repeating: it is more empirically justifiable to infer young ages than old ages, because the observation-to-assumption ratio is much higher. You can take an observed phenomenon and extrapolate it backward from the present a bit that is reasonable. But to start with an assumption of billions of years and then try to fit a short-lived phenomenon into it lowers the observation-to-assumption ratio by many orders of magnitude. Would it be reasonable to observe a sparkler for 5 seconds, and then claim it has been burning for 100 years? We think science should tether itself to the observations rather than run amok like a stray dog.Body scan: high-tech engineering inside of you, from 08/05/2005.
Darwinism Seen in Action! 08/03/2007
The conflict has been likened to a battle of the sexes or an arms race at the molecular level between mothers and fathers. At stake: the fetuss growth rate and how much that costs the nutrient-supplying mother.The gist of the story is that some placental minnows had higher levels of a gene called insulin-like growth factor two (IGF2). The researchers found that the biggest genetic changes were in those species of the minnows that had developed placentas, supporting the Darwinian theory of natural selection, the article claimed.
The researchers from UC Riverside believe that the male and female compete for control of the offspring. The male wants fast fetal growth, so that his offspring will be the hardiest, best survivors and the ones who demand the most of the mothers placental nutrients, while the female gives all her offspring equal maternal care (i.e., equal levels of the growth hormone), so that her nutrients will be available to support her and the offspring from all her matings.
You have to laugh at the lengths the Darwinists will go to in trying to prop up Charlies idol. They did not see these fish evolve. They admitted that The placenta is a complex organ of maternal and fetal tissues that nourishes the developing fetus in the uterus, but did not explain how this complexity arose; they only found differing levels of one growth hormone. They admitted that their theory of genetic conflict is controversial. And they committed the usual grievous sin of the Darwinists, personifying poor little fish that dont know their right fin from their left with goal-oriented actions and human patterns of conflict. This was not evolution in action. The only thing in action was the Darwin fogma machine (05/14/2007).Romanian Neanderthal May Have Interbred With Modern Humans 08/02/2007
A report in National Geographic says that a skull found in a Romanian cave is shaking up ideas about Neanderthal Man and its relationship to modern humans. The mostly modern skull shows a feature that was characteristic of Neanderthals: The otherwise human skull has a groove at the base of the back of the skull, just above the neck muscle, that is ubiquitous in Neandertal specimens but has never been seen in the remains of a modern human, the article states. Discoverer Erik Trinkaus (Washington U in St. Louis) was surprised: My first reaction was, that shouldnt be there, he said.
If they interbred with us, they were us. Are there any doubters left? Thus ends a century-and-a-half myth that Neanderthal Man was less than human. The range of variations in fully human specimens probably encompasses other skeletons that paleoanthropologists mistakenly classify as outgroups. Look at this picture from the Daily Mail: would you have classified these guys as separate species only from their skeletons? Works for other species, too (see another Daily Mail picture).Deep Sea Vents Tantalize Evolutionists 08/01/2007
A team of Chinese and American scientists pulled up fragments of deep-sea vents and analyzed their contents, reported Science Daily. They said the creatures inhabiting these vents are the most primitive life forms on Earth, and so thought that the fragments might provide clues to the origin of life. Timothy Kusky of Saint Louis University said, This discovery provides tantalizing suggestions that early life may have developed and remained sheltered in deep-sea hydrothermal vents until surface conditions became favorable for organisms to inhabit the land.
And so another just-so story is born. The sagacious primitives of the deep knew that all good things must wait, so they hid out in the depths till the surface was ready. Perhaps they sent pioneers upwards every few million years to see if any returned with good news. | <urn:uuid:1103e4a5-f197-4262-9d04-5aec263fe1bd> | {
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Although the sun is about 93 million miles away, it is still very strong. To protect oneself from the sun's harmful UV rays, there is iSunBurn. Developed by independent developer Monika Morris, this iOS app will indicate the UV index forecast and associated risk for the day. Clouds can be deceptive; even though there isn't any sun, UV rays can still cause sun burn. The app's UV index scale measures from one, for low risk, to 11-plus for high risk. The app instructs travelers which SPF level of sunscreen to use and when to wear protective clothing and sunglasses, and it also specifies how long it would take to burn. | <urn:uuid:ed8aeff5-1516-4867-bcff-b92941bb4b90> | {
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Health Tip: Manage COPD Symptoms07/21/11
(HealthDay News) -- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
is an umbrella term for chronic lung diseases that can severely
undermine breathing. Examples include chronic bronchitis or
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute offers these
suggestions for helping you manage COPD symptoms:
- Avoid things that are irritating to the lungs, such as
cigarette smoke, air pollution, chemical fumes and dust.
- Work with your doctor for ongoing care and treatment. Continue
to take COPD medications exactly as prescribed.
- Be prepared for a health emergency. Contact your doctor if
- Discuss with your doctor any COPD-related anxiety, depression
Copyright © 2011
. All rights reserved.
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. | <urn:uuid:42d7d310-53a2-42a1-a2f0-7c92a2693f60> | {
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Connecting Ironman and engineering
By Terence Tan
It all started with a problem. How will he escape from the cave - one with menacing armed guards bent on ensuring no escape was possible?
All he has are some hand tools and scrap metal. Under the gaze of his captors, he makes an iron suit!
The way he blasts his way to freedom later is ingenious, almost incredible, but is really the clever application of knowledge to solve a problem - the very essence of engineering.
I am, of course, referring to Tony Stark a.k.a. Ironman, the most famous engineer in the comic book universe.
Comics and movies have an uncanny way of 'showing' the future. In the movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise uses his hands and fingers to interact with the computer, selecting and moving items on screen, zooming in and out effortlessly. When the movie was first released, people considered such technology futuristic. However, today, I use my fingers to tap SMSes on my mobile phone, view photos and make phone calls. Engineers have apparently brought the future to the present!
Now, realistically speaking, what would it take to make an Ironman suit? The latest advances in engineering could hold the answer.
Recently, I showed my students a video of multimillionaire inventor Dean Kamen showcasing his latest invention, a robotic prosthetic arm, to illustrate the immense possibilities with engineering.
In the video, an amputee who had lost both arms was able to feed himself for the first time in 19 years after being outfitted with the state-of-the-art prototype robotic arm, which was light, self-powered, precision-controlled and in many ways resembled an arm from the Terminator.
What made the story even more spectacular was the fact that a multi-disciplinary team built the working prototype in just a year. Then again, it was not all that surprising, as engineers are known for achieving the improbable.
If someone were to ask me what the most amazing piece of technology in Ironman was, I would not say the anti-tank missiles, or the artificial intelligence, or even the mini jet engines that enabled him to fly. Aside from Ironman's superior mechanical and electronics, I think the most amazing piece of technology was his power source - the fictional arc reactor.
If it were real, that single piece of technology would bring about significant political (think Middle East), environmental (look at the ongoing oil spill disaster in the United States), economic (many industries would be transformed overnight) and societal changes (finally a reliable, clean, perpetual energy source).
Are such power sources really that far-fetched? Though it might be some time yet, perhaps not in our lifetimes, but scientists and engineers are on the road to discovering that ultimate energy source.
Dr. Nader Barsoum, a brilliant award-winning associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Curtin Sarawak, is one of many researchers around the world studying and developing clean energy. Dr. Nader has written numerous research papers, presented at prestigious conferences, and supervised graduate students on the subject. Indeed, he is considered an authority on clean energy and was awarded Curtin’s Best Researcher Award in 2009.
Based on Dr. Nader's research into renewable energy (creating a hybrid energy system that harnesses solar, micro-hydro, biomass, hydrogen fuel cell and wind energy), the Malaysian Ministry of Science and Technology (MOSTI) has given him a grant to further develop his ideas.
With the work of Dr. Nader and all the other researchers around the world, I think affordable renewable energy should be in our homes within a generation.
Now, if someone were to ask me what piece of technology in Ironman would most likely become a reality in the immediate future, say, in the next five years, was, I would say a real-time personal health system.
Consider this: right now as I write this article on my computer, I know the temperature of the processor on my motherboard, the bandwidth I am using online, the amount of RAM the operating system is using and so on. I have a wealth of information about the state of my computer at my fingertips.
For car drivers, the dashboard dials provide information on engine speed and temperature and fuel level. More futuristic cars provide additional information such as fuel efficiency in litres per kilometer travelled, tyre pressure, average speed travelled and so on. Wouldn't it be great if such a variety of information was available for our personal health?
Think of the implications of having real-time health data. Instead of going for annual health checkups to check cholesterol, blood sugar levels or blood pressure, we can have up-to-the-minute information on our physical condition every day. One does not have to have a heart attack to discover that one’s cholesterol level is shooting up and reaching dangerous levels. Our personal health system will inform us of an impending heart attack the same way our computers tell us that our hard drives are nearly full!
That is indeed the type of research that Curtin Sarawak’s senior lecturer in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Wong Kiing Ing, is doing. His latest research work involves developing a system where non-intrusive sensors can transmit information onto a watch or bracelet which can subsequently be uploaded onto a network. The network can be a home network which may contain your personal health database or a network that links to a doctor or hospital monitoring outpatients.
On 4 October 2009, the Borneo Post carried a report on third-year electrical and computer engineering student Nurul Jameela Nor Mazlan, who was on Dr. Wong’s research team and has just returned from presenting the device and its capabilities at conferences in Egypt, Austria and Ireland.
The news report stated that Dr. Wong and his student engineers had created a wireless electrocardiogram (ECG) body sensor that could detect one’s vital signs and relay the information to doctors via a mobile telephone network. Therefore, it seems the technology is already available, literally on our doorstep.
All these bring us back to the original question I posed: What would it take to make an Ironman suit? It is not technology, as some might think, for technology cannot create itself. It is the stimulated minds and imaginations of scientists, engineers and knowledge workers who create the technology.
In addition to Dr. Nader, Dr. Wong and the student engineers, there are numerous examples of such bright minds at Curtin Sarawak, all working towards advancing the fields of engineering and science.
Earlier this year, Lau Sing Ong and his fellow student engineers spent many late nights and weekends designing and building robots for in the international-level ABU Asia-Pacific Robot Contest (RoboCon). These students do what they do because they enjoy tinkering with technology, even under pressure from assignments and tests. They would seize the opportunity to learn through applying knowledge and skills they acquire in the classrooms to their projects. In such an environment, technology and learning inevitably expands.
Seeing the engineering talent of his friends in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, fourth year student Sia Yee Yu initiated the ECE Electronics Exhibition at the university’s Recreation and Event Centre on 22 May 2010 to give ECE students the opportunity to showcase their projects to other students.
Visitors to the exhibition got to see the Curtin Sarawak Robocon team’s robot, CUTIES, in action. In addition, they experienced using their mobile phones to control a miniature mechanical arm and were dazzled by light-emitting art pieces that showed off the artistic and fun side of electronic design.
I once asked Yee Yu why he was so passionate about electronics and communications engineering and he said, "When I was in secondary school, I was exposed to electronics and it was fun to make stuff. I still find it a lot of fun."
These are just some examples of past and ongoing projects at Curtin Sarawak. There have been numerous other interesting projects, such as the designing and building of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and programming of Artificial Neural Networks, which will be highlighted on a different occasion.
Tony Stark a.k.a. Ironman is merely a fictional engineer hero in the comic book universe. However, there are many real-life Tony Starks, such as those at Curtin Sarawak, who are working to create a better future for us.
So, what does Ironman have to do with engineering? Quite a lot, it seems.
Terence Tan is a lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Science, at Curtin Sarawak. He holds a MEng. degree in computing from the prestigious Imperial College London, and MSc. degree in international business economics from City University London. He started his teaching career at Curtin Sarawak in 2005 and his credentials include winning Curtin’s Excellence and Innovation in Teaching (EIT) Award in 2008 and Student Choice Award for three consecutive years from 2006 to 2008. His research interests are genetic algorithms timetable scheduling and research in education, on which he has co-authored a number of research publications and conference papers. Terence can be contacted at +60 85 443939 ext. 3833 or by e-mail to [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:7920dc12-484f-424a-9521-7e1f755cc0c9> | {
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The Baltimore VA Medical Center said Wednesday it has become the first hospital in Maryland to offer three-dimensional mammograms, a technology it hopes will better detect breast cancer in women.
Approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year, 3-D mammograms give a deeper view of breast tissue than traditional two-dimensional tests. The device allows doctors to examine breast tissue in individual layers rather than in one big mass.
The 3-D views enable doctors to detect small lumps that may get lost in layers of tissue and thus allow earlier breast cancer detection, said Dr. Rakhi Goel, director of breast imaging at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. It will also give clearer readings on women who have dense breast tissue, Goel said. Dense breast tissue sometimes appears as cancerous or abnormal in traditional mammograms.
"We can see that it is normal tissue and truly not a mass," said Goel of the new technology. She added that more accurate readings mean that fewer women will have to come in for follow-up visits or get biopsies because doctors aren't sure if a lump is cancerous.
About 40 million mammograms are performed in the United States each year and about 4 million patients are called back for additional exams, including more than 1 million patients who have to get biopsies, or have sample tissue removed from their breast.
"It reduces the number of women that would potentially have to come back for additional evaluation and reduces undue worry and unnecessary trips," Goel said.
The Baltimore VA, which serves the area's military veterans, began using the technology two months ago. Radiology labs in Maryland use the machine, but no other hospitals have the technology.
Because the technology is so new, the FDA approved only secondary use of the machine, developed by Massachusetts medical device company Hologic. Its use is allowed in conjunction with a two-dimensional mammogram, Goel said.
But the device shows promise for more accurate testing. A recent study by Massachusetts General Hospital found that testing accuracy improves 7 percent with use of three-dimensional machines.
The procedure doesn't feel any different to the patient, whose breasts are compressed between two plates as during a two-dimensional mammogram. The most noticeable difference in the test are that the arm of the machine sweeps above the patient to get several shots of the breast, rather than remaining stationary, as on a traditional machine. The 3-D tests also last a few seconds longer.
Kate Conroy of Baltimore received a 3-D mammogram last month at the Baltimore VA and said she noticed her doctor was able to read the results more quickly.
The 49-year-old, who finished a stint in the Army in 1992, said she likes that there is a mammogram that is potentially more accurate.
"They can detect problems sooner, which is always better," said Conroy, who works as a national defense liaison.
Goel said she has noticed fewer women are having to come back for exams, although she said it will take more time to confirm any concrete trends.
"It is making a difference," she said. | <urn:uuid:ebed6799-a606-4d9b-a26c-3d0ff3531614> | {
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Metal interconnects and features are a critical component of modern silicon circuits. In space, NASA and other space agencies have prototyped new ion engine technologies which promise more affordable and faster propulsion to distant targets. What both technologies have in common is the need to create ions to drive their key processes.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory have devised an improved method to produce more metal ions, allowing it to create better circuits, and unlock other applications.
Metal ion creation in the semiconductor industry relies on a technique called sputtering. Traditional sputtering relies on a gas such as argon being heated to plasma and then contained by a magnetic field between a layer of metal and a target circuit. The plasma knocks metal ions off the metal source, creating a current of metal ions which flows towards the circuit, depositing metal on the disk.
High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HIPIMS) was invented in the 1990s as a means of improving this process. It uses a more powerful magnetic field to accelerate the plasma to higher speeds and to allow some metal ions to return to the metal source, knocking off more metal ions in a chain reaction of sorts. They key limitation to this process was power. More power means better performance, but in commercial semiconductor production typically only 1 kW magnets can be used, and they require water cooling. The result is a sputtering process that is not self-sustaining, though it last slightly longer.
Researchers at LBNL believe they have created the world's first self-sustained sputtering process. Their key is to use high power impulses, rather than a steady higher current, which could melt the magnet.
Andre Anders, a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator and Fusion Research Division, describes, "Three quantities determine the self-sputtering threshold. One is the probability that a sputtered atom gets ionized. Another is the probability that the new ion returns to the target. Finally, there’s the actual yield of atoms from self-sputtering. Multiply these together and you get the self-sputtering parameter, which is symbolized by the Greek letter pi. When pi equals unity, you reach a new steady state (provided) that the power supply can keep up. We use a special power supply, up to 500 kilowatts peak power. If the system wants power, we give it power!"
The process is also unique in that the power is high enough that it can create a thick plasma of pure metal ions, eliminating the need for argon or other gases in the sputtering process. The result high power continuous sputter has many benefits including cost cuts in chemicals, better circuits, and less mechanical parts (by removing the need for gas injection).
For very small circuits, that will soon arise as die shrinks continue, depositing metal using previous methods might be infeasible as they leave regular voids that on a nanoscale could break connections. With the new approach, the thicker metal ion plasma yields in essence void less deposition, allowing for nanoscale designs with excellent electrical character.
Another potential use of the new sputterer is in spacecraft. Bottles of gas or liquids are bulky and ultimately increase weight by requiring more metal to enclose their greater volume. A metal ion source, using the new method would be self sustaining and much more compact, lowering the weight and cost of launch for ion engine powered spacecraft.
The method also works in a vacuum, so it could also be used for metal ion sputtering in spacing, aiding orbiting construction platforms one day. The method could also be applied on Earth to allow for the first ever successful sputtering of niobium, a tough metal to sputter. This would allow for superconducting cavities of future particle accelerators to be coated with this metal for improved performance, unlock a plethora of new research possibilities.
In short, the new self-sustained sputtering method is a breakthrough which will help advance a number of fields, and if properly implemented, should become an integral technical advance of the new century.
quote: Doing it on an autonomous spacecraft [with] no humans around to monitor or maintain anything for years or even decades is a whole other matter
quote: Even a 1970s-era nuclear reactor doesn't require a large amount of human oversight, except for operations like refueling. With new advanced reactor designs and, even more importantly, advances in computer monitoring, there really isn't any need for humans in the loop at all.
quote: Furthermore, I'm not sure why you're assuming an unmanned flight in the first place. We can already build deep-space probes using ultra slow Hohmann transfers and gravity slings...you need nuclear propulsion for fast manned missions.
quote: Unmanned [missions] will also need to be nuclear powered if we don't want to wait decades or even centuries for a probe to get anywhere.
quote: In space, computers can fail(even permanently due to radiation)
quote: Sounds like you're admitting the need for nuclear propulsion. | <urn:uuid:9a8ff3b1-6198-4866-88ec-efba2db061cb> | {
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Floating point numbers are represented in binary fractions. (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 etc). You fractional value is 0.3, ie 3/10. There is no exact way to represent 3/10 using only binary fractions, so the answer has to be slightly wrong. This is true of all floating point arithmetic on all binary computers.
When using floating point you must always be aware of this, and be ready to round your output to the right number of decimal places when you print it. | <urn:uuid:16c104da-a65f-4f24-a1d3-3c859de8415a> | {
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Darrington, Washington's History
In 1870 a group of surveyors working for the Northern Pacific Railroad came to the area to chart a pass over the Cascade Mountains to the Wennatchee Valley and they encountered the Sauk-Suiattle tribe. Tribal members helped them to find a pass over the mountains, but in spite of this the Northern Pacific Railway chose a route farther south.
Photo from the Darrington Historical Society
Gold was discovered in the Summer of 1889 and prospectors flooded into the Cascade Mountains seeking their fortune. Many of the prospectors traveled from the Skagit River south to Monte Cristo on foot and later a road was punched all the way through making it easier to bring in equipment. The location where Darrington is now became a half way point and good place to camp. Prospectors began to explore the local mountains and a boomtown called "Starve Out" came about. It was July 22, 1891 that the townspeople filed paper work to get a post office and the name Darrington was chosen.
There is a historical marker in Darrington that marks where the old road once came through town, photo by Martha Rasmussen
The Northern Pacific Railroad came to Darrington June 1, 1901. The idea was to bring the train out to these parts so that all the gold ore could be shipped to the stamper in Everrett. Many claims were made in the surrounding mountains, but most of the prospectors had little to show for all the hard work, and many drifted northward to the Klondyke gold rush.
First Train To Darrington, photo from Darrington Historical Society
With the train reaching Darrington, this opened up the possibilities of timber harvest. Several small sawmills started up in the area and with them small towns and communities. In 1905 the Bureau Of Forestry, (now the U.S. Forest Service) began surveying valuable timber lands and building fire lookouts to safeguard againt fires. The mountain peaks surrounding the Darrington area were dotted with fire lookouts, many of the recreational trails that hikers enjoy in the area today were once the roads and trails to these lookouts. Today only 4 lookouts remain. Over the years most of the small sawmills closed or merged with the large mill in town, which is now Hampton Lumber Mill.
Early logging, photo from Darrington Historical Society
Darrington incorporated in October 15, 1945 and built a new city hall. The city hall housed city clerk and mayor's office, fire department and a community center with a dance floor up stairs. It was the same year that the town started a tradition that would last for decades called the "Timberbowl" with its grand parade, logging competitions, great bluegrass music and the Timberbowl Queen and her princesses. It all started out as a fundraiser to buy a new fire truck to put in the new city hall. The first Timberbowl dance was held upstairs in the new community center.
The Queens Float in the Timberbowl Parade, photo from Darrington Historical Society
The people of Darrington and our neighbors to the north, the Sauk-Suiattle tribe, hold history, heritage and the love of the outdoors close. Today timber harvest is still an important part of the economy as well as the vast outdoor recreational opportunities surrounding the area. Many people come to the area to explore hundreds of miles of wilderness trails or enjoy one of the many special events in the area like Darrington's famous Bluegrass Festival. Darrington has seen many changes over the years, the train tracks that once connected us with the rest of the world were torn out in 1994 to make way for the new Whitehorse Rails-To-Trails.
Early days of camping, photo from the Darrington Historical Society
Written by Martha Rasmussen
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Lou Covey, in a recent Element 14 article, suggested that the Department of Energy may have gone ahead with loan guarantees because the portable panels were easier to deploy for Defense Department applications. But other analysts say the DOE's largesse happens across the board, with few questions asked about how a technology might be integrated with systems in the field today.
Take the case of Beacon Power, whose flywheels looked perfectly suited for grid storage when prototypes were demonstrated. Problems in a handful of the 200 flywheels used in a Stephentown, Mass. project led many investors to worry about escalating maintenance costs. Walter Nasde of Ardour Capital told the Washington Post that Beacon had a good technology, but "is this something you can build a business around?" Because the Stephentown project remains in operation, the DOE will be able to recoup some of its investment in Beacon Power, but it's left Congress and the media highly skeptical of DOE efforts to aid alternative energy.
The problems encountered by First Solar in developing thin-film cadmium telluride solar panels are a little tougher to sort out. Two of the market leaders, China-based SunTech and US-based SunPower, rely on crystalline silicon panels. SunTech invested in thin films four years ago but found the declining price of crystalline silicon was hard to beat. SunPower teamed up with semiconductor leader Cypress Semiconductor at an early stage in order to apply chip-style economies of scale to its panel production.
First Solar claims its cadmium-telluride thin film panels offer the lowest carbon footprint for production in the PV panel market, but the company was grumbling when General Electric claimed cadmium-telluride breakthroughs. If First Solar can't show an unbeatable patent protection regime for its panels, an integrated giant like GE could take over in thin-film sectors of the market. First Solar's woes at the end of October suggest the problems in being a thin-film pioneer could prove fatal.
Does this mean US players have to cede the solar and wind markets to companies in China with lower production costs. No, but it does mean that innovative startups and large system integrators need to work together to indicate how a total energy infrastructure could be designed, and how the components of that infrastructure could be manufactured cheaply. It would be nice to think that such an industry would be stronger overall if it minimized acceptance of grants and loan guarantees from DOE. But first, the focus on designing point solutions has to end. | <urn:uuid:7607e564-ad70-45cf-884a-3bf479fce45f> | {
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“Doc, I'm hit,” screams the Army rifleman as he sees a medic approach. Amid sounds of gunfire and grenades, the medic drops to the ground and begins treatment to stop the bleeding from the soldier's wounded arm.
Another day in Iraq or Afghanistan? No. In this scenario, the infantryman — though lifelike — is really a Combat Medical Training System (COMETS), now being developed by the Simulation Group of Boston's Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT). Designed to give combat medics the most realistic training possible short of treating a human, COMETS will simulate common battlefield procedures, including airway management, chest trauma and hemorrhage control. Moreover, the technology-laden mannequin will “live” or “die” depending on the skills of the attending medic.
In the field of medicine, where newcomers traditionally learn by watching experienced practitioners, simulation systems are beginning to revolutionize training. More and more surgical residents, dental school students, combat medics and other medical personnel are getting hands-on training much earlier, thanks to simulators that range from interactive mannequins to virtual-reality systems that mimic specific medical procedures.
“The practice-on-the-patient system worked for centuries, but we are at a crucial time in medical education,” says Dr. Steven Dawson, an interventional radiologist who heads the CIMIT Simulation Group, which is backed by $2.2 million in funding from the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) and Research Area Directorate II, Combat Casualty Care. “Revolutions in computational mathematics, engineering and education are giving us more options.”
Built for the Battlefield
Alongside Dawson, a five-member staff of engineers, designers and computer scientists are working full-time on COMETS, with the goal of producing two full-body prototypes for an August 2009 conference on Advanced Technology Applications for Combat Casualty Care. While medical mannequins have been produced for many years by such companies as Laerdal and Medical Education Technology, the Simulation Group aims to design a system that sets new standards for portability, ruggedness and ease-of-use.
“When we got started on this project, there were no wireless systems on the market,” says Mark Ottensmeyer, a Ph.D. mechanical engineer working on COMETS. “We also want a system durable enough to stand up to dirt and mud and the rough treatment of 19-year-old medic trainees, so we needed to build a more rigid frame with more robust connectors between components. And since medic trainers rotate duty regularly, we don't want a system that takes them weeks to get up to speed.”
Designed to be a fully autonomous synthetic human, COMETS is pre-programmed to exhibit a specific injury. For example, a trainer will be able to attach a “wounded limb” to the mannequin, and the system is programmed to automatically recognize the injury and adjust the physiology, such as breathing and heartbeat.
“Writing the code to do the physiology is a major challenge,'' says Ottensmeyer. “How do you get sensor readings from fluid flow measurements representing blood loss or administering an IV? How do you make the heart rate and simulated blood pressure change when you place a tourniquet on an injured limb?”
The finished prototype will consist of a head, torso and detachable limbs on a stainless-steel frame. Actuators will move shoulders, hips and head to simulate how a body reacts in a conscious versus unconscious state. For example, two motors drive pitch and yaw motion in the head and the gain in the control loop can be programmed to make the head go limp to simulate unconsciousness. Similarly, the system's central processor can change stiffness in ball joints in the hips and shoulders.
The design team is experimenting with different grades of silicone rubber, such as those used in the special effects industry, to achieve realistic texture for skin and muscle tissue in areas treated by the medic.
System Control Center
For the mannequin's real time operating system, engineers have adopted a rugged, reconfigurable control and data acquisition system, which uses a visual programming language. The controller, featuring an industrial 200 MHz processor, links to an embedded FPGA and several input/output modules for communication with sensors and actuators. “This is where all of the physiology and data recording lives,” says Ottensmeyer. “Trainers will know what procedures were performed on the mannequin at a given time, as well as its condition. For example, you can tell how much blood was lost, when artificial respiration was done or whether a head was positioned properly in cases of fractured spine.”
To simulate heartbeat and pulse, based on changes in the mannequin's condition, the central processor triggers solenoid-driven electromechanical pulsation units that push up against the underside of the skin in such areas as the wrist and neck. For fluid handling, the torso holds a 1-lreservoir that can be programmed to pump simulated blood through synthetic veins and solenoid-controlled valves to an injured limb.
For voice, the system includes an audio amplifier in the head, which emits pre-recorded words and sounds — screams, moans, pleas for help — related to various physiological conditions. The mannequin will also recognize an RFID tag worn by the individual performing the treatment, triggering an appropriate vocal reaction like “Doc, save me.”
Other important innovations in COMETS include the system's power supply, consisting of a pair of hot-swappable, 23.1V battery packs that use a doped nano-phosphate chemistry developed by an MIT spin-off. “These batteries offer superior current delivery and allow both fast recharges and a very high number of recharges before they start to degrade,” says Ottensmeyer.
Finally, as medics move the mannequin from the site of the injury, wireless Ethernet lets the system upload the record of treatment modes and physiology changes to a display system to allow trainers and trainees to review treatment during an after-action review.
Among the biggest challenges in developing the system, which could also be used to train civilian first responders, is adapting components to fit a simulator the size of a human. “There are no convenient right angles to mount things to and you've got to squeeze in such components as batteries, computer controller, lung and chest wall actuators, motors for the head, audio amplifiers and more,” says Ottensmeyer. “So we need to find components that are compact yet deliver the required performance.”
Once the CIMIT research team develops a prototype acceptable to the Army, the responsibility for producing a commercial system will fall to established manufacturers who will license the technology. To make that transfer easier, the engineers are preparing 3-D CAD models or laser scans of all major components and are using commercial components as much as possible.
A Family of Simulators
One commercial manufacturer that has already established a long track record — with more than 3,000 simulators in use — is Florida-based Medical Education Technologies Inc. (METI). Many of these systems, including the HPS and iStan simulators, offer capabilities that rival those envisioned for COMETS.
The $65,000 wireless iStan system, developed in part through a collaboration with the Army, comes in several patient models, such as “iGranny” and “iTruck Driver.” Through mathematical modeling, the simulators can embody the physiology of a healthy 25 year old or an overweight middle-aged patient. The mannequins can simulate 14 different medical scenarios, such as angina with cardiac arrest or pneumonia with septic shock. Moreover, iStan is programmed to react appropriately when a particular simulated drug is administered.
These realistic capabilities, including systems to simulate breathing, pulse, heartbeat, speech and blood loss, have been fueling an annual growth rate for METI of 30 percent. “Until recently, the medical community has been learning on human beings or animals, but ethically the world is increasingly moving away from that,” says Carlos Moreno, METI's vice president of engineering.
Instead, more medical societies and hospital residency programs are advocating medical practitioners demonstrate skills on simulators before treating patients. In Spain, for example, newly trained anesthesiologists used METI's HPS simulator at a professional conference attended by prospective employers to prove their skills in administering anesthetics.
Tracing its roots to the Anesthesiology Dept. of the University of Florida's medical school, METI developed a family of mannequin simulators for adults, babies and children, including models designed for specific medical settings, such as emergency care. The company continuously adds new training modules to meet the changing needs of medical curriculum.
“Much like the auto companies, we've developed a basic platform or architecture that includes such components as servo and stepper motors, compressors, fluid pumps, sensors, actuators and proprietary materials,” says Moreno. “Where possible, we try to share key components, such as the electronics for actuators. To some extent, it's plug-and-play.”
But there's always the challenge of meeting the special requirements of new systems. For the HPS mannequin, for example, adding the capability to administer an anesthetic gas meant replicating in the mannequin the lung volume of an adult. It also required new flow control and gas analyzer components, both for identifying the gas that the simulator inhales and conveying that information to the software that runs the physiological models.
“The medical simulation field is still very young,” says Moreno, “so you can't walk into a library and find tons of research papers. Almost everything we do is plowing new ground.”
Teeth to Temporal Bones
Rather than simulate the functioning of an entire body, other companies are fashioning systems to train medical personnel in specific medical procedures.
Israel-based Image Navigation has sold 350 DentSim units to some 25 medical schools around the world, including the University of Minnesota, Virginia Commonwealth, the University of Pennsylvania and Case Western Reserve. The system includes an off-the-shell simulator, supplied by such companies as KaVo and A-dec and consisting of torso, head and ancillary dental equipment.
Onto this equipment, Image Navigation adapts the DentSim, which includes a special tracking system that records a student's treatment methods, such as filling a cavity, and rates it versus ideal practice for that procedure. The system features special DentSim software, a CPU, two infrared CCD cameras and infrared tracking LEDs mounted on the dental handpiece and the jaw of the mannequin.
In a typical procedure, software for a specific dental procedure is loaded into the system and the student then inserts an artificial tooth into the mannequin. As the student works on the tooth, DentSim records the identical results on a virtual tooth for later evaluation by the student and the instructor.
“Once the session is complete, all you do is click on an evaluation button to get immediate 3-D volumetric analysis,” says Udi Doan, the company's vice president for North America. “And we guarantee accuracy to 150 microns.”
DentSim now tracks more than 100 procedures and will soon be adding modules for dental implants. Reports from schools show the system sharply reduced the time it takes for students to master key physical dexterity skills. “Simulators aren't just for airline pilots,” says Doan. “In medical and dental training, simulators let you learn and make mistakes in a safe environment.”
Other companies rely on haptics, proprietary software and computer graphics to design virtual reality simulators for a growing number of medical procedures. SensAble Technologies, a Boston-area company, produces haptic devices that harness motors, cable drives and optical encoders to create force feedback for medical simulation. The technology is now employed in more than a dozen applications, ranging from a simulator that mimics a temporal bone drilling procedure for ear surgery to a “haptic cow” used to train veterinary students.
“Many simulators have been in the research stage for years but are now starting to reach the commercial market,” says David Chen, chief technology officer for SensAble, who cites a growing appreciation in the medical community for simulator-based training.
Typical of SensAble's customers is Touch of Life Technologies (TolTech), which introduced its knee arthroscopic surgery VR simulator in March in partnership with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. The simulator builds on research at the University of Colorado Medical School, a participant in the National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project to develop anatomically detailed 3-D images of the human body.
During a training session with the TolTech system, an individual uses one hand to manipulate a surgical instrument mounted on the end of the haptic device and the other to hold the arthroscope. Besides experiencing the force feedback while moving the surgical probe, the operator also views two monitors. One monitor is the Virtual Mentor, which displays the essential steps in the surgical procedure, evaluates the skills of the trainee and even gives vocal warnings. The second monitor displays the arthroscopic view of the simulated surgery, such as an ACL repair, as it takes place, including high-resolution 3-D anatomical images.
Victor Spitzer, TolTech president and an anatomy instructor at the University of Colorado, emphasizes the importance of the system's software, developed by electrical engineer Karl Reinig. “The SensAble haptics allow you to apply any force and Karl did an excellent job through software of creating the feel of human tissue,” says Spitzer. In 2009, TolTech will unveil two more VR systems — one for simulating a needle for injecting drugs into joints, the other to simulate administering a nerve block.
“Medical simulators are clearly a growth industry,” says Spitzer. “Potential users include not only medical students or residents in medical specialties, but also experienced doctors who need to upgrade their skills and practice new procedures.” | <urn:uuid:b6e1ae34-1b8b-49c3-8b26-d0293c3ac772> | {
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The use of composites in cars is picking up pace. Both glass and fiber-based composites are slowly invading non-structural areas of commercial production vehicles and even the structural areas of specialty cars, where crash-optimized composites must be used.
Glass fiber reinforced materials are the major type of composites used in automotive manufacturing that replace metal, especially in high volume production. Several new crash-optimized glass fiber composites from BASF offer greater impact strength than previous materials in the same class. Designed initially for car body parts that protect pedestrians outside the vehicle, the automotive polyamides are part of BASF's glass fiber reinforced polyamide 6 family. The company introduced them at FAKUMA 2011, held at the Friedrichshafen Exhibition Centre in Friedrichshafen, Germany.
A part made with crash-optimized Ultramid B3ZG3 CR can withstand static torsion of over 240°C, making it possible to substitute composites for metal in vehicle parts such as steering wheel components, body inserts and seat structures.
(Photo courtesy of BASF.)
The use of carbon fiber reinforced composites is also growing, but curing times have been slow, among other problems. Most composites, especially those based on carbon fibers, are still found mainly in either non-structural components or secondary automotive structures, not in primary weight-bearing structures, at least in high-volume commercial manufacturing. Some designs of race cars and other specialty vehicles, however, have begun incorporating composites into major structures, such as the body. The DeLorean EV, for example, was redesigned to shed 200 pounds, and its body is now made of composites. So is the body of the Nuna6 solar-powered car.
The three grades of BASF's new polyamides include Ultramid B3ZG3 CR, reinforced with 15 percent glass fibers, and Ultramid B3ZG7 CR, reinforced with 35 percent glass fibers. The third grade, Ultramid B3ZG10 CR, is BASF's first impact-modified polyamide 6 that contains 50 percent glass fibers.
All three are specialized materials within the larger group of polyamide 6 compound formulations, and are designed to rapidly absorb large amounts of energy. They offer improved elasticity of up to 200 percent and increased stiffness of up to 50 percent, according to a press release.
The three products were developed specifically to be used together. As a system, each offers greater or lesser softness or stiffness than the others, so that geometry, stiffness, and toughness can be traded off. During the development of all three materials, BASF created a bending and torsion test specimen to determine how much distortion the materials could endure. BASF's previous Ultramid CR material, Ultramid B3WG6, can be distorted without breaking by almost 150 degrees in static torsion tests. But the new grades can endure static distortion of up to 240 degrees without damage, highly unusual for most composite materials.
BASF debuted another automotive composite material debuted at FAKUMA 2011, Ultramid Endure D3G10. The non-crash optimized polyamide material for use inside the engine compartment contains 50 percent glass fibers and is capable of high stiffness at high temperatures. Resistant to heat aging at up to 220 degrees, it can replace metal in the charge air system.
For further reading: | <urn:uuid:d401db68-0850-4c5c-bd5f-f26c203b9f18> | {
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Editor’s Note: Tony Abbey teaches live NAFEMS FEA classes in the US, Europe and Asia. He also teaches NAFEMS e-learning classes globally. Contact [email protected] for details.
Advances in finite element analysis (FEA) software solution efficiency, computing hardware power and available storage have meant a dramatic increase in the size or scope of the FEA models we can run. The size is reflected in the number of elements, or mesh density, we can use in a model. The scope is reflected in the type of analysis we are running. There is a trend to run more advanced analyses that include greater realism in the simulation of the physics involved.
The advanced analyses, such as non-linear, fracture mechanics and others, are more demanding in terms of computing resources — and there may come a point where a fully modeled component takes unacceptably long run times. At that point, we can look to some of the earliest forms of model simplification techniques to reduce the element count, and to allow us to run complex analyses within the resource budget.
I can remember more than 20 years ago hearing declarations that these methods were obsolete now that we have “modern” computing power. However, they have stood the test of time and I still use them today in many projects. Let’s take a look at one of these methods, planar symmetry (we will cover other simplification methods in future articles).
Fig. 1 shows a scuba tank that is modeled in full, and then various forms of planar symmetry. We know that the cost of solution time is approximately proportional to n^2, where n is the number of degrees of freedom (DOF). Thus, the motivation in going to half or quarter symmetry is to achieve a cost-savings factor of 4 or 16. If a non-linear analysis is going to be reduced from 16 hours to 1 hour, then that is significant.
There are some rules associated with selecting planar symmetry — the geometry, material, loading and boundary conditions all have to exhibit symmetry.
Considering the half-symmetry scuba tank case, the geometry is clearly symmetric. If we held the real half-structure on a glass mirror plane, then the real and virtual halves would form a full representation of the whole. If we were creating the full model in CAD or an FEA preprocessor, this would probably be part of our strategy. The quarter symmetry is equally obvious.
A question arises: Why not slice further? Usually we stop at quarter or eighth symmetry simply because the main global coordinate system naturally forms these cutting planes. We can slice further, but we that would fall into sector symmetry — or in the limit, axi-symmetry.
The one-eighth symmetry shown in Fig. 1 looks curious, and violates our requirement for true geometric planar symmetry. However, it is a good example of how we can “push” symmetry. The motivation would be a cost savings of 64 on the full model.
If our objective is to investigate the details of each end of the scuba tank, the nozzle region and the flat-bottomed end, then we could run two models of one-eighth symmetry each. One model would be a double-nozzle scuba tank; one would be a double flat-ended tank.
At first glance, this doesn’t make much sense. However, the stresses in the two ends are independent of each other and stabilize along the wall of the tank between the two ends, because they are far enough away from each other to allow the stresses to diffuse.
Put another way, the stresses at the center slice are the same in both eighth-symmetry models. The net savings is a factor of 32 if we run two models. Each investigates the relevant region in detail. Our main problem is going to be convincing the certification authority, client or lead engineer that this makes sense. The factor of 32 can be applied toward a much finer mesh, or more incremental steps in a non-linear analysis.
If the parallel wall section were very short, we could not use this one-eighth symmetry plane, as the stiffness at each end would interact and the stresses would be dependent on the specific combined geometry.
One other convenient aspect of eighth symmetry is that no external constraint other than the symmetry constraints is required. This is often an advantage in structures that are in balance under applied loading and do not require a “skyhook” to hold them. A full FEA model would be awkward to constrain, however, without introducing unwanted load paths. How would you hold the scuba tank full model without introducing unrealistic constraint reactions? We will come back to that in a future article on minimum constraints.
Other requirements for symmetry include loading. Pressure loading is conveniently planar symmetric in all our cases. However, if we put an external load on one side of the wall only, perhaps from a handling operation, this destroys the symmetry. A half-symmetric model would imply an equal and opposite load; quarter symmetric would imply four loads at 90°, and so on.
There are ways to deal with this using symmetry and anti-symmetry boundary condition models, but superimposing them though the process is awkward and error-prone. Some solvers can set up and combine results automatically, but in the absence of this functionality I would avoid this approach.
The constraints also have to be symmetric, so if this were a heat exchanger, for example, and one wall was supported locally, the opposite symmetric wall would have to have the same support feature.
Material symmetry is usually only a problem when considering composites. If this was a helical filament wound pressure tank, then strictly speaking we have a herringbone disjoint pattern in each angle ply across the symmetry plane. This can be overcome by assuming a smeared equivalent stiffness.
This last point illustrates how we can “cheat” a little when using symmetry. If there is a handle on one side of the scuba tank, for example, and we decide it is not structurally significant, we can either assume a fake extra handle about the mirror plane, or just leave the handle off the model. Features that are not quite truly symmetric can be adjusted to make them symmetric, as long as the effective stiffness and key local stresses are not affected.
Enforcing Planar Symmetry
Symmetry conditions are enforced through the definition of correct boundary conditions, which make the structure respond across the boundary as if a “virtual” structure was there and complies with the response of the full structure. In Fig. 2, the red cut boundary face is in the xy plane. The coordinate system or the model can be moved to achieve this.
Imagine the cut surface placed against a mirror face. If we slide our real model in x, will the virtual model follow properly? Yes, it will. If we slide the real model in y, will the virtual model follow? Again, the answer is yes. Now consider moving the real model in z, away from the mirror plane. What will the virtual model do? It will split away from the real model — literally cracking it in half. Thus, we cannot allow a displacement across the boundary condition in z.
Now, onto the rotations. Can we rotate about x? No, this will dip one end into the mirror plane, and pull one end out, destroying our combined real and virtual image. The same argument is made for rotation about y. If we rotate about z, though, the real and virtual rotate together in the mirror plane and simulate the half model well.
In this manner, we are building a table of fixed and free constraints. The full table is shown in Fig. 3. Also included are the constraints for the blue cut face, which lets you check for the correct sense.
One thing to notice about Fig. 3 is that for each cut surface, the translations and rotations are opposites. This is a nice tip for that Monday morning feeling — focus on the translations, and just put in the opposite for the rotations.
Two comments are often made here:
- “The preprocessor does all this. We just fill in a radio box.” That’s fine, but we need to know how and why this all works. Also, it’s wise to double-check the sense of those radio buttons — some are filled in pre-processors meaning “fixed,” while others are filled meaning “free.” There is no universal standard across the industry.
- “We don’t need to worry about the rotational constraints.” This usually arises from folks who only ever create solid-mesh models. It is vital to have the rotations dealt with properly, however, if beams or shell elements are used.
Where to Avoid Symmetry
If all our symmetry requirements are met, it is tempting to use this approach in either a normal modes analysis or buckling analysis. In both cases, the full structure will respond with a set of symmetric and anti-symmetric mode shapes. We will only capture the symmetric mode shapes, which are just a subset of the full physical response.
For example, the half symmetry of the scuba tank will allow an extensional (stretching mode) in y, and both a dilatational and a bending mode in the zy plane. The bending in the xy plane and the first torsional mode are eliminated. Similar subsets of higher-order modes are also eliminated.
Any dynamic response analysis done using these modes is doomed to failure.
Linear buckling will follow a similar incomplete pattern: Non-linear buckling will inhibit free migration from symmetric to non-symmetric, or vice versa.
Simplification of FEA models using planar symmetry is a powerful tool that’s still relevant in today’s analysis environment. With some ingenuity, a wide range of models can benefit from the method. | <urn:uuid:811d4338-8a7f-4b30-917c-59d99f9b31b2> | {
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Democracy vs Non Democracy
There are various forms of governance that are in place in different countries of the world and democracy is only one of them. It is referred to as the rule of the people. Democracy is one political system where people have a say in matters affecting their lives as they have the power to elect their representatives to rule them and also depose them when they do not fulfill their aspirations. This is also called the rule of ballet where people participate in elections to choose candidates who they feel are right to run the administration of the country. Though democracy is the preferred form of polity, there are countries that follow other forms of government and all such political structures are referred to as non democracies. In this article we will highlight the differences between democracy and non democracy.
The word democracy comes from two Latin words Demo (people) and Kratos (power) which signifies that it is a type of government which is by the people, of the people and for the people. Free and fair elections are a hallmark of democracies where there is a principle of adult suffrage and people vote for their representatives who govern them through rule of law. People thus have a say in the development and passage of legislation through their elected representatives.
Another notable feature of a democracy is the rule of majority. In a two party democracy, it is the party that is in majority (meaning it has more number of elected representatives) that gets a chance to rule by forming a government. In a multi party democracy, like minded parties form a coalition and the coalition that has higher number of elected representatives comes into power and choose a candidate among them to become the head of the government.
All kinds of polities that are different from the tenets of democracy are labeled non democracies. Some examples of non democracies are autocracy (dictatorships), aristocracy (rule of kings and queens), Communism, Authoritarianism, rule of military and so on. The fundamental difference between a democracy and any other form of government is that people do not have the kind of equality and freedom that they enjoy in a democracy and they also do not have a say in passage of legislation as much as they have in democracy.
In theocracy, there is a supreme leader (religious), who is above the rule of law and has the power to rule by decree. Though there are elections that resemble a democracy, this supreme leader has the power to even dismiss the chosen President if he so desires. The classic case of a theocracy is Iran.
• There are different systems of governance in the world, and though democracy is the preferred choice of the people, there are non democracies in the world.
• While democracies are characterized by the rule of law and equality and freedom of the people, people have remarkably less freedom and equality in non democracies.
• However, no political system is completely free from flaws and there are critics of even democracy, leave alone non democracy. | <urn:uuid:98bbc608-8071-44bc-9050-6769b14acb00> | {
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The complex and swiftly changing field of robotics needs flexible pros
As manufacturing becomes more automated, the demand for workers with this unique skill set will continue to grow” – Steve Burry, Michelin
“The Army needs professionals with varied skills and the ability to work across disciplines” – Dr Jon Bornstein, ARL
By Sue Poremba
General Motors is usually associated with cars and trucks, but GM has been a major player in the robotics industry since 1961. A collaboration between inventor George Devol and engineer and physicist Joseph Engelberger resulted in the Unimate, the first industrial robot, which was used in a GM production facility.
The arrival of Unimate is generally regarded as the birth of the robot industry. Since that time, GM’s use of robotics has expanded into every area of manufacturing. Today GM has over 25,000 robots in its worldwide fleet.
Dana Komin is director of manufacturing engineering for General Motors. “Robotics is a growing field where there is a need for talented engineers who want to bring their enthusiasm and innovation into the U.S. manufacturing business,” she observes.
GM is not alone. The Robotics Industries Association estimates that 225,000 robots are in use by U.S. factories. This number is growing swiftly; the robotics market is strong, and companies across many industries continue to acquire robots for use in their factories. And many observers believe that only 10 percent of companies that could use robots have them in place, meaning there is much room for growth.
According to an article at the Education Portal (education-portal.com), robotics engineers and engineering jobs that involve robotics are a hot commodity. Using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, the portal’s authors project a 6 percent increase in employment between 2008 and 2018 for techies with robotics skills.
Robotics engineer Atif Qureshi turns sci-fi fascination into a NASA career
Around the world, religion and science are often caught in an ideological clash. For Atif Qureshi, that clash set him on his career path.
“I grew up in Islamabad, Pakistan, in a powerfully religious culture. After I left Pakistan, I came to value the pursuit of objective truth embodied in the study of science,” he says. “I’ve always been a huge fan of science fiction, and I dreamed of working at NASA. I wanted to contribute in some small way to our expansion beyond the Earth.”
Blasting off to his dream job
He started at NASA after he graduated with an MS in engineering design from the University of Texas (Austin, TX) in 2006. “I got my first job after my masters at United Space Alliance, as part of the robotics operations group at Johnson Space Center (JSC),” he says. “There I learned the operation and inner workings of the International Space Station (ISS) robotic servicing system. At Johnson, I was always looking for ways to expand the envelope of robotic capability on the ISS, and this led to my involvement with the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM). I was able to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC, Greenbelt, MD) as a member of the JSC mission team and got a glimpse of some of the exciting work being done in the robotics lab. I was hooked then and I’m still here.”
“GSFC is a global leader in earth science, astrophysics, heliophysics and planetary science,” says Ron Brade, director of its office of human capital. “Robotics is a part of what we do.”
Qureshi works as a robotics engineer in the robotics development and test group, which is part of the satellite servicing capabilities office at GSFC. “Basically, my job is to provide advice to the design team during the development of robotic systems and robotically compatible systems, and to evaluate the prototypes they develop. The idea is to bring the perspective of an operator to the engineering process in order to produce a more usable final product.”
Qureshi is working on the RRM project, which is entering its second phase. The project, which takes place on the International Space Station, aims to demonstrate the viability of on-orbit repair and refueling techniques.
In his spare time Qureshi plays guitar. “I had a wonderful blues/folk collaboration with a couple of NASA work buddies back in Houston, and now I’m playing in a moderately successful punk band with some high school friends from Pakistan.”
Vanessa Buckmaster works at all stages of development at DRS Technologies
Vanessa Buckmaster attended Evangel University (Springfield, MO), where she graduated in 2004 with a BS in biology and a minor in math. “Evangel was a small college, and at the time they did not have an engineering program,” she explains. “Shortly after graduation, I got really interested in the engineering field. I began working toward a second bachelors degree but then decided it would be more beneficial to work toward a masters.” She got her MSME from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, AR) in 2009.
After graduating, Buckmaster took her first professional job with defense contractor DRS Technologies in St. Louis, MO, where she is a mechanical engineer. “At DRS, we focus on defense technology, but when we see business ventures where we can use our knowledge and experience, we seize the opportunity. Robotics is one of those business ventures,” she says.
Her job is to design components to allow for the integration of more advanced technologies onto military platforms. “I have also had the opportunity to assist our robotics program. My duties there are very similar except we are mounting to smaller platforms,” she explains.
Buckmaster works on several different programs within DRS. “I really enjoy it because I get to work a variety of tasks in different stages of development. I have had the privilege of working in programs at the research and development, proposal, production, and legacy stages. This kind of exposure gives me great experience because the tasks involved with each stage are very different.”
Over the past two years, her job has required her to investigate problems, research new technology, design new components, and install products onto vehicle platforms. “It is fun to see my designs come to life, and it feels good to know I am making a difference in the lives of our soldiers,” she says. “My goals for the future are to take on more challenging tasks that force me to do and learn new things.”
Raimundo Onetto does advanced analytics at GE Power & Water
Raimundo Onetto was born and raised in Santiago, Chile. He moved to the United States when he was eighteen to attend college at Florida International University (Miami, FL). He graduated in 2010 with a BSME and a professional certificate in robotics engineering. After graduation, he enrolled in GE Energy’s Edison Engineering Development Program, and was part of the program’s first software track cohort. “I finished the program this year, but it is continuing to pay for my masters in computer science at North Carolina State University,” he says.
Onetto was familiar with robotics before he entered school, but his education showed him what robotics and mechatronics actually involve. He took his college’s certification program on the core concepts of robotics: modeling and control of robots, mechatronics, signal processing and sensors.
But Onetto’s first job out of college wasn’t in robotics. “My first real job was as an IT technician, not really related to robotics. But I gained skills in the cable management, connection and organizational areas,” he says. “These skills are definitely desirable when building robots and wiring sensors to microcontrollers to make small components. I always carried around boxes with microcontrollers, sensors, wires, gages, programmers and all sort of gizmos.
“After four different software rotations within GE Energy, I learned that robotics is not only about what I like to call ‘robo-sapiens,’ the human-looking robots. Every hardware piece on the market with some kind of automatic system can be thought of as a robot. It can be as simple as your icemaker, or as complex as a jet engine.”
Today, Onetto is part of a newly formed advanced analytics team at GE Power & Water, a unit of GE Energy. He’s based in Atlanta, GA. “We analyze power generation systems within GE Energy including gas turbines, steam turbines, wind turbines, oil and gas equipment, and solar farms. I like to think of these systems as giant power-generating robots,” he explains. “A gas turbine can have more than 500 different signals coming in real time to a controller. These are processed at a high sampling frequency and decisions are made in quarters of seconds to control and actuate the equipment. Simple tasks, such as accelerating a gas turbine, encompass many robotic systems that control the inlet air, amount of gas injected, exhaust temperatures and rotational speed of the generator. We analyze data from different areas and come up with algorithms and solutions to make things smarter.”
Onetto’s efforts are part of GE’s initiative to build an “industrial Internet” where sensors and analytics will drive efficiency and value for a variety of industrial systems. Onetto’s team works on many quick projects where new sensors are prototyped and a system’s behavior is understood by analyzing sensor data. “We are currently testing the latest generations of gas turbines and acquiring gigabytes of data per test,” he says. “The sensors can tell you every detail about the gas turbine’s operation and health. We analyze this information and feed it back to the teams in the design functions for them to use the findings to improve actuators or mechanisms. We try to follow a similar consulting route across different GE power-generation technologies.”
He enjoys the fact that no matter what he’s working on, data, sensors and controls will always be present. “This allows you to be knowledgeable in many different areas while still allowing you to keep the technical depth of a data scientist/analyst or a system architect,” he says. “A technical background in robotics can be applied basically anywhere where there is hardware or software interaction. If you enjoy robotics you’ll most definitely enjoy these systems.”
Harris Edge pioneers unmanned systems research at Army Research Lab
Harris Edge’s first exposure to engineering and science came from his father, who worked in the field. Edge grew up in Aberdeen, MD, near the Army Research Lab (ARL), so while he studied for his bachelors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, MA), he worked in ARL’s aerodynamics branch during summers and vacations. He received a BS in aeronautical engineering in 1989, then went on to work at ARL full time. He continued his education while working for ARL at Aberdeen Proving Ground, and received his MSME from the University of Delaware (Newark, DE) in 1995.
“I was first exposed to computer simulation on high-performance computers while working in the aerodynamics branch and specializing in computational fluid dynamics,” he says. “I grew to appreciate other aspects of simulation, and moved toward more general forms when I transitioned to the Weapons Analysis Branch. A component of the Weapons Analysis Branch was ARL robotics research, which traditionally had a ground-based focus. But shortly after I joined, there was a decision to start an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program. This coincided with the growth of UAV use in military operations after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Because of my experience in simulation and ballistic range programs, I was chosen to start the UAV research for the Weapons Analysis Branch.”
Edge is a mechanical engineer at ARL, and serves as team leader of the advanced mobility and manipulation team, and technical lead in those areas for ARL’s Autonomous Systems Enterprise.
“The advanced mobility and manipulation team is a small team that performs basic research for air and ground unmanned systems. Some of the team’s research is done together with unmanned systems research collaborative technology alliances (CTAs). My team leader duties include planning and performing research, looking for funding, and administrative and research project oversight,” he explains. “My duties as ARL technical lead include planning and organizing unmanned systems research in ARL and the CTAs. I report directly to the head of the ARL Autonomous Systems Enterprise. I also interface with and monitor other DoD robotics programs to ensure that ARL unmanned systems research does not duplicate their efforts. Today there is more communication among groups performing unmanned systems research and there are efforts to foster collaboration.”
Edge is also a contracting officer representative for a small business innovation research project to develop lightweight electric and magnetic sensors for small UAVs. “Developing sensors for small UAVs will enable ARL to develop smart behaviors and controls to allow capabilities such as ‘sense and avoid’ of power lines and manned aircraft, and geolocating enemy sources of power generation. This research parallels our efforts to develop technologies for future UAVs that allow precision control and extended flight time,” he says.
His duties at work keep him so busy that his free time is minimal, and much of his spare time is spent reading to keep up with the latest research on UAVs. “Unmanned systems research is a rapidly evolving area. I feel privileged to be involved in this relatively early stage of development of autonomous systems for military applications,” he says.
ARL seeks diverse candidates for robotics innovation leadership
The Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance (RCTA), a $60 million five-year effort started in 2010, is part of the ARL’s Autonomous Systems Enterprise, which combines ARL’s internal research efforts with external research. The alliance provides key perception, control, and human-robot interface technology for the Army’s future unmanned vehicle programs.
“Robotics is a rapidly growing field. The Army needs flexible professionals with varied skills and the ability to work across disciplines. These different backgrounds come together to make us collectively a stronger team,” says Dr Jon Bornstein, chief of the autonomous systems division within ARL’s vehicle technology directorate and manager of the RCTA.
“Disciplines in high demand at the research lab include computer science, electronics, physics, and even behavioral sciences that can help us develop future systems that ‘team’ with soldiers in more of a peer-to-peer relationship than is currently possible,” he says. “To accomplish this goal, Army Research Lab scientists and engineers are partnering with other researchers from academia and industry.
People pursuing careers in robotics with ARL could come from backgrounds in hardware, software, actuation, mechanical engineering, and more, according to Bornstein. Teamwork is another welcome and important skill in the defense industry.
Jennifer Foster leads an all-male weld shop team at Hyundai
Nothing in Jennifer Foster’s background should have led to her career at Hyundai (Montgomery, AL). She attended the University of South Alabama (Mobile, AL) as a history major with a minor in criminal justice. “I was actually registering at Troy University in Nursing School when a Hyundai recruiter asked me to fill out her application to make her quota, and I’ve been here ever since,” she smiles.
Because her background isn’t in engineering or mechanics, Foster had to start at the bottom. She worked in moving parts running a nut weld machine and moved up through the ranks until she came to her current position as the team leader of body build/body re-spot at Hyundai. She assists and supervises a team of eight to verify welds and provide communication between management to the team. “My area has 104 welding robots as well as material handler robots. I supervise the changing of their caps and relay any issues that occur on the line to management,” she explains.
She is the lone female team leader in the weld shop. “I’ve had to adjust my tone when I talk because I can come across as being brash, but I see it as getting results. You expect the results you know your line is capable of giving you, and so should your team,” she says.
Harry Skipper troubleshoots robots at Michelin
Harry Skipper is an engineer in the Lexington, SC location of Michelin, whose North American headquarters are in Greenville, SC. Even though he works in robotics, “I don’t feel at all like a robot myself,” he says with a smile. “This job is not repetitive, and there is always something new to learn.”
Skipper was born and raised in Columbia, SC, and always liked learning how things worked. This curiosity led him to Midlands Technical College (MTC, Columbia, SC) where he received an associates degree in electronics engineering technology in 2007.
“I made my way to Michelin through the tech scholar program while I was at MTC,” Skipper explains. “As a tech scholar I got a chance to work with machines here at US5, the Lexington passenger and light truck plant. I felt that working here would be a good change of pace and a good career path. When I got done with school I decided to join Michelin full time.”
He is a troubleshooter at US5, where his duties include maintaining the reliability of the machines on his production line. “All of the machines here are some sort of robot, and some are more complex than others. I work with them every day,” he says.
“One challenge I face is finding a way to learn more about the machines and how to maintain them,” Skipper continues. “I’ve been here long enough to learn a good bit about our machinery but I don’t know everything. For a troubleshooter, the only time to learn how to repair some of our robots is when one actually breaks down.”
Outside work, Skipper tries to relax as much as possible by fishing and riding his motorcycle “as much as my wife will let me,” he chuckles. At work, he hopes to eventually become one of his shop’s “go-to” guys. “I hope to learn a lot more so that I can do more to help the newer people in the shop instead of having to send them to someone else.”
Diversity at Michelin
“Today’s advanced manufacturing world is much more challenging than twenty years ago,” says Steve Burry, HR corporate project manager of Michelin North America. “We need a highly skilled, diverse workforce with teamwork skills. Tires are a complex product and finding people with the right skill set to work on our machines and robots is becoming more difficult. This is a very rewarding career with a really good compensation package.
“Advanced manufacturing is growing in the U.S., which is increasing demand for people with mechanical skills and robotics experience to operate and maintain our equipment. As manufacturing becomes more automated, the demand for workers with this unique skill set will continue to grow. We must market and brand these careers with today’s reality of manufacturing to attract talented students from all backgrounds to create our workforce of the future.”
Jennifer Flees assigns production people, and robots, at GM
Like Harry Skipper and Jennifer Foster, Jennifer Flees works in robotics in the automotive industry. She is a senior manufacturing project engineer at General Motors (Detroit, MI).
She earned two associates degrees in CAD and vehicle body design before getting her BSEE from Oakland University (Rochester, MI). She also attended General Motors University for tool and die. “I sold antiques on eBay to get through college,” she says.
The car industry was in her blood. “I’m a fourth-generation General Motors engineer,” she says proudly, following in the footsteps of her great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. “It’s always been something I wanted to do. My two brothers both work with cars, too, but neither one of them went into engineering.”
She was first hired into GM’s tool and die operation, and from there she moved to the stamping side of vehicle manufacturing, which eventually led her into robotics.
Filling in the workplace gaps
“When I started out at Pontiac stamping, I was maintenance supervisor, and that didn’t directly involve robots,” she says. As the plant’s demands and staffing changed over time, Flees learned to program the robots that were used on her shift, and built her skills on the job.
In her current position, she helps decide what robots are used in the production line. “When GM comes up with a new vehicle, we have to decide what size robots, what style of robots, and what applications are needed for manufacturing,” she says. She works on the floor with everyone else from her team, programming robots, but also manages.
“This isn’t what I set out to do when I went into a degree program in electrical engineering,” she admits, “but I’m glad it turned out the way it did.”
DIVERSITY-MINDED COMPANIES & ORGANIZATIONS WORKING IN ROBOTICS
Check websites for current listings.
|Company and location
|Army Research Laboratory (Adelphi, MD)
|Research and development for military
|DRS Technologies (Arlington, VA)
|Integrated products, services and support to military forces, intelligence agencies and prime contractors
|General Electric Power & Water
|Power and water energy technologies
|General Motors Corporation (Detroit, MI)
|Harris Corporation (Melbourne, FL)
|Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama
|Michelin North America (Greenville, SC)
|Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA)
|National Aeronautic & Space Administration
(NASA, Washington, DC) www.nasa.gov
|Space research and operations
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By Alan Mozes
TUESDAY, March 13 (HealthDay News) -- Contrary to current guidelines, a majority of American primary care physicians are ordering some form of lung cancer screening test for patients who lack any symptoms of disease, a new national survey reveals.
The findings stems from responses to a questionnaire completed by 962 family physicians, general practitioners and general internists between 2006 and 2007.
"There is no authoritative group that is recommending lung cancer screening for asymptomatic individuals," said study author Carrie Klabunde, an epidemiologist from the applied research program within the division of cancer control and population sciences at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
"And guidelines are developed by expert groups that generally have a very thoughtful process for evaluating scientific evidence and for coming to a consensus," she added. "So, it's important to be aware of what the guidelines for lung cancer screening are. Because in this case, the available screening technology really hasn't shown a strong benefit, and when used improperly can lead to what may end up being a medical misadventure."
The findings appear in the March/April issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.
In the United States, lung cancer is currently the leading cause of death due to cancer, according to study background information. Survival rates are much lower for lung cancer than for many other types of cancer.
That said, fresh concerns about pointless lung cancer screening raised by the new poll follow a related U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) analysis conducted last fall using data on more than 150,000 people. It concluded that chest X-rays are of no benefit when it comes to screening for lung cancer or curtailing lung cancer mortality, although more expensive CT scans were cited as a potentially more effective option.
The current study team said that no vetted investigation has ever shown that X-ray screenings help to lower the risk of dying from lung cancer.
Apart from wasting medical resources, unnecessary screening can do more harm than good, experts say. False test results can cause undue patient stress and false positives can raise the risk for patient harm resulting from unneeded and invasive treatment.
As a result, experts do not currently recommend a lung cancer screening for a patient who does not show signs of disease, even if that patient has a history of heavy smoking.
Klabunde and her colleagues mailed out a survey to assess the frequency and physician rationale behind the ordering one of three different lung cancer screening techniques: chest X-ray, low-radiation dose spiral CT scan and/or sputum cytology (a lab test).
All the respondents were 75 years old or younger and currently in practice.
The result: 57 percent of those polled said they had ordered at least one of the three tests in the past year for patients who lacked lung cancer symptoms.
The study team found that fully a quarter of the polled physicians said they mistakenly believed that one or more of the relevant national expert organizations (including the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology, the American Thoracic Society and the NCI) did in fact recommend lung cancer screening for patients with no symptoms.
Those who believed this to be the case were more likely to have ordered screening tests. Similarly, those doctors who themselves believed that such testing was effective and, therefore, something they would recommend for asymptomatic patients were also more likely to order the tests.
Physicians whose patients had specifically inquired about getting a lung cancer screening were also more likely to order a test. Two-thirds of physicians said that at least one of their patients had questioned them about screening in the year leading up to the poll.
The survey team concluded that the apparent "disconnect" between expert screening guidelines and common physician practice raises the need for improved outreach to educate primary care physicians about best practices, as well as continued monitoring of what's actually going on in doctor's rooms across the country.
"Primary care physicians have to know about so many different areas," Klabunde acknowledged. "And there are a lot of guidelines for preventive services. So it's a lot to keep in his or her head."
"But one thing that I think will help going forward are electronic medical records systems," she said. "Many of which, although not all, have decision-support features. And this can provide physicians who are considering ordering a screening with electronic links to practice guidelines."
Dr. Otis Webb Brawley, chief medical officer and executive vice president of the American Cancer Society, said that it's important to understand that screening can be a "double-edged sword."
"I am constantly concerned when we promote the benefit of screenings, and don't worry about the fact there might be associated harm," he said.
"I would say, however, that most of the doctors in this survey have been practicing for 25 or 30 years," Brawley noted. "And because we are starting to teach about screening in school now I am somewhat hopeful that the word will get out among younger physicians. But I would also say that the only way we're really going to get doctors better on this question is actually by encouraging patients to turn to the large major established organizations like us and the NCI - and get more educated about the facts."
For more on lung cancer, gop to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
SOURCES: Carrie N. Klabunde, Ph.D., epidemiologist, applied research program, division of cancer control and population sciences, U.S. National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Md.; Otis Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer and executive vice president, American Cancer Society, Atlanta; March/April 2012 Annals of Family Medicine
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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(HealthDay News) -- Diving into water that's too shallow can lead to a spinal cord injury, permanent brain damage and even death, the American Academy of Pediatrics warns.
The academy offers this list of safe diving practices:
- Always check to see how deep the water is by initially entering feet-first.
- Above-ground pools usually are not deep enough for diving, so never dive into that type of pool.
- Never dive into the shallower end of a pool.
- Don't dive through inner tubes or other toys.
- Take a class to learn proper diving.
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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DOL Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2003
Outcome Goal 1.3
Improve the Effectiveness of Information and Analysis on the U.S. Economy
|The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) makes information related to important economic indicators available to the public through a variety of means, including seminars and trade association conferences.|
|Photo Credit: Shawn T. Moore|
The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is responsible for producing some of the Nation's most important economic indicators. Several of the key BLS data series are Principal Federal Economic Indicators. These key indicators, as well as other economic data produced by BLS, provide American workers, employers, and policy makers with the information they need to keep our country competitive in a global economy. Every month, for example, BLS reports on the number of jobs and on the number of workers in the labor force. BLS publishes job information by industry and location down to the county level within each State.
Serving The Public
BLS provides employment information by occupation, education and training requirements, and industry. One searchable database allows users to search by education and training category to compare data on occupations within the education and training category. A second searchable database allows users to search the nearly 700 occupations within and across 260 industries. For example, an occupation search allows users to see which industries provide the most jobs for workers in that occupation, and an industry search allows users to see which occupations in that industry account for the most jobs. BLS also publishes information about jobs in its popular Occupational Outlook Handbook. This print and website publication assists students and others to compare occupations in terms of employment size, projected employment growth, earnings, education or training requirements, opportunities for self-employment and part-time work, and can be very valuable in career decision-making.
BLS not only provides information on the United States, but it also provides information on the world at large. During this year, BLS partnered with DOL's Bureau of International Labor Affairs to produce a Chartbook of International Labor Comparisons, focusing on the comparative labor market situation in the United States, Europe, and Asia. In her forward to the document, Secretary Elaine Chao noted that "A comparative labor market perspective...can be helpful in the policy development process. This chartbook provides information that can be used to assess U.S. economic and labor performance relative to other countries and to evaluate the competitive position of the U.S. in international trade."
After developing he North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) in cooperation with Canada and Mexico, BLS continues to implement the NAICS in its industry based series. Not only does NAICS make our data consistent with our neighbors' data, it also changes the focus of industrial classification to being based on the activity in which the establishment is primarily engaged. This approach will help us to move from the old system, which was heavily focused on manufacturing, to a new system that ensures that our economic statistics reflect our Nation's changing economy.
FY 2003 program costs of $533 million supported BLS programs to produce and disseminate timely, accurate, and relevant information on the economy. The Bureau's budget and costs grew incrementally from 1999 to 2003. This trend is attributed primarily to inflationary cost increases; the creation of new programs, such as the Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey and the American Time Use Survey; and important improvements to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Producer Price Index (PPI), and Employment Cost Index (ECI), including efforts to modernize the computing system for monthly processing of the PPI.
DOL Challenges for the Future
Substantial challenges face BLS, including the changing economy, maintaining sufficient response levels, and evolving technology. BLS uses various strategies to address these challenges, which include the following:
To respond to the changing economy:
- Introduce a new quarterly data series on business employment dynamics. The new series tracks gross job gains from expanding and opening establishments and gross job losses from contracting and closing establishments. The additional measures show the dynamic labor market changes that underlie the net employment change and will enhance the ability of economists, policy makers, and the business community to understand business cycles.
To maintain a high level of response for its voluntary surveys:
- Complete research studies to better understand the causes of nonresponse, including factors that are under BLS control and those that are not. Some specific recommendations for reducing nonresponse from the studies include increasing BLS visibility with respondents and accelerating the introduction of additional data reporting options, including Internet reporting and electronic mail.
To meet the challenges of evolving technology:
- Continue to use technology to enhance BLS survey methods to improve the efficiency of BLS programs. An example is the PPI effort to switch from paper forms to broadcast fax as the primary means for respondents to receive that month's survey repricing forms.
- Continue to ensure the security of our computer systems and confidential data by improving virus protection. This is especially important as more and more of our users rely upon our website to obtain the information that they need from BLS.
Timely, Accurate, and Relevant Economic Information
Performance Goal 1.3A (Bureau of Labor Statistics) - FY 2003
Produce and disseminate timely, accurate, and relevant economic information.
Percentage of releases of National Labor Force; Employment, Hours, and Earnings; Consumer Price Index; Producer Price Index; U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes; and Employment Cost Index that are prepared on time; measures of accuracy for each Principal Federal Economic Indicator; and BLS Internet site improvement initiative.
The goal was achieved. Targets were reached for timeliness, accuracy, and economic relevance.
Analysis of Results
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports performance for this goal using such measures as timeliness, output, relevancy, accuracy, and access. Extracted from those measures and presented here are the following measures: timeliness, accuracy, and access. The first, timeliness, addresses how often the Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics meets the release dates in the published schedule of its Principal Federal Economic Indicators. The second, accuracy, indicates how well BLS statistics reflect the economic activity described. The third, access, reflects the continued improvements to the BLS Internet site.
BLS met the timeliness measures for all programs. A comparison of actual release dates to the published release schedule of BLS Principal Federal Economic Indicators provides the data for measuring the results of the timeliness indicator. The report includes the results for these indicators: National Labor Force; Employment, Hours, and Earnings; Consumer Price Index; Producer Price Index; U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes; and Employment Cost Index.
For these indicators, BLS scheduled 52 releases in 2003, comprised of quarterly releases of the Employment Cost Index and separate monthly releases of the National Labor Force and Employment, Hours, and Earnings; Consumer Price Index; Producer Price Index; and U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes.
BLS continued efforts to improve the timeliness of the data. For example, more respondents of the U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes and the Producer Price Index now routinely fax responses back to BLS, which has improved the timeliness of respondents' data. The use of electronic data collection has increased. For example, the Internet Data Collection Facility (IDCF) has been expanded to two more programs, with others under development. Once again, this collection method allows for quicker receipt of respondent data and provides more reporting options for respondents.
|When Tom needs an explanation about the process used to convert a data series from the Standard Industrial Classification to the North American Industrial Classification System, he turns to the Economic Analysis and Information (EA&I) Office in Kansas City, one of eight EA&I Offices that DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) maintains throughout the country. Tom reviews procurement contracts as part of his job in Material Estimating at Bombardier Aerospace in Wichita, Kansas. Bombardier assembles the Challenger 300, Learjet 40, Learjet 45, Learjet 45XR, and Learjet 60 business aircraft for clients worldwide. Tom uses BLS earnings data and price indexes to estimate future labor and product pricing based on the terms and conditions negotiated in long-term contracts with suppliers. EA&I staff assist Tom with tasks such as determining when aver age hourly earnings figures include lump-sum payments, or locating the data he needs among hundreds of price and earnings data series. The Economic Analysis and Information Office in Kansas City, along with EA&I Offices in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and San Francisco, can be reached through the website of DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics at http://www.bls.gov/bls/regnhome.htm.|
|Tom of Bombardier Aerospace checks business jet contracts. Photo Credit: Loretta Reuther, Bombardier Aerospace|
BLS reached the established accuracy targets. Each of the indicators addressed in this goal has a unique accuracy measure. Appendix 4 provides information on individual pro gram measures and performance. The accuracy measure not only assures that the indicator reflects the economic activity described, but also assures that it is relevant to the user.
To remain responsive to those who rely on BLS data, BLS continuously invites advice and ideas from users and experts in business, labor, professional and academic organizations, and from members of the public. The Federal Economics Statistics Advisory Committee (FESAC), which is composed of economic, statistical, and behavioral science researchers, continued to provide advice and recommendations in areas such as statistical methodology, survey design, and data collection and analysis. For example, the FESAC reviewed papers on the disparity between alternative measures of consumer expenditures and the price indexes associated with them; changes in data editing procedures and strategies resulting from Web-based survey instruments developed for business establishment surveys; and technical and theoretical issues underlying the construction of the Employment Cost Index (ECI). Additionally, spring and fall meetings of the BLS Business and Labor Research Advisory Councils yielded advice for BLS regarding its statistical and analytical work, pro viding perspectives on the needs of the business and labor communities, respectively.
BLS uses various strategies to maintain a high level of cooperation for its voluntary surveys. BLS continues to reduce respondent burden through ensuring that there is not duplication of data collection efforts. The Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 promotes statistical efficiency by providing for the sharing of business data among the BLS, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and Bureau of the Census. Another strategy is to increase the number of options available to respondents for transmitting their information to the Bureau. By giving respondents more data collection options, BLS hopes to ease their burden. For example, the Employment, Hours, and Earnings program encourages respondents to provide data monthly through the Internet, in addition to other options such as touch-tone data entry, computer-assisted telephone interviews, and electronic file transfer.
The BLS Internet site, which averages over two million user sessions each month, continues to improve. For example, a new maps tool was added. With this tool, users can down load maps showing unemployment rates by State, county, or metropolitan statistical area, for any month or year since 1990. Also, an interactive query capability to access demo graphic data in the National Labor Force program was initiated. These enhancements increase the accessibility and functionality of the BLS Internet site for our data users.
The performance measures used for this outcome goal highlight the accomplishments of the Bureau's statistical programs. The Interagency Council on Statistical Policy's Guidelines for Reporting Performance by Statistical Agencies provides guidance on measuring and reporting on statistical program performance. Timeliness and accuracy are identified as critical aspects of performance, as is achieving customer satisfaction with statistical products and services.
The performance measures used for this outcome goal are obtained from information available to the public. Timeliness data come from comparing the published release schedule to the actual news release date. Likewise, accuracy measures are discussed within the statistical program news release, and detailed documentation of how the measures are derived is provided on individual program home pages on the BLS Internet site. Finally, new Internet functionality can be found on the "What's New" page on the BLS Internet site.
|Contracts for the manufacture of commercial aircraft use escalation formulas to cover price changes during the time period between customer order and product delivery, which can span many years. These price escalation formulas are often linked to changes in the cost of employee compensation as measured by the Employment Cost Index (ECI) of DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The ECI is a quarterly index measuring change in labor costs over time. Ty, a senior analyst in The Boeing Company's Commercial Estimating & Pricing group, uses ECI aircraft manufacturing industry data that he downloads from the BLS website to help determine the final price on Boeing's commercial aircraft delivery invoices. As part of his job reviewing and approving invoices, Ty consults staff at BLS to investigate index fluctuations that might raise questions with customers. ECI fluctuations result not only from changes in wages and salaries, but also the cost of benefits such as retirement and health insurance plans. The Employment Cost Index can be found on the website of DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics at http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ect/home.htm.|
|Ty (left) of Boeing Commercial Airplane Group reviews data with colleagues Michelle and Bob . Photo Credit: Michael Inman, The Boeing Company.|
BLS programs are evaluated both internally and externally to ensure that they provide taxpayer value. As described in OMB Statistical Policy Directive #3, the seven statistical series designated as Principal Federal Economic Indicators are evaluated on a three-year schedule. In FY 2003, BLS submitted required performance evaluations for the U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes and the Consumer Price Index.
During this year, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducted a Government Information Security Reform Act (GISRA) Review of the Current Employment Statistics program. The review is described in Appendix 3 of this report (Study 1).
To determine customer satisfaction with BLS statistical products and services, BLS participated in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) survey conducted by the University of Michigan. BLS received a customer satisfaction score of 74 in 2003; the aggregated Federal government score in 2002 was 70.2.
Goal Assessment and Future Plans
The Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) review recommended that BLS develop more outcome-based, quantitative, and transparent performance measures. Working collaboratively with the Department, BLS revised its FY 2004 performance goal: Goal 1.3A
Improve information available to decision-makers on labor market conditions, and price and productivity changes.
Improve Economic Measures
Performance Goal 1.3B (Bureau of Labor Statistics) - FY 2003
Improve the accuracy, efficiency, and relevancy of economic measures.
This goal was achieved. All FY 2003 milestones for improving the accuracy, efficiency, and relevancy of the economic measures were achieved.
This goal measures achievement of significant milestones that reflect the Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commitment to continuous improvement of its statistical processes and products.
Analysis of Results
Milestones for Significant New or Enhanced Efforts in FY 2003
NAICS Conversion: The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) replaces the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system and offers a new and more consistent approach to industrial classification that better reflects the modern economy. The following programs completed conversion from SIC to NAICS in FY 2003: Conversion for the National Labor Force data series was completed with the release of January data in February 2003. Conversion for Employment, Hours, and Earnings was completed in two parts; the new series was introduced in March 2003 for State and Metropolitan Area series, and conversion of national series was completed in June 2003. Conversion for the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey was completed with the release of May 2003 data in August 2003. In addition, conversion for the industry labor productivity series was completed in September 2003.
Consumer Price Index, Item Sample Update: The accuracy of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) depends on the items that are included in the index. The CPI implemented a new, more rapid process for updating the items in a significant proportion of CPI categories. Items are now updated twice as often as they were in the past. A continuing evaluation of the new item samples relative to the old item samples will be conducted to determine if the objective of keeping samples more in line with current economic conditions is being achieved.
Consumer Price Index, Electronic Data Collection: Each month, CPI data collectors obtain price information from thousands of retail stores, service establishments, rental units, and doctors' offices all over the United States. BLS completed implementation of a new process to electronically collect prices for CPI items other than rent. Implementation began in September 2002, and was completed for all 87 CPI pricing areas in April 2003. The process offers numerous benefits, including the reduction in time required to transmit and process data, and increased accuracy and efficiency in data entry and review.
U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes: BLS has undertaken a multiyear project to modernize the computing system for monthly processing of the Producer Price Index and the U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes. One result of this modernization is to significantly improve the reliability of the U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes by producing annually weighted indexes. Historically, these indexes have been re-weighted every five years. These annually weighted indexes will be published in February 2004 with the release of January 2004 data.
|The Boulder-Longmont area in Colorado was the leading metropolitan area for software employment relative to overall population from 1998 to 2001, ahead of San Jose, Washington, DC, and San Francisco, according to a "top 25" list released by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) in September, 2003. The SIIA list was developed using Occupational Employment Statistics information from DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which publishes annual estimates of employment for over 700 occupations for the Nation as a whole, for individual States, for metropolitan areas, and for specific industries nationwide. For the last four years, Anne, SIIA Director of Research, has produced the ranking from an index she creates of software-related occupational employment by metropolitan area. The resulting "top 25" list contains some surprise cities, according to Anne, showing that software jobs are not concentrated just in Silicon Valley. Information from the Occupational Employment Statistics pro gram can be found on the website of DOL's Bureau of Labor Statistics at http://www.bls.gov/oes/home.htm.|
|Anne, of the Software & Information Industry Association discusses software employment index with a reporter. Photo Credit: Liz Martin, SIIA Designer|
Industry Productivity: Users of the productivity statistics have stated the critical need for more coverage in the service sector. Labor productivity and unit labor cost measures for six new service-producing industries were published in January 2003. Multifactor productivity and related cost measures for the airline transportation industry were published for the first time in September 2003. This is a multiyear project with additional service sector coverage planned.
BLS Internet Data Collection Facility: BLS relies on thousands of businesses to pro vide information on a voluntary basis. BLS offers respondents a wide array of reporting mechanisms, including state-of-the-art technology tools. The Internet Data Collection Facility (IDCF) provides a single, manageable, and secure architecture for Bureau surveys to use in collecting information over the Internet. The IDCF is currently being used to collect respondent information for the Employment, Hours, and Earnings pro gram and the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses. In addition to providing more reporting options for respondents, this data collection method is intended to increase the accuracy and efficiency of collection. BLS continues to work on new pro grams under IDCF, including the Producer Price Index and the U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes.
Management issues for performance goal 1.3B can be found under the same section for performance goal 1.3A.
Goal Assessment and Future Plans
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What are Pinworms / Threadworms ?
The pinworm (Enterobius Vermicularis), also known as a threadworm, is a very common human parasite, where it is estimated to infect 40 million people per year in the United States alone, making it the most prevalent worm infection in North America. In other countries, an infection rate as high as 61% has been recorded, according to the Center of Disease Control.
Everybody is susceptible to pinworm infections, but it is more common in children under 10 years of age. The fastest spread of pinworms typically occurs in crowded living conditions where human to human contact is common. We cannot catch pinworms from animals, but we can easily spread it amongst family members.
Pinworms can be seen with the naked eye and are a yellowish/white color, and look like very fine pieces of thread. In most cases, they are less than one inch in length.
The following pinworms image shows just what they look like. If you have Pinworm pictures not seen here, let us know.
Approximately 30% of people infected with pinworms will show no symptoms. Of those with pinworm infestations that do show symptoms, the most common pinworm symptom is an itchy anus. The pinworm symptoms typically ramp up during the night while you sleep when the female pinworms are the most active and worm their way out (pun intended) of the anus to lay their eggs. This will typically disrupt a person’s sleep to some extent, keeping a person from having a good night of sleep, and thus causing them to feel tired and listless throughout the day.
In some instances, if a person is continually scratching the infected area, the skin could tear or breakdown, allowing for a bacterial infection.
Most human pinworm infections are not life threatening and are more of an annoyance to your daily routine than anything else. However, they should be treated with a good parasite cleanse.
There have been some cases where the pinworms have migrated to the vagina, but this happens only on rare occasions.
In even rarer cases, human pinworms have been found in appendices that were removed during an operation. It is unknown as to whether the pinworms had anything to do with the appendicitis, making it a controversial subject.
Pinworm Infection & Distribution
People often wonder how to get pinworms. They are easily spread through daily contact with just about everything. The female pinworm will lay over 10,000 eggs during her short life span. Those people who scratch their perianal region will often times pick up pinworm eggs under their nails and on their finger tips, and spread them to anything they touch, where other people will pick them up by touching those spots. The simple act of pumping gas at a gas station and then eating later without thoroughly washing your hands, could infect you .
Pinworm eggs can be found on dust, restaurant menus, clothing, phones, gym equipment, and just about anything that is touched by the public.
Pinworm eggs hatch several weeks after being ingested, and mature into adult worms. The pinworms will then migrate to an area between the small and large intestine, where they will sustain themselves from the nutrients you ingest. Upon maturation, the female pinworms will then migrate to the anal area at night to lay their eggs. The pinworm cycle of spreading starts all over.
Female pinworms will typically live about 90 days. Their eggs usually die off in just a few days if they are in a hot and dry environment. However, if the eggs are in a cooler and moist environment, they might survive for weeks, waiting for a host to accidentally ingest them.
If one family member is infected with pinworms, odds are that other family members are infected as well, or will be soon.
Blood tests are not required for the detection of pinworms.
If a person believes they are infected with pinworms, but they cannot see them, a test can be performed using scotch tape. For the test to be most effective, doing so at night is recommended. You start by wrapping tape around a flat item such as a ruler or tongue depressor, making sure the sticky side points out. You then press the tape into the skin on and around your anus. Do this multiple times with a number of pieces of tape. The idea here is you will pick up pinworm eggs. You can then take this tape to your doctor for inspection under a microscope.
If you suspect your child is infected with pinworms, an examination of their anus should allow you to see the pinworms under careful inspection. Checking at night is advised, as that is when the adult pinworms are most active. Use a flashlight and inspect the child a few hours after they have fallen asleep.
Medical Pinworm Treatment
There are a number of options to get treatment for pinworms. Your doctor may prescribe albendazole, a common treatment as a pinworm cure. It is a powerful single dose. However, as with most prescribed medications, it does not come without side effects.
Another option is mebendazole. That is taken once and then repeated 14 days later. Again, this has side effects.
Previous medications such as pyrantel pamoate and piperazine are almost never used for human pinworms due to their side effects.
Natural Pinworm Treatment
People seeking an over the counter pinworm treatment may want to look into a fully natural herb based parasite cleanse as an option. Unlike medications, there are no side effects when taking natural herbs.
DrFloras has what many consider to be the best parasite cleanser available on the market. It is gentle (used over 15 days) and very thorough (wipes out more than 100 types of worms.) DrFloras Parasite Defense is 100% natural and uses the appropriate ratio of ingredients to be effective. Just mixing ingredients together in a mish-mash fashion may do nothing.
Other Human Worms & Parasites
Just because a person gets rid of pinworms doesn’t mean they are getting rid of any other parasites they may be infected with. And if you are infected by pinworms, it is not unreasonable to be infected with more than one type of parasite. Here’s a list of other human parasites, including pictures and videos:
After Pinworm Treatment
After treating your infection, you should wash all bedding, clothing, and toys every few days for at least two weeks, to ensure all lingering pinworm eggs are destroyed.
From this point on, ensure you are following good hygiene. Always wash your hands before eating meals, and especially prior to preparing meals, or you risk spreading the infection. Avoid biting your fingernails, and keep them trimmed and clean. For your children, make sure they use fresh, clean underwear every day, and vacuum the areas they play in on a regular basis.
Pinworms Treatment Video
Video -- Do YOU Need a Colon Cleanse?
Video -- DrFloras vs. the Competition
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How to Warm Up Your Wrists for Piano Exercises
Part of the Piano Exercises For Dummies Cheat Sheet
Before you begin piano exercises, warm up your wrists, shoulders, and other body parts. Doing so helps the physical component of playing the piano by heightening awareness of your body and the way you move. After a few stretches and warm-ups, you can bring a relaxed awareness to the piano when you practice.
Follow these steps for an effective wrist warm-up:
Hold your hands in front of you, palms facing away, as if you are pushing against a wall with both hands.
With a loose wrist, slowly circle your hands both clockwise and counterclockwise.
Bring your hands together in front of you like you're praying, palm-to-palm, finger-to-finger, and extend your elbows out to the side.
Slowly rotate your wrists so that your fingers point toward you, and then away from you, and finally down to the ground.
Repeat a few times as you loosen your wrists.
Physical tension can easily become incorporated into your playing through the necessary repetition of practicing. So it's very important to develop a pattern of releasing your muscles as you play and building this pattern into your playing. Doing this also becomes a way to unify the physical and mental components of music making, because staying comfortable while you play requires constant monitoring for areas of discomfort. | <urn:uuid:e79ffe43-ae52-4c20-832b-c62e1927a4d7> | {
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Acorn Media // 2002 // 405 Minutes // Not Rated
Reviewed by Appellate Judge James A. Stewart (Retired) // May 2nd, 2009
"Today English circles the globe. It inhabits the air we breathe. What started as a guttural tribal dialect seeming isolated in a small island is now the language of well over a thousand million people all over the world."
That statement above might worry France, where there are laws against "franglais," but it shouldn't. As it turns out, thousands of their words have worked their way into English, courtesy of the Normans. When you talk about food, love, war, and government, French words will crop up somewhere in there. That tidbit from The Adventure of English suggests that our language grew dominant because it's a two-way street, a theme that comes up often in London Weekend Television's eight-part documentary.
The Adventure of English features eight episodes, each about 50 minutes:
* Episode 1: Celtic disappears as a Germanic tribe sails into the British Isles with a new language. King Alfred fights off the Norse invasion and saves English, but the Normans take over in 1066 -- and they speak French!
* Episode 2: English makes a comeback, thanks to peasants, a Norman split with mainland France, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the bubonic plague. Quite a few French words remain, forcing English words like "apple" to find new meanings.
* Episode 3: "The battle for the language of The Bible" proves deadly for William Tyndale, but a king's marital woes bring the English translation into favor. Bureaucrats standardize English, and Melvyn Bragg presents some spellings that only a bureaucrat could concoct.
* Episode 4: Poet Philip Sidney and playwright William Shakespeare make up some new words and phrases. Sailors bring a lot of new words, including some fun Dutch profanities, home from sea. English gets a dictionary.
* Episode 5: While East Coast colonists resist tampering with the language, westward expansion and railroads restart English's evolution in America. Mark Twain puts the New World's new words into print. South Carolina's Gullah dialect brings in African words.
* Episode 6: Jonathan Swift tries to "ascertain" the language, fearing works like his Gulliver's Travels will quickly become obsolete. He fails, but his concerns turn out to be unfounded. John Locke (not a Lost character; look him up) and Samuel Johnson also want to guide English's path.
* Episode 7: Trade and colonization spread the English language. In India, scholar William Jones finds some English words already there -- in Sanskrit. Convicts land in Australia, blending London criminal slang and Aboriginal words into a new dialect. Jamaicans reclaim patois.
* Episode 8: Because of "natural selection," English means business around the globe. Two world wars, America's black migration, films, and European immigration to America help further its evolution.
The Adventure of English is a crash course in history and linguistics. You're going to learn something here. If you have any doubt, check out the study guide that accompanies the DVD set, with episode summaries and questions to ponder.
However, it's not designed strictly as a course supplement. The Adventure of English was made for a commercial broadcaster in England, and a wide range of visuals and other TV tricks help bring the history of English alive. Words, often with their original spellings, march boldly across the screen, and the lessons are reinforced with everything from ancient texts to contemporary road signs. You'll hear everyday people talking about how they use and pronounce words. Readers demonstrate the ancient pronunciations. You'll also get a look at the English countryside and several foreign locales as Melvyn Bragg does standups at just about every spot that factored in the history of English. He also goes into the streets and to the universities to get more perspectives on the language.
Bragg does a good job of guiding viewers through the lessons without being intrusive. He does venture an opinion once in a while, as when he notes that bureaucratic gobbledegook is not a good language for poetry, but it's hardly an opinion piece. I gather he's a familiar figure on British TV; I think I've seen him in a DVD extra somewhere. Bragg's pictured prominently on the box, but I doubt he's as big a selling point here as, say, Michael Palin or Clive James.
The picture and sound quality are unobtrusively good, important for all those pronunciations.
The one extra on the DVD, text bios of fifteen people who figured in the documentary, is helpful.
Watching The Adventure of English in a week for a review can feel at times like cramming a freshman college course. It's accessible, but the amount of information to absorb might discourage a casual viewer.
The Adventure of English makes a good change of pace. It's high-minded and educational, but brings its lessons down to earth and can even be fun.
Not guilty. I just hope the language hasn't evolved into something
unrecognizable in the time it took to write this review.
Review content copyright © 2009 James A. Stewart; Site layout and review format copyright © 1998 - 2014 HipClick Designs LLC
Scales of Justice
Studio: Acorn Media
* 1.78:1 Anamorphic
* Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (English)
* English (SDH)
Running Time: 405 Minutes
Release Year: 2002
MPAA Rating: Not Rated | <urn:uuid:1e1c8ef9-fa78-48ec-b30f-d319b750e04f> | {
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Electrical and computer engineers will make a tremendous contribution in advances against devastating diseases such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and even the declining functions of the elderly, according to ECE’s Yue (Joseph) Wang.
||Medical and Biological Engineering Fellow:
In February, Yue (Joseph) Wang was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for his contributions to biomedical in-formatics. AIMBE Fellows represent 2 percent of the researchers active in medical and biological engineering.
Breast cancer research
Wang is a recently inducted Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, an honor awarded to only 2 percent of medical and biological engineering researchers. He leads a $5.5 million research effort to improve the outcome for breast cancer patients. He has worked on a number of medical imaging developments and is developing projects to help understand the multiple factors that influence diseases such as diabetes.
Molecular analysis needed
Researchers are now studying disease at molecular levels and need the analytical skills of engineers to aid in both discovery and understanding of biological systems, Wang said. “Biomedical research needs analytical thinkers with strong skills in modeling, computation, and systems-level expertise. These are typical electrical and computer engineering skills.”
Vast amounts of data for bioinformatics
In studying any single disease, thousands of genes and proteins that interact with each other are studied and tested. Proteins are the basic building blocks of cells and are also involved in cell function and control. A single cell can contain 1 billion molecules capable of interacting with each other. “Vast amounts of data are being generated by the biomedical community,” Wang said data which needs to be interpreted and analyzed so that the components involved with diseases can be isolated and identified.
This data processing and manipulation typically falls under the bioinformatics field, where a number of computational engineers and computer scientists are now working.
Systems biomedicine requires modeling, engineering skills
Another, newer field, called systems biology or systems biomedicine, is emerging that requires modeling and systems engineering skills based on a solid mathematical and theoretical background, Wang said. The completion of the human genome project, in which every gene in the human body was identified and mapped, has provided a foundation for the field. A frequently used metaphor is that the genome project provided a location map, but the roads and traffic patterns remain unknown.
Systems-oriented approach required
“In biomedical research today, a great challenge is that we must use a more systems-oriented approach,” Wang said. “We are dealing with many unknown parameters and multiple variables that are operating simultaneously.” The reverse engineering needed to understand the communication and operation systems within cells, between cells and at the body level is where ECEs, in particular, can contribute, he noted.
“This is important with diseases that are caused not by a single factor, but by multiple factors. Cancer, for example, can be caused by genetic predisposition, with contributing factors, such as diet, environment, and alcohol consumption. Type 2 Diabetes requires a systems approach, as it is caused almost entirely by multiple social factors, including diet and lack of exercise.”
New mindset for engineers
Scientific and biomedical discovery requires a new mindset for most engineers, Wang said. “This is a big challenge. As engineers, we work within many rules and design principles, because we make things work,” he explained. “When engineers get involved with biomedical research, we must remain open-minded. In scientific discovery, we are trying to discover something that is unknown and our rules and design principles are not always applicable. We are developing new principles.”
Strong math and theoretical skills
He also said that electrical and computer engineers in biomedical research need to develop strong mathematical and theoretical backgrounds and focus on a global systems perspective. “Our greatest challenge in biomedical work is husbanding the systems approach. We ECEs are very good analytical and quantitative thinkers. We are very good at analyzing. We are precise and accurate. These skills are needed, but with a perspective that looks globally at a multilevel system, not just a single component.”
Other challenges Wang described are multidisciplinary teamwork and learning other fields. “In biomedical research, we work with people from other backgrounds and we must develop a common language with them. It is not easy. This requires us to engage in continuous learning in non-traditional ECE areas.” Working with experts in other fields also provides some of the greatest satisfaction, Wang said. “You can learn so much from your collaborators.”
Wang, who is based in Northern Virginia, is a member of the Alexandria Research Institute (ARI) and also serves as an adjunct professor of radiology at Johns Hopkins Medical Institu-tions. He works with teams that include biologists and physicians from Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the National Institutes of Health, and the Children’s National Medical Center.
Collaborations, discoveries trigger change in focus for research teams
The teams have evolved and changed their focus as new discoveries and new collaborations led to new paths of exploration. Initially, Wang’s focus was in imaging related to prostate cancer, then breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Subsequent projects involved imaging to monitor therapy and molecular analysis to discover biomarkers of the effects of therapy (page 8). Now the team is exploring using a systems approach to understand the molecular functions in diabetes (page 9) and eventually in neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
“Our research evolves according to the new challenges we face and according to the needs of society,” Wang said. That is an advantage of working with experts in many disciplines, he added.
“Biomedicine is the interface between engineering and science. It gives us engineers the opportunity to be involved in new discoveries that directly impact the well being of others,” he said. “It’s very satisfying.” (Continued. See Seeking molecular biomarkers...and Systems approach to Diabetes) | <urn:uuid:cd6eb10e-3fbc-4707-ad89-f5852f77d531> | {
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Figure 1: A generalized conception of what is taking place beneath the Fukushima reactors, cores at very high temperatures burning their way into the ground.
Large problems are looming larger in Fukushima as reports of short-lived radioactive fission products detected by TEPCO in reactor number 2:
– There have been far too many self-serving assumptions made by operator about the conditions within the four reactors. The assumption is the cores are all sub-critical as designed and installed by the utility. The detection of short-lived fission daughters indicates the assumptions are wrong and that core(s) are critical.
– If the cores material is spread out over a wide area or inside the reactor buildings the cores would likely be sub-critical and unable to produce fission products.
– That fission products are being detected indicates the core beneath reactor 2 is in a concentrated mass. What matters is whether the cores can or will become super-critical causing an explosion.
– Cold shutdown is an abstract (advertising) concept unrelated to conditions in the destroyed reactors at Fukushima.
– This is typical of the ‘modern’ approach that insists that problems of physics are subject to public relations.
– Unlike the Soviets at Chernobyl shortly after the explosions and meltdown, the Japanese have not bothered to send nuclear scientists into the reactors to determine the condition and location of the three reactor cores. Consequently, nobody knows anything about the cores.
Figure 2: Schematic of a boiling-water reactor similar to the kinds used at Fukushima Dai-ichi. This is the Mark 1 containment as in reactor unit 1 (Click on image for big.)
When the fuel core melted through the pressure vessel it wound up in the in-pedestal area under the pressure vessel. Where to next?
Inside the reactor, a lot of energy is concentrated in a very small space. This density of components is essential to all reactors otherwise they will not work.
– Because the reactors are very small relative to the amounts of energy they release, there is no margin for error in dealing with malfunctions. All reactors operate at the bleeding edge of (1960′s) design and materials technology. It is possible that none of the four Fukushima reactors could have been saved after the earthquake due to damage and inherent fragility of the reactor equipment relative to the operating loads with greater shaking loads imposed upon them.
It is unknown whether the water being poured into the reactor buildings is effecting the cores, however the injections along with ordinary ground water means soils in the area of the plant that are saturated. Because the water has absorbed radio-nuclides, it is intensely radioactive. The consequence is that human workers are unable to tunnel into the ground beneath the reactors to determine the location or condition of the cores because of the dangerous radioactivity.
Determining the condition of the cores should have been a priority for the TEPCO operators and the Japanese government but so far no attempt has been made. This is during a period of eight months!
For the next seven months … five-hundred thousand men will wage hand-to-hand combat with an invisible enemy. For this battle, that has gone unsung which claimed thousands of unnamed and now almost forgotten heros.
Yet, it is thanks to these men that the worst was avoided … a second explosion, ten-times more powerful than Hiroshima, that would have wiped out half of Europe … @ 3.04
This ‘second explosion problem’ is what the Japanese are (not) facing up to now. In order to gain understanding some idea of how a reactor works is necessary:
Figure 3: (General Electric) This schematic identifies the core components in a BWR. The core occupies the space about the size of a bus. This confined space contains about 150 tons of low-enriched nuclear fuel. Notice the lattice of core elements arrayed so that water can flow between the fuel elements and carry away the heat. The water also acts as a moderator, slowing neutrons so that they are absorbed by Uranium-235 atoms in the fuel pellets, so that they might later split and release energy.
The ordinary power reactor operates at a barely-critical state with limited emission of prompt neutrons, this is controlled by the enrichment level of the fuel and the design of the fuel elements. What emerges into the core are the ‘delayed’ neutrons. The flux of delayed neutrons can be managed by neutron absorbing control rods or other ‘poisons’ such as boric acid added to the cooling water. By adjusting the flux of delayed neutrons, the operator can adjust the power output of the core.
In order for the moderated reactor design to work, all of the fissile components and the moderator(s) must have a strict physical- or grid relationship to each other. This is very important to keep in mind: when a reactor ceases to be a thermal reactor due to a malfunction and a ‘reconfiguration’ of the core, it becomes an accidental fast nuclear reactor.
“We were afraid, because it could have caused another explosion. it was terrifying. Scientists came and took readings. They were very worried. They were afraid the critical temperature would be reached and it would set off a second explosion that would have been a terrible tragedy,” Gen. Nikolai Antochkin USSR Air Force.
The cement slab below the reactor core is heating up and in danger of cracking. The magma is threatening to seep through. The water the firemen poured during the first hours of the disaster has pooled below the slab. If the radioactive magma makes contact with the water it could set off a second explosion even more devastating than the first.
The country’s top experts are called into action. Vassili Nesterenko was one of them, At the time, he was working on improving the Soviet Union’s intercontinental nuclear missiles.
“If the heat managed to crack the cement slab only fourteen hundred kilograms of uranium and graphite mixture would have needed to hit the water to set off a new explosion.”
The ensuing chain-reaction would set off an explosion comparable to a gigantic atomic bomb.
“Our experts studied the possibility and concluded that the explosion would have had the force from three- to five megatons …” said Nesterenko.
Since March 11, there have been no nuclear scientists on the Fukushima site, the efforts are ongoing to enforce media silence and cover up what has been taking place or not.
Figure 4: After melting through the bottoms of the reactor buildings the cores would consolidate into amorphous 150 ton blobs of metallic uranium, thorium and plutonium isotopes.
Taking place within the cores is heating that results from radioactive decay. Radioactive decay is not to be confused with fission which requires the splitting of atoms.
There are many different kinds of nuclide decay processes taking place within the three cores.
– This decay does not produce fission products such as xenon-135 or iodine-131.
– Because the isotopes in question have very short half-lives it is clear that fission is taking place right now within at least one of the cores.
– Heating of the core(s) would be the result of fast fission. Because cores emitting fission products cannot be sub-critical, the low detection levels of these gases is instead likely because the cores are underground.
– In order for fission to take place there must be a neutron flux. Because of the absence of any moderator, neutrons would be ‘fast’ or have a very high energy level. These high energy neutrons are not a part of ordinary nuclear reactor operation. Any moderation would be the result of impurities within the fuel mass or by neutron reflection. Both of these would add heat. Absorption of fast neutrons would depend on the neutron cross-section of target elements within the mass which is largely U-238.
– Unlike the commercial reactor which relies on the absorption of moderated neutrons by U-235, a fast reactor relies on the absorption of high-energy neutrons by U-238. This fission takes place at higher energy levels than exist within the commercial reactor.
– Fissions taking place now are ‘prompt’, that is the neutrons are produced by the fission of fuel nuclei rather than by decay nuclei.
– A chain reaction due to prompt neutrons can self-propagate with extreme rapidity under the right conditions.
– Additional small amounts of neutron emission from the core are the result of spontaneous splitting of fissile atoms such as Pu-240.
Because the cores are sub-critical (k< 1) by virtue of their level of enrichment, the core material under 'normal' conditions of pressure and temperature will not sustain a chain reaction. Amplifying the effective neutron flux would bring the nuclear fuel to increased criticality (k>1). Compression will do this. so does placing the fuel material adjacent to a neutron reflector. This is what Arnie Gunderson suggests took place on March 14 in the reactor 3 spent fuel pool: a compression of sub-critical nuclear fuel by a shock wave resulting from a hydrogen explosion above the fuel. This compression — according to Gunderson — amplified the flux of prompt neutrons that propagated and intensified a chain reaction in some of the spent fuel causing it to reconfigure explosively.
– Vassili Nestorenko was concerned about along with the others at Chernobyl about a second prompt criticality involving the fuel that had melted out of the reactor.
– This is the issue now, is it possible for events to bring the fuel cores to supercriticality.
As nuclear material fissions, a product is Xenon-135. This isotope is a powerful neutron poison. As the fuel material fissions, the resulting Xe-135 absorbs neutrons stifling the chain reaction until the Xenon ‘burns off’ by absorption of neutrons at which time the fission intensifies creating more Xenon. Because the fuel mass is borderline critical, Xenon-135 creation occurs at the same rate as the fission process to keep the reactions from becoming destructively super-critical.
Being near the ocean, the ground under the reactors is mostly silica sand. As the sand melts the core sinks through it. Above and surrounding the core material is a glassy substance that also includes the non-fissile material that once made up the core structures: the boron-carbide control blades, zirconium fuel cladding, stainless steel fuel racks, flow nozzles, steam dryers, rod drives along with concrete. This material forms a slag. The fuel doesn’t ‘burn away’ the soil in its path but simply sinks through it leaving behind a ‘plug’ made up of slag and the other debris.
This plug prevents water from reaching the core material to cool it. Any cooling at the heated core creates more layers of slag.
The plug, slag and other debris are intensely radioactive, being either the remains of the core or having come in contact with it.
Water poured into the reactors soaks into the ground. The rest fills the reactor buildings from where it eventually flows into the ocean.
While the sand absorbs neutrons and is a poor reflector, the bedrock some meters beneath the reactors is likely to be a good one. Any hard, dense material can be a good reflector (as is water). What the reflector does is bounce neutrons back into the fissile material to increase the neutron flux while moderating the neutrons at the same time. In this way, fissile U-235 atoms can also absorb neutrons and split.
More fission would amplify the flux increasing the energy release while compressing the fuel. The weight of the fuel along with the plug of slag would push fissile material onto the reflector causing a prompt criticality:
Figure 5: Super-criticality is an issue of time: as nuclei split energetically, the tendency is for the atoms to fly away from each other. The material separates and the reactions cease. The problem emerges when there is no place for the atoms to go. Chain reactions can then propagate for generation after generation with an accompanying energy buildup until the bonds of mass and inertia represented by the ground … are overcome.
– A low energy reaction would cause a fuel geyser that would blow core material and the plug through the roof of the reactor building, much like the explosion in reactor 3. This would require only a few generations of chain reactions in the super-critical core.
– A high energy reaction of many generations would cause a substantial nuclear explosion. Critical components would be: material of sufficient mass, this material confined by incompressible material (sandy soil), weight of the core and the plug above it pressing the core against the neutron reflector. More than fifty generations of chain reactions would cause a multi-kiloton explosion beneath the reactor.
– A powerful explosion would propagate a shock wave that would travel through the ground and compress other cores that might have burnt their way into the ground. This compression would cause even more powerful nuclear explosions. This was how a modest amount of fuel under Chernobyl would cause a shock wave capable of bringing the rest of the nuclear material into a super-critical state.
Remember, there were three other reactors at Chernobyl with each containing 195 tons of highly-energized nuclear fuel!
– The low enrichment ratio of fissile material within the cores is compensated by the cores’ mass. The fission of even a tiny percentage of a core would represent an immense amount of energy release.
– The relative lack of explosive energy is compensated by the amount of radioactive material at the site. Anything other than the most modest excursion would be exceptionally destructive due to radioactive fallout.
– The approximate largest fission nuclear test was @ 500 kilotons (Operation Ivy King, 1952). A Fukushima explosion would certainly be less powerful. The Ivy King ‘gadget’ was dangerously massive and inherently super-critical (k = 2) while the Fukushima fuel is inherently sub-critical.
– There are over a thousand tons of nuclear material in the reactors and spent fuel pools. A multi-kiloton detonation would destroy the reactors leaving an ocean-filled crater in place of the plant.
– nuclear reactors along with the cores and spent fuel would become part of the fallout cloud.
– The shut-down Reactors Five and Six at the Dai-ichi complex would be destroyed, their cores would melt into the ground setting a repeat of the super-criticality process a few month’s afterward.
– A reason for a modest explosion during a worst case scenarios would be the lack of x-ray emissions and ultra-high temperatures. Any fusion component is unlikely although tritium is no-doubt contained within reactor fuel.
– The radiation emitted and its extent is hard to estimate but certainly equal to the dirtiest above-ground weapons tests. The amount of fallout from Fukushima would be greater due to the fuel tonnage but the extent more limited because of the absence of explosive force. Weapons tests injected material high into the stratosphere spreading fallout over large areas. the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test took place in February, 1954:
The Bravo test created the worst radiological disaster in US history. Due to failures in forecasting and analyzing weather patterns, failure to postpone the test following unfavorable changes in the weather, and combined with the unexpectedly high yield and the failure to conduct pre-test evacuations as a precaution, the Marshallese Islanders on Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Utirik atolls were blanketed with the fallout plume, as were U.S. servicemen stationed on Rongerik.
Within 15 minutes after the test radiation levels began climbing on Eneu Island, site of the test control bunker, which was supposed to be upwind from the test and thus immune to fallout. An hour after the shot the level had reached 40 R/hr, and personnel had to retreat from the control room to the most heavily shielded room of the bunker until they could be rescued 11 hours later.
An hour after the shot Navy ships 30 miles south of Bikini found themselves being dusted with fallout with deck radiation levels rising to 5 R/hr. navy personnel were forced to retreat below decks and the ships retreated farther from the atoll.
As the fallout drifted east U.S. evacuation efforts lagged behind the plume. At Rongerik, 133 nm from ground zero, 28 U.S. personnel manning a weather station were evacuated on 2 March but not before receiving significant exposures. Evacuations of the 154 Marshallese Islanders only 100 nm from the shot did not begin until the morning of 3 March. Radiation safety personnel computed that the islanders received a whole-body radiation doses of 175 rad on Rongelap, 69 rad on Ailinginae, and 14 rad on Utirik.
The Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Fifth Lucky Dragon) was also heavily contaminated, with the 23 crewmen receiving exposures of 300 R, one of whom later died – apparently from complications. This incident created an international uproar, and a diplomatic crisis with Japan.
The entire Bikini Atoll was contaminated to varying degrees and plans for conducting test operations from the islands, including use of the firing bunker, had to be abandoned. All further Castle tests were controlled by radio link from the USS Estes.
After this test the exclusion zone around the Castle tests was increased to 570,000 square miles, a circle 850 miles across (for comparison this is equal to about 1% of the entire Earth’s land area).
An 850 mile circle covers most of Japan.
The need is for nuclear scientists to be engaged. Right now the emphasis is toward public relations. The detection of gaseous fission products indicates the time remaining to take action at Fukushima is running out.
What can be done:
– The Japanese government must seize the day and eliminate Tepco’s role in the reclamation process.
– Expand the exclusion zone to 50 miles from the plant until the cores are located then stabilized.
– Find the cores NOW by any means necessary: drilling, robots, pipeline cameras. If this exposes workers to radiation, so be it. If the cores are dispersed or within the reactor buildings there is less urgency and steps can be taken to treat the core material as spent fuel rather than incipient bombs.
– Horizontal drilling equipment MUST be used to drill under reactors. Bore holes can then be filled with boron. Liquid nitrogen can also be flooded under the cores, to freeze the ground beneath the cores and provide neutron absorption.
– Spent fuel in all the reactors, on the site and cores at Dai-ichi plants 5 and 6 must be removed off site by any means necessary and at whatever cost as rapidly as possible.
– If cores are located under the reactors and can be held in place by way of boron or ground freezing, the site can be surrounded by a cofferdam made of steel sheet piling. This cofferdam should have been built already. Wells can be drilled within the cofferdam and ground water removed and then treated to remove radioactive material. Water is a neutron reflector, the less water the better.
– If the cores are below the buildings it is likely adding water or boric acid into the buildings is counterproductive.
– Get a group of international nuclear experts onto the site and have them determine what is actually taking place so the appropriate steps can be taken. | <urn:uuid:64f58eb8-94c0-4b39-a6a3-c37c8853f705> | {
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The next exercise is a hypothetical choice problem that will be used in a later section to illustrate the use of models of choice. Imagine that you are awarded a certificate for $120 that you can use on just two types of items - DVDs and CDs - and that the relative prices are p1 = 12 for DVDs and p2 = 8 for CDs. Figure 2 shows all the alternative combinations of DVDs and CDs that you can purchase with the certificate at these prices. From the shaded budget set, imagine that you are asked which combination of DVDs and CDs you would select. Since the certificate that you have received has to be converted to a number of DVDs and CDs, and has no other use, you will want to use the entire award budget.
Figure 2: Budget for DVDs and CDs.
If the prices of DVDs and CDs are changed, so that DVDs cost $8 and CDs cost $12, then the budget set changes. Figure 3 shows the new budget set.
Figure 3: Budget for DVDs and CDs after price change.
Imagine that once again you are asked which combination of DVDs and CDs you would choose.
Your two choices for a combination of DVDs and CDs for the two budget sets in figures 2 and 3 might look something like the choices in figure 4.
Figure 4: Choices of DVDs and CDs for both budgets.
One of the fundamental ideas in economic models of consumer behavior is that choices like those in the example above result from preferences, and the preferences that generate a consumer's choices have some regularity properties. Properties of preferences are described in the next section. | <urn:uuid:b527e04a-3fdb-472e-b20a-f198ab33f540> | {
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Sir Paul McCartney is a big fan of space exploration. In the past, the well known singer has performed for the crew of STS-114 and even teamed up with NASA to get Beatles music pumped into space, or, to quite literally get Lucy in the sky with diamonds. But this time, Paul is speaking out against NASA.
The space agency is planning to use dozens of squirrel monkeys for harsh radiation experiments. Animal testing to the extreme!
In his letter to the agency, Paul writes, “I believe NASA has the ingenuity to investigate the health effects of space travel without confining and experimenting on animals as was done in the old days. It would be terribly disappointing if in our zeal to explore new frontiers and to learn about the fascinating universe where we live we began to regress in our treatment of the animals with whom we share this planet.”
Is animal testing a good idea? The European Space Agency states it “declines any interest in monkey research,” and various experts say the tests are unnecessary and lack scientific merit. So, basically…no!
We’re happy to hear that McCartney is speaking out on this issue and hope the team at NASA listens to reason! | <urn:uuid:417d6fb4-9c4c-4229-b3ce-63f04c9826db> | {
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(CNN) -- As coordinator for the world's biggest science experiment, Fabiola Gianotti occupies one of the top jobs in science.
Housed in an underground facility straddling the border between France and Switzerland, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is the beating heart of modern physics research. A collaboration of 20 member states, it's also where the world wide web was invented in 1989.
After 18 years at CERN, Gianotti became spokesperson and coordinator of the lab's ATLAS experiment, which employs 3000 scientists. Her role -- a democratically elected position -- is to lead the experiment's strategic planning and present its findings to international media.
It's hoped that, by observing these collisions, which replicate conditions straight after the Big Bang, scientists can address such world-changing questions as the origin of mass, the constitution of dark matter, how fundamental forces unify, and whether there are more than three or four dimensions.
The experiment has captured the world's imagination, with "Higgsteria" observable on Twitter in the lead-up to an announcement about the detector's preliminary 2012 results.
Speaking from the International Conference for High Energy Physics in Melbourne, Australia, Gianotti revealed that CERN teams have observed a new particle they believe to be the Higgs Boson.
The particle was found in a mass region where the scientists had expected it to be -- leading Gianotti to add, "Thanks, Nature!" -- and enough data has been obtained for scientists to reach a threshold of proof known as five sigma, meaning the chance that they have observed a random fluctuation is around one in 3.5 million.
Heralding "the era of "Higgs" measurements," Gianotti said, "This is just the beginning. A little more time is needed to finalize these results, and more data and more study will be needed to determine the new particle's properties."
The existence of the Higgs boson is expected to confirm currently accepted theories about the structure of the universe.
"I couldn't tell you which (outcome) I would prefer," Gianotti said, ahead of the announcement. "Building a new particle is very nice but also demonstrating that a mechanism that has been proposed as the solution for many years is not the correct one is a major step forward for fundamental science."
"Of course, mankind has made giant steps forward," she says. "However, what we know is really very, very little compared to what we still have to know."
"It's important we try to do things we love," she adds, but she also advises scientists to be "extremely patient and extremely humble."
A European Commission report notes that, although "girls' underachievement in maths has narrowed in all countries and is on the way to disappearing in most of them," girls tend to lose interest in science in their first three years of secondary school, and believe themselves to be worse than boys at physics, even when their grades are not.
In the United States, a report by the National Science Foundation which came to the same conclusion, observed that even girls who are good at maths show less interest in science careers.
This suggests that, for every Gianotti, there are many more who give up. Yet Gianotti has made it to the top of her field, and is involved at the highest levels in historically significant and pioneering work. What went right for her?
Born in Milan, Gianotti was not drawn to science as a girl. She was educated at a "liceo classico," a type of Italian secondary school with an emphasis on art history, literature and ancient languages, and "very little mathematics or physics," she says.
The daughter of a geologist, Gianotti says she grew up with a love of nature and an immense curiosity about the world around her, fueled by "endless" walks in the mountains, when her father would stop to show "a flower or a plant or a little insect."
As a teenager, Gianotti became interested in philosophy, "a discipline that at least asks the fundamental questions," but took the unusual step of choosing to study physics at university.
"Physics also tried to address the fundamental questions, and often could give an answer," she says. "Perhaps not the final answer, perhaps just a little step forward. I liked it immediately," she says.
Although she moved from artistic fields into science, Gianotti, who also studied piano at Milan Conservatory, says "art and physics are much closer than you would think".
"Art is based on very clear, mathematical principles like proportion and harmony. At the same time, physicists need to be inventive, to have ideas, to have some fantasy."
The National Science Foundation's report suggests that fewer women pursue science careers because women are more likely to prefer work with "a clear social purpose," and "most people do not view (science and technology) occupations as directly benefiting society."
But Gianotti says one of the most appealing aspects of her job is the broader applications for the cutting-edge technologies being developed at CERN. For example, 17,000 of the world's 30,000 accelerators are used for medical applications such as cancer therapy, she says.
Working alongside scientists from 38 countries is another perk. "For me, this job is, of course, a great scientific adventure but it's also a great human adventure," she says. | <urn:uuid:564a9612-3238-4968-9625-56c18ee8e78e> | {
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Grade Level: 6th - 8th; Type: Botany
In this science project, you will examine how to stop the ripening process of a tomato, as well as the effect that this has on the plant’s reproductive capabilities.
- What stops a tomato from ripening?
- Does killing the ethylene in a tomato stop the tomato from reproducing?
Did you know that an enzyme called ethylene causes a tomato to ripen? If you kill the ethylene in a tomato, the ripening process will stop. This science project lets you take a look at how this works. It also lets you explore whether the ripening process and the reproduction of a tomato are related.
- Permanent marker
- Tomato plant with at least ten green, fully-grown tomatoes
- Brick or cinder block
- Tap water
- 2 paper towels
- 2 glass jars
- Write the letter “C” for “Control” in permanent marker on five green, but fully-grown tomatoes.
- Write the letter “E” for “Experimental” on five other green, but fully-grown tomatoes.
- Position a brick or cinder block near the tomato plant.
- Fill the pot about halfway with very hot tap water.
- Carry the pot near the plant and place it on the brick. Lower one of the “E” tomatoes into the pot and leave it there for five minutes.
- Repeat with each of the other “E” tomatoes.
- Observe the tomatoes over the next several weeks. How many of the control tomatoes ripen? How many of the experimental tomatoes?
- Moisten two paper towels, and use each one to line a glass jar.
- Cut each tomato open and remove the seeds. Place 20 seeds from the “E” tomatoes into one jar between the paper towel and the glass sides, and 20 seeds from the “C” tomatoes into the second jar. Label the jars accordingly.
- Leave the jars in a sunny area for a few days. How many seeds sprout from each jar?
Terms/Concepts: Enzyme; Ethylene; What makes a tomato ripen?; How does a tomato reproduce?
- Experiments You Can Do in Your Backyard, edited by Joanna Callihan and Nathan Hemmelgarn. Pp 70-71.
Warning is hereby given that not all Project Ideas are appropriate for all individuals or in all circumstances. Implementation of any Science Project Idea should be undertaken only in appropriate settings and with appropriate parental or other supervision. Reading and following the safety precautions of all materials used in a project is the sole responsibility of each individual. For further information, consult your state’s handbook of Science Safety. | <urn:uuid:0dd16096-cda1-43a5-845f-3d3e75a8d42a> | {
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Gypsies first came to Chicago during the large waves of Southern and Eastern European immigration to the United States in the 1880s until World War I. They were following Serbian and Hungarian immigrants who found work in the steel mills and factories of the city. The Gypsies, who had no interest in this type of employment, developed an economic niche playing music from the immigrants' home countries. Hired by immigrants to play at weddings, fairs, saint-day celebrations, birthdays, and other joyous occasions, Gypsy orchestras included instruments from Europe such as the cimbalom.
Two separate Gypsy subgroups settled in Chicago. The Machwaya came from Serbia and parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with heavy Serbian populations such as Croatia and Vojvodina. These Machwaya Gypsies spoke Serbian, had ties with the Serbian Orthodox Church, and played traditional Serbian music. They settled on the Southeast Side of Chicago, living on the outer edges of the immigrant Serb community.
The Kalderash followed Hungarian immigrants to Chicago. Like the Machwaya, they earned their livelihood playing music for the transplanted Hungarian community. The Kalderash spoke Hungarian and affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.
The respective religious ties to the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church were practical for both groups. Baptizing babies and attending Easter services were the extent of the Gypsies' religious participation.
The Machwaya and Kalderash functioned as separate groups and had no significant dealings with each other. Both groups were illiterate and did not send their children to school. Instead children were trained to be musicians, often earning their own livelihoods in child orchestras or bands.
The Gypsies' illiteracy prevented them from establishing and cultivating the kinds of institutions usually associated with immigrant communities. There was no Gypsy church, aid organization, or newspaper in Chicago. This does not mean, however, that the Gypsy communities did not exchange information, offer assistance to one another, or observe their own religious practices. All of this was accomplished in a more informal way.
Both the Machwaya and the Kalderash emigrated to Chicago in family groups, not as single men. While music was the chief source of income for men and boys, the women earned money by reading palms. Fortunetelling parlors were operated out of their homes or at booths at community fairs.
There was no new influx of Eastern European Gypsies to Chicago until the 1970s. In 1974, a group of 102 Yugoslav Gypsies was abandoned in the Arizona desert by a Mexican smuggler who had helped them enter the United States illegally. The American Gypsy community arranged legal help for this group and held a tribunal to determine where to settle them. Chicago was chosen because the new arrivals were Machwaya and because areas of downtown could accommodate more fortunetellers. Through intermarriage with the American Machwaya, these recent immigrants have become fully integrated into Chicago Gypsy life.
Sway, Marlene. Familiar Strangers: Gypsy Life in America. 1988.
The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2005 Chicago Historical Society.
The Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2004 The Newberry Library. All Rights Reserved. Portions are copyrighted by other institutions and individuals. Additional information on copyright and permissions. | <urn:uuid:c3f2738a-0c74-4b01-8455-570d20787495> | {
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Home / Browse / Gender / Female / Beall, Ruth Olive
Ruth Olive Beall was superintendent of Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Home from 1934 to 1961. She was largely responsible for the hospital’s survival during the financial difficulties of the Great Depression and for its expansion and improvement in the following years.
Ruth Beall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, sometime in 1896, the daughter of Charles Carlton Beall, a traveling salesman, and Florance Walcott Beall. While she was attending a boarding school in Arcadia, Missouri, her parents moved to Rogers (Benton County). Beall graduated from Washington University in St. Louis before joining her family in Arkansas.
In Rogers, Beall was advisor to the local chapter of the Junior Red Cross during World War I. She was briefly the owner and editor of the Rogers Daily Post and ended up working in Little Rock (Pulaski County) for the National Tuberculosis Association until 1926, when she returned to Rogers. She became Benton County secretary of the National Tuberculosis Association, a position she held for the next eight years.
Beall was concerned not only for people who suffered from tuberculosis but also for people who lived in poverty. At her own expense, she provided toothbrushes and toothpaste to children she met while traveling to rural schools throughout the county and taught children how to use them. At one school, she noticed that all of the children wore clothes made from identical blue flowered material. A teacher explained that the clothes were made from flour sacks, and Beall wrote the flour company persuading them to use a variety of colors and patterns for their sacks so that the children might have different-colored clothing.
At some point during her time in Benton County, Beall was briefly married to a man whose name is unknown. She divorced him sometime in 1933 or in the first weeks of 1934.
In January 1934, Beall traveled to Little Rock to bring a boy with tuberculosis to Arkansas Children’s Hospital for treatment. The boy died within days, and Beall went to Judge Thomas Humphreys, who was president of the hospital board, to complain about conditions at the facility. Humphreys offered the position of superintendent, about to be vacated, to Beall. She accepted, and on February 1, 1934, she became the second superintendent of Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Home.
At the time, the hospital was thirty days away from foreclosure, needing $30,000 to keep going through the year. Beall persuaded attorney Cooper Jacoway to collect money for the hospital, and he raised $16,000. The remaining $14,000 was also raised, likely from the Masonic lodges of Arkansas.
Beall hid $7,000 of the money in a safe deposit box and used it to pay for cash-on-delivery necessities for the hospital. To save money, Beall fired all of the department heads and took their duties upon herself. She asked the members of the Home Demonstration Clubs of Arkansas, about 39,000 women, to donate food and other necessities to the hospital, which they did. Beall enrolled all of the children in the home in public schools so that she could close the school at the home, freeing funds for the hospital. To save food for the children, she went on a diet of cheese sandwiches. With the money that the hospital saved, Beall made improvements to both the hospital and the home. She added a library to the home to help the children with schoolwork.
Beall acquired building materials worth $33,000 from the Public Works Administration and the labor to renovate the buildings from the Works Progress Administration. In 1936, she established the Arkansas chapter of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, now known as the March of Dimes. On October 14, 1936, Arkansas Children’s Hospital was fully accredited by the American College of Surgeons, which had withdrawn its approval of the hospital several years earlier.
Beall disliked staying in her office and usually wandered the halls of the hospital, checking on her patients and staff. Her temper was famous. She was easily angered when things were not done the way she wanted, and a February 17, 1951, article in the Saturday Evening Post bore the headline, “The Terrible-Tempered Angel of Arkansas.” However, that same year, the Arkansas Democrat named her “Arkansas Woman of the Year.”
Beall retired in 1961 because of health problems. On October 29, 1961, a reception was held for her at Riverdale Country Club. The hospital’s chapel, named after Beall, was dedicated on July 15, 1973.
Beall died on April 18, 1974. She is buried in Roselawn Memorial Park.
For additional information:“Children’s Home to Have New Head.” Arkansas Gazette. February 2, 1934, p. 1A.
“Chosen Head for Children’s Home, Hospital.” Arkansas Democrat. February 2, 1934, p. 7A.
Hanley, Steven G. A Place of Care, Love, and Hope: A History of Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Little Rock: August House, 1994.
“Long-time Head of Hospital Dies.” Arkansas Democrat. April 19, 1974, p. 10B.
Obituary of Ruth Beall. Arkansas Democrat. April 21, 1974, p. 17A.
Obituary of Ruth Beall. Arkansas Gazette. April 21, 1974, p. 18A.
Sallee, Bob. “Backward Glances: A Bad-Tempered Angel Helped Save Children’s.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. April 29, 1997, p. 4E.
———. “Backward Glances: Angel Watched over Kids for 27 years.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. May 1, 1997, p. 4E.
Spence, Hartzell. “The Terrible-Tempered Angel of Arkansas.” Saturday Evening Post, February 17, 1951, pp. 25, 66–69, 72.
Magdalena TeskeNorth Little Rock, Arkansas
Last Updated 7/29/2011
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World's largest lake warming rapidly: scientists
By Timothy Gardner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Siberia's Lake Baikal has warmed faster than global air temperatures over the past 60 years, which could put animals unique to the world's largest lake in jeopardy, U.S. and Russian scientists said.
The lake has warmed 1.21 degrees Celsius (2.18 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1946 due to climate change, almost three times faster than global air temperatures, according to a paper by the scientists to be published next month in the journal "Global Change Biology."
"The whole food web could shift," Marianne Moore, a biology professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and one of the authors of the paper, said in an interview. The frigid lake, which holds 20 percent of the world's freshwater, boasts 2,500 species, most of them found nowhere else, such as the world's only exclusively freshwater seal.
In potentially bad news for that animal, the paper found that the lake's annual days of ice cover had fallen an average of 18 days over the last 100 years and could drop two weeks to two months more by the end of the century.
The findings could foreshadow the vulnerability of smaller lakes to global warming because Baikal's great volume of water had been thought to protect it from rising temperatures, the paper said.
Moore said Baikal's seal, which raises its pups on the ice, could suffer because the animal has several onshore predators. If ice caves the pups are raised in melt, Asian crows could also eat the pups, she said.
Changes in the food cycle have already been seen. Numbers of multicellular zooplankton, which normally live in warmer waters, have increased 335 percent since 1946, while numbers of chlorophyll have risen 300 percent since 1979, it said.
In addition, the number of diatoms, which live under the ice and later die and become food for tiny organisms living in the lake's depths, could fall, Moore said. "Ice recession may have a greater effect than the rising temperatures," she said.
-- For Reuters latest environment bogs click on:
(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Eric Beech) | <urn:uuid:8928519f-1ce1-440f-9e8d-ab986a008c9b> | {
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Arctic Peregrines impacted by increasing precipitation
Rain, crucial to sustaining life on Earth, is proving deadly for young peregrine falcons in Canada's Arctic.
A University of Alberta study recently published in Oecologia shows that an increase in the frequency of heavy rain brought on by warmer summer temperatures is posing a threat not seen in this species since before pesticides such as DDT were banned from use in Canada in 1970.
The study is among the first to directly link rainfall to survival of wild birds in Canada.
A nest-box experiment at the heart of the study, co-written by U of A researcher Alastair Franke and Alexandre Anctil of the Université du Québec, has provided "unequivocal evidence" that gradual changes in Arctic temperature and precipitation are responsible for a long-term decline in reproduction for the peregrine, a top predator in the Arctic.
The change in rainfall patterns in recent years has had a big influence on the overall decline in reproductive success over the last three decades, Franke said.
Peregrine falcon photo via Shutterstock.
Read more at ScienceDaily. | <urn:uuid:bd1e71e4-39c9-42d1-800d-49af9cd658c7> | {
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Penguin populations may have benefited from historic climate warming
While penguins have adapted to extremely cold weather, harsh winters are still difficult for populations especially when it comes to breeding and finding food. So with warming climates on the horizon, are penguin populations going to be better off? Not necessarily. However, a new study does reveal that penguin populations over the last 30,000 years have benefitted in some ways from climate warming and retreating ice.
An international team, led by scientists from the University of Southampton and Oxford University, has used a genetic technique to estimate when current genetic diversity arose in penguins and to recreate past population sizes.
Looking at the 30,000 years before human activity impacted the climate, as Antarctica gradually warmed, they found that three species of penguin; Chinstrap, Adélie and southern populations of Gentoo penguins increased in numbers. In contrast, Gentoo penguins on the Falkland Islands were relatively stable, as they were not affected by large changes in ice extent.
'Whereas we typically think of penguins as relying on ice, this research shows that during the last ice age there was probably too much ice around Antarctica to support the large populations we see today,' said lead author Gemma Clucas Ocean and Earth Sciences at the University of Southampton. 'The penguins we studied need ice-free ground to breed on, and they need to be able to access the ocean to feed. The extensive ice-sheets and sea ice around Antarctica would have made it inhospitable for them.
'What is particularly interesting is that after the ice age, all of these penguin populations were climate change 'winners', that is to say the warming climate allowed them to expand and increase in number. However, this is not the pattern we’re seeing today. Adélie and Chinstrap penguins appear to be declining due to climate change around the Antarctic Peninsula, so they've become 'losers'. Only the Gentoo penguin has continued to be a 'winner' and is expanding its range southward.'
Dr Tom Hart of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, an author of the paper, said: 'We are not saying that today's warming climate is good for penguins, in fact the current decline of some penguin species suggests that the warming climate has gone too far for most penguins.
'What we have found is that over the last 30,000 years different penguin species have responded very differently to a gradually warming world, not something we might expect given the damage current rapid warming seems to be doing to penguins' prospects.'
Continue reading at the University of Oxford.
Chinstrap penguin image via Shutterstock. | <urn:uuid:eca18c2b-b7b7-48a2-8fd2-1efbf1c44f9d> | {
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What does the word "touchstone" mean? In what ways does Touchstone live up to his name in As You Like It by Shakespeare?
1 Answer | Add Yours
"Touchstone" means a stone, usually jasper or a dark schist stone, that, with a touch upon it of a metal, can tell the grade of alloy or purity of the metal. Alloy's, of course, are precious metals (gold and silver) that are mixed with lesser metals to make them more sturdy; more functional; more practical (or, in days gone by, a cheaper way to pay for goods if the alloy can be passed off successfully as a pure metal). It is important to understand the meaning of touchstone in order to rightly understand the role and characterization of Shakespeare's Touchstone.
Regarding Touchstone, while his role may be looked at from the direction of finding worth in the other characters, it may also be looked at as uncovering the worthlessness of other characters. In addition. Touchstone, like dark schist or jasper, has no additional value or nobility attached while functioning as a touchstone. Worth valuation is something that happens despite, in spite of, Touchstone's participation.
Fools in Shakespeare perform the function of revealing the flaws of the principal characters. They also have the privilege of advising the principals. Touchstone fits this function as the companion of Rosalind and Celia. He additionally fulfills this function as the touchstone to any character who meets him. He reveals the worth of Audrey, who though simple, is shown to be a worthy country woman (if her replies are taken as innocent and word play instead of self-accusatory). He exposes the true nature of Jaques through wit applied to some of Jaques melancholic musings (as a result of this, Jaques abandons life as Duke Senior's follower and chooses a different path: "I am for other than for dancing measures"). Thus Touchstone lives up to his name by showing the inner quality (good or bad) of the characters he meets.
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
[He] Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,...
Join to answer this question
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Leonard Norman Cohen, known as a poet, songwriter, and performer, was born in Montreal in 1934, the son of Nathan Cohen and Marsha Klinitsky Cohen. His father was a clothing manufacturer, and the Cohens lived in the upper-middle-class community of Westmount. Following his graduation from McGill University in 1955, Cohen moved to New York City to pursue graduate studies at Columbia University. He soon returned to Montreal, however, where he began to give public readings. Cohen’s first book, Let Us Compare Mythologies, the first volume in the McGill Poetry Series, was published in 1956. This small volume brought a new and important voice to the Canadian literary scene. As the title suggests, the poems interweave Christian, Jewish, and classical mythologies.
An older Canadian poet, Irving Layton, was a mentor and friend to Cohen, but Cohen’s most significant early influence was the poetry of Federico García Lorca. Cohen approached poetry differently than his contemporary Canadian writers did, using the worlds of religion and mythology as his aesthetic foundation. Many poems throughout his career have centered on characters involved in personal quests for self-understanding, often self-destructing in the process. Others address the joys, problems, and pain of sexuality and intimate relationships.
In the 1960’s Cohen began traveling, first visiting Cuba in 1961, then proceeding to Europe. He lived for a time in London, then traveled to the small Greek island of Hydra. He loved the island immediately, and he bought an inexpensive house there. He spent much of the early 1960’s living on Hydra. Later in the decade he also lived in New York and near Nashville, Tennessee, regularly returning to Montreal and, when possible, Hydra, for visits. Ever restless, Cohen has lived a number of places; in the 1980’s and early 1990’s he largely divided his time between Los Angeles and Montreal.
In 1961, with the publication of The Spice-Box of Earth, Cohen had his first popular success. He effectively captured the prevailing attitude of the time, and The Spice-Box of Earth is considered by many to be one of the most popular...
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Summary of the Work
A short summary, entitled The Argument, is presented by Milton as a preface to each of the 12 books of Paradise Lost. In the first book, he announces the subject of the poem, Man's disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise. The poem opens in the midst of things, after the war in Heaven but before the fall of Adam and Eve. Satan and his multitude of angels have been cast out of Heaven and into the Deep for rebelling against God and are chained on the burning lake in Hell. Satan awakens his legions of angels, comforting them in their dejected state by offering them hope of reclaiming Heaven. He recounts an old prophecy he has heard, while still in Heaven, of another world that will be created with a new kind of creature called Man. Satan calls a council in his newly erected palace, Pandemonium, to decide whether to wage another war on Heaven. After a lengthy debate, the council finally decides to send Satan to search for God's new creation instead. He flies toward the gates of Hell which are guarded by Sin and Death. They open the gates and Satan meets Chaos who directs him to the new world.
Seeing Satan flying toward Earth, God points him out to the Son, prophesying that Satan will tempt Man to sin. God demonstrates his justice by declaring his divine grace to Man, however, only if someone will offer himself as a ransom for his sin. The Son volunteers and is praised by the angels in Heaven. Meanwhile, Satan has travelled through the Limbo of Vanity and reached the orb of the sun. He quickly disguises himself as a Cherub before he asks Uriel for directions to Earth.
On Earth, Satan disguises himself as a water bird in the Tree of Life where he overlooks the beauty of Adam and Eve in their blissful state. Later that night, Satan is caught at Eve's ear, tempting her in a dream, and he flies from the Garden. In the morning, Eve relates her disturbing dream to Adam.
Raphael is sent by God to caution Adam about the evil that is lurking in Paradise. After dining, Raphael engages Adam in a long conversation, reminding him of his obedience to God though he has been given free choice. Raphael informs Adam of the war in Heaven and the victory of the Son who drove Satan and his legions over the wall of Heaven and into the Deep. The Son was later sent by God to perform the work of creation in six days. Taking his leave, Raphael again cautions Adam to beware of God's command.
Returning to Paradise by night, Satan enters the body of the sleeping serpent. The next day, Eve innocently suggests to Adam that they work in separate areas of the Garden. Remembering Raphael's warning, Adam refuses at first but finally consents. Left alone, Eve is approached and flattered by the Serpent. He tells her his human speech and understanding were brought about by tasting of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. He slowly convinces Eve to eat this same fruit. Although pleased with the taste and the exhilarating feeling, Eve approaches Adam with some reluctance. She convinces him to taste the fruit, and the effects are quickly felt, prompting them to cover their nakedness and blame each other for the sinful deed.
The guardian angels ascend to Heaven, and the Son is sent to judge the sinful pair. Out of pity, he also clothes them. In anticipation of their future appearance on Earth, Sin and Death build a broad highway over Chaos to make Earth more accessible. Satan returns to Pandemonium where he is greeted with a hiss from the fallen angels now transformed into serpents.
On Earth, Adam and Eve lament their fallen state. To avoid the curse that they have brought upon future generations, Eve considers taking her life, but Adam gives her hope that the promised Messiah, their seed, will avenge Satan by overcoming Death. The Son intercedes for the earthly pair, presenting their prayers of repentance to God who forgives them but proclaims that they must leave Paradise. Michael is sent from Heaven to deliver the unhappy message. Grieving his loss of Paradise, Adam pleads with Michael but finally abides by God's orders. Michael leads Adam to a high hill where he engages in a lengthy prophecy of the future of all mankind. He explains the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God. Comforted by God's promise, Adam awakens Eve who has been dreaming gentle dreams that have composed her spirit. Taking each of them by the hand, Michael leads them out of Paradise, guarded by the Cherubim and ushered by God's blazing sword.
The Life and Work of John Milton
John Milton left a rich legacy of English poetry and prose comprised of sonnets, lyric and epic poems, and controversial political and social pamphlets defending divorce, freedom of the press, and the Puritan cause. He was born in London on December 9, 1608. Though his father had been disinherited for transferring his allegiance from the Catholic to the Protestant church, he had made a substantial fortune as a scrivener and had also dabbled in money lending. As a talented musician, perhaps a professional, Milton's father would have kept company with artists and patrons alike. From early childhood the young Milton was exposed to the culturally rich atmosphere of seventeenth-century London. It is noteworthy that Shakespeare was still writing plays when Milton was born.
Recognizing their son's exceptional intellectual aptitude, his parents provided private tutors for him at an early age. In 1620, he attended St. Paul's school in London with Alexander Gill as his tutor. When he was 17, Milton entered Christ's College at Cambridge. His first years at Cambridge were not as happy as they had been at St. Paul's. Milton left college in his second year after a quarrel with his tutor, William Chappel. When he returned, he was assigned to a more compatible tutor, Nathaniel Tovey. Milton took his B.A. degree from Cambridge in 1629 and his M.A. three years later.
Though it had been Milton's intention to become a clergyman, his disillusionment with the Church of England under the leadership of Archbishop Laud had led him to direct his course toward the writing of poetry instead. Following his years at Cambridge, he went to live with his parents at Horton, their newly acquired country estate, where he enjoyed a period of uninterrupted leisure. Here he devoted his time to writing poetry and studying the Greek and Latin authors.
After the death of Milton's mother, his younger brother, Christopher, moved to Horton with his new wife. Perhaps his broken solitude and the loss of his mother influenced Milton to leave the family home and travel to the European continent in 1638. His travels through France and Italy, where he met many distinguished intellectuals and literary men, proved to be 16 of the most rewarding months of his life.
Upon arrival in England in 1639, Milton established residency in London. His nine-year-old nephew, John Phillips, boarded with him, receiving private tutoring. A year later John's older brother, Edward, joined them. When several other boarders moved in for private lessons, Milton's house began to resemble a small, private boarding school.
In 1642, Milton began to compose the dramatic version of Paradise Lost based on the ancient Greek model of tragedy. That same year, Milton, now 35 years old, brought a 17-year-old bride, Mary Powell, into the scholarly atmosphere of his boarding school. Her aversion to the studious life, along with the differences in their ages and interests, resulted in an unfortunate match. After several months she went back to her parents for a visit and did not return. The Powells, a strong Royalist family, were perhaps afraid of their daughter's close association with Milton, a parliamentarian who had openly opposed the King's cause. Milton's rebuttal to his wife's desertion took the form of a series of pamphlets defending divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. Mary Powell returned to him after two years of separation. The Royalist cause had been defeated, and the Powell family needed Milton's protection. His wife and several of her family members moved in with him, resulting in noise and confusion that was not conducive to scholarly concentration.
Mary Powell bore him four children. In 1652, Milton's fortunes rapidly declined when his only son died. It was in the same year that Milton became totally blind. The following year his wife died just after the birth of his third daughter. At the age of 45, Milton, in his desolation, was a blind widower with three small children, Anne, six years old, Mary, only three, and Deborah, an infant.
After five years he married Katharine Woodcock, but the happy marriage ended when she, along with their three-month-old son, died 16 months later. In 1663, he married Elizabeth Minshull, a 24-year-old woman who gave him the support and stability that had been lacking with his three grown daughters. He had sought their help as readers and amanuenses in his work, but they had, without his knowledge, attempted to sell his books and other possessions.
Milton died on November 8, 1674, from a sudden attack of gout or rheumatism. He was buried in St. Giles Cripplegate near his father. Elizabeth Minshull lived to cherish his memory, providing biographers with valuable information about his final years.
Estimated Reading Time
Milton's epic poetry is laced with classical and biblical allusions, and his language is elevated with a distinct departure from common speech. For an adequate understanding of the poem, it is, therefore, necessary to pay special attention to the difficult words and phrases and the allusions that are translated at the bottom of most texts of Paradise Lost. During the first reading, the 12 book, 282-page epic poem should be read for an understanding of the plot only. In this case, it can be read in approximately seven hours. After the initial reading, the poem should be read more carefully, making repeated use of a good dictionary and the glossary of the text to clarify the archaic language and Latinisms that frequently appear in Milton's verse. The second reading would probably take a little more than 12 hours for the entire epic poem, allowing about an hour for each book. Since the books vary from 15 to 34 pages, the reading time will not be the same for each book. | <urn:uuid:4a10254e-4bb8-4af2-9775-7389f7529561> | {
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Appearance vs. Reality
Critics have long noted a dichotomy between appearance and reality in Shakespeare's plays. Many of these works depend on the power of language and rhetoric to corrupt the truth, or on the fallibility of human perception: Iago deceives Othello, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth hallucinate, and the real and mythical worlds of A Midsummer Night's Dream intersect in a self-aware theatrical performance. Such dichotomies have been important touchstones in critical discussions of Shakespeare's oeuvre. Modern critics contend that Shakespeare delved deeply into the reflexive effect of language on the shaping of reality.
Commentators have also explored the ramifications of Shakespeare's plays as originally performed, considering the Elizabethan period and theatrical conventions. For example, the fact of male actors playing female characters, sometimes disguised as males, renders problematic issues of sexual identity and the nature of gender. Such role-playing also brings into question the nature of power and social status—whether power and status are dictated by a natural order or are discursively constructed. Shakespeare's plays thus manipulate appearance and reality to advance plot and character, and also to comment on broader issues of gender and power.
M. C. Bradbrook (essay date 1952)
SOURCE: "Shakespeare and the Use of Disguise in Elizabethan Drama," in Muriel Bradbrook on Shakespeare, The Harvester Press, 1984, pp. 20-7.
[In the following essay, Bradbrook discusses the dramatic conventions that may have influenced Shakespeare's frequent use of disguise.]
Today disguise is a living part of the drama. Sir Francis Crewe of The Dog beneath The Skin, the mysterious stranger at The Cocktail Party, the intrusive little girls of Giraudoux's Electra do not bear the limited significance which naturalism and the set characters of the nineteenth century imposed. Disguise was then reduced to a subterfuge, restricted to the Scarlet Pimpernel, the hero of The Only Way or the heroine of East Lynne ('Dead! and he never called me mother!'). Ibsen and Chekhov transformed it. Those implications of self-deception and fantasy which are the stuff of A Doll's House and The Cherry Orchard lurk in a masquerade dress, or a few conjuring tricks at a ball. Yet even in its revival, disguise has not attained the manifold significance which it enjoyed in the Elizabethan theatre and which Shakespeare alone fully revealed.
A study of the subject was provided by V. O. Freeburg as long ago as 1915 and has not been superseded (Disguise Plots in Elizabethan Drama, Columbia University Press, New York). Dr Freeburg's conception of disguise belongs, however, to the nineteenth century: 'Dramatic disguise … means a change of personal appearance which leads to mistaken identity. There is a double test, change and confusion.' He eliminates the mere confusion of The Comedy of Errors and the substitution of Mariana for Isabella in Measure for Measure, where, as in the similar situation of All's Well, Shakespeare himself actually uses the word:
So disguise shall, by the disguised,
Pay with falsehood false exacting,
And perform an old contracting.
Only in this disguise I think't no sin
To cosen him that would unjustly win.
I should prefer to define disguise as the substitution, overlaying or metamorphosis of dramatic identity, whereby one character sustains two roles. This may involve deliberate or involuntary masquerade, mistaken or concealed identity, madness or possession. Disguise ranges from the simple fun of the quick-change artist (The Blind Beggar of Alexandria) to the antic disposition of Edgar or Hamlet: it may need a cloak and false beard, or it may be better translated for the modern age by such terms as 'alternating personality'.
Dr Freeburg distinguishes five main types of disguise, all of which Shakespeare employs. These are the girl-page (Julia, Rosalind, Viola, Imogen), the boy-bride (Taming of the Shrew and The Merry Wives), the rogue in a variety of disguises (Autolycus) the spy in disguise (Vincentio) and the lover in disguise (Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew). All go back to classical comedy, and except for the girl-pages they do not represent important aspects for Shakespeare. The boy-bride and the rogue are bound to lead to farce, and are handled better by Johnson in Epicoene, Every Man In His Humour and The Alchemist.
For the Elizabethans, 'disguise' still retained its primary sense of strange apparel, and 'disguising' was still the name for amateur plays. In Jonson's Masque of Augurs one player uses 'disguised' in the slang sense (to be drunk, as in Antony and Cleopatra, II vii 131) and is told 'Disguise was the old English word for a masque'. But it also carried the senses of 'concealment', and of 'deformity' ('Here in this bush disguised will I stand'; 'Her cheeks with chaps and wrinkles were disguised') from which the transition was easy to 'dissembling' ('disguise not with me in words'). The word thus retained a strong literal meaning yet also carried moral implications.
Disguise, I see thou art an wickedness
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much
says Viola, in the accents of Malvolio. New Guise and Nowadays, the tempters of Mankind, had been named from a dislike both of innovations and of that elaboration of dress which was so feelingly denounced by moralists from Chaucer to Tourneur.
The two archetypes were the disguise of the serpent and the disguise of the Incarnation. The devil's power of deceit furnished plots for many moralities. In Medwall's Nature, in Republica and in Skelton's Magnifycence, the vices take the virtues' names: in the last, Counterfeit Countenance becomes Good Demeanance, Crafty Conveyance becomes Sure Surveyance, Courtly Abusion becomes Lusty Pleasure and Cloaked Collusion becomes Sober Sadness. The two fools, Fancy and Folly, become Largesse and Conceit. The very names of such vices as Ambidexter and Hardy-dardy signify their power to juggle with appearance as they juggle with words. Slippery speech belongs with disguise:
Thus like the formal Vice, Iniquity,
I moralize two meanings in one word.
Both are combined in the great figure of the Marlovian Mephistopheles, disguised as a Franciscan friar. It is this tradition which lends such strength to Shakespeare's concept of the false appearance or seeming. There is no direct disguise in Angelo, Claudius, Iago, Iachimo or Wolsey, but an assumed personality. Miss Spurgeon has shown the force of the image of borrowed robes in Macbeth. The witches' invocation, recalling an important passage from Spenser on the fall of man, first states the theme: 'Fair is foul and foul is fair.' Lady Macbeth counsels her husband to look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it. Macbeth himself speaks of 'making our faces vizards to our hearts, / Disguising what they are.' The clearest dramatic presentation of the theme occurs when the porter of Hell gate assumes a role which is no more than the mere truth. Here direct and planned concealment stirs pity and terror less than the disguise which is rooted in poetry and action, and perhaps not outwardly signified at all.
The diabolical villains, Richard III, Iago and the rest were, of course, not derived from any single original. Conscienceless Machievels such as Barabas, and Lorenzo of The Spanish Tragedy were behind them, as well as the Father of Lies; yet Donne's Ignatius his Conclave may serve as evidence that the old diabolism and new Machievellianism were linked in the popular mind.
Opposing infernal deceit was the heavenly humility of the Incarnation. The ruler of the world, concealed in humble garb, ministering to the needy, and secretly controlling every event is reflected in the disguised rulers (God's vicegerants), who wander among their subjects, living with them, and in the end distributing rewards and punishments in a judgement scene. Heavenly disguise enables Vincentio to test the virtue of his subjects, Henry to learn the secrets of his soldiers' feelings before Agincourt. Each of these roles has a long stage ancestry, but Shakespeare has strengthened the force of the disguise, which is in each case his own addition to the play. Measure for Measure contains a number of pronouncements upon disguising, and a wide variety of instances. The bride and the condemned prisoner have each their substitutes, 'Death's great disguiser', as the supposed Franciscan says to the Provost. Lucio, a direct descendant of the old Vice is 'uncased' in his own act of 'uncasing' the Duke. This is Shakespeare's fullest study of disguise.
Disguises generally mean a drop in social status (except in farce) and in comical histories came a whole series of rulers who wooed milkmaids, learnt home-truths from honest countrymen, stood a buffet with their subjects and finally revealed themselves with all graciousness. The exploits of King Edward in Georgea-Greene, King Edward IV in Heywood's play, and King Henry VIII in When You See Me You Know Me foreshadow Henry V's jest with Williams. These jovial revellers seem related to the stories of Robin Hood and the King: Robin himself appears in some of the plays. Noble wooers in disguise often played a rustic part (as in Friar Bacon, Mucidorus, The Shoemakers ' Holiday and Fair Em), and in his wooing, King Henry V again slips back into a rustic role, which, though it is not a disguise, is certainly an assumed part, and recalls such popular songs as:
To marry I would have thy consent,
But faith I never could compliment;
I can say nought but 'Hoy, gee ho!'
Words that belong to the cart and the plough.
Oh, say, my Joan, will not that do?
I cannot come every day to woo.
In the old chronicle play of King Leir, France wooed Cordella in such disguise. In his adaptation of this story, Shakespeare used another old tradition, that of the disguised protector. The tenderness and devotion of Kent to Lear, and Edgar to Gloucester are however but faintly suggested by Flowerdale of The London Prodigal or Friscobaldo of The Honest Whore, who in the guise of servants tend their erring children. In these plays, the disguise is comic as well as pathetic; yet the father who pities his children, like the husband who pities and succours his erring wife, must have had a biblical origin, and Shakespeare recalled this old tradition to its first significance.
Different aspects of the same disguise could be played upon (even Kent has his moments of comedy) because there was an 'open' or unresolved view of individuality behind Elizabethan character-drawing, which corresponded to the open use of words in Elizabethan poetry. Fixed denotation, which is encouraged by a standardised spelling and pronunciation, a dictionary definition, and controlling prose usage was still unknown. The great keywords had a radiant nimbus of association; they were charged with life, so that a writer could allow their significance to reverberate through a whole play. The meaning of poetry is not to be extracted but to be explored; and the creative uses of the pun, as illustrated in recent articles in this journal, are analogous to the use of multiple personality or disguise. Characters are fluid, and the role may vary from a specific or strictly individual one to something nearer the function of the Greek chorus. The antic disposition of Hamlet, or Edgar as Poor Tom, create an extra dimension for these plays as well as giving depth and fullness to the parts. Hamlet's coarseness and Edgar's wildness are parts of themselves, but they are more than merely that. Madness is a protective ruse, deriving in part at least from the disguise of Hieronimo, and of Antonio's disguise as a fool in Marston's Antonio's Revenge. Through this mask Hamlet penetrates the disguises of Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Claudius. Edgar as madman has something of the insight of
the eternal eye
That sees through flesh and all.
The revengers, Hamlet and Vindice, have x-ray eyesight; their double roles of revenger and commentator correspond to the antinomy of their characters. Here again there is an easy gradation from the chronic to the individual. The Revenger was also both good and evil; for revenge was deadly sin, yet also the inevitable result of the greater sins which the hero so pitilessly anatomised. Such double roles had not only a verbal correspondence in the pun but a structural parallel in the 'shadowing' of mainplot by subplot, most fully developed in King Lear. As Poor Tom, Edgar describes as his own the sins of Oswald and Edmund: his sinister disguise helps finally to turn the wits of the old king: he talks of the devils that inhabit him, till at Dover Cliff they are exorcised; finally he appears vizarded, the unknown challenger who executes a just vengeance, and forgives his dying enemy.
The Elizabethan theatre included a wide range of representation. Ghosts, spirits and visions appeared, or could even be used as disguise (as in The Atheist's Tragedy, where the hero dresses as a ghost). The appearance of Caesar's or Banquo's ghost also adds an extra dimension to the dramatist's world. Unearthly and almost unbearably poignant is Paulina's revival of the ghostly Hermione from dead marble to flesh and blood:
I'll fill your grave up: stir, nay come away,
To death bequeath your numbness, for from
Dear life redeems you.
Leontes has but three words 'Oh, she's warm', and Hermione, save to Perdita, has none. It is the dream of all bereaved, handled with a sureness and delicacy that could come only from long mastery. In his last plays, Shakespeare makes disguise an essentially poetic conception, and varies the level of it more subtly than ever before. It is necessary only to think of Imogen, her brothers and Belarius, Posthumus as the poor soldier, Cloten in Posthumus' garments, the false seeming of the Queen and the vision of the ghosts and the gods; or of Perdita's contrast with Florizel, both of them with the more conventional muffling of his father and Camillo, and the many disguises of Autolycus. Perdita is seemingly a shepherdess, pranked up as a goddess for the May sports: Florizel is obscured as a swain. As they dance together, the disguised Camillo says:
He tells her something
That makes her blood look out: good sooth,
The queen of curds and cream.
Truly it is royal blood that rises, even as Florizel's youth shows 'the true blood which fairly peeps through it.' Here the threefold meaning of 'blood'—passion, descent, blushing—corresponds with the complex function of the disguises. Like those of Imogen and her brothers, they isolate the innocence and truth of the young, they are vestures of humility which disclose true worth; and yet they give the action a masque- or pageant-like quality which sets it apart from the rest of the play. In The Tempest, the varying of shapes belongs principally to Ariel, to Prospero, who can go invisible, and to the spirits of the masques. Yet Ferdinand and Miranda are in some sense obscured, and the anti-masque of Trinculo and Stephano with their frippery adds at least a further visual pattern.
The physical basis of disguise remained indeed of great importance. When the actors were so well known to the audience, it must have been easy for the spectators, like the playwright, to translate 'Enter Dogberry and Verges' into 'Enter Kempe and Cowley'. Costumes had to produce the stage atmosphere now given by scenery, lighting and make-up, and changes of costume must therefore have been valuable. Apparel was not thought of as concealing but as revealing the personality of the wearer. 'The apparel oft proclaims the man', and some of the most bitter and prolonged religious quarrelling of the age centred in the Vestarian controversy. Sumptuous clothing was a subject for satirists both off and on the stage; the Puritans attacked the theatre with the plea, based on the Mosaic injunction that for a man to put on the garments of a woman was an abomination. Hence there could be no such thing as a mere physical transformation. As the body revealed the soul, so appearance should reveal the truth of identity. A character could be really changed by the assumption of a disguise. The modern woman who restores her self-confidence with an expensive hat, the soldier who salutes the Queen's Commission and not the drunkard who happens to be wearing its insignia act in a manner familiar to Elizabethans. Hence Prospero's discarding of his magic robe symbolised most adequately his transformation from Magician back to Duke of Milan.
Such deepened power of guise and disguise did not prevent Shakespeare from using it in a practical and even thoroughly stagey fashion upon other occasions. His earliest plays are full of disguisings of a superficial kind: the complexities emerge in The Merchant of Venice, where he builds up a scale of contrast between Jessica's purely formal disguise, Nerissa's imitative one, and the significant robing of Portia. Viola's disguise, complicated by her likeness to her twin, is also contrasted with the literal disguise of Malvolio in yellow stockings and cross garters, and with the clown's assumption of Sir Thopas's part. Shakespeare on occasion used all the conventional tricks, as in The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives, or Margaret's disguise as Hero, which leads to Claudio's pretended unmasking of the false semblant in the church scene, and to the final comedy of the masks.
The girl-pages, who would perhaps occur most readily to the mind as Shakespeare's favourite line in disguise, were already familiar from earlier narrative and drama. In comedy, there is less open characterisation than in tragedy: instead, the roles become stereotyped, based on sets of 'characteristics'. When the heroine is disguised as a boy, her two roles may be sharply contrasted, giving an effect as of shot silk, as the boyish wit or the feminine sensibility predominates. Shakespeare allows some very stagey jests, such as the broad farce of Viola's duel with Sir Andrew: yet such parts as hers, with their obvious advantages for the boy-actors, also allowed Shakespeare to depict the relationship of men and women with a new ease and frankness. Rosalind enjoys her disguise and frankly exploits its possibilities, but even the most demure of the heroines is given a chance by indirection to find directions out. In spite of the clear contrast between appearance and reality, the disguised heroines owe the peculiar delicacy and felicity of their depiction largely to masquerade.
This particular convention remained popular, long after Shakespeare's day; Fletcher, in Bellario and Aspatia, drew a new and sophisticated version. Bellario's true sex is not revealed till the end, though by this time any theatrical page might be assumed to be a woman in disguise. In the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 'breeches parts' were as popular with the actresses as they had been with the boys, and from the stage they re-entered the Romantic poem. Sir Walter Scott has two such characters, one the heroine of The Lord of the Isles, the other in Harold the Dauntless, where an utterly incredible Viking is attended for years by a devoted page, whose sex is finally revealed to the imperceptive warrior by no less a personage then Odin himself.
The deeper implications of disguise, however, did not long survive Shakespeare's day. Writers of today have rediscovered its possibilities for tragedy as well as comedy, and are no longer limited to the presuppositions governing Charley's Aunt, Vice Versa, or even The Happy Hypocrite. Yet the triple flexibility of language, characters and plotting which give the Elizabethans so strong and delicate a weapon belongs to them alone. Only occasionally in lyric verse, as in Yeats's sequence of The Three Bushes—where the old trick of Measure for Measure, the false bride, is put to new uses—disguise provides a statement of philosophic themes. The antithesis of Body and Soul, even of the One and the Many is symbolised in this folk story, written in ballad style and set to a popular tune. (Yeats's source, however, is actually a Provençal tenzon, which he may have learnt of from Ezra Pound; hence the mixture of courtly love convention with reminiscences of Fair Margaret and Sweet William.)
It may be that Shakespeare too drew some of his inspiration from popular literature, especially from ballads, where disguises of all kinds are of primary importance, both for comedy and for tragedy. Whilst disguise has been used in the drama, the pathos and depth of feeling in the ballads, dramatic in form as many of them are, far exceeds that of the pre-Shakespearean stage in general. Tom a Bedlam, Hind Horn, Fair Annie may have been the seed-plots for Edgar, Hamlet and Imogen, as the Robin Hood ballads were for the comical history plays. Shakespeare turned to the popular ballad in moments of deepest pathos for Ophelia and Desdemona, he turned to old wives' tales and riddles for the visionary horror of Macbeth and the visionary beauty of The Winter's Tale, as many times he drew his purest poetry from the diction of common life.
Nancy K. Hayles (essay date 1979)
SOURCE: "Sexual Disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night," in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearian Study and Production, Vol. 32, 1979, pp. 63-72.
[In the following essay, Hayles compares Shakespeare's use of sexual disguise in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, concluding that his use of the device progressed from investigating the ramifications of role-playing to questioning the very nature of sex and gender.]
In dealing with the female page disguise in Renaissance drama, one is invariably struck by the complexity of the double sex reversal implied by the presence of the boy actor. Lamb's remarks are typical: 'What an odd double confusion it must have made, to see a boy play a woman playing a man: one cannot disentangle the perplexity without some violence to the imagination.'1 Perhaps because most of us share Lamb's perplexity, not much work has been done on the subject2 other than a general acknowledgement that the device is both interesting and complex. Recently, however, sexual disguise has begun to attract attention from feminist critics because it seems to offer a way to combine Shakespearian criticism with contemporary social concerns.3 Although more work is needed, and welcome, on this complex dramatic device, the tendency to regard it solely in terms of social and sexual roles seems to me misguided. While some aspects of the disguise are common to all the plays in which it appears, its dramatic function is shaped by the particular design of each play; and the differences are fully as important as the similarities in understanding the complexity of the device in Shakespeare's hands. In fact, Shakespeare's use of sexual disguise shows a definite progression: whereas in the early plays he uses it to explore the implications of sexual role-playing, in the later plays he seems increasingly interested in the metaphysical implications of the disguise, using it as a means to investigate, and eventually resolve, the disparity between appearance and essence. Although a study of all five plays that use sexual disguise is outside the scope of this essay, I hope to demonstrate the nature of the progression by comparing the use of the sexual disguise in As You Like It with its use in Twelfth Night.4 The purpose of this essay is therefore not only to draw general conclusions about the nature of Shakespearian sexual...
(The entire section is 9732 words.)
Alex Aronson (essay date 1970)
SOURCE: "Shakespeare and the Ocular Proof," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. XXI, No. 4, Autumn, 1970, pp. 411-29.
[In the following essay, Aronson surveys Shakespeare's plays and concludes that "the choice between the eye and the mind, between the ocular proof and spiritual awareness which Shakespeare's characters are compelled to make, is of the very essence of his tragic vision."]
If there is any psychological validity in Blake's dictum—"As a man is, so he sees"—and if it is true not only of the ordinary man, for instance the reader of Shakespeare's plays and the spectator in the...
(The entire section is 28014 words.)
Susan Baker (essay date 1992)
SOURCE: "Personating Persons: Rethinking Shakespearean Disguises," in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 3, Fall, 1992, pp. 303-16.
[In the following essay, Baker discusses Shakespeare's treatment of rank and power in terms of his characters ' changing personages, concluding that the grounds of power remain fixed within a natural hierarchy.]
I want to borrow an old word and its inflections. Shakespeare's contemporaries used the verb personate for the theatrical activity we designate as acting a part or creating a role, and this obsolete word has at least two advantages over those in current...
(The entire section is 20606 words.)
Ewbank, Inga-Stina. "Shakespeare's Liars." In British Academy Shakespeare Lectures 1980-89, pp. 85-116. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Examines Shakespeare's commentary on the simultaneous power of language to communicate and disguise intentions, to mislead, and to betray.
Howard, Jean E. "Cross-Dressing, the Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England." Shakespeare Quarterly XXXIX, No. 4 (Winter 1988): 418-40.
Explores attempts in Renaissance England to bolster a disintegrating hierarchy of gender and a "normative social order," considering Shakespeare's comedies to be conservative approaches to gender and class issues....
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Entity modelling is saying what is and doing so purposefully. It is a particular formal technique for the representation of conceptual models; its practioners represent types of entity as labelled boxes and relationships as annotated connections between boxes. There is no standard notation - different authors use different diagramming styles and models are variously known as entity models, entity-relationship (ER) models or entity relationship attribute (ERA) models. This site promotes a notation that is a refinement of the Barker-Ellis notation.
Entity modelling is said to be an abstract way to describe a database (more specifically the structure of a database), and so it is, but its utility goes further than this as discussed here. | <urn:uuid:a961b540-cb9a-411d-8508-d701ffc85114> | {
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Predicting Economic Costs
Predicting the influence of global climate change on the world’s economy requires computer modeling. These models incorporate at least a rudimentary global climate model or general circulation model (GCM).
GCMs vary in methodologies (e.g., finite differences versus spectral transforms) and assume different scenarios about future human greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. A1FI versus B1). This variation in climate futures, added to the complexities of market economics and governmental fiscal policies, results in a broad range of possibilities.
Nordhaus Versus Stern
In 1999, William Nordhaus (William D. Nordhaus, born 1941, is the Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University) published; an economic analysis of global climate change that he prophetically entitled “Requiem for Kyoto.” He reached the following conclusions.
1. Costs of implementing strong mitigation measures such as the Kyoto Protocol (an international agreement reached in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan to address the problems of climate change) would exceed their benefits by between $1.1 trillion; and $2.2 trillion (in year 2007 $U.S.).
2. Strong mitigation policies, in comparison to business-as-usual policies, would decrease damages from climate change by only 6%.
3. Strong mitigation policies would have dire economic consequences because they would reduce global GDP (gross domestic product) by 6%.
4. The United States would bear almost two-thirds of the costs of the Kyoto Protocol but enjoy only a small portion of the benefits. People who oppose greater U.S. participation in international efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions commonly cite this.
Economic damages from potential temperatures anticipated during this century in the analyses of Stern and Nordhaus in 1999 (blue and green lines in the Nordhaus analyses represent two methods of weighting impacts). After Stern 2007.
Six years later, the British government commissioned Nicholas Stern (Lord Nicholas H. Stern,is the Patel Chair at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the former chief economist of the World Bank) to review the same issue. His report, the Stern Review, made the following points.
1. The benefits of implementing strong mitigation policies would exceed their costs by about $2.5 trillion (in year 2007 $U.S.).
2. A business-as-usual policy would increase the risk of accelerated economic damages from climate change and would diminish global GDP by at least 4%.
3. The expenses for stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere would amount to only about 1% of global GDP and would not inhibit future economic growth. Advocates for greater international efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions regularly cite this study.
It is somewhat disconcerting that two eminent economists who use similar tools and who live on the same planet should reach such divergent conclusions. But despite their divergent conclusions, Nordhaus’s and Stern’s analyses differ in only a few aspects. One of these—is their choice of discount rate.
Nordhaus assumes that low income countries have a discount rate of nearly 6% and that high-income countries have an initial rate of 3%, which declines linearly to 2.3% by 2100 and to 1.4% by 2300 (Nordhaus and Boyer 1999). In contrast, Stern assumes a discount rate that starts just above 3% but lowers exponentially to 1.4% by 2100. Economists most commonly name 2% as an appropriate long-term discount rate for projects to mitigate potential global climate change; therefore, Nordhaus chooses a higher discount rate and Stern a lower discount rate than most economists. The sensitivity of the world’s GDP (gross domestic product) to average global temperature is similar in the Nordhaus and Stern analyses. Nordhaus, however, selects a single temperature value for the year 2100, 2.8°C warmer, whereas Stern uses a range of values, 1.5° to 4.5°C warmer for the year 2100. Consequently, global warming decreases global GDP by about 2% in the Nordhaus analysis and by as much as 4% in the Stern analysis.
Total abatement costs (year 2000 $USD) to maintain atmospheric CO2 levels at 450 ppm with and without explicit technological change, derived from the computer model in the Stern Review. After Alberth and Hope 2007.
Another difference between Nordhaus and Stern is their treatment of technical change. Research and development incur costs today but yield benefits in the future; therefore, Stern’s lower discount rate encourages research and development and thereby accelerates technological change. Moreover, Nordhaus does not explicitly account for the influence of market forces on the rate of technological change, whereas Stern does. Total abatement costs for maintaining atmospheric CO2 concentrations at a certain level are initially higher in an economic model that incorporates technological change versus one that does not, but technological change significantly decreases these costs in the longer term.
Mendelsohn, R., W. Morrison, M. E. Schlesinger, and N. G. Andronova (2000) Countryspecific market impacts of climate change. Climatic Change 45:553-569.
Nordhaus, W. D. and J. G. Boyer (1999) Requiem for Kyoto: an assessment of the economics of the Kyoto Protocol The Energy Journal Special Issue:93-130.
Stern, N. H. (2007) The Economics of Climate Change: the Stern Review, Great Britain Treasury, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm.
This is an excerpt from the book Global Climate Change: Convergence of Disciplines by Dr. Arnold J. Bloom and taken from UCVerse of the University of California.
©2010 Sinauer Associates and UC Regents | <urn:uuid:de9b9d6e-4c73-40ab-b6f5-06e05fd5336c> | {
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Green Landscaping: Greenacres
Natural Landscaping Tool Kit
THE NATURAL LANDSCAPING ALTERNATIVE:
An Annotated Slide Collection - Slide 1
THE NATURAL LANDSCAPING ALTERNATIVE: Natural landscaping, often called native landscaping or even beneficial landscaping, emphasizes the use of native plants and natural materials in landscaping. These natural landscaping techniques have numerous advantages over conventional turf grass lawns and highly engineered site management techniques.
Natural landscaping is based upon natural attributes and natural processes which result in: (1) reduced landscape installation and maintenance costs; (2) avoidance of the use of lawn chemicals such as fertilizers and herbicides; (3) reduced or eliminated costs for irrigation systems; (4) improved habitat and increased biodiversity; (5) distinctive and attractive sites; (6) improved water quality and reduced damages from stormwater; (7) improved outdoor recreation and education opportunities; and (8) strengthened stewardship of the environment by people. | <urn:uuid:af7a2067-ea9e-402f-aa1a-6cff8763e1d3> | {
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Experts believe that more than half of human cancers may be preventable. Diet, as well as tobacco use, infections, and chemicals or hormones are thought to be major risk factors that can be changed. However, there is still little agreement over which dietary changes can prevent most cancers.
Fiber and cancer; Cancer and fiber; Nitrates and cancer; Cancer and nitrates
DIET AND CERTAIN CANCERS
Diet and breast cancer: Although a high-fat diet has been studied as a cause of breast cancer, no clear evidence has been found. A high-fat diet may promote breast cancer by causing the body to release more of certain hormones.
Det and prostate cancer: Because prostate cancer appears to be more common with a Western lifestyle, diet has been closely studied as a risk. However, results have not led to a clear answer:
Fats. Some studies have linked prostate cancer to a high-fat diet, especially including red meat and high-fat dairy products.
Vegetables and fruits. A diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and legumes appears to protect against prostate cancer. This may be because these foods are low in fat. No one vegetable or fruit has been proven to decrease the risk. Lycopene, which is found in tomatoes, has been investigated, but the evidence that it protects against prostate cancer has not been proven.
Vitamins and minerals. Major studies have found that vitamin and mineral supplements (vitamin E, vitamin C, vitamin D, and selenium) do not prevent prostate cancer.
Calcium. A high intake of calcium has been linked to an increased risk for prostate cancer in some studies.
Diet and colon or rectal cancer:
A diet high in red and processed meats increases the risk for colorectal cancer. Diets high in fruits and vegetables appear to reduce the risk.
Several major studies have found that eating a lot of high-fiber foods protects against colorectal cancer, but other studies show little benefit.
It is also not clear whether a lack of certain vitamins, such as folic acid (a type of B vitamin), could increase the risk for colorectal cancer. Recent studies have shown that taking folic acid supplements does not lower the risk of getting colorectal cancer, and that supplements appear to increase the risk for polyps.
Diet and stomach or esophageal cancer: Countries in which people eat a lot of salt-cured, smoked, and nitrite-cured foods have a high rate of cancer of the stomach and esophagus. Examples of such foods include bacon, ham, hot dogs, and salt-cured fish.
The best advice is to eat a well-balanced diet and avoid focusing on one "cancer-fighting" food.
Choose foods and portion sizes that promote a healthy weight.
Choose whole grains instead of refined grain products to increase fiber in the diet (25 to 35 grams of fiber per day).
Eat 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
Limit processed and red meat in your diet. Only eat salted, smoked, or cured foods on occasion.
Limit alcohol to one drink per day (women who are at high risk for breast cancer should consider not drinking alcohol at all).
Choose lean cuts of beef, lamb, and pork, as well as skinless poultry and fish. Baking, broiling, poaching, and steaming are the best cooking methods. Choose skim or low-fat milk and dairy products, as well as low-fat salad dressings.
The American Cancer Society is an excellent source of information on cancer prevention. www.cancer.org
The American Dietetic Association provides sound dietary advice on a wide range of topics. www.eatright.org
The National Cancer Institute's CancerNet is a government gateway to the latest, most accurate information on cancer prevention. www.cancer.gov
United States Department of Agriculture. Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 2010. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2010.
Pierce JP, Natarajan L, Caan BJ, Parker BA, Greenberg, Flatt SW, et al. Influence of a diet very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat on prognosis following treatment for breast cancer: the Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) randomized trial. JAMA. 2007;293;289-298.
A Dahm CC, Keogh RH, Spencer EA, Greenwood DC, Key TJ, Fentiman IS, et al. Dietary fiber and colorectal cancer risk: a nested case-control study using food diaries. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2010;102:614-626.
Larsson SC, Orsini N, Wolk A. Vitamin B6 and risk of colorectal cancer: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. JAMA. 2010;303:1077-1083.
Gaziano JM, Glynn RJ, Christen WG, Kurth T, Belanger C, MacFadyen J, et al. Vitamins E and C in the prevention of prostate and total cancer in men: the Physicians' Health Study II randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2009;301:52-62.
Kushi LH, et al. American Cancer Society guidelines on nutrition and physical activity for cancer prevention: reducing the risk of cancer with healthy food choices and physical activity. CA Cancer J Clin. 2006;56:254-281.
Zell JA, Meyskens FL. Cancer prevention, screening, and early detection. In: Abeloff MD, Armitage JO, Niederhuber JE, et al. Abeloff's Clinical Oncology. 4th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Churchill Livingstone; 2008:chap 26.
Alison Evert, MS, RD, CDE, Nutritionist, University of Washington Medical Center Diabetes Care Center, Seattle, Washington. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc. | <urn:uuid:bf7e1467-4657-4f25-9003-84bf06e70634> | {
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Contact: Daniel Stolte
University of Arizona
Caption: This graphic shows the sun-like star, PZ Tel A and its brown dwarf companion, PZ Tel B. The vast majority of light from PZ Tel A has been removed from this image using specialized image analysis techniques. For size comparison, the size of Neptune's orbit is shown; PZ Tel B is one of few brown dwarfs imaged at a distance closer than 30 Astronomical Units from its parent star. It travels around its star at a closer distance than Uranus revolves around our sun.
Credit: Image provided by Beth Biller and the Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign
Usage Restrictions: Usage right granted only in conjunction with reporting/posting of the news release,
Related news release: Brown dwarf found orbiting a young sun-like star | <urn:uuid:1670945d-9ae8-4a88-ab21-d32ff3f41339> | {
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A new study determined that children and adolescents with seizures involving the temporal lobe are likely to have clinically significant behavioral problems and psychiatric illness, especially depression. Findings published in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), highlight the importance of routine psychiatric evaluation for pediatric epilepsy patients—particularly for those who do not respond to anti-seizure medications and require epilepsy surgery.
Current medical evidence indicates that mental illness occurs in up to 40% of pediatric epilepsy patients, with depression, anxiety, attention issues and learning difficulties being the most common psychiatric conditions in children. Furthermore, a 2009 study of adult surgical patients found that depression was associated with seizures in the temporal lobe—a common focus for surgically treated epilepsy according to Sanchez-Gistau et al.1 However, such evidence is not well established in pediatric patients and is the focus of the present study.
"Our research examined whether psychiatric illness was more prominent in children who were unresponsive to anti-seizure medications and had seizures in the temporal lobe versus elsewhere in the brain," explains lead study author, Dr. Jay Salpekar with Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "In children who do not respond to drug therapy, epilepsy surgery may be the only option to improve their quality of life. Understanding the pediatric patients' mental health status is important, as the severity of psychiatric illness may impact the overall risk-benefit of epilepsy surgery."
For the current study, researchers reviewed case records for 40 children between the ages of 6 and 17, who did not respond to anti-seizure medications. Patients were given pre-surgical psychiatric evaluations and their parents completed the Child Behavioral Checklist (CBCL). The seizure location and suitability for surgical procedures were confirmed by epilepsy specialists.
The investigators found that this pediatric patient group had psychiatric and behavioral problems well beyond what is typically reported in children with chronic epilepsy. Nearly 80% of participants had significant psychiatric symptoms—far greater than the 20%-40% prevalence of mental illness generally found in chronic pediatric epilepsy. Furthermore, children with seizures suspected to be localized in the temporal lobe were more likely to have depression symptoms and more significant behavioral issues reported by parents compared to children with seizures in other brain regions.
Dr. Salpekar concludes, "Given that psychiatric illness, particularly depression, is so prominent in those with temporal lobe seizures, routine psychiatric evaluation appears to be important not only for adults, but also for children and adolescents prior to epilepsy surgery. In fact, it may be beneficial for most patients with medically refractory epilepsy to have a psychiatric assessment, regardless of seizure localization, to improve quality of life." Future studies are needed to investigate the variables associated with mental illness outcomes in patients following epilepsy surgery.
1 Sanchez-Gistau V, Pintor L, Sugranyes G, Bailles E, Carreno M, Donaire A, Boget T, Setoain X, Bargallo N, Rumia J. (2009) Prevalence of interictal psychiatric disorders in patients with refractory temporal and extratemporal lobe epilepsy in Spain. A comparative study. Epilepsia.
This study is published in Epilepsia. Media wishing to receive a PDF of the article may contact [email protected].
Full citation: "Psychiatric Symptoms in Children Prior to Epilepsy Surgery Differ According to Suspected Seizure Focus."Jay A. Salpekar, Madison M. Berl, Kathryn Havens, Sandra Cushner-Weinstein, Joan A. Conry, Phillip L. Pearl, Amanda L. Yaun and William D. Gaillard. Epilepsia; Published Online: May 10, 2013 (DOI: 10.1111/epi.12205).
URL Upon Publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/epi.12205
Author Contact: Media wishing to speak with Dr. Salpekar may contact Paula Darte with Children's National Medical Center at [email protected].
About the Journal
Epilepsia is the leading, most authoritative source for current clinical and research results on all aspects of epilepsy. As the journal of the International League Against Epilepsy, subscribers every month will review scientific evidence and clinical methodology in: clinical neurology, neurophysiology, molecular biology, neuroimaging, neurochemistry, neurosurgery, pharmacology, neuroepidemiology, and therapeutic trials. For more information, please visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1528-1167.
About the International League Against Epilepsy
The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) is the world's preeminent association of physicians and health professionals working toward a world where no person's life is limited by epilepsy. Since 1909 the ILAE has provided educational and research resources that are essential in understanding, diagnosing and treating persons with epilepsy. The ILAE supports health professionals, patients, and their care providers, governments, and the general public worldwide by advancing knowledge of epilepsy.
Wiley is a global provider of content-enabled solutions that improve outcomes in research, education, and professional practice. Our core businesses produce scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly journals, reference works, books, database services, and advertising; professional books, subscription products, certification and training services and online applications; and education content and services including integrated online teaching and learning resources for undergraduate and graduate students and lifelong learners.
Founded in 1807, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE: JWa, JWb), has been a valued source of information and understanding for more than 200 years, helping people around the world meet their needs and fulfill their aspirations. Wiley and its acquired companies have published the works of more than 450 Nobel laureates in all categories: Literature, Economics, Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Peace. Wiley's global headquarters are located in Hoboken, New Jersey, with operations in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia. The Company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system. | <urn:uuid:da3538ad-d6b9-491c-a19e-210f0d73a25d> | {
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Greater and Lesser Tunb
Greater and Lesser Tunb, disputed islands, E Persian Gulf. Greater Tunb is approximately 6 sq mi (10 sq km) in area; Lesser Tunb, some 7 mi (11 km) to the west, about 1 sq mi (2 sq km). Located close to the shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz, the islands were held by the kings of Hormuz (1330–1507) and then were administered by the Portuguese until 1622. The Persians held them until 1904, when they nominally passed to Sharjah and then Ras al-Khaimah, British-protected sheikdoms that later became part of the United Arab Emirates. In 1971 Iran seized the Tunbs along with the island of Abu Musa; the ownership of the islands remains disputed between Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:a593d040-5382-41dd-9bf2-5b508b2f22ed> | {
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Samoa, chain of volcanic islands in the South Pacific, comprising the independent nation of Samoa (formerly Western Samoa), and E of long. 171° W, the islands of American Samoa, under U.S. control. The Samoan islands extend c.350 mi (560 km), with a total land area of c.1,200 sq mi (3,110 sq km), and lie midway between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Sydney, Australia. The major islands are volcanic and mountainous and are surrounded by coral reefs. Soil in the interior is rocky; most cultivation takes place along the coast. Temperatures range from 90°F (32.2°C) in December, the hottest month, to 75°F (23.9°C) in August; the annual rainfall is 190 in. (483 cm), with the rainy season occurring between December and March.
The natives are Polynesians who may have arrived in the islands as early as 1000 B.C. From Samoa they swept out across the Pacific (c.A.D. 1200), carrying Polynesian civilization to innumerable other islands. The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen was the first European to visit (1722) Samoa. Subsequent European expansion into the islands led to disorder and violence, which was compounded by tribal warfare. The first European missionaries arrived in 1830. Between 1847 and 1861, the United States, Great Britain, and Germany sent representatives to Samoa, and in 1878 the United States and the Samoan kingdom signed a treaty giving the United States certain trade privileges and the right to establish a naval station at Pago Pago. Germany and Great Britain were accorded similar privileges in 1879. A tripartite treaty in 1899 between Great Britain, the United States, and Germany recognized U.S. interests east of long. 171°W; Germany was granted the western islands, and Great Britain withdrew from the area in consideration of rights in Tonga and the Solomon Islands. New Zealand seized the German islands in 1914 during World War I and received a mandate to administer them from the League of Nations in 1920. In 1946 they became a UN trust territory held by New Zealand. In 1962 the independent nation of Western Samoa was created from the New Zealand territory; it was renamed in 1997. The eastern islands remained under U.S. control. Since 2011, when Samoa moved to the west side of the international date line to align its days with Australia and New Zealand, the two Samoas have been on different sides of the date line.
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What we do
In Scandinavia, hundreds of thousands computers are being discarded each year. Computers are thrown away because they are not fast enough, or do not have enough disk space etc. We exchange them for new computers, because we would rather have a computer that is faster, more modern, and has up to date features and functions - rarely because the old computer is broken! In developing countries, institutions such as schools, universities and hospitals, have a great need for IT in order to join the global information community, and enjoy its many benefits. Information technologies are an important prerequisite for the development and sustainability of democracy, education and health-care.
What is the digital divide?
Through IT and the Internet new ways of telling stories, exchanging information, and accessing opportunities has become a natural part of our everyday life. But what about those that are not connected to the Internet or do not speak English or other major languages? These people are denied access to the information and opportunities that could give them a chance at a better life Young people in developing countries face a number of obstacles, not all of which can be overcome through IT. But being connected to the global information community is a vital first step.
FAIR is working to bridge the digital divide between countries that are technically more developed and those that are technically disadvantaged. Schools in recipient countries are provided with integrated and effective computer solutions for use in IT classes - based on open source software and reused hardware, which otherwise would have been discarded and destroyed during recycling.
Humanitarian and environmental effort.
FAIR is the only Scandinavian organisation that certifies that equipment will be reused in developing countries before it breaks down. The certification can be granted to public institutions, private companies, and organisations, etc.
Beyond the immediate humanitarian gains from the reuse of IT hardware, FAIR's solution also gives an environmental benefit. According to the UN, each time a PC is reused, 20% less CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere than when the equipment is directly recycled. This is because production of IT hardware is very energy intensive. Through the FAIR-backed scheme, we make sure that the equipment we send to developing countries does not end up in local landfills, where working conditions are poor and the process damages the environment. Instead we strive to support the development of safe and environment friendly recycling plants in Africa.
At the price of DKK 50, you can be a member of FAIR Denmark. As a member you support our work economically as well as symbolically.Read more / create membership
You have a responsibility for your IT equipment. Make sure it has a good future.
IT equipment is produced on top of an enormous comsumption of resources. If you replace something, you should make sure it continues to be used and utilized.How to hand in >
|July 2014:||Missionpharma A/S|
|June 2014:||Trans Nordic Tours|
|December 2013:||Oslo Kunsthøgskole| | <urn:uuid:f5449a66-f820-47b5-82cb-9481093a66c5> | {
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This week’s theme for Discover & Explore is Forests. Last year we learned about forests and did a T is for Trees series. One of the activities we enjoyed most was our easy tree snack. It was a fun way to learn about the parts of a tree, encourage creativity, and have a healthy snack.
When I saw delicious sweet yellow tomatoes at the grocery store, I knew my little tomato-lovers would like some. Sitting next to the red cherry tomatoes, I immediately thought of fall and our tasty tree snack. So we made a this easy fall tree snack with red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, and pretzels. I also invited the girls to make their own pictures like we did before, but they were so eager to nibble that we didn’t get very far with the creations this time. Maybe next time!
Now it’s your turn. We’d love for you to share how you
Discover & Explore: Forests
Please read the following guidelines for sharing:
- Share family-friendly posts related to the weekly topic — kids activities, book activities, crafts, recipes, nature outings, free printables–anything that might be helpful to those wanting to put together activities based on this week’s theme.
- By linking up, you are giving me permission to share your post including one photo in our weekly feature post and on social media channels.
- Visit 2-3 other posts that have linked up, find some new ideas & meet new friends!
The linky will remain open for one week. On Fridays all co-hosts will feature activities in a separate post and share featured posts on the Discover and Explore Pinterest Board.
Don’t forget to visit the other co-hosts to see what they are sharing for this week’s theme.
Upcoming Discover and Explore Themes
- September 11–Fall
- September 18–Five Senses
- September 25–Pumpkins
- October 2–Community Helpers
This post has been shared at some of these fantastic link parties. | <urn:uuid:e0355e75-d6db-4c45-8cbc-d36ac6afb282> | {
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Alexander Bain: Electrochemical telegraph
Fax machines. Who cares, right? Believe it or not, the fax machine is still alive and well and a viable device even in 2012. Perhaps even more interesting is that the fax machine dates back to 1843, when Edinburgh-based inventor Alexander Bain (who also patented the electric clock) demonstrated his electrochemical telegraph.
Bain (Image source: Wikipedia)
Keep in mind that Samuel Morse in 1843 was still building the first telegraph line between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and that few commercial telegraph lines were up in Europe.
The concept of the fax machine is pretty easy to work out: the transmitting machine scans a black and white image and sends an electrical signal indicating whether the part of the image it's currently scanning is black or white. A scanner on the receiving end, synchronized with the transmitting scanner, marks the paper according to the signal sent.
"Bain used a pendulum at the transmitter to provide an even scan across the image, with the image being moved forward by a small amount after each swing of the pendulum," writes Andrew Wheen in Dot-Dash to Dot.Com. "The image to be transmitted was copied to a sheet of copper and the white areas were etched away, leaving the black areas of the image standing proud of the surface. As the pendulum swung across the copper sheet, it completed an electrical circuit whenever it made electrical contact with one of these raised areas, and an electrical signal was sent down the line to the receiver.
A sketch of Bain's electrochemical telegraph. (Source: DigiCam History)
"At the receiver, an identical pendulum scanned across a sheet of paper soaked in potassium iodide, with the end of the pendulum making electrical contact with the paper. Whenever current flowed in the circuit, it caused a brown mark to appear on the paper. Since electromagnets were used to synchronize the transmit and receive pendulums, the position of each brown mark at the receiver corresponded with a raised area in the copper plate in the transmitter."
Of course, execution of the concept was not so easy. Bain's electrochemical telegraph remained an experimental project, and his patent for an improved version was not accepted as Frederick Bakewell had patented an "image telegraph" in 1848. Both produced poor-quality images and their transmitter and receiver devices had trouble synchronizing, so that neither were commercially viable.
Both inventions were completely outdone in 1861 by Giovanni Caselli's Pantelegraph. Caselli launched the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon when the telephone as we know it didn't yet exist.
The traditional fax machine is transforming into a newer service known as FoIP (Fax over IP), championed by Max Schroeder, senior vice president at FaxCore. Fax still has a place in the business environment, Schroeder said in a discussion at the recent IT Expo in Austin, and is a reliable way to send and receive important documents.
Most recently, TMCNet noted, New Jersey residents affected by Hurricane Sandy had the option to use FoIP to send in their votes during the presidential election, in addition to email or mail-in ballot options.
From horse and buggy to the Internet age: That's a heck of a journey for a technology first conceptualized when telegraph networks were barely off the ground.
- Alexander Bain: Electrochemical telegraph | <urn:uuid:69cb91aa-2dc3-4a54-93b2-767f57ee8e32> | {
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Ways to produce silver
I hope someone can help me out with this: for my honors chemistry class I have to research the different ways of producing silver from other substances. I know already that I can get it from silver nitrate and copper but is that the only way? or the best way? I am being graded on how much silver I can theoretically produce for the least amount of money so any information you have would be greatly appreciated. If you can't tell me exactly do you know where I can go to look it up?
Thank you very much for you help and time!Kathy C
student - Langhorne, Pennsylvania
Most silver salts can be relieved of their silver by putting a less electropositive metal into an aqueous solution of the salt, as you have suggested. However, most silver is found naturally as an ore of silver sulphide known as argentite. It is also found in conjunction with lead bearing ores such as galena. Silver is refined form these sources by numerous methods, including the cyanide extraction process, the Parkes process for desilvering lead, the Luce-Rozan process and electrolytic methods applied to the refining of lead (Betts process) and the refining of copper. Details of these processes can be found in any good extractive metallurgy book or on the internet.
R&D practical scientist
Chesham, Bucks, UK
I wish someone had given me the answers to my college questions, but you have shown real initiative in finding this site, so here goes. As I understand it the real problem is to produce silver cheaply so, unless you live over a silver mine ... Probably the most common use of silver is still in the photographic industry, although it is decreasing due to digital cameras. Light sensitive silver chloride produces the image and after developing, the unused silver is removed in the fixer. Commercial companies know this and large users reclaim the silver but you may be able to find a friendly photographer or the Xray unit at a hospital who have not yet learned this. There are many ways of getting the silver back but the cheapest is to throw in scrap iron (wire wool if you feel extravagant or nails). The iron goes into solution and the silver comes out - simple. Other methods are more efficient but can be expensive or dangerous. hope this helps.
I presently reading the Book of Enoch.
Ed. note: info about that book on Amazon =>
It's very interesting reading to say the least. It mentions that silver can be made from the dust of the earth. Is there any scientific evidence to prove this?Ruth W
Student - Jacksonville, Florida
The Book of Enoch
Contact your local newspaper and ask for a tour of their plate-making department. tell them this is for a class project and they are usually more than happy to help. newspapers and large photo shops use low current over copper or steel plates in a tank and when the photo solution is added the silver reforms on the plates. I am sure you could make a sample unit very cheaply and the newspaper may let you use some of their solution for the test but you will probably have to return the silver as this is a revenue source for them. you should be able to reclaim pure silver for pennies. hope this helps. merfMeroff S
- Laurel Springs, New Jersey
February 11, 2008
The standard reference for all metals is still De Re Metallica by Agricola. If you go looking for that, you want the translation by Herbert Clark Hoover.
Ed. note: info about that book on Amazon -->
But since you are not considering ores, you probably don't need that book.
amateur miner - Yuma, Arizona
Georgius Agricola De Re Metallica
October 3, 2008
I am trying to smelt/melt/extract silver from dump material from old silver mines.This contains mainly cobalt,nickel,arsenic and calcite (I've had the material assayed).
I have heated this material in a metal container in a wood fire over night to drive off the arsenic and prior to that , exposed the ore to diluted hydrochloric acid to remove the calcite.The washed and dried material was then mixed with equal parts potassium nitrate,crushed and powdered clear glass and house hold borax.This mixture was then placed in an inexpensive crucible and exposed to strong heat from a home made blast furnace (firebrick arranged to form a area that would hold charcoal brickettes and a hole for a blower to provide air)The result was a small button (I think) of silver , about 1 ounce in weight.Is there a better way to do this? More efficient or safer way.
Thanks for your help,look forward to to some replies.
Hobbyist - Ontario, Canada
July 21, 2011
sir 'I have some silver ore which containing approx 1.5% of silver content how to extrect silver matel pls help me,
- Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India | <urn:uuid:367489a2-4a5a-4cb8-9fa2-7b5cd4f66fb2> | {
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Until the last century, solid rockets provided the only means of reliable rocket propulsion. However, while SRM’s have been in use for centuries, modeling SRM performance is still a relatively new area. Specifically of interest is predicting the radiative heat transfer from an SRM plume. Current computational models are either not accurate enough or very computationally expensive. The goal is to develop a modified discrete ordinates model (DOM) to improve the accuracy of predictions while simultaneously increasing model efficiency for a given level of precision.
Liquid propellant rocket propulsion systems are tremendously efficient but do not offer the best possible thrust-to-weight ratio of current propulsion technology options. Solid propellant rockets provide tremendous thrust-to-weight, but do not use the solid fuel as efficient as liquid engines utilize liquid fuel. A hybrid propulsion system takes advantage of the best of both by using a combination of liquid and solid propellants together to form a propulsion system that is both efficient and provides tremendous thrust-to-weight ratio.
The design of spacecraft, satellites, planetary landers and their missions is becoming ever more complex and challenging. At the heart of this design process is Systems Engineering. New methods, techniques and tools that can be used for spacecraft design from a Systems Engineering perspective are being developed and tested at Florida Institute of Technology. Florida Tech researchers and students are closely teaming with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop a ‘Mission Observer CubeSat’ using the new Systems Engineering tools and techniques.
Oxygen-enriched combustion (OEC) has shown the ability to improve the fuel efficiency and power density of burner-based power systems and diesel engines. By minimizing problems with flame quenching, OEC is also expected to greatly improve the performance of MEMS-based micro-combustors needed for micro-power generation. Oxygen-enriched micro-combustors have the potential for compatibility with logistics fuels and of eliminating the need for expensive catalysts. If successful, these devices would represent a significant improvement over existing micro-combustors.
With NASA's recent emphasis on returning to the Moon, there is a growing need to understand a number of technical issues associated with the lunar environment. A rocket thruster from a landing or launching vehicle directed toward the surface could cause a crater to develop, potentially preventing a safe landing or making the site unsuitable for future vehicle operations. Dust and rock particles will be expelled at high velocities that could damage nearby equipment, structures, or the vehicle itself.
The SABOL International Space Station experiment has several important scientific elements dedicated specifically to (i) developing an improved understanding of the origin of life on our planet, (ii) increasing our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, and (iii) providing an opportunity to apply this new understanding for the betterment of h | <urn:uuid:00ae137e-ce12-4321-8b80-3cd2a39a641e> | {
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Resource: Case studies
Humphrey Perkins High School in Leicestershire says visits to Manor Farm Long Whatton have increased self-esteem, underpinned the school’s approach to Year 7 skills-based learning, and helped broaden the curriculum on the whole. Deputy Head Joy Clapham, Head of Humanities Kate Hopkinson and pupils at the school, Jess and Dan, talk us through the benefits of the school’s strong farm link.
Describe your farm link – which students have got involved and how have you built it into your school year?
Taking learning beyond school with our visits to Manor Farm Long Whatton has simply been transforming. Pictures and pupil feedback highlight the wonder and enjoyment of seeing another side of life: getting to know a farming family, adopting and naming a calf (now called Manor Farm Keisha), preparing and making fresh bread, sharing knowledge of landscapes and habitats. Memorable learning is learning for life and delivering a lamb last week will be unforgettable.
The farm visits have underpinned our approach to Year 7 mentoring and skills-based learning for 2010-11. Every Wednesday, for six weeks in autumn and spring, a mentor group spend the morning on the farm. On Thursdays, groups create their farm presentation and blog, with small groups of pupils sharing the news with every other mentor group before the next farm visit. In doing so, the pupils experience farming cycles as they happen on the farm. Prior to a visit, pupils review their own risk assessment and help to plan the day.
(Joy Clapham, Deputy Head)
What has your experience of the farm been – what hands-on activities have you got involved with and how have the students reacted?
Students have enjoyed grinding wheat to make flour. The opportunity to make bread themselves was a fascinating learning experience. Understanding the process from start to finish, and making the link between growing wheat and making bread, has helped them understand the importance of food provenance. All the pupils have enjoyed coming back to school with warm bread, with the Manor Farm staff working flat out to make sure the bread was out the oven by the time we were due to leave!
During the spring visits pupils got to watch lambing and were given the opportunity to handle the lambs, helping to pen together sheep with their new born lambs. This experience has developed the students’ understanding of where food comes from and how farming contributes to the landscape, deepening their sense of local history. It has inspired many of the pupils to visit more farms, and Manor Farm’s shop. Students have learnt that organic food tastes great and is healthier.
(Kate Hopkinson, Head of Humanities and farm-visits organiser)
Are there certain students who have especially benefited from the experience – how has it affected them and their behaviour?
The farm visits have provided pupils with a voice. Skills-based and creative learning can be seen to transform relationships and behaviour. The farming experience is a great leveller. There is nothing like walking through mud to remind you of who you are. It has demanded concentration and new skills from pupils. We have seen “a third dimension” of engagement and reflection that has increased the self esteem and contributions from pupils who may in other settings be marginalised. Pupil voice has been heard internationally as people engage with us on our blog.
Has there been a highlight or an especially memorable moment on the farm?
Each group has enjoyed bringing warm fresh bread back into school. A stand out moment for Beacon 3 was the opportunity to see lambs being delivered. One child even had the privilege of delivering a lamb herself, an opportunity she will never forget. The whole group came back smiling after witnessing the joy of new life.
Jess says: "The lambing was very exciting and educational. It taught us important lessons about the cycle of life as we saw lambs being born and one dying."
How have the farm visits made a difference to your school?
The farm visits are an important example of transformational learning at Humphreys. World class learning demands free thinking and intelligent solutions. We consider it part of our whole school approach to healthy living and life skills. Our farm visit is a valuable trigger for wider thinking about the curriculum, underpinning our approaches to skills-based learning in Humanities, Food and Personal Development. We expect this to gather momentum in year two. It has been important to have full commitment to the farm visit initiative at every level of school life. For example all staff have been expected to staff the trip.
Have you got to know the farmer?
Graeme has been really helpful, explaining carefully and answering students’ questions. His enthusiasm and sense of humour has encouraged everyone to get involved and enjoy visiting the farm. Our students all agree that Graeme can really talk to the students on their level and that he understands them.
Dan says "Graeme was really funny, and taught us so much in a way that we can easily understand"
What (if any) have the challenges been with the farm visits?
The only challenge I can think of was trying to find enough first aid trained staff to come on the trips. It would be helpful if the staff at the farm had a first aid certificate. Without the funding from the Food for Life partnership it would have been difficult for the school to absorb the cost of the transport.
What has been the best thing about the visits for you as a teacher?
The visits to Manor Farm have enabled the students to make the link between the food on their plate and the countryside. A growing interest in food provenance has encouraged our pupils to make healthy choices. Our students enjoy the opportunity to witness crops grow and watch farm animals kept in a humane way. Many of us are looking forward to visiting the farm shop to buy locally sourced and organic produce. It has inspired students to develop their understanding of the countryside. Students who struggle in an academic environment have blossomed on the farm and enjoyed the space and freedom it offers.
The farm visits have many cross curricular links: it directly feeds into our Year 7 Humanities lessons on “Healthy Living”; it links to RE lessons on animal cruelty and farming methods. It develops our students understanding of food and food production in Design Technology food modules. It fosters self esteem and confidence. Students have developed communication skills, through the sharing of ideas in their presentations to other mentor groups and the blog on the school website.
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Syria’s past – as well as its present - is being threatened, says Robert Fisk in The Independent. We also discover pictures of a long-awaited Mars landing. And what better way to celebrate Jamaican independence than to see Usain Bolt win a gold medal at the Olympics – even if Jamaicans had to worry about a tropical storm interrupting TV coverage.
The death toll in Syria is reported to be nearing 20,000. The papers report on the ongoing carnage. But the Independent’s Robert Fisk also asks how the more than 1,000 years of heritage will be affected – crusader castles, the citadel of al Mudiq, and the Roman mosaics of Apamea. The past must be protected, he says, so future generations may learn to avoid such bloodshed in the future.
It has landed! Mars Science Laboratory, known as Curiosity, took eight months to travel 567 million kms to Mars. The Atlantic says the dune buggy with tools,’ including two cameras – one that fires lasers into rocks to find out what they’re made of.
Today is the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence. Global Post reports on the tropical storm that made it tricky for Jamaicans to watch Usain Bolt win the Olympic gold in the 100-metre race.
And Time magazine interviews Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who explains why she thinks it’s time to become a republic, and see off the Queen. | <urn:uuid:66b33374-2c7a-424a-950d-87b8d67e6dc6> | {
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Making Compost (cont)
By: National Gardening Association Editors
Compost Pile Maintenance
In about two weeks, bacteria in the pile will have reduced much of the material in the center of the pile to compost and caused it to heat up. The pile now needs to be turned to be aerated and complete the process for materials on the outside of the pile. Depending on your setup, you can turn the material into an adjacent bin or turn it within the bin itself. Commercial tumbling composters available through garden centers or catalogs, make this process easier by putting a drum or container on some kind of turning device.
The turned pile should be watered so it's moist, but not soggy. Ideally it will heat up again finishing the composting process in another week or two. Any remaining large stalks, branches, or vegetables can be recomposted.
When the compost is done, it can be turned into garden or sifted through a screen of hardware cloth and used in containers. Your finished compost also makes a great tea. Making compost tea is an easy way to receive many of the benefits of compost without having to haul the heavy materials to the garden. You can make the tea by soaking a sack of finished compost in a barrel of water for 2 to 3 hours. To really juice up the tea, consider aerating the compost. By adding oxygen more microbes will be produced that will make for better quality tea and better plant growth. Dilute the tea with water and apply as needed. | <urn:uuid:dfd47692-3d11-46da-891f-1cecc1a78641> | {
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The Warring States era, also known as the Sengoku era, was an extended period of civil war in Japan fought between numerous factions. This period of history was launched by the Ōnin War, which began in 1467 and lasted ten years. The war was sparked by disagreement over who would succeed Yoshimasa Ashikaga as shogun; Yoshimasa's brother Yoshimi, or son Yoshihisa. The war devastated the capital of Kyoto, and the fighting eventually spread throughout the country, leading numerous warlords to seek conquest for control of the land.
Nobunaga's Ambition and the Period's End
In 1560, Nobunaga Oda began a dramatic rise to power. After besting Yoshimoto Imagawa and his army at the battle of Okehazama, he set forth on a path of conquest. Over the following two decades, he seized control of most of the country. However, in 1582, he was assassinated by his own officer Mitsuhide Akechi in a coup. Akechi was swiftly defeated by Hideyoshi Hashiba (later Hideyoshi Toyotomi).
With the Oda clan head dead, war broke out between Hideyoshi and fellow Oda retainer Ieyasu Tokugawa. The two fought for control of Nobunaga's legacy, with Hideyoshi eventually winning out. Hideyoshi managed to finish what Nobunaga started and unified all of Japan, but because he was born a commoner, couldn't take the title of Shogun.
Following Hideyoshi's death in 1598, a split once again formed between those loyal to the Toyotomi and those that backed Tokugawa. In 1600, two armies clashed at the Battle of Sekigahara, with the Toyotomi-supporting western army led by Mitsunari Ishida and Ieyasu's eastern army. The eastern army claimed victory, and Ieyasu Tokugawa became shogun, leading to a stable government that remained in place until the Meiji Restoration began in 1868.
In Video Games
Because of its place in the history of Japan, the Warring States era serves as a popular video game setting. The historical figures and battles of the era have often been portrayed in games such as the Nobunaga's Ambition series, Kessen, and Samurai Warriors, as well as western-developed titles such as Shogun: Total War and its sequel. | <urn:uuid:f447dd54-5057-4a71-950c-16f4995a6484> | {
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What are Transfer Switches?
Transfer switches transfer electrical power back and forth between two or more power systems or buses such as a utility power line and a backupgenerator. They are used in applications that require a backup power source where loss of power could cause problems.
Some transfer switches allow switching from a primary to a secondary, or even a tertiary power source. Others are used to switch from a regular power source to a temporary generator.
How a Transfer Switch Works
A transfer switch can be a simple switch that is operated by a person or can be complex and include sensors and controllers. In addition to the switching of the power, some transfer switches can command a backup generator to turn on when the main power fails, and will likewise shut-off a generator and reconnect to the main utility source once it reestablishes power.
Types of transfer switches include open transition, closed transition, and static. Open transition switches are the most common, and operate by breaking contact with one power source before switching to another. Closed transition switches operate by switching to another power source before switching off the first, and are important for processes that cannot tolerate any momentary loss of power; this also requires the power sources to be synchronized. Static switches use power semiconductors to transfer load between sources. Because they require no mechanical parts, they are inherently faster but are also more complex in design.
Selecting transfer switches requires the buyer to consider the electrical specifications, the mounting style, the control type, and various features of the switch. This guide is designed to help buyers with this process.
The primary considerations when selecting a switch are the electrical specifications which must be matched for the system they are working with. Specifications include current ratings, voltage ratings, poles, and phases.
- Maximum current rating is the maximum nominal or nameplate current capacity of the switching device. Higher ratings are given to switches designed to be able to operate with higher currents.
|Design Tip: If you are unsure of the required current rating, it is better to over specify than to under-design the switch|
- Maximum AC voltage rating refers to the maximum AC voltage capacity of the device. Higher ratings are given to switches designed to be able to operate with higher AC voltages. Most systems operate at standard voltages such as 120V or 230V
- Number of poles designates the number of poles the device can switch.
- Phase is the number of AC voltages a switch distributes. A single-phase system will distribute a single AC voltage. A three-phase system will distribute three AC voltages that are 120° out of phase with each other.
A transfer switch must be designed to be correctly mounted in order for it to physically fit the system. Mounting styles include ground, pole, rack, wall, and submersible.
- Ground mounted switches are designed to be mounted or installed from the floor. They permit a variety of bushing orientations for single-sided access or for separate components.
- Pole mounted switches are mounted onto a pole or tower
- Rack mounted switches are designed to mount on an equipment rack
- Wall mounted switches are intended to be mounted on a wall or other flat, vertically oriented surfaces.
Determining a type of control is another part of the selection process. Depending on the type of process, a switch might be controlled manually, automatically, or with a SCADA system.
- Manual switches are regulated by physical control requiring an operator. It is used for systems in which control and predictability cannot be easily programmed or automated or where fast switching is not required. Manual switches tend to be the least expensive type of transfer switch.
- Automatic switches rely on some processes to be controlled automatically without requiring an operator. Automated switches are often used with automatic standby generators that use single-phase or three-phase power and standard voltages during fail over.
- Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) switches are used to control distributed systems from one master location. This allows for safe, convenient, and efficient operation of more involved systems that need to be coordinated.
Certain switch features may be important to consider when selecting the right transfer switch for a specific application or system.
- Wiping contacts are designed so that the sliding of contacts over one another results in contact cleaning. Because of this they are self-cleaning and usually low resistance. However, wiping action does result in mechanical wear. This type of contact is good for switches that only see occasional use.
- High inrush current switches are capable of handling a high inrush current, which is the maximum input current resulting from turning on an electrical device. This type may be required when a number of devices with high starting currents like HVAC equipment and motors are being powered.
- Locking devices have a locking mechanism that requires a key to operate the switching functions. This prevents unauthorized or accidental tampering of the switch functions.
- Dustproof construction includes features such as seals to increase resistance to dust.
- Weather and water resistance devices include features such as hermetical sealing against moisture to prevent environment-related damages.
Various certifications including CE and CSA are also included as features of certain products. | <urn:uuid:78ae301e-4567-4e02-ac08-6fafd64e1dcd> | {
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To get out of Info, back to what you were doing before, type q
for Quit. This runs
Info-exit in Emacs.
This is the end of the basic course on using Info. You have learned how to move in an Info document, and how to follow menus and cross references. This makes you ready for reading manuals top to bottom, as new users should do when they learn a new package.
Another set of Info commands is useful when you need to find something quickly in a manual—that is, when you need to use a manual as a reference rather than as a tutorial. We urge you to learn these search commands as well. If you want to do that now, follow this cross reference to Advanced.
Yet another set of commands are meant for experienced users; you can find them by looking in the Directory node for documentation on Info. Finding them will be a good exercise in using Info in the usual manner.
>> Type d to go to the Info directory node; then type mInfo and Return, to get to the node about Info and see what other help is available. | <urn:uuid:85d3cbd1-c482-4e27-8b82-dce28b3ec6c4> | {
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The output will be Name, presuming you correct your quote characters. The line,
while(*p2++ = *p1++);
will check to see if the assignment of *p1 to *p2 is non-zero. On the first operation if will be non-zero (it will be 'N'). It will then increment p1 and p2 to the next location and do it again. This will continue until it assigns the terminating 0, then it will exit. Thus, the contents pointed to by p1 are copied to the area pointed to by p2.
This is the sort of thing you should compile and test. You would have learned two things: not to use balanced quote characters, and what the program would output. | <urn:uuid:6956b81b-bc64-4e2e-8198-cf7b1b39d2e6> | {
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India's food-grains production has hovered around a fifth of a billion tonnes mark in recent years. More than self-sufficient, India frequently exports its surpluses. India in 55 years has emerged from famine ridden colonial times, as a famine free Republic. Its population has nearly tripled in that period. More significantly, India in 1947,lost some of its most fertile lands. But she has managed to stand up and falsify many prophesies of doom. India was the greatest success story of the Green Revolution. Although today her agriculture is at a cross-roads again, the Green Revolution of the sixties gained some crucial decades for India in which to rethink her way forward. The Revolution is also worth remembering for India's capacity for collective action. Pause a while therefore, before you decry India's administration for every ill in the land.
If the shame of the German Reich was the Holocaust, the British Empire --the Reich's great adversary-- matched it with the Bengal Famine. Both occurred around the same time and the scores were about even: 3 million dead in each. As a consequence of heartlessness and inept governance, the Great Famine of 1943-44 has no equal. Heavily taxed and left to themselves and the monsoons, India's farmers began the forties with falling, failing crops. The 'war effort' meant seizure of farm produce, banning of grain trade and turning the gaze away from the countryside. Result was, destitute folk began to arrive in Kolkata looking for food. Fearing that declaring an official famine would mandate supplying food diverted from its armed forces, the Empire simply let people die in the streets. And then within three years, with the war won, the British upped and left a traumatised, dismembered India.
The young nation was the object of much mockery world-wide. "Starving millions" was the phrase flung at it for an identity. Though the Indian farmer was back plying his heartache trade, shortages recurred. India was a massive importer, the tonnage peaking at 10 million in 1966. Humiliation was heaped upon it in a book : "Famine 1975" [Paddock and Paddock, 1965]. The authors predicted that by 1975 Indians would die in their millions. They suggested that the world turn its attention away from this hopeless land. Thomas Malthus probably concurred from his grave. Many nations of course helped, notably the USA with its massive PL-480 programme. The Indian government gamely coped with the times. It was a decade of much hardship and morale sapping pessimism.
The tide turns:
The story of how what came to be called the Green Revolution began is an exciting one. The story's moral is that hope is always buried within tragedy. Shortly after the Bengal Famine, MacArthur's victorious US army marched into Japan. In the huge occupation force was S. Cecil Salmon of the US Agricultural Research Service [ARS]. Many initiatives were being considered for rebuilding Japan. Salmon was focused on agriculture and that was how he chanced upon the legendary Norin strain of wheat that was to trigger the Revolution. Norin was a dwarf variety with little foliage and a heavy head of grain. Salmon sent this to the US for further study. In Washington State University at Pullman, a team under Orville Vogel researched the dwarf wheat. They bred many prototypes and finally created in 1959 the Gaines dwarf. It had been 13 long years of experimentation. Norman Borlaug --that icon of the Green Revolution-- picked up Gaines and crossed it with Mexico's best varieties at the International Maize and Wheat Research Centre there. He had the magic bullet -- he waited to unleash the Revolution.
By the 1960's India was desperate for a breakthrough. The nation's self-confidence was at an ebb. The Chinese had delivered a military lesson. Nehru was aging. Political uncertainty loomed. Food crises were endemic. Total food production hung around about 50 million tonnes. Marginal increases were only through bringing more land area under cultivation and not through increases in productivity. Food reserves were nil. India was just about meeting its deficit with imports. Clearly a quantum leap was needed.
It was then that India discovered Borlaug and the Norin dwarf. A small field at Pusa was seeded and the results were dramatic. It was what India had been waiting for. What then followed was a display of commitment and implementation that has stood to inspire India in many other fields. It is a milestone to cherish. Though the Green Revolution was a worldwide phenomenon its most successful revolutionaries were India's political leadership, bureaucrats, scientists and of course the farmers.
What it took:
Once Borlaug and India were convinced that they had a solution, the realisation of what needed to be done dawned. It was a formidable task. But India had its men in place. Of the ones that are easily named are C. Subramaniam, B. P. Pal and M.S.Swaminathan. In the end however, literally millions of Indians were active parts of the Revolution.
C. Subramaniam was in 1965, the Union Minister for Agriculture. He had trudged a long road, as a Gandhi devotee, freedom fighter and as a member of India's Constituent Assembly. Most of all he was a modern mind and a man of action. Swaminathan was an entirely home-grown plant genetist of repute. He emerged as Subramaniam's able lieutenant. In 1996, Subramaniam took the politically bold decision of importing 18,000 tonnes of the dwarf wheat seeds of the Lerma Rojo 64A and Sonora 64 variety.
The induction of an agricultural technology is not a mere question of buying seeds. Conducive policies and delivery systems have to exist. Subramaniam piloted the necessary reforms. To disseminate information Krishi Vigyan Kendras, model farms and district block development offices were put in place. Seed farms were developed. To augment research the Indian Council for Agricultural Research [ICAR] was reorganised. As the dwarf variety was chemicals and fertiliser intensive new industrial units were licenced. To encourage two crops a year and monsoon-independence, irrigation canals and deep water wells were created. Policy was changed to assure guaranteed prices and markets. Food stock storages were created.
The results were not long to come. Land under active cultivation began to grow from 1.9 million hectares [mHa] in 1960 to 15.5mHa , 43mHa and 64mHa . As for the Paddocks' prophesied demise of India in 1975 well, it didn't happen: India weighed in that year with over 110 million tonnes of food grains.
|Food grain production [mT]||50.8||82.0||108.4||129.6||176.4||201.8 |
|Food grain import [mT]||4.8||10.4||7.5||0.8||0.3||- |
|Buffer stock [mT]||-||2.0||-||15.5||20.8||40.0 |
|Population [m]||361||439||548||683||846||1000 |
It is also well to remember that India continued its own adaptive research on high yielding varieties [HYV]. The Revolution was not about just importing seeds. At the Indian Agricultural Research Institute [IARI], Benjamin Peary Pal developed the New Pusa 809, a hardy Indian wheat variety. A genial man who did his doctorate at Cambridge in 1933, B.P.Pal is easily the father of post-modern research in India's agriculture. He was a painter, a rose fancier and a patron of arts. He built a large team, groomed many scientists and extended the HYV research in crops other than wheat. Indian Council for Agricultural Research [ICAR] of which he was the first Director General, proceeded to synthesise and broadcast many HYV seeds like Pusa Sonara, Malavika, Kalyan Sona. Many of these are popular today in Pakistan, other SAARC countries, Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria.
The success was not agriculture's alone. There were many spin-offs. Infrastructure improved. With increasing production India paid back all her loans on time; this increased its standing in the world. Vast employment opportunities opened up. Demand for consumer and industrial goods were triggered. Science-mindedness --and mechanics!-- sprouted everywhere. Amazed by the doughty farmers of Punjab and Haryana --the real real heroes of the Revolution-- Canada came wooing them to settle and farm its lands. Indians came to esteem themselves better. India had shaken off her colonial hang-over and defied the mould assigned for her.
The next road:
So let us say, "Long live the Revolution!" Why? Is it dying? No, but no Revolution is permanent. We began by observing that 'hope is always buried in tragedy'. Maybe strife in return arrives with success. The Green Revolution has thrown up its own set of problems. There has been a toll on soil fertility. The HYVs call for heavy dosages of chemicals -- fertilisers and pesticides. Prolonged use of these has depleted our soils and poisoned our environment. The once thrifty farmer has become a profligate user of power and water. Also because this form of agriculture is capital intensive, it is the farmer of means who most benefits from it. Therefore, while India's food problem may have been solved, not so the hunger problem of its poor. The profits of the Revolution have not spread evenly in society and the poor have little means to buy the huge stocks with the government. Worst of all yields are beginning to fall. We may have basked for too long in the glow of the Revolution.
So, India is at a cross-roads again. Which road is it to take. A tempting sign points to transgenic crops, also known as genetically modified [GM] crops. These are promoted as being the spear-heads of the next Green Revolution. They are said to need fewer inputs, display greater immunity to pests and yield high. But there are many sober voices that dispute these claims. Their views too are justified because in the past, multi-national companies have hastily jumped in to reap their profits with dubious products leaving the farmer to harvest sorrow. Objective scientific assessment of the claims made for GM crops is not yet complete. So the time may not be ripe yet to induct these promising technologies.
The more sensible road to take is the one to eco-sensitive farming. India needs to reevaluate proven, ancient ways of harmoniously maintaining soil fertility. Dependance on chemicals has to be minmised. Esteem for carefully selected native strains has to be encouraged if the small farmer is to be freed from malevolent seed companies. Conservation and optimal use of water is an important issue. Most of all, agricultural pricing and market policies need to be reviewed to favour the small farmer. There are signs of an emerging awareness all around. Many farmers in Kerala and Karnataka are turning to organic farming on a large scale. Most significantly Swaminathan, that star of the Green Revolution is today an advocate of 'sustainable agriculture'.
So let's put the Green Revolution in context again. It is undoubtedly a great Indian success story. But its unspoken mission may have been to give us a fresh breath with which to codify Indian farmers' traditional wisdom. Today technologies and Indian technologists are available -- as was not the case in the sixties-- to compile 'best practices' and disseminate them widely. It is in the nature of revolutions that they are never 'final solutions' but place-holders till the next one comes along.
One of the best summaries of Indian agriculture since the sixties is the one available from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, from which most of the statistics in this article are drawn. | <urn:uuid:f91adeb3-2300-4d03-b474-27f01b26f57e> | {
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A story in the BBC’s Science and Environmental News online reports “A new global monitoring system that promises ‘near real time’ information on deforestation around the world.” And it is just a click away.
The Global Forest Watch (GFW) backed by Google and more than 40 other entities uses information from many millions of satellite images in combination with observers on the ground to track trees. Among the mega-companies backing the endeavor are Nestle and Unilever.
In images shown with the story, Brazil looks bad with deforestation shown in pink, but there is some good to the story, too. Areas, such as the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States look pretty good with reforestation (increasing amounts of forest) shown in blue.
Businesses welcome the database because it can help prove that products are sustainable. But the data shows that many are not walking the walk but rather just talking about the problems of deforestation. “Data from Google and the University of Maryland show that the world lost 230 million hectares of trees between 2000 and 2012.” One hectare is 10,000 square meters and is the equivalent of 2.471 acres. Thus, 230 million hectares is the loss of 568.33 million acres of trees in little more than a decade. “Forest campaigners say this is the equivalent of 50 football [soccer] fields.”
It’s a drop in the forest bucket, but during the same period 800,000 square meters of new trees were planted worldwide.
The forest watch system requires big data, which it has with the cloud computing power of the Google Earth Engine. Be careful if you play with it. Clicking can be as addictive as Angry Birds and make you way more depressed because it is real. “Data on tropical rain forests as a resolution of 500 metres is updated monthly.”
Doctor Andrew Steer of the World Resources Institute (WRI) says, “From now on, the bad guys cannot hide, and the good guys will be recognized for their stewardship.” | <urn:uuid:9a29bb69-73e2-42d3-a286-e134abc44eb0> | {
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Industrial solar energy may seem like a great concept in theory. But the costs of set-up and operation have many companies shying away from the technology.
However, there’s a new company that is helping to reduce operating costs by bringing the power of robotics to the solar industry.
Today, California-based QBotix unveiled the QBotix Tracking System (QTS). The system uses rugged, intelligent and mobile robots to operate solar power plants and maximize energy output. The company says QTS increases the energy production of ground-mounted solar power plants by up to 40 percent over existing fixed mount systems. It also lowers the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) by up to 20 percent. In addition, QTS reportedly offers fast installation, has low operations and maintenance costs, and is compatible with all solar panels and mounting foundations.
Solar tracking systems increase energy production by aiming solar modules toward the sun and tracking the sun as its relative position moves during the course of the day. Conventional tracking systems are often said to be expensive, unreliable, and complex to install and maintain. They are typically large structures requiring thousands of pounds of steel and concrete.
QTS says it has re-invented the design of all solar tracking systems. QTS uses a pair of autonomous robots, one primary and one back-up. They’re designed to control 300 kW of solar panels with mind-numbing accuracy. The robots travel on a track and adjust each mounting system to optimally face the sun in succession. Ultimately, each robot replaces hundreds of individual motors and controllers found on conventional tracking systems.
“Robots have proven themselves in extreme and diverse environments from the surface of Mars to battlefields and ocean depths. We’re now deploying the innovations developed in robotics over the last several decades to manage solar power plants,” said Wasiq Bokhari, CEO and founder of QBotix. “Regardless of the choice of solar panels, inverters, foundations or other system components, the use of QTS will dramatically lower LCOE compared to all existing mounting or tracking systems.”
QTS is now available for the commercial market. | <urn:uuid:0fd7855c-1fb9-4750-8244-7bd3b2d5546e> | {
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Regina Schulte. The Village in Court: Arson, Infanticide, and Poaching in the Court Records of Upper Bavaria, 1848-1910. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. vii + 199 pp. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-43186-6.
Reviewed by Dolores L. Augustine (Department of History, St. John's University [Queens])
Published on H-German (February, 1996)
This is not a criminological study, but rather an attempt to use crime to reconstruct the mental world of the village at a time when traditional peasant culture was increasingly penetrated by the world of the bourgeoisie. It is based on court records for Upper Bavaria regarding the three most typical rural crimes: arson, infanticide and poaching (one hundred fourteen, sixty, and seventy cases, respectively, roughly from the years 1880 to 1910). The choice of this region is apparently based on the author's conviction that here was to be found "a peasantry more egalitarian and self-assured than anywhere else in Germany or in Europe" (20). The author is interested in the ways in which the bourgeois world confronted that of the peasant. The problems in using texts produced by bourgeois society to study peasant society are compounded by the bourgeois mind-set of the scholarly world. To overcome these biases, the author employs established anthropological and psychoanalytic methodologies, as well as a textual analysis that tries to uncover the "latent layers of text." Here, she searches for fragmentary insights into the unreflected, even unconscious subjective reality of the peasant world. This is the heart and soul of her study, not her superficial analysis of the "bourgeois" realm of law, government, and the courts system, which largely ignores the complex relationship between the bourgeoisie and the nobility. Her analysis of court psychiatrists and criminal psychologists as representatives of bourgeois science is somewhat more convincing, though their impact on village society remains somewhat nebulous.
Though her conclusions do not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the history of the German peasantry, Schulte certainly presents a detailed, vivid re-creation of important facets of the peasants' cultural system. Arson points to the centrality of property in peasant life, as well as to the importance of the household in the village community. Arson was generally an act of revenge, one which struck at the heart of the owner's material existence. The conflict that led to arson generally arose in the family or household (the basic unit of peasant society, consisting of the nuclear family plus farm maids and farmhands). It was a way to defend family honor, to get back at unloving parents or children, to settle scores in conflicts over inheritance, to avenge oneself against one's master, or to commit "social suicide" after the failure of a marriage. Schulte sees the psychological mechanism behind arson as essentially male, arising from the exclusion of a man from the household. Here, her psychological analysis enters the realm of speculation: "Being excluded from the circle around the fire may thus have meant not only the loss of family and household but, at a deeper psychological level, the loss of the mother and wife, the original provider of food and warmth. Perhaps most arsonists were men because unlike the women, they had no independent access to the hearth, to food and warmth, and because they had never learned, as the women had, to protect the fire"(55). Peasants greatly feared arson, and showed no sympathy with arsonists. At the same time, village society tended to brand as arsonists or potential arsonists individuals who had a reputation for laziness or thievery. These outsiders hardly had a chance to escape from a web of social exclusion; because they were feared, they were ostracized and given no work. Homeless and destitute, such individuals in fact might have stolen or committed arson to avenge themselves for their exclusion from the village community.
Schulte argues that while the quintessential male act of violence sought redress, or at least psychological relief, by seeking attention, the most typical female act of violence was committed secretly, buried in the female sphere. Infanticide was generally committed by single farm maids, who hid their pregnancy and gave birth in secret. Their motivations had little or nothing to do with bourgeois concepts of sexual morality. In fact, as is well known, illegitimate births were not considered a disgrace in Bavarian peasant society, and were quite common. Couples often married later. Maids who had illegitimate children left them in foster care or with their parents, and women who killed their newborns were often already mothers. Schulte sees the most typical case as that of the maid who was unsure about the paternity of her child or who was impregnated by a man who clearly did not intend to ever marry her. Branded a "wanton" woman, a maid's prospects for future employment were dim, and the danger of destitution quite real. Schulte does not fully explore the more brutal cases of infanticide, which seem to imply rage. These could perhaps be tied to the sometimes cruelly authoritarian structures of the peasant household (hardly explored here), and could be the outcome of rape. Schulte does relate her analysis to what we know about attitudes towards children in traditional peasant society. The high child and infant mortality rate was tied to the practice of deliberate neglect (called Engelmachen in German) as a form of what was considered to be "postnatal family planning." Nevertheless, the utter lack of emotion on the part of both the women and the witnesses as well as the women's failure to try to baptize their children before death (customary in Catholic Bavaria) are somewhat surprising.
Poaching was a centuries-old rural practice, generally condoned by village society (though subject to severe punishment imposed by outside authorities). Schulte believes that this custom reflects the collective memory of ancient peasant hunting rights, lost in early modern times, as hunting became a privilege of the aristocracy. Peasants rebelled against the concept, imbedded in law, that forests and game could be private property. Though some peasants went poaching out of hunger or to protect crops from game, prosperous farmers also poached -- out of habit rather than out of need. Illicit hunting was part of the initiation of young men into peasant society, as the author demonstrates in an analysis of numerous folk songs about poaching. Other songs, which told the story of a heroic poacher akin to Robin Hood, were paeans to peasant rebellion against outside authorities.
Schulte's study thus emphasizes the ways in which Bavarian peasant culture remained intact up until the eve of the First World War. It makes a modest contribution to the field. This readable, slim volume, originally a West German Habilitation (which first appeared in German in 1989), has been ably translated into English.
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the list discussion logs at: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.
Dolores L. Augustine. Review of Schulte, Regina, The Village in Court: Arson, Infanticide, and Poaching in the Court Records of Upper Bavaria, 1848-1910.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
Copyright © 1996 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:b9b18f9b-41ed-4843-928e-b7a14c821d72> | {
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