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Yaoshang festival in Manipuri society
Balu Thongam *
Yaoshang festival is celebrated on the full moon day of phalguna purnima and it is one of the most important festivals of Manipur. Sports festival is | Yaoshang festival in Manipuri society
Balu Thongam *
Yaoshang festival is celebrated on the full moon day of phalguna purnima and it is one of the most important festivals of Manipur. Sports festival is organized in every locality as a part of celebrating the festival since the last four to five decades. Main highlight of the festival is the Thabal Chongba (a folk dance).
The literal meaning of thabal is'moonlight' and Chongba means 'dance', thus 'dancing in the moonlight'. In earlier times, this dance was performed in the moonlight accompanied by folk songs. The only musical instrument used was a dholakar drum.
Upto the last one century, this folk dance was performed only in the moonlight. Later, lanterns were introduced in the Thabal Chongba back in 1950s. Besides dholak, even dishes and metal tubs were also used as drums during that time. 'Patromax' was also brought into use in the Thabal Chongba as a source of light.
Patromax is a brand name, for paraffin lamps that use a mantle. Paraffin is called kerosene in the USA. Thabal Chongba is a Manipuri dance where boys and girls hold hands and sing and dance. Boys wore pheijom (dhoti) and girls wore phanek (loincloth worn by female Meetei) in the Thabal Chongba.
Yaoshang festival is not just for children, but the young and old alike take delight in this joyous festival. Songs, dance, drinks, food everything goes in excess when it is time for Yaoshang. During this festival, which is celebrated for five days, children especially girls collect money/donation from every road passers.
On the first day of the festival, young boys and girls go from door to door for Nakatheng after Yaoshang Meithaba. The money collected is spent on merrymaking. Children take special delight in the festival. Colours are applied to a big bunch of friends in their locality.
Pichkaris or syringes are also used by children to drench themselves. Abeer (colour) is of different bright shades of pink, red, yellow and green. Abeer is made of small crystals or paper like chips of mica.
It is said that Holi, an ancient festival of India, existed several centuries before Christ. Holi is originally known as 'Holika'. The full moon festival of Holika gradually became a festival of merrymaking, announcing the commencement of the spring season. Holi marks the end of the winter gloom and rejoices in the bloom of the spring time. It is the best time and season to celebrate.
The famous Muslim tourist Ulbaruni has mentioned about Holikosav in his memories. Other Muslim writers of that period have mentioned, that Holikosav were not only celebrated by the Hindus but also by the Muslims. In Bengal and Orissa, Holi Purnima is also celebrated as the birthday of Cheitanya Mahaprabhu (AD 1486-1533).
However, the literal meaning of 'Holi' is 'burning'. In Manipur, Holi is celebrated as Yaoshang. Instead of a fire, a hut is built and then set ablaze. The most prominent legend to explain the meaning of 'Holi' is the legend associated with demon king Hiranyakshyap.
He wanted everybody in his kingdom to worship only him but to his great disappointment, his son, Prahlad became an ardent devotee of Lord Naarayana. Hiranyakashap commanded his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap. Holika had a boon whereby she could enter fire without any damage on herself.
However, she was not aware that the boon worked only when she enters the fire alone. As a result she paid a price for her sinister desires, while Prahlad was saved by grace of the god for his extreme devotion.
The festival, therefore, celebrates the victory of good over evil and also the triumph of devotion. Lord Krishna also started the tradition of play with colours by applying on his beloved Radha and other Gopis. Gradually, the play gained popularity with the people and became a tradition.
* Balu Thongam wrote this for The Sangai Express
This article was posted on March 19, 2011.
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Parent-Child Communication: Promoting Sexually Healthy Youth (page 3)
When young people feel unconnected to home, family, and school, they may become involved in activities that put their health at risk. However, when parents affirm the | Parent-Child Communication: Promoting Sexually Healthy Youth (page 3)
When young people feel unconnected to home, family, and school, they may become involved in activities that put their health at risk. However, when parents affirm the value of their children, young people more often develop positive, healthy attitudes about themselves. Although most adults want youth to know about abstinence, contraception, and how to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), parents often have difficulty communicating about sex. Nevertheless, positive communication between parents and children helps young people to establish individual values and make sexually healthy decisions.
Parent-Child Warmth and Communication Promote Health and Achievement.
- A major study showed that adolescents who reported feeling connected to parents and family were m |
Georgia Tech Takes Comprehensive Biofuels Approach
Interdisciplinary research initiative focuses on converting forest products
Posted September 15, 2007 | Atlanta, GA
We feel it at the pump. Fuel prices are at record highs and so is the | Georgia Tech Takes Comprehensive Biofuels Approach
Interdisciplinary research initiative focuses on converting forest products
Posted September 15, 2007 | Atlanta, GA
We feel it at the pump. Fuel prices are at record highs and so is the demand for alternative fuels. But major scientific and technological advances are still required before economically viable alternative fuels become a significant part of the U.S. energy supply.
Researchers across the Georgia Institute of Technology campus are focusing their attention on biofuels. And while most experts agree that biofuels are not the silver bullet to solve the world's long-term fuel needs, they see biofuels as a necessary complement to conventional oil and gas.
Biofuel research at Georgia Tech intensified in 2004 with the launch of the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), created to enable, facilitate and coordinate programs related to energy research and education.
"Many energy issues are truly multi-disciplinary and can't be addressed by one faculty member," says Roger Webb, interim director of the SEI. "The Strategic Energy Institute has been broadly engaging companies to define projects that many faculty members at Georgia Tech can pursue in a collaborative effort."
This interdisciplinary approach was a major reason why Chevron Corporation chose Georgia Tech as its first strategic research alliance partner, according to Rick Zalesky, vice president of the biofuels and hydrogen unit of Chevron Technology Ventures.
"Georgia Tech has the infrastructure so that researchers from various departments work together in the same building to solve complex problems, and we think that's terrific," says Zalesky.
With funding from Chevron, Atlanta startup C2 Biofuels, the Georgia Research Alliance and one of the U.S. Department of Energy's new BioEnergy Research Centers, Georgia Tech researchers are exploring advanced technologies aimed at making transportation fuels from forestry products.
Georgia Tech researchers are examining and optimizing the five major steps required to produce bioethanol, or ethanol obtained from the carbohydrates in many agricultural crops. These steps include selecting the best plant material, preparing the plants for conversion, breaking down the carbohydrates into simple sugars, fermenting the sugars into alcohol and separating the ethanol from water.
Choosing a Plant Source and Preparing It for Conversion
Bioethanol produced from corn is being manufactured at a rate of more than five billion gallons per year in the United States, but concerns exist about the future price and availability of corn as a food crop if it's being used to help meet energy needs.
Because forest products are a more efficient source of ethanol and more than five million tons of trees are available for harvest each year in Georgia beyond what is needed for pulp mill and sawmill production, Georgia Tech researchers are turning to Southern pine trees.
Switchgrass, a fast-growing tallgrass, is another attractive source of plant material because of its ability to grow in poor soil and adverse climate conditions, its rapid |
Climate and climate change
It is axiomatic that water defines a river, but it is particularly so for the Columbia River, where the unique geography and climate of the river basin contribute to the tremendous volume of annual runoff — fourth-largest in North | Climate and climate change
It is axiomatic that water defines a river, but it is particularly so for the Columbia River, where the unique geography and climate of the river basin contribute to the tremendous volume of annual runoff — fourth-largest in North America behind Mississippi, Mackenzie, and St. Lawrence. Historic precipitation patterns influence ecological processes such as the location and abundance of fish and wildlife populations, human uses of the land, and regimes of fire and flood.
The climate west of the Cascade Mountains is influenced by the proximity of the Pacific Ocean. Winters are mild, and rainfall is frequent and at times heavy. Snowfall is rare west of the Cascades except at the higher elevations of those mountains and in the Coast Range. In the low-lying areas of the Columbia and Willamette river valleys snow usually only occurs within a period of weeks in January and February. The climate east of the Cascades is markedly different, a continental climate of cold, snowy winters and warm, dry summers. The continental climate extends into British Columbia, where successive mountain ranges also catch winter storms and snowfall is frequent and heavy, but summers generally are warm and dry.
Annual precipitation varies from 45 inches in the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan area, to 100 inches or more in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge, to fewer than 8 inches in the rain shadow area immediately east of the Cascades. Most of the interior Columbia River Basin receives between 12 and about 30 inches of precipitation annually, with the exception of the Snake River Plain in southern Idaho, which is drier.
The mountain ranges within the Columbia River Basin typically receive 100 to 200 inches of snow annually; this is one reason for the Columbia’s huge annual runoff volume, which averages 192 million acre-feet. The annual spring freshet, when the snow melts and runoff peaks in the spring and early summer, historically provided the transit to the estuary and ocean for juvenile salmon and steelhead. Dams altered this flow regime by catching and holding water in reservoirs for winter power generation, thus reducing the volume and velocity of the spring flow.
Climate also affects growing seasons in the Columbia River Basin. At higher elevations, the season can last as few as 30 days. In the intermontane valleys and plateaus, however, such as the interior plateau that stretches mostly unbroken from central Washington to central Oregon, and in the comparatively damp Willamette Valley of Oregon, growing seasons are 150 to 200 days long.
Air quality in the Columbia Basin is heavily affected by wind, and the interior parts of the basin can be very windy. The average wind speed in the Columbia River Gorge, where the steep walls can act as a funnel, is 10 miles per hour. This is primarily why the Gorge has become so popular with wind surfers. Frequent and sustained winds of 20 miles per hour or faster are common. Farther to the east, in central and southeastern Washington and northern and northeastern Oregon, the fine-grained loessal soils are particularly susceptible to wind erosion, and periodic dust storms in the spring and summer can raise clouds of roiling dust that halt traffic on the inland highways. It is not unusual for eastern Washington to be blanketed with dust from spring and summer winds from the west. The frequency of sustained winds has prompted a renaissance of wind-power developments in southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. Long rows of 100 or more spinning turbines are becoming an increasingly common sight on the mostly treeless ridgetops.
Periodically the Gorge funnels wind, hot in summer and cold in winter, into the Portland/Vancouver area, the largest population center in the Columbia River Basin, with dramatic effects. In summer, the hot wind can blow temperatures to over 100 degrees F and cause a marked drop in humidity in the Portland area. The winds continue down the river all the way to Astoria, where the temperature might climb into the 80s or 90s. Yet just a few miles south of Astoria, where the river wind doesn’t reach, it will be 30 degrees cooler and foggy. In winter, cold winds blowing down the Gorge can chill the Portland area to well below freezing. When a warm, wet weather system overrides the surface-level cold air, the temperature difference between the surface and about 2,000 feet in elevation can be 15 or 20 degrees — enough to keep the inevitable rain from turning to snow before it hits the ground. These storms can be vicious, dumping up to 10 feet of snow in the western end of the Gorge, although that has not happened since the early 20th century, but more commonly laying down a coating of solid ice. Such a storm paralyzed the Portland area for four days in January 2004.
Climate change impacts and the Columbia River Basin
A sign |
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder of childhood (1). Methylphenidate and amphetamine are the most frequently used treatments for ADHD (1). Despite methylphenidate’s widespread use, | Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed behavioral disorder of childhood (1). Methylphenidate and amphetamine are the most frequently used treatments for ADHD (1). Despite methylphenidate’s widespread use, its mechanisms of action are poorly understood. Methylphenidate blocks the dopamine transporters, and this indirect dopamine agonist effect may be critical for its therapeutic effects (2). Specifically, stimulant-induced dopamine increases are believed to decrease background firing rates and increase signal-to-noise ratio of striatal cells (3), which we postulate as a mechanism for improving attention by enhancing task-related neuronal cell firing. Since dopamine also modulates salience and motivation (4), we postulate that small and brief task-induced dopamine increases would be amplified by methylphenidate, which would increase the salience of the task and thus improve performance (5).
Using positron emission tomography (PET), we have shown that a relatively large therapeutic dose of oral methylphenidate (60 mg) significantly blocked dopamine transporters in all subjects but did not increase extracellular dopamine in all of them (6). We reasoned that methylphenidate-induced increases in dopamine were due not only to dopamine transporter blockade but also to the rate of dopamine release, which is mostly a function of dopamine cell firing (7). Since dopamine cells fire in response to salient stimuli, we postulated that methylphenidate-induced dopamine transporter blockade (the main mechanism for removal of extracellular dopamine ) would amplify dopamine-induced increases to salient stimuli and thus be context dependent. In the present study we tested whether methylphenidate would enhance increases in extracellular dopamine in response to an academic task (solving mathematical problems with monetary reinforcement), relative to a neutral task (passively viewing scenery cards with no remuneration). We used a mathematical task because this type of task is frequently used as a measure to assess treatment efficacy in ADHD. Although in a classroom setting performance is not monetarily remunerated, it is often reinforced by grading (9). We chose as the neutral task passive viewing of scenery pictures rather than a mathematical task with no remuneration because we wanted to optimize the contrast between a task that might maximize dopamine increases (mathematical task) and a task that would minimize dopamine increases (viewing neutral pictures).
We used PET imaging with [11C]raclopride, a dopamine D2 receptor ligand sensitive to competition with endogenous dopamine (10), to measure the relative changes in extracellular dopamine induced by methylphenidate when administered before the mathematical task and before the neutral task. Because [11C]raclopride binding is highly reproducible (11), differences in binding between placebo and intervention predominantly reflect intervention-induced changes in extracellular dopamine (12). Our a priori hypothesis was that methylphenidate, by blocking dopamine transporters, would amplify the dopamine increases induced by the task, thus enhancing its saliency.
Sixteen healthy subjects (14 men and two women; mean age=35 years, SD=8) selected from a pool of subjects who responded to an advertisement were studied. Subjects were initially screened by phone and then evaluated at Brookhaven National Laboratory by a physician (G.-J.W.) to ensure that there was 1) no current or past psychiatric or neurological disease, drug abuse, or significant medical illness; 2) no medications being taken (including over-the-counter medications); and 3) no pregnancy. Physical examination and laboratory test results were also obtained. Magnetic resonance imaging scans were not performed, so we could not corroborate a lack of structural brain abnormalities. On average, out of every five subjects initially screened one was recruited, and all of the 16 subjects recruited completed the study. Prescan urine tests ensured the absence of any psychoactive drug, including sedative drugs, and the absence of pregnancy in the female subjects. Subjects were monetarily compensated for their participation in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects after complete description of the study and following the guidelines set by the Institutional Review Board at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
PET scans were run on a whole-body, high-resolution positron emission tomograph (Siemens/CTI ECAT HR+, with 4.6×4.6×4.2 mm National Electrical Manufacturers Ass |
Men and women are exploited once smuggled in Europe, children trafficked internally for domestic servitude.
Type: Source and Transit Country
Located in North Africa with a coastline of the Mediterranean, Morocco is separated from the wealthier European country of Spain | Men and women are exploited once smuggled in Europe, children trafficked internally for domestic servitude.
Type: Source and Transit Country
Located in North Africa with a coastline of the Mediterranean, Morocco is separated from the wealthier European country of Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar (at its narrowest point the two countries are only eight miles apart). Many smuggling rings take advantage of the short distance to transport Moroccans and other Africans to Europe. The trip, however, is risky: According to BBC NEWS, more than 3,000 have died in the past decade while attempting to make the trip across. The 2,000 people who make the crossing every month are at risk of becoming trafficking victims.
According to the U.S. State Department, some Moroccans seeking work in Europe and the Middle East as domestic servants or in the hotel or construction industry have been forced into situations of coerced labor, narcotics trafficking, or commercial sexual exploitation. In November 2002 the press uncovered a trafficking network in which young women paid $2,000 for work contracts in Jordan, and upon arrival they were forced into prostitution. A month earlier nine people were arrested in Casablanca for offering fraudulent work contracts to Europe for $4,000. Similar scams were reported in 1999 where the women were brought to Persian Gulf states. There are also reports that some who transit from West African countries through Morocco to Europe are trafficked.
Internal trafficking of children from rural areas to cities for domestic servitude is widespread. Parents of rural children contract their daughters as child maids to wealthier urban families. According to a 2001 UNICEF-funded study there are more than 13,000 girls younger than 15 working as child maids in Casablanca alone, while the International Labor Organization estimates that there are 50,000 all over Morocco. Many of these child domestic workers are subjected to psychological and physical abuse. One report claimed that four percent of the girls are sexually abused.
In 2001, tensions between Spain and Morocco increased as government officials on each side blamed the other country for smuggling and trafficking problems in the region. Spain accused Morocco of not doing enough to limit the illegal activities, while Morocco claimed that Spanish mafia gangs were responsible for the increase in the number of illegal immigrants who tried to enter Spain by boat from Morocco. These days Spain has set up a network of sensors and cameras along the coast to intercept illegal migrants.
Morocco, according to the U.S. State Department, is trying to do its part. Although the country has no laws against trafficking, the government uses statutes that cover kidnapping and forced prostitution to prosecute traffickers. Law enforcement agencies actively investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers. In one instance a Belgian diplomat was arrested for recruiting Moroccan women to work in Belgian nightclubs. Saudi Arabian and Moroccan police forces have also worked together to break up a trafficking ring made up of 40 members. The government has conducted a crackdown on corrupt public officials who have taken bribes from traffickers.
In 2000 a UNICEF- and government-funded national campaign was initiated against the employment of child domestic workers. The goal of the campaign was to return abused child maids to their families when possible or place them in shelters. |
To look for a specific item then please use the search facility by clicking here
External routes within the school site should seek to minimise the effects of gradient so that they are easily accessible to all users. In particular, consideration should be given to the | To look for a specific item then please use the search facility by clicking here
External routes within the school site should seek to minimise the effects of gradient so that they are easily accessible to all users. In particular, consideration should be given to the following locations:
Ramps, where required should be accompanied by steps for ambulant disabled users and should be slip resistant with kerbs and handrails. Additional handrails at lower level should be provided in infants and junior schools for use by smaller pupils.
See fact sheets 6.1 External Access Routes for Buildings, 6.2 Ramps, 6.3 Steps and Stairs and 6.4 Handrails.
Routes around the school should be clearly signed, well lit and free of unmarked
obstructions. Access routes on level ground should have resting places not more
than 50m apart for people with impaired mobility.
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Risk assessment is a systematic compilation and analysis of the current data and knowledge about a risk issue presented in a coherent characterization. It is a tool that combines data and information from numerous sources in a structured format. The information may be found in published research | Risk assessment is a systematic compilation and analysis of the current data and knowledge about a risk issue presented in a coherent characterization. It is a tool that combines data and information from numerous sources in a structured format. The information may be found in published research and surveillance reports and from outbreak investigations, or it may be necessary to rely on expert judgement. The outcome of the process should ideally provide a clear and balanced representation of all available information relevant to a specific situation, described in terms of the probability and impact of an adverse event. The output of a risk assessment should assist in evaluating whether or not a hazard requires increased management or regulation, and can provide insights into areas that can be targeted to reduce the risk.
A risk assessment can be formulated as a descriptive process without a decision in mind, but this is not the intended use of risk assessment in the current framework. Here, the goal of risk assessment is to provide decision assistance information. The wide variety of potential decisions for any situation means that the focus of risk assessments can vary widely. As a result, a premium needs to be placed on problem formulation so that risk assessment resources are efficiently applied to serve the needs of the decision-maker.
Risk assessment measures risk and identifies factors that influence it. Risk management is the development, selection, and implementation of strategies to control that risk if warranted, and risk communication is the exchange of information pertinent to the risk issue. It should be recognized that the risk analysis process is not static, and risk assessments and/or management and/or communication decisions may need to be reviewed and revised as new information becomes available. |
Australia, a close neighbour of small, low-lying South Pacific states at the frontline of climate change, should prepare for an influx of people displaced by rising sea levels and storms, the president of the country's main refugee advisory body has said.
| Australia, a close neighbour of small, low-lying South Pacific states at the frontline of climate change, should prepare for an influx of people displaced by rising sea levels and storms, the president of the country's main refugee advisory body has said.
Phil Glendenning, president of the Refugee Council of Australia has advised the Australian government that it should prepare to create a new migration category for those fleeing the effects of climate change.
No country currently has a special visa category for those displaced by climate change, but Glendenning said there was a new cohort of displaced people emerging and the rest of the world needed to take notice.
Glendenning said he was not speaking for the Refugee Council and was not suggesting those displaced by climate change be admitted into Australia as refugees fleeing persecution.
The key legal document that defines refugees, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, defines a refugee as a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland because of their race, religion, nationality of membership of a particular group.
The convention – forged in 1951 in the aftermath of world war two – does not offer protection to those claiming to be endangered by climate change. Its limits were tested in New Zealand last year by a 36-year-old Kiribati man who argued before an immigration tribunal that he should not be deported because he feared for his own future and that of his children's because of the effects of climate change in his country, barely two metres above sea level.
The tribunal rejected his claims and confirmed his deportation order after holding that the Refugee Convention gave no protection to those claiming to be endangered by climate change.
Glendenning, who was in Kiribati in March, says Australia needs to formally recognise people displaced by climate change because there's "a big chance" that climate change in the Pacific would force large numbers of people from their homelands.
Glendenning says Australia and other countries should prepare to cater for potentially thousands of people displaced by climate change.
"These are people who are not suffering from persecution because of their beliefs, race or because they belong to a particular group. So they don't meet the Refugee Convention criteria but, nevertheless, there will be a need for people to be resettled because they have been displaced by climate change," says Glendenning. "This is a new cohort of people who are emerging, the rest of the world needs to pay attention."
Australia's Labor government – trailing massively in opinion polls and facing an election in September at which the increased numbers of asy |
Let Your Kids Explore the Smokies
From January 12-19, 2013, Pigeon Forge will be holding its 23rd Annual Wilderness Wildlife Week; an annual salute to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There will | Let Your Kids Explore the Smokies
From January 12-19, 2013, Pigeon Forge will be holding its 23rd Annual Wilderness Wildlife Week; an annual salute to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There will be 150 experts on hand to discuss 250 programs on wildlife, photography, mountain history and more, but did you realize many of the programs are geared to children? Best of all, they are all free! What a great opportunity to introduce your youngsters to the great outdoors, the wonders of nature, and the many different experiences that includes while enjoying a family vacation getaway at Carr’s Cottages!
Does your child have an interest in animals? Wilderness Wildlife Week will be offering informal talks and videos geared to children about many of the National Park’s local inhabitants and the Knoxville Zoomobile will be present for some hands-on and interactive discussion regarding the world of animals. And your kids won’t want to miss out on the Owl Prowl! There is even a hiking class that encourages children from a young age to enjoy the great outdoors!
Maybe your child is interested in learning how to photograph wild animals and nature. Jim Eastin will be leading a class designed just for them. Or, if your child is interested in history combined with crafts, they will enjoy learning about the old-fashioned quill and pen that was used 100 years ago as well as learning how to make homemade ink.
Music is such a huge part of the mountain culture in East Tennessee and it has not been left off the list. Your child can take advantage of several scheduled musical events like a concert by the Lost Mill String Band, a children’s sing-a-long, or participate in a “Let’s Make Music” workshop.
In case you think nature and music are the only topics of Wildlife Wilderness Week, let your child experience one of the many interactive classes such as *“The Life of a Soldier during the Civil War.” They actually enlist for either the Union or Confederacy, are taught about the hard life of a soldier in those times, and experience camp life. Or, sign them up to make a *Garbage Pizza? Students follow the life of trash as it is thrown away and then create their own garbage pizza! And, if your child loves funny stories or is an aspiring artist, they will want to join the *Red-Headed Boggertown Bunch – Tall Tale of the Mountains. After being entertained with this bewildering mountain lore story, they are encouraged to illustrate their own conclusions to this tall tale!
Check out the complete schedule for Wilderness Wildlife Week for Kids in Pigeon Forge so you and your children don’t miss out on fun and exciting experiences!
*These classes require advance registration and class size is limited. |
This one’s interesting primarily because it demonstrates that hype can be informative … the so-called “Bosham Head” is a huge, highly-eroded lump of stone found a couple of centuries ago which was clearly once the head of a statue | This one’s interesting primarily because it demonstrates that hype can be informative … the so-called “Bosham Head” is a huge, highly-eroded lump of stone found a couple of centuries ago which was clearly once the head of a statue of some sort. There was a lecture series this week where the head is housed (Chicester’s Novium Museum) and all this week we’ve been getting hints that they have used laser scanning to possibly identify the head. Early in the week, Culture24, e.g., mentioned one guy:
A 26-stone head found in a flower bed in a Hampshire vicarage garden could represent Nero, the rarely-glimpsed Emperor whose first century rule over the Roman Empire began when he was a 14-year-old.
Known as the Bosham Head, the spectacular cranium imposes itself within the Collections Discovery Centre at Fishbourne. Archaeologists have been using 3D scanning in a bid to determine whether it was carved seperately from its body.
“The Jupiter Stone found beneath the post office on West Street depicts the iconic image of the three graces, although only two women are shown,” says Anooshka Rawden, the Collections Officer at Chichester’s Novium museum.
“Academics often debate whether the Romans produced art at all or whether they simply copied and adapted original work by the ancient Greeks.
“Perhaps the maker decided two looked better than three, or the third grace didn’t fit the space.”
Portraits of Nero were often destroyed as a backlash against his reputation for cruelty.
“It is really exciting that more information about the Bosham Head is being uncovered, including new speculation as to who it may depict,” says Eileen Lintill, of Chichester District Council.
“It has always been a bit of a mystery to museum staff as to who it was meant to represent. [...]
Yesterday, the News reiterated that with a bit more detail:
Dr Miles Russell, a senior lecturer in prehistoric and Roman archaeology from Bournemouth University, believes the object, known as the Bosham Head, could be a bust of the Roman Emperor Nero.
Little is known about the 26st stone head, which is on display at the Novium Museum, Chichester. It was found many years ago in a flower bed in the vicarage garden at Bosham.
Emperor Nero came to Britain at the age of 14 and ruled the Roman Empire from 54 to 68 AD. Depictions of him are rare as he was regarded as a cruel leader and portraits of him were destroyed. [...]
- via: Mystery of head could be revealed at art lectures (The News)
Then the Daily Mail waded in, attributing a different identification (although seemingly crediting the same identifier):
Archaeologists at Bournemouth University used 3D laser scans to pick out facial features and a distinctive hairstyle, which led them to conclude that the statue was of Emperor Trajan.
Miles Russell, a senior lecturer in prehistoric and Roman archaeology at the university and Harry Manley, from the school of applied sciences, led the study, which has been assisted by The Novium museum.
It concluded the statue, made of Italian marble was set up by Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, on a visit to Britain in AD 121-122 and would have greeted visitors as they entered Chichester Harbour.[,,,]
- via: Enormous rock found in a Chichester flowerbed could be the ‘head’ of Roman Emperor Trajan, 3D scans suggest (Daily Mail)
Depending on the angle, it does seem to be more Trajan-like than Neroish … then again, they both seem to have had that bowl-cut thing going on in their statuary: |
A mother holds a 5-month old baby wearing an electrode cap to measure the child's conscious experiences.
Credit: Sid Kouider
Infants have a conscious experience of the world at as early as 5 months of age, new research finds | A mother holds a 5-month old baby wearing an electrode cap to measure the child's conscious experiences.
Credit: Sid Kouider
Infants have a conscious experience of the world at as early as 5 months of age, new research finds.
New parents may raise an eyebrow at the idea that their baby might not be a conscious being, but scientists have, until now, not been able to clearly show that infants react with awareness rather than reflexively. Even in adults, much of the brain's processing of the world occurs without conscious awareness, said Sid Kouider, a neuroscientist at the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique in Paris and the Technical University of Denmark.
One odd phenomenon, "blindsight," occurs in people with damage to part of their visual cortex. Although they cannot consciously see, they're able to "guess" the location of a visual stimulus or even catch objects tossed at them. Blindsight reveals that even unconscious processing in the brain can result in seemingly goal-directed behavior. [9 Bizarre Medical Conditions]
So when babies look toward a face or grasp an object, they, too, might be doing so without a conscious experience of what they're seeing.
"Infants might be responding in a kind of automatic manner," Kouider told LiveScience. Unfortunately, since babies don't talk, scientists can't test consciousness by asking infants what they experience.
Baby brain patterns
So Kouider and his colleagues turned to brain activity for a peak into babies' awareness. When adults are shown a subliminal image, their brains show a spike in electrical activity in sensory regions — even though they may not consciously register that they've seen such a brief image.
When the image does consciously register, however, the brain shows a second leap in activity, typically about 300 milliseconds after the presentation of the image. This pattern reveals visual consciousness, Kouider said, which means that not only does the brain respond to the image, but also the owner of that brain perceives that response and has a conscious experience of the image.
The researchers wanted to know whether babies would show this same brain pattern. They recruited 30 5-month-olds, 29 12-month-olds and 21 15-month-olds and fitted the babies with electrode caps that measure the brain's electrical activity through the scalp.
Next, the babies sat on their mother or father's lap while watching a screen with a patterned image. For a fraction of a second (ranging from as quick as 17 milliseconds up to 300 milliseconds), the researchers flashed a photo of a face on the screen.
The scientists then analyzed the babies' brain activity to search for the two-phase pattern that would indicate consciousness. They found it: Babies did indeed show a secondary spike in neural activity, just like adults.
But there was one important difference between the babies' neural patterns and those seen in adults, Kouider said. In 5-month-olds, it took 1.3 seconds for the second flurry of brain activity to show up. In adults, the timing is closer to three-tenths of a second, or 0.3 seconds.
"It's about four times slower, actually, in the younger infants," Kouider said. [11 Things Parents Should Know About Their Babies' Brains]
Older babies show snappier processing, though still not as quick as adults, the researchers found. In 12- to 15-month-olds, the second phase is stronger than in 5-month-olds and occurs around eight-tenths to nine-tenths of a second.
The reason for this delay probably has to do with the undeveloped nature of a baby's brain, Kouider said. The second phase of activity that accompanies consciousness arises because the visual parts of the brain send information to the prefrontal cortex, which sits in the front of the skull. The prefrontal cortex directs and maintains attention and is crucial to consciousness. This part of the brain also develops slowest, going through major changes at about a year of age.
Babies' brains also lack myelin, a fatty substance that sheathes nerve fibers in the brain. Myelin acts as insulation, speeding up signals from one area of the brain to another. Before the brain is fully myelinated, neural impulses don't move as quickly from the visual brain regions at the back of the brain to the prefrontal cortex as the front.
Conscious of pain?
The findings will be published Friday (April 19) in the journal Science. While parents can rest assured that their babies have a conscious experience of mom, dad and probably Elmo, the results have broader implications for medicine.
For example, Kouider said, researchers may be able to use similar brain-monitoring methods to determine when babies develop a conscious experience of pain. Until the 1980s, pain-relieving anesthesia was not automatically given to infants undergoing surgery, because doctors believed that infant pain was merely a reflex, not a conscious experience. (Surgeons weren't trying to be heartless: Anesthesia brought extra risk of death to the infant, a risk doctors didn't want to take given the accepted notion that babies weren't bothered by pain anyway.)
"Our study suggests that babies are much more conscious than we believed before, and they're probably much more conscious of pain when they experience [it]," Kouider said. Researchers might also be able to detect abnormalities in conscious experience before babies learn to talk, he added, perhaps leading to earlier diagnoses of disorders such as autism.
The researchers now plan to use even more inviting stimuli, such as toys babies like, to test whether familiar objects |
Hebert A. Hauptman in 2009
|Born||Herbert Aaron Hauptman
February 14, 1917
New York City, New York
|Died||October 23, 2011
Buffalo | Hebert A. Hauptman in 2009
|Born||Herbert Aaron Hauptman
February 14, 1917
New York City, New York
|Died||October 23, 2011
Buffalo, New York
|Institutions||Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute & University at Buffalo|
|Alma mater||University of Maryland, College Park|
|Notable awards||Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1985) (jointly with Jerome Karle)|
Herbert Aaron Hauptman (February 14, 1917 – October 23, 2011) was an American mathematician and Nobel laureate. He made a mathematical method to find a molecular structures based on the X-ray patterns of crystallized materials. With Jerome Karle, he won the 1985 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Life[change | edit source]
He was born in New York City. He was the oldest child of Israel Hauptman and Leah Rosenfeld.
Hauptman was interested in science and mathematics from an early age. He studied at Townsend Harris High School. He graduated from the City College of New York (1937). He earned an M.A. degree in mathematics from Columbia University in 1939. He married Edith Citrynell on November 10, 1940, and had two daughters.
After World War II, he began working together with Jerome Karle, a physical chemist, at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.. He also enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Maryland, College Park. They used their mathematics and physical chemistry skills to solve the phase problem of X-ray crystallography. By 1955, he had received his Ph.D. in mathematics, and they had worked out the direct methods in X-ray crystallography. Their 1953 article, "Solution of the Phase Problem I. The Centrosymmetric Crystal", contained the main ideas, the most important of which was the introduction of probabilistic methods.
In 1970 he joined the Medical Foundation of Buffalo, becoming its Research Director in 1972. At this time he developed the neighborhood principle and extension concept. These theories were further developed during the following years.
References[change | edit source]
- Grimes, William (2011-10-24). "Herbert A. Hauptman, Nobel Laureate, Dies at 94". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/herbert-a-hauptman-nobel-winning-mathematician-dies-at-94.html. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
- "Dr. Herbert Hauptman, Nobel Prize winner, is dead at 94". BuffaloNews.com. http://www.buffalonews.com/obituaries/article605235.ece. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
- Bernstein, Adam (October 24, 2011). "Herbert A. Hauptman, chemistry Nobelist and prominent researcher, dies at 94". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/herbert-a-hauptman-chemistry-nobelist-and-prominent-researcher-dies-at-94/2011/10/24/gIQAJVKmDM_story.html. Retrieved October 27, 2011.
Other websites[change | edit source]
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry - Laureates
- Herbert Hauptman's Autobiography
- Dr Hauptman's CV
- Pergament: A PBS portrait of Buffalo's Nobel winner Herbert Hauptman
- Board of Science Advisors, The Buffalo International Film Festival, Buffalo, NY, United States |
To some engineers, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System seems complicated. However, LEED certification deserves attention because — from an efficiency point of view — it holds the keys to sustainability in overall building performance. | To some engineers, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System seems complicated. However, LEED certification deserves attention because — from an efficiency point of view — it holds the keys to sustainability in overall building performance. Although it may take extra effort to qualify for LEED certification, it is the best path for protecting long-term building performance. LEED benchmarks drive water-efficiency decisions in building designs, helping to protect one of our most precious resources.
LEED WATER-EFFICIENCY CREDITS
In terms of plumbing water efficiency, facilities can qualify for two LEED credits: Water Efficiency (WE) credits 3.1, Water Use Reduction: 20 Percent Reduction, and 3.2, Water Use Reduction: 30 Percent Reduction.
WE Credit 3.1 requires that a facility reduce its water consumption by 20 percent. The use of plumbing products rated below the baseline fixture-performance requirements of the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 1992 contributes to this credit, as long as the building as a whole reduces water consumption by 20 percent below the baseline. For example, a building using a combination of faucets with 0.5-gpm aerators, water-closet flushometers utilizing 1.6 gal. of water or less, 0.5-gpf urinal flushometers, and no-water urinals, as well as other water-efficient plumbing fixtures, could reduce water consumption enough to be eligible for this credit.
To qualify for WE Credit 3.2, a facility as a whole has to reduce its water consumption to 30 percent below the baseline. As stated previously, plumbing fixtures can be rated below the baseline performance requirements. The only difference with this credit is the amount by which a facility's water consumption must be reduced.
Installing water-efficient plumbing fixtures that meet these standards could contribute up to two points toward LEED certification.
REDUCING WATER USAGE
Current federal standards for flushing set the maximum water consumption for water closets at 1.6 gpf. Commercial, industrial, and institutional facilities, however, can gain greater efficiencies in flushing consumption without sacrificing performance. Facilities managers can save more water without worrying that their toilets will not flush appropriately, which can lead to double flushing. Double flushing to clear the bowl, as well as user discontent, can negate the benefits of installing lower-consumption fixtures.
Manufacturers, however, are putting more emphasis on developing high-performing flushing technologies that use even less water. Flushing systems available to specifying |
Published on February 13, 2012 by Amy
The Seneca Indian people living in Ohio during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were related to the Seneca Indian tribe of New York. The Seneca in New York were one of the | Published on February 13, 2012 by Amy
The Seneca Indian people living in Ohio during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were related to the Seneca Indian tribe of New York. The Seneca in New York were one of the most powerful members of the Iroquois confederacy. The Ohio Seneca Indians spoke the Iroquois language.
dna testing, dna ancestry testing, ancestry, genealogy, indian genealogy records, paternity testing, turquoise jewelry, native american jewelry
Many of these Senecas left New York, hoping to find a better life in the Ohio Country. Upon arriving in Ohio, these natives had limited contact with their original tribe in New York. They formed their own political system that was completely separate from the Senecas in New York. The Ohio Senecas also joined with the Algonquian Indian tribes of the Ohio Country in their wars with the Iroquois. The Ohio Senecas probably included more than just Senecas from New York. The Ohio Seneca tribe also probably included Mingo Indians, Erie Indians, Conestoga Indians, and the remnants of several other tribes.
The Ohio Senecas came to live along the Sandusky River after the American Revolution. They relinquished most of their lands in Ohio with the signing of the Treaty of Greeneville. In 1831, the Senecas forsook their remaining lands in Ohio under the terms of the Treaty of Lewistown (Ohio). |
1. 1.0 mg/ml BSA standard.
2. 0.5% SDS.
3. Bicinchoninic acid (Sigma B-9643).
4. CuSO4.5H2O, 1 | 1. 1.0 mg/ml BSA standard.
2. 0.5% SDS.
3. Bicinchoninic acid (Sigma B-9643).
4. CuSO4.5H2O, 1% (w/v).
5. New 12x75 disposable test tubes.
1. Thaw a tube of 1.0 mg/ml BSA standard.
2. Arrange 12x75 test tubes in a rack and label with Sharpie 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 for BSA standards. The numbers represent the volume in l to be used. Prepare two tubes for each buffer blank and for each unknown. The volumes for unknowns should be estimated such that the tubes contain 5-30 ug of protein. Each unknown should be measured in duplicate with e.g. a 2-fold difference in volume. Volumes of buffer blanks should be identical to those of unknowns. Label each tube clearly.
3. Pipet 0.5% SDS into each tube. The volume equals 100 ul minus the volume of the sample.
4. Vortex BSA solution to insure homogeneity. Pipet BSA into each standard tube. Pipet accurately: use p-200 for volumes larger than 20 µl, and p-20 or lambda pipet for volumes smaller than 20 µl. Wipe off any liquid sticking to the external surface of the pipet tip. Avoid air bubbles inside the tip. Do not draw or release solution too rapidly. After transfering the content, pipet up and down several times to rinse off the tip. Start from lower concentrations and move up. It is not necessary to change the tip after each sample. Move the tube back a row after pipeting to avoid confusion.
5. Prepare a 25:2 mixture of bicinchoninic acid and CuSO4.5H2O. Mix well.
6. Add 1 ml of the mixture to each tube, vortex.
7. Incubate at 37oC for 30 min.
8. Read OD at 562 nm.
9. Plot OD as a function of g BSA. Subtract the blank OD from each unknown and read the amount in g off the standard curve.
10. Discard tubes after use.
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Union Colony of Colorado
|This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2009)|
The Union Colony of Colorado (also called the Greeley Colony and The Union Temperance Colony) was a 19th-century private | Union Colony of Colorado
|This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2009)|
The Union Colony of Colorado (also called the Greeley Colony and The Union Temperance Colony) was a 19th-century private enterprise formed to promote agricultural settlements in the South Platte River valley in the Colorado Territory. Organization of the colony began in October 1869 by Nathan Meeker in order to establish a religiously-oriented utopian community of "high moral standards". The colony was founded in March 1870 at the site of present-day Greeley, Colorado. Union Colony was financially backed and promoted by New York Tribune editor, Horace Greeley, a prominent advocate of the settlement of the American West. The homesteaded colony greatly advanced irrigation usage in present-day northern Colorado, demonstrating the viability of cultivation at a time when agriculture was emerging as a rival to mining as the principle basis for the territorial economy.
Horace Greeley had journeyed west in 1859 at the height of the Colorado Gold Rush, going from Denver to Fort Laramie via the Overland Stage Line before continuing on to California. Greeley's route took him up the valleys of the South Platte and Cache la Poudre near the eventual location of the colony.
In 1869 Greeley sent Meeker, then employed as the agricultural editor of the Tribune, to the Colorado Territory to seek out a location for a colony to promote settlement in the West. Meeker returned to New York City in the autumn of 1869, reporting that the South Platte Valley presented a good opportunity for the colony. In October, Meeker began organizing the enterprise, and on December 14, 1869, he placed an advertisement in the Tribune calling for volunteers to join him in the new venture. Meeker's advertisement specifically sought volunteers of high moral standards, who were literate and adherents to the tenets of the Temperance movements. The cost of membership for those accepted to the colony was set at $155. Of the more than 3000 people who responded, Meeker selected 700 applications as prospective colonists, ninety of whom later backed out.
With the collected membership fees, Meeker journeyed west in the Spring of 1870 with two other officers. They purchased a tract of land in Weld County, near the confluence of the Cache la Poudre and South Platte Rivers and founded the settlement. Initially, the colony thrived and expanded, attracting other homesteaders to the area. The religious nature of the colony was not agreeable to all the settlers, however, so a portion of them spread out to other nearby lands in the area. Jacob Flowers, for example, was one of these. In 1872, the success of the colony inspired some of its officers to found another colony upstream on the Poudre River at Fort Collins. The city of Greeley itself was incorporated in 1886.
During the 1870s, the colony became known for its heavy use of irrigation, with one visitor reporting that nearly every person in the cooperative was involved in the maintaining of at least one irrigation ditch. Meeker was killed by Utes at the "Meeker Massacre" in western Colorado in 1879. The irrigation system built by the Colony remains an important part of the area today, although growing urbanization threatens more and more of the productive croplands the irrigation systems allowed to be utilized.
Significance and legacy
The Colony's influence is recognized in the region's history. Greeley remained a dry municipality until 1972. As a result, several nearby towns grew more rapidly as a source of liquor; and at least two small towns, Rosedale, and Garden City, were established and incorporated largely to allow saloons, bars, and liquor stores to feed the demand of nearby University of Northern Colorado students and faculty.
Fire protection services for the City of Greeley are today provided by the "Union Colony Fire Rescue Authority". A major city building complex is located at the "Union Colony Civic Center." |
Born: 02 December 1906
Died: 07 December 1977
Peter C. Goldmark ranks among the most important inventors of sound recording and television technology history. Born in Hungary, Goldmark received his doctorate | Born: 02 December 1906
Died: 07 December 1977
Peter C. Goldmark ranks among the most important inventors of sound recording and television technology history. Born in Hungary, Goldmark received his doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1931, before moving on to work for a British radio company. After two years in England, he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) as a construction engineer. It was at CBS that he would develop his most famous inventions.
Television in the 1930s was a new still experimental medium, with limited channels, black and white images, and very few shows. It was the radio that entertained Americans with sitcoms, news, and commentary. Goldmark was one the strongest voices arguing that television had great potential to become important and that shows could be transmitted in rich and engaging color.
In 1940, inspired by the lush color of the film Gone with the Wind, Goldmark decided that it was possible for television to deliver color images. He set out to create what has become known as the field-sequential system, a method of sending a series of pri |
“… ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective | “… ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today.” (Stephen Downes)
If you follow my Twitter-stream, you know that I spend a lot of time viewing, collecting & sharing videos. In this post, I share ideas on certain types of videos that I’ve gathered and how educators might use related methods or styles to engage students in constructing and deconstructing media while becoming critical consumers and producers of digital media.
1) Conversation with F |
GenEd Human Behavior courses address the relationships between individuals and
communities. Courses may focus on the relationship between individuals and communities in general or may engage those relationships from specific perspectives (such as art, music,
education, religion, economics, politics | GenEd Human Behavior courses address the relationships between individuals and
communities. Courses may focus on the relationship between individuals and communities in general or may engage those relationships from specific perspectives (such as art, music,
education, religion, economics, politics or education), or look at them within specific themes
(such as food & eating, crime, crisis, sexuality, adolescence).
Human Behavior courses are intended to teach students how to:
- Understand relationships between individuals and communities;
- Understand theories or explanations of human behavior used to describe social phenomena;
- Examine the development of individuals’ beliefs, behaviors, and assumptions and how these affect individuals and communities;
- Apply one disciplinary method to understand human behavior or explain social phenomena;
- Access and analyze materials related to individuals, communities or social phenomena; and
- Compare and contrast similar social phenomena across individuals or communities.
ASIAN STUDIES 0811, CHINESE 0811, CRITICAL LANGUAGES 0811, JAPANESE 0811, PHILOSOPHY 0811, RELIGION 0811, 0911
We incessantly engage ourselves in doing things. We are beings-at-doing. We define ourselves by the kind of actions we perform. How we act or conduct ourselves is shaped by the kind of self we construct for ourselves. And that self is shaped by the society into which we happen to be born. Self-identity, which is socially and culturally constructed by our experiences and Interactions with others, carries a personal as well as an interpersonal meaning. Learn the four Asian paradigmatic cases of self-identity and examine your self in light of them.
SPANISH & PORTUGUESE 0826, 0926
What is the relationship between language and identity? How do bilinguals sort between their two languages and cultures to form their identity? In bilingual cultures, is one language always dominant? What happens when a language or dialect is distinct from the dominant language or dialect of the greater society? Why did language resurgence efforts fail in Ireland but succeed in Catalonia, Spain? Why does Guarani enjoy greater protection in Paraguay than Mayan dialects in Guatemala? Is it possible to legislate language behavior? Explore issues of power and solidarity where two languages or dialects are in contact: How are these cultural identities expressed through choice of language? We look at a broad geographical range which might include the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Africa.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT 0827
Being creative is about solving problems or approaching opportunities in novel and valuable ways. This course is designed to help ALL students better harness their full creative potential – whether you think: “I am not creative” or “I already have more ideas than I can handle”, this class will help you come up with more creative ideas that offer more value and have greater impact on the world. Although creativity has been studied by nearly every professional domain, this course focuses on creativity as a driver of organizational innovation – from non-profits to small businesses and large corporations to students’ own entrepreneurial startups, creativity and innovation are critical to providing value and ensuring long-term survival. Throughout this course students will develop important life skills while learning to creatively solve problems through a number of real-world innovation challenges. No matter what career or profession you are going into, being more creative and appreciating how and why modern organizations function the way that they do will help you to be more valuable, more employable, more innovative, and more entrepreneurial.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE 0812, 0912
Although we like to think differently, committing crime is an extremely common human behavior. From the extremes of armed robbery or serial murder to the ordinary failure to declare Income on tax returns or the tendency to speed on the highway, nearly everyone has broken the law and committed a crime at some point. Considering physiological, psychological and pharmacological factors, we explore the influences of family, peers and the effects of alcohol and drugs on the incidence of criminal behavior. And we examine how the urban and social environment encourages (or inhibits) opportunities to commit crime.
GEOGRAPHY & URBAN STUDIES 0813, THERAPEUTIC RECREATION 0813
Odds are that each of us will encounter disability at some point in our lives, either directly or indirectly through family, friends, neighbors and colleagues. What is it like to live with a disability, and how does disability intersect with other aspects of personal identity, like gender, race and culture? Is disability socially and culturally defined? Join us as we examine historical perspectives of disability marked by fear and discrimination and fueled by media portrayals. We will then explore most recent indicators of personal, social, and environmental change that support disability identity and result in a more accommodating environment for us all.
ENGLISH 0837, SPANISH & PORTUGUESE 0837
You are what you eat, they say, but what, precisely, determines our eating habits and what, exactly, do they say about us? How do these habits influence our relations with others in our commun |
Book Review: Language and the Internet
David Crystal, author of numerous books on language and linguistics, has written the first book-length study on the effects the Internet is having on language. In Language And The Internet Crystal provides an overview of the | Book Review: Language and the Internet
David Crystal, author of numerous books on language and linguistics, has written the first book-length study on the effects the Internet is having on language. In Language And The Internet Crystal provides an overview of the different forms of Internet communication and how language is used and modified in and by those media. Crystal’s conclusions are broad and tentative, as one might expect of such a large topic and such a new technology, but they are well-reasoned, supported by data, and often quite surprising, bucking the conventional wisdom.
Pundits have often opined that the Internet will be the death of grammar and spelling, that it will destroy thoughtful writing by encouraging sloppiness that is covered by the band-aid of a smiley or emoticon. Or that it will kill other languages, leaving only English as the sole survivor. Crystal carefully takes each of these conclusions apart, showing how people are adapting the tool of language to fit the new technology and enriching language and communication as a result.
Crystal divides the Internet into five broad media, e-mail, asynchronous chat-groups, synchronous chat-groups, virtual worlds, and the web. In each he finds that people have adapted language to meet the particular requirements and uses of that particular medium. He calls this new, adapted form of language netspeak.
Netspeak occupies a middle ground between speech and writing, sharing characteristics of both. Internet communication is not done face-to-face, as speech is usually conducted, hence it lacks the facial and body clues that accompany speech. But it also lacks the intonations and aural clues of speech, which makes it different from telephone conversations, which also lack visual clues. Some forms of netspeak are spontaneous like speech and not revisable, as writing is.
To give an example of how netspeak creates new conventions to overcome these particular difficulties, smileys and emoticons were invented to overcome these difficulties. They take the place of visual and aural clues. They are not required in formal writing because the time available to carefully chose one’s words and to revise and edit. This time is lacking in the immediacy of netspeak and some tool is required to replace those visual and aural clues, hence emoticons.
Scattered throughout the book are wonderful examples of the new terms and coinages that make up the new vocabulary of the Internet. From RUOK, to flames, to e-cash, he gives us a snapshot of a wild and woolly field of online language growth and change.
Crystal’s book is not the last word on the subject; rather it’s the first. We’re at the beginning of what will likely be the greatest revolution in the use of language since the invention of the printing press, and this book is the first to take a systematic and measured view of the changes so far.
Hardcover; 282 pages; Cambridge Univ. Press; ISBN: 0521802121; 1 October 2001; $20.00
Copyright 1997-2013, by David Wilton |
The Supreme Court, like every other branch of government, has become the playground of special interests. These interests are reflected in their decisions, and in their departure from the Constitutional principles is evident in their arguments as well. The discussion below is intended to | The Supreme Court, like every other branch of government, has become the playground of special interests. These interests are reflected in their decisions, and in their departure from the Constitutional principles is evident in their arguments as well. The discussion below is intended to help people think about the role of the Supreme Court in a principled way, rather than as a group to which they can appeal to achieve personal benefits or impose moral views on others through their decisions.
The Purpose of Government is the Happiness of the People
When the U.S. Founders established the Constitution, their goal was to establish the best system for all people to pursue happiness. In Federalist 62, Madison stated:
A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained. Some governments are deficient in both these qualities. Most governments are deficient in the first. I scruple not to assert that in the American governments, too little attention has been paid to the last. The federal constitution avoids this error; and what merits particular notice, it provides for the last in what increases the security for the first.
The Declaration of Independence is the Mission Statement of the United States. The Constitution is the legal structure designed to achieve it, and the Federalist Papers are the best explanation of the principles behind it.
The recent Supreme Court decisions on Arizona’s enforcement of illegal immigration and “The Affordable Health Care Act” show little knowledge of the means by which that object can best be attained because they retained a more myopic focus on justifying positions based on legal precedent and popular culture rather than the principles of sound governance that concerned the Founders.
The Supreme Court Reflects Political Factions
While the Supreme Court did not create the laws they rule on, their recent split decisions seem to represent the cultural divisions of the two largest political factions in the United States, the Republican and Democratic parties. These two parties, and their financial backers, have incrementally wrested control of the government from the people over a long series of Constitutional changes that gave the Federal government increased power. Supreme Court justices have long been indirectly appointed by political party factions, of which the Presidents serve as nominal heads. We can expect that they, like other human beings are more concerned about their standing with these factions, than the core principles of governance the Constitution embodies.
Indeed, lawyers and judges, just like other human beings, tend to promote the ideas of those who are in a position to improve their lives. In their own pursuit of happiness, they consciously or unconsciously indulge the hand that feeds them. For example, law students, even at the most prestigious institutions like Harvard and Yale, tend to promote politically correct views that represent the views of the teachers that will be grading their papers and helping them secure jobs. Thus, as college students, many promote the liberal and politically correct values of their university. However, when lawyers accept job with Wall Street firms or as a corporate defenders, they tend to espouse the worldviews of their employers because it will help them keep their jobs and enhance their livelihoods. This aspect of human nature–that which compromises ideals in the pursuit of personal fulfillment–is found everywhere human beings exist. This is the human nature the U.S. founders understood so well.
The Founders Worried that Factions would Destroy the System
The U.S. Constitution, with its checks and balances, made the most significant advance on curtailing the manipulation of government to enhance personal wealth or status that had been designed up until their time. However, their biggest fear would be that individual citizens would fail to remain free and independent, throwing in with factions that would lobby the government for services to themselves and at the expense of the other taxpaying citizens.
After the Constitution was written, Benjamin Franklin reportedly warned a citizen, “We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it.” Then in the Federalist Papers, James Madison explained how one of his main concerns was the organizing of factions, e.g., combining money to influence the political system. In Federalist 10, Madison expressed concern that “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” Can public good and private rights be preserved when factions arise? This was a real concern:
Our inquiry is directed toward securing the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, while at the same time preserving the spirit and the form of the popular government. By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only: (1) the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or (2) the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered—by their number and local situation—unable to carry schemes of oppression into effect.—James Madison, Federalist 10.
The creation of superPACs, and the Supreme Court’s willingness to allow them is proof that the justices care not to uphold this primary founding principle. They are now themselves creatures of political factions and their |
Red and green grapes are the perfect accompaniment to a cheese platter. They’re also delicious served with other fruits or baked into tart desserts.
Like other berries, grapes can range through several levels of sweet to tart. Those sold in bunch | Red and green grapes are the perfect accompaniment to a cheese platter. They’re also delicious served with other fruits or baked into tart desserts.
Like other berries, grapes can range through several levels of sweet to tart. Those sold in bunches in produce sections tend to be sweet and would not do well for winemaking. Grapes that are grown for fermenting are typically much too tangy for snacking.
European grapes are available year-round, but
Red grapes also encompass black, purple, and blue shades. These include such familiar names as
The Thompson seedless is a popular white – or green – grape sold for public consumption and is also typically used to make raisins. Other species include Princess and Perlette.
Grapes are fragile and easily bruised. Select those with firm unbroken skins and a “blush,” or light powder coating. They should not be sticky. It is difficult, however, to avoid an entire bunch without a few that are mushy. Berries should not break easily from the stems.
Once plucked from the vine, ripening stops and taste will not improve.
Refrigerate unwashed, with stems intact, and use within two weeks. Grapes freeze well – for up to two months – and make a terrific frozen snack. De-stem, wash, and keep in a single layer until hard. When thawed, they remain firm.
• To remove the skin, freeze first. Use a sharp knife to make a slit on the side.
• Seeded varieties can be pulped and strained before using. Reserve the liquid to splash over other fresh fruits |
A variation of the standard belt, the Mandalorian Tool Belt has been in use for several thousand years. Sources dating back as far as the Mandalorian Wars have been known to praise the belt, citing its versatility and high storage capacity for combat operations | A variation of the standard belt, the Mandalorian Tool Belt has been in use for several thousand years. Sources dating back as far as the Mandalorian Wars have been known to praise the belt, citing its versatility and high storage capacity for combat operations.
The Mandalorians, being warriors at heart, understood full well that reaction times were crucial in a battle. As a result the entire design is based around quick and easy access for any equipment, from grenades to breathing filters. More importantly however, given that Mandalorian soldiers were often placed in major battles for extended periods of time, the belt itself is far larger than others. While most warriors simply filled this space with additional grenades or ammunition, it also allowed them to bring additional survival gear to battle. This |
True and False
December 16, 2004
Jupiter Clouds, True Color and False to Show Heights
January 23, 2001
These two frames of composited images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the | True and False
December 16, 2004
Jupiter Clouds, True Color and False to Show Heights
January 23, 2001
These two frames of composited images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft show the same cloud patterns on Jupiter both in natural color (left) and in a false-color combination (right) selected to show differences in clouds' height. The white spots in the right frame are storms high in the atmosphere.
Each frame is a combination of images taken by Cassini's narrow-angle camera through different filters on Dec. 31, 2000, one day after Cassini's closest approach to the planet. The smallest features are roughly 60 kilometers (40 miles) across.
The left frame shows the colors Jupiter would have if seen by the naked eye. The right frame is composed of three images. Two were taken through filters centered on regions of the spectrum where the gaseous methane in Jupiter's atmosphere absorbs light, and the third was taken in a red continuum region of the spectrum, where Jupiter has no absorptions. The combination yields an image whose colors denote the height of the clouds. Red regions are deep water clouds, bright blue regions are high haze (like the blue covering the Great Red Spot). Small, bright white spots are energetic lightning storms that have risen to a height where there is no opportunity for absorption of light, so the clouds reflect all light equally. The darkest blue regions, such as the long linear regions bordering the northern part of the equatorial zone, are the very deep `hot spots' from which Jovian thermal emission is free to escape to space.
This is the first time that global images of Jupiter in all the methane and appropriate continuum filters have been acquired by a spacecraft. From images like these, the dynamics of the layers within Jupiter's atmosphere will be determined.
Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
For higher resolution, click here. |
Victory over Carthage and conquests in the east transformed Rome into an Empire. By the latter part of the 2nd Century BC, the rapid expansion, massive influx of slave labor, opportunity for corruption in new provinces and the continuing | Victory over Carthage and conquests in the east transformed Rome into an Empire. By the latter part of the 2nd Century BC, the rapid expansion, massive influx of slave labor, opportunity for corruption in new provinces and the continuing development of social class disorder also brought about a distinct new era in Roman history.
While there was still considerable opposition to Roman power in the Mediterranean, the Romans suddenly found themselves as the only western super-power and the governing of this power would soon prove difficult by the Senate and the old Republican ways.
Mismanagement of the new Spanish provinces, along with revolts and resistance to Roman authority was one source of constant strife for nearly two centuries. One such event, the Numantine War against the restless Celtiberians, from 143 to 133 BC, gave the Romans access to the interior of Hispania, but also proved that continuing expansion was to be challenged at every step. Complete subjugation of Hispania wouldn't be completed until the reign of Augustus, and only after centuries of bloody fighting. The military atmosphere in Spain during the later years of the Republic would also become a hot point for rebellious leaders (ie Sertorius) who sought to take advantage of ongoing political turmoil in Rome.
The wars with Carthage had produced some 75,000 slaves and a great deal more were imported from eastern conquests (150,000 from Epirus alone). While Romans everywhere initially benefited from this new cheap labor, eventually the common masses found regular work hard to find as they had been effectively replaced by it. As Rome's economy shifted from one of labor by freedmen strictly into that of slavery, a new aristocracy arose. Slave trading was the new profit center for the elite and every excess was taken to get their share. Mistreatment and poor conditions, especially in Sicily where no other province was so inundated by slaves than the plantations there, led directly to the first of several open revolts against the institution.
The First Slave War, or Servile War, broke out in Sicily in 134 BC. According to the ancient sources, a slave owner by name of Damophilus was particularly abusive to his large slave holdings. A Syrian slave, Eunus, led a revolt which would ravage Sicily for 3 years. Declaring himself Antiochus, he captured the city of Enna, while his activities inspired another revolt under a Cilician by name of Cleon. The numbers of the slave armies grew to a combined strength of 70,000 and they took such towns as Agrigentum, Tauromenium and Catana and slave owners were slaughtered all over the island.
The revolt was eventually put down by Flacchus, who crucified no fewer than 20,000 in the end. This war would turn out to be only the beginning of slave insurrection in this time period. While it lasted 3 years, and Sicily would again be home to slave rebellions in later years, it was put down quickly with the intervention of the legions. Later rebellions, such as the one under Spartacus, would strike fear not into just the populace, but into the Roman army itself.
In the east, King Attalus III of Pergamum died in 133 BC, without heirs. Long maintaining friendship status with Rome, the entire nation of Pergamum, including Lydia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, and Pamphylia was willed to Rome upon his death. By 129 BC, he entire region would be annexed as the province of Asia Minor, and without so much as a single battle, Rome gained access to more riches of the east. Pergamum itself would become one of the most prosperous and famous cities in Asia Minor, noted for its architectural monuments, its fine library, and its schools.
This vast wealth imported from Rome's newly won provinces did more than lead to slave revolts. There was a new found political cry among the Italian tribes for equal rights as Latins. The load in military duty was equally shared among the tribes, but equal rights in voting were not. While full citizens no longer had to pay many of the states taxes, the Italians still did, and it was the patricians who benefited the most through vast acquisition of land and estates. The age old battle between patrician, equestrian and plebeian was soon to be renewed and some of Rome's most famous names would play center stage on world history.
The Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, would use the office of the Tribune and the citizen assemblies to upend the class structure and the inequity between rich, poor, citizen and non. The late 2nd century BC would shap |
H.S.I.: Historical Scene Investigation
Created and maintained by the College of William and Mary School of Education, the University of Kentucky School of Education, and the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program.
Reviewed Jan. 19–24, | H.S.I.: Historical Scene Investigation
Created and maintained by the College of William and Mary School of Education, the University of Kentucky School of Education, and the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program.
Reviewed Jan. 19–24, 2013.
The Historical Scene Investigation (HSI) project helps social studies teachers connect their students to the increasing cache of digitized primary sources available for historical investigation. HSI places students in the role of “historical investigator” to “crack” assigned cases from various points in American history. This investigative model is one approach to introducing students to and engaging them in the work of historians, a current trend in history education. Such work with students requires careful forethought and anticipation of stumbling blocks, and HSI does an excellent job of providing a model that keeps students on track while also allowing teachers the flexibility to modify or extend investigations to suit specific curricular needs.
The HSI home page leads students to a cleverly designed “case file” that is literally an image of an open filing cabinet with links embedded in each folder. Investigations run the gamut of American history from the Jamestown colony to the 1970s, though there is more emphasis on the colonial and early national eras. Each case file leads the student through a four-step process, the first of which is the “Becoming a Detective” phase that immerses students in the role of historical investigator, sets the stage for investigation, and ends with the overarching task or question at hand. The ensuing “Investigating the Evidence” phase includes primary sources and hyperlinks to images or multimedia files that serve as clues to follow in the “Searching for Clues” phase. Students download investigation logs that pose descriptive questions similar to what many would call “sourcing” questions, in that they ask students to consider the origination, audience, and context of each source. A second group of analytical questions guides students in locating and citing specific evidence that will lead them closer to cracking the case. The inclusion of the analytical questions is a significant point in favor of the HSI Web site, since students typically need guidance beyond sourcing questions when they are piecing together historical source evidence for a specific purpose.
Students return to the question posed at the beginning of the investigation to demonstrate their newly acquired historical understanding in the “Cracking the Case” phase. The final product is generally a brief historical narrative or argument based on the evidence, again replicating the work of the historian. Some of the cases prompt students simply to describe what they think actually happened at the time, while others add an additional element of historical argument or judgment by asking participants to adopt and defend a position. This phase is probably the least creative aspect of the HSI model, though it would be relatively easy for teachers to substitute other projects or forms of alternative assessment.
The Historical Scene Investigation creators have achieved their primary goal of replicating the work of historians by researching, organizing, and presenting thoughtfully chosen and balanced primary-source material in a convenient format that incorporates recent trends in history education. The investigative scope can be very specific at times: the investigation, for example, into the disappearance of Aaron, a slave living in 1770s Virginia. With that in mind, HSI will likely prove most useful for teachers who recognize the benefits of using primary sources to help students develop understanding of broader historical context, patterns, and forces, in addition to answering specific historical questions.
Jason L. Endacott
University of Arkansas |
Exploiting Groundwater in Southern Asia Could Have Poisonous Effects
Photo by feserc via Flickr Creative Commons
As groundwater supplies dwindle, it's only natural to start digging deeper, hoping to access more water the farther down we go | Exploiting Groundwater in Southern Asia Could Have Poisonous Effects
Photo by feserc via Flickr Creative Commons
As groundwater supplies dwindle, it's only natural to start digging deeper, hoping to access more water the farther down we go. However, that could lead to some serious problems, as a new study of wells in Vietnam has shown. In tests of 512 private wells that reach from 33 to 164 feed, 27% contain arsenic levels that surpass World Heath Organization standards. The wells study impact some 3 million people -- and it's just the beginning of what could be a far bigger problem since the arsenic could be a common trait in deep aquifers across South Asia. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and reported in the journal Nature, the study states that exploiting groundwater resources could lead to high future costs for health and water-purification processes due to the prevalence of arsenic.
"The element can trigger conditions ranging from anaemia to skin cancer. With deeper aquifers so far thought to be arsenic-free, some municipal authorities in Bangladesh, and many in Vietnam, are drilling into lower sediments. In Vietnam, a nation that began overusing its deep aquifers under French occupation more than 110 years ago, the effect is already pronounced. In the region surrounding the densely populated city of Hanoi -- with nearly 2,000 people per square kilometre -- it is difficult to escape arsenic-contaminated water, no matter how deeply you drill," reports Nature.
The data collected was turned into the first 3D groundwater map, which has allowed researchers to show where water is safe and where it is polluted in the different levels of sediment; however considering the number of people effected by water containing the deadly substance, the map also makes it clear that action needs to be taken -- and soon, since drilling deeper for water is becoming a more widespread need as supplies shrink.
Image credit: EAWAG
The study states, "Arsenic contamination of shallow groundwater is among the biggest health threats in the developing world... Vertical arsenic migration induced by large-scale pumping from deep aquifers has been discussed to occur elsewhere, but has never been shown to occur at the scale seen here. The present situation in the Red River Delta is a warning for other As-affected regions where groundwater is extensively pumped from uncontaminated aquifers underlying high arsenic aquifers or zones."
It' |
Ezra Klein suggests that personalized medicine, the use of genomics to tailor treatments to patients based on their individual genomes, will lead to increasing inequality in human health.
He was reporting on the argument of Francis Collins, the Director of the National | Ezra Klein suggests that personalized medicine, the use of genomics to tailor treatments to patients based on their individual genomes, will lead to increasing inequality in human health.
He was reporting on the argument of Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, that genomic technology will lead to huge advances in medical treatments.
As Collins sees it, what’ll be revolutionary about genome-based medicine is that we’ll be able to use the information contained in an individual’s DNA sequence to target their therapies much more precisely. If that comes true, the treatments of the future will differ from the treatments of the present in two big ways: First, they’ll work a lot better... Second, there’ll be a lot more individual variation,.. [and] one byproduct will be an immense explosion in health inequality. Right now, health inequality, though significant, is moderated by the fact that the marginal treatments that someone with unlimited resources can access simply don’t work that much better than the treatments someone with more modest means can access... But as those treatments begin to work better, and as we develop the ability to tailor treatments to individuals, we should expect that someone who can pay for the best treatments for their particular DNA sequences to achieve far better health-care outcomes than someone who can’t afford the best treatments and has to settle for general therapies rather than individualized medicine.
I agree that powerful, far future health technologies will likely increase human inequality. I made a similar argument about the effect of genetic enhancement technology in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy in 1995 (and if you are interested in ethical discussions of genetic enhancement, I recommend Allen Buchanan's forthcoming book).
That said, I am not worried that personalized medicine will create significant health inequality anytime soon. Here's why. The idea behind personalized medicine is that for a given treatment, there will be one or more alleles that make a given drug more or less effective for a subgroup of patients. If your doctor knows that you have one of these alleles, she can make the treatment more effective for you by appropriately adjusting the drug.
I am confident these gene-drug interactions exist. But keep in mind that many alleles are quite rare (1% prevalence or less). If so, then we have something like an orphan drug problem, that is, there are too few people with the condition to make it profitable to the manufacturer to carry out the research to develop the genomically-driven treatment guideline. That might not be the case if the effect was extremely powerful. However, most of the novel health effects uncovered in genomic research have been small.
I hope that Collins is right, and that we find gene-drug interactions that advance medicine, even if this has side effects in increasing inequality in health. So far, though, I'm not seeing them. |
It's been called the Tyrannosaurus
Rex of chemicals, or the Hell-Cat
of chemistry. By any name,
fluorine as an element is not polite; it has a voracious
appetite for grabbing | It's been called the Tyrannosaurus
Rex of chemicals, or the Hell-Cat
of chemistry. By any name,
fluorine as an element is not polite; it has a voracious
appetite for grabbing electrons from other atoms. By itself, it
is a pungent and poisonous gas of diatomic molecules:
Fluorine compounds are widely used in industry, and many of the compounds and processes in commercial use today are based on the pioneering work of UW chemistry professor George H. Cady. In early work he determined the physical characteristics of fluorine and refined methods for its production.
In 1948, Cady and colleagues published the first of a series
of papers on the hypofluorite compounds--those containing
the oxygen-fluorine group, -OF. One of these, trifluoromethyl
Cady achieved the first synthesis and characterization of xenon hexafluoride. The accomplishment is of particular interest to chemists, because as one of the noble gases (such as helium, neon, argon), xenon ordinarily shuns other elements, refusing to take part in any kind of chemical bond. But in this case, xenon is not as recalcitrant in its chemical behavior as fluorine is aggressive.
While on leave from the University of Washington during the Second World War, as a group leader in the Manhattan Project, Cady and colleagues developed a method of catalytic fluorination which provided the capability to produce a vast number of fluorocarbons: compounds having a carbon-carbon backbone with fluorine atoms attached.
Cady's catalytic process worked by passing hydrocarbon vapors and a dilute stream of fluorine gas over the catalyst silver difluoride. Because Cady's procedure was mild, the original carbon skeleton or ring structure was preserved in the catalytic process allowing fluorine atoms to be suspended from it like charms on a bracelet. The first fluorocarbon lubricating oils were produced by his team in this way. |
An unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, can help farmers scout fields.
How to Reduce Scouting Time By 60%
There are several potential benefits to using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, in agriculture. Landmark Services Cooperative (LSC) | An unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, can help farmers scout fields.
How to Reduce Scouting Time By 60%
There are several potential benefits to using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, in agriculture. Landmark Services Cooperative (LSC) says one of the most compelling reasons to use them is simple efficiency. LSC agronomists say drones can reduce scouting time by as much as 60%.
LSC added a small forward-propelled helicopter with a built-in camera to its toolbox at the beginning of the 2013 crop season. Using a tablet, the company’s agronomists can remotely fly the machines above the field to collect 360° views for quick detection of nutrient deficiencies or diseases.
"Whenever you see a field from a different perspective, you’re able to pick up new information," says Dan Moehn, vice president of LSC’s agronomy division. "If you’re standing at the end of a corn field, you have one perspective, but when you get in the air, you can see a much larger view of the field and can quickly spot areas that need attention."
Moehn says once the imagery is collected, it can be evaluated for signs of disease pressure, nutrient deficiencies or insect feeding. Typically, dark green plants are healthiest, and areas of yellowing in the field are areas that can be flagged for further investigation. Often times, quicker identification with follow-up tissue sampling can lead to smart in-season input decisions, Moehn says.
"The more scouting we can do, the more probable it is that we’ll see problems before they become bigger than they need to be," he says. "Preventing problems in the field is especially beneficial in a market where every bushel counts."
Welcome to the Silicon Prairie
You’ve probably heard of Silicon Valley, but what and where is the Silicon Prairie? The term has been used to describe various tech innovation hot spots in the Midwest and High Plains.
Iowans are claiming the latest bragging rights for the Silicon Prairie crown—five of the 21 people that Broadband for America recently named "Faces of Innovation" hail from Iowa, including sixth-generation farmer Grant Kimberley. Farmers are among the benefactors of the influx of tech startups into the rural Midwest.
"Iowa is certainly an innovative state and also the breadbasket of the country," Kimberley says. "So the moniker of ‘Silicon Prairie’ does fit very well."
He says broadband has really changed his business in the past 15 years through the continued advances in GPS and other precision ag technologies and through tapping into smartphone apps and other technologies.
Indiana’s Michele Payn-Knoper, a leading agriculture advocate who founded Cause Matters in 2001, also made the Faces of Innovation list. For a complete lineup, visit http://facesofinnovation.org.
Farmers Adopt More Precision Ag
The Farm Journal Pulse polls farmers and ranchers for their straight-from-the-farm opinions and crop progress updates. A poll this summer asked, "What forms of precision ag technology do you use?" More than 1,700 farmers responded, showing that farmers are more tech-savvy than ever. About two-thirds of respondents say they use at least two of the following technologies: yield monitor, GPS and auto-swath. Here are the complete results:
- September 2013 |
Tobacco Education and Prevention Program (TEPP)
The Tobacco Education and Prevention Program (TEPP) addresses the issue of nicotine addiction, especially among persons with disabilities or persons undergoing substance use disorder treatment. Persons with disabilities tend to smoke more than | Tobacco Education and Prevention Program (TEPP)
The Tobacco Education and Prevention Program (TEPP) addresses the issue of nicotine addiction, especially among persons with disabilities or persons undergoing substance use disorder treatment. Persons with disabilities tend to smoke more than persons without disabilities. And, a high percentage of persons entering substance use disorder treatment report being nicotine dependent.
Our Recent Findings
Historically substance abuse treatment programs have not addressed tobacco cessation. Thus, the goal of TEPP is to incorporate smoking cessation within the treatment milieu in order to improve health and increase chances for sobriety.
An investigation was conducted among 791 participants who underwent a TEPP tobacco education/smoking cessation curriculum over the past two years. Findings indicated that 91.7 percent were current tobacco users. The overwhelming majority (82 percent) used tobacco in the form of cigarettes. Of the 725 tobacco users, 67 percent reported some intentions to quit smoking. Therefore it was evident to us that the issue of nicotine dependence be addressed in conjunction with substance use disorder treatment.
Through our partnership with the Miami Valley Health Improvement Council (MVHIC), we are able to offer smoking cessation to those individuals undergoing alcohol and drug treatment throughout the Miami Valley area.
The Tobacco Education and Prevention Program (TEPP) consists of four modules.
- The facts about tobacco and smoking: the hazards of smoking, as well as the chemicals found in cigarettes or cigarette smoke are discussed.
- How tobacco is connected to other substances: consumers learn the similarities between tobacco and others substances such |
A geisha is a traditional Japanese entertainer. Often confused with a courtesan, or a prostitute, geisha instead are known for their distinct make-up and attire, their elegant and graceful dance, and their demure conversation. Evolving | A geisha is a traditional Japanese entertainer. Often confused with a courtesan, or a prostitute, geisha instead are known for their distinct make-up and attire, their elegant and graceful dance, and their demure conversation. Evolving in the mid-eighteenth century, from the pleasure houses of Japan where courtesans would entertain the samurai, the first geisha were actually men, who entertained the guests with drums and music. However, the men were gradually replaced with female dancers, referred to as geiko, who proved much more successful and popular. The term geiko is still used to refer to senior geisha who have passed all their exams; junior geisha still in training are called maiko.
The geisha saw their peak numbers in the 1920s, with over 80,000 practicing women. But modern times, with a struggling Japanese economy and a more casual attitude towards business mee |
Bear bile found in imported medicine
A diagnostic kit to crack down on illegal trade in bile extracted from live bears is being used by Australian and Canadian customs officers, an animal welfare group says.
Bear bile is a common ingredient in traditional medicines throughout East | Bear bile found in imported medicine
A diagnostic kit to crack down on illegal trade in bile extracted from live bears is being used by Australian and Canadian customs officers, an animal welfare group says.
Bear bile is a common ingredient in traditional medicines throughout East and Southeast Asia, says the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).
The test kit uses antibodies to detect a signature bear protein and was demonstrated this week at a meeting in The Hague of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which involves 171 nations.
"Interest from wildlife trade enforcement officials has been very strong," says Professor Kate Sanders, an evolutionary biologist who adapted a technique used to identify species in venomous snakebites to develop the kit.
The kits are slated to go on the market at the end of the year and will cost no more than US$40 (A$47), says Sanders, from Australia's University of Adelaide.
The active compound in bear bile is ursodeoxcholic acid (UDCA) and is thought to be effective for ailments ranging from liver disorders to haemorrhoids to hepatitis.
The compound has been available in a synthetic form for years, say animal rights groups calling for an end to bear farming.
Yet the use of bear bile is still widespread, a WSPA survey released t |
IGCSE Physics Notes: Using Archimedes Principle to Find the Density of an Object
You may be familiar with the picture of Archimedes in his bath just before he jumped out and ran down the street shouting, “Eureka!” | IGCSE Physics Notes: Using Archimedes Principle to Find the Density of an Object
You may be familiar with the picture of Archimedes in his bath just before he jumped out and ran down the street shouting, “Eureka!” - “I've found it!” He was presented with the problem of testing the purity of a royal crown – was it pure gold or not?
He solved the problem by finding the density of the metal of which the crown was made. When he was climbing into his bath the water overflowed. He realized that he could find the volume of the crown by measuring how much water it displaced when immersed. The weight could be measured with a pair of scales then the density found using the equation
However, this is not Archimedes Principle:
When a body is immersed or floating in a fluid, the upthrust on the body is equal to the weight of fluid displaced.
When the ball is dropped into the liquid the volume of liquid displaced is equal to the volume of the ball. The effective weight is reduced by the amount of the upthrust ie F becomes F'=W-U. But the upthrust is equal to the weight of fluid displaced,whereandWe may write
The upthrust is still equal to the weight of fluid displaced but now the ball is floating the upthrust is equal to the weight of the ball sobutis not now the volume of the ball. We must calculate using the equation |
GREEN building methods and materials are typically seen as "new-age" building solutions to age-old building problems.
But one of the most visibly "green" building systems being used widely today - the "living roof" or "green roof" - has | GREEN building methods and materials are typically seen as "new-age" building solutions to age-old building problems.
But one of the most visibly "green" building systems being used widely today - the "living roof" or "green roof" - has been in use for millennia.
Centuries ago northern Scandinavians harvested sod from their surrounding landscape and placed it upon structures to create effective insulating and water resistant roof systems. By creatively using building materials that were readily available to them, these early peoples were able to make robust and superbly efficient shelters for themselves.
In the 1960s designers in Germany began to incorporate green roofs into their buildings purely as an aesthetic feature to enhance the beauty of their buildings. In 1970 German landscape architect Hans Luz recognized that these green roofs were far more than a simple decorative coverings and argued that the introduction of living roofs could profoundly improve the quality of the urban environment. The "modern" green roof was born.
Today, the green roof is gaining mainstream recognition as an ecologically minded system that adds to any sustainable urban management plan. The new Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre boasts the largest green roof in Canada and clearly proves that the "living roof" has evolved from being a curiosity to a contemporary, ecologically conscious, architectural expression.
Here are six reasons why a green roof is a realistic, environmentally conscious choice for the modern home.
One of the biggest misunderstandings about a green roof is that it negatively affects the integrity of the roof system that it's placed over. Nothing could be further from the truth. A well designed, correctly installed green roof will protect the waterproof membrane that lies beneath it and, in turn, will extend the overall life of a roof.
Storm-water runoff will be greatly decreased with the utilization of a living roof. The growing medium and the vegetation of a green roof retain large amounts of storm water and will release it back into the environment at a far more manageable rate than a regular roof surface.
The slow transpiration of water back into the air (as highlighted above) creates a cooling effect that helps reduce the urban heat-island effect.
Imagine a roof the size of the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition centre having a standard tar and gravel surface and how, on a hot summer day, this roof will absorb sol |
Rebecca Cohen Mayer was born to German-Jewish immigrants in 1837 and raised in Mexico and Texas. When she was 15 years old, she married a man twice her age and set off on the Santa Fe Trail. In a company | Rebecca Cohen Mayer was born to German-Jewish immigrants in 1837 and raised in Mexico and Texas. When she was 15 years old, she married a man twice her age and set off on the Santa Fe Trail. In a company of over 50 explorers, she was the only woman.
The new book With a Doll in One Pocket and a Pistol in the Other (find it here) is a retelling of her life. Historian Kay Goldman came upon Mayer’s diary, written in the style of a memoir, and Goldman used it to reconstruct Mayer’s story and family history.
Curiously, Mayer’s diary opens not with her own birth, but with her husband’s, in Ober Ingelheim, Germany. Mayer can be forgiven for romanticizing, if only because her style is so colorful and energetic:
“In the quiet little town where Henry Mayer |
Precious Treatise on Preservation of Unity on the Great Wayby Sun Buer
English version by Thomas Cleary
Original Language Chinese
The Tao is uncontrived, yet there is nothing it does not do.
It can be witnessed by | Precious Treatise on Preservation of Unity on the Great Wayby Sun Buer
English version by Thomas Cleary
Original Language Chinese
The Tao is uncontrived, yet there is nothing it does not do.
It can be witnessed by the mind, not known by knowledge.
What is "knowing"? What is "witness"?
Knowledge dismisses knowledge.
Witness only responds.
Response comes from nowhere.
Mind then penetrates.
Penetrate the One, and all tasks are done.
The One is the root.
The task is the door.
When the task returns to One, the One is ever present.
The presence should not be reified;
provisionally we speak of keeping it.
Keep open selflessness and naturally be eternal.
|-- from Immortal Sisters: Secret Teachings of Taoist Women, Edited by Thomas Cleary| |
A fun interactive painting program on the Internet.
Architect Studio 3D
Architecture is the most massive expression of art you can think of. In this online app you get to design a house from the ground up with the famed architect ““ | A fun interactive painting program on the Internet.
Architect Studio 3D
Architecture is the most massive expression of art you can think of. In this online app you get to design a house from the ground up with the famed architect ““ Frank Lloyd Wright.
Art Junction – heART Collage
Just in time for Valentine’s Day! American artist, Jim Dine created a series of artwork using the “heart” shape as a symbol of his love for his wife, Nancy. Learn how to create your own “heart” series using this website.
Art Safari - Museum of Modern Art, New York
Explore the theme of animals in art through the work in the Museum of Modern Art. Take a “journey”—and adventure in looking at art.
Interesting art trivia facts that are fun to share with children and adults.
Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) are miniature works of art, usually done on card stock, that are traded between artists. They can be about anything and made with any media, materials, or techniques. They can be produced as one-of-a-kind originals, in limited editions, or in a series based on a particular theme or subject. It’s all up to the individual artist. The rules for ATCs are simple.
A comprehensive Web-based arts experience designed for middle school students, covering the visual and performing arts.
A fun flash-based paint program from art.com. Have fun creating art!
Free e-postcards, to which you can add your own text and send to your friends and family!
Ha |
- About Us
- What is PRS?
- Associated Conditions
- Personal Stories
- News & Events
- How Can You Help
- Members Area
The following information is provided directly from the
CHARGE Syndrome Association of Australasia | - About Us
- What is PRS?
- Associated Conditions
- Personal Stories
- News & Events
- How Can You Help
- Members Area
The following information is provided directly from the
CHARGE Syndrome Association of Australasia Inc website.
For further information please visit: www.chargesyndrome.org.au
CHARGE Syndrome is one of the many different conditions that can be diagnosed in conjunction with Pierre Robin Sequence/Syndrome. The following is a brief overview of this complex condition.
Diagnosing CHARGE Syndrome
CHARGE Syndrome (sometimes referred to as CHARGE Assocaition) can only be diagnosed by a qualified Geneticist.
CHARGE Syndrome, also known as CHARGE Association, is a specific set of birth defects. The major diagnostic criteria were based on the letters in CHARGE. Not all individuals with CHARGE will have all the symptoms, and each of the symptoms can vary in their degree of severity. (Sandra L.H. Davenport, M.D.)
In 1979 Dr Bryan Hall first described the associated features of CHARGE. It became known as CHARGE Association when Dr Roberta Pagon coined the acronym in 1981.
In the early literature the acronym stood for:
The sub group of features included:
(03) 9789 9373 |
|Content Provider||Cleveland Museum of Art 2007-08, 2008-09 Honorable Mention, 2009-10, 2010-11 Honorable Mention, 2011-12, 2012- | |Content Provider||Cleveland Museum of Art 2007-08, 2008-09 Honorable Mention, 2009-10, 2010-11 Honorable Mention, 2011-12, 2012-13|
11150 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106
Phone: (216) 707-2491
Fax: (216) 421-9277
|Program Type||Individual Program|
|Program Rating||based on 50 evaluation(s).|
|Target Audience||Education: Grade(s): 2, 3, 4, 5|
|Maximum Number of Participants||30|
|Minimum Number of Participants||1|
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Maffucci syndrome is a disorder that primarily affects the bones and skin. It is characterized by multiple enchondromas, which are noncancerous (benign) growths of cartilage that develop on the bones. These growths | Maffucci syndrome is a disorder that primarily affects the bones and skin. It is characterized by multiple enchondromas, which are noncancerous (benign) growths of cartilage that develop on the bones. These growths most commonly occur in the limb bones, especially in the hands and feet; however, they may also occur in the skull, ribs, and vertebrae. Enchondromas may result in severe bone deformities, shortening of the limbs, and fractures. They develop near the ends of bones, where growth occurs, and enchondromas stop forming after affected individuals stop growing. As a result of the bone deformities associated with Maffucci syndrome, people with this disorder generally have short |
Rheumatoid arthritis is characterized by an intermittent course of the disease with alternate periods of remission and relapse. T cells, and in particular the T-cell cytokine IL-17, are expected to be involved in this flare-up of | Rheumatoid arthritis is characterized by an intermittent course of the disease with alternate periods of remission and relapse. T cells, and in particular the T-cell cytokine IL-17, are expected to be involved in this flare-up of arthritis.
To study the role of T-cell IL-17 in flare-up of experimental arthritis.
Antigen-induced arthritis was induced in C57Bl/6 mice by immunizing and boosting with mBSA/ complete Freund's adjuvant, and subsequent intra-articular injection of 60 μg mBSA. At week 4 of arthritis, 2 μg mBSA was injected into the arthritic joint to induce a flare-up of the smouldering inflammation. To study the role of IL-17 in this flare-up, neutralizing rabbit-anti-mouse-IL-17 antibodies (or control antibodies) were injected 2 hours prior to antigen rechallenge.
Quantitative PCR at various time points after arthritis induction showed that IL-17 mRNA expression was already upregulated at day 1, increased even more at day 2 and day 7, and clearly diminished at day 21. After antigen rechallenge, IL-17 mRNA expression rapidly increased, peaking at 4 hours with a 250-fold upregulation compared with naive mice.
Neutralizing IL-17 significantly prevented joint swelling, as measured by 99mTc uptake at da |
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Nashville had 20-25 military hospital hospitals operating at any given time during the Civil War. At peak capacity, Nashville hospitals had roughly 14,000 | You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Hospitals’ category.
Nashville had 20-25 military hospital hospitals operating at any given time during the Civil War. At peak capacity, Nashville hospitals had roughly 14,000 men being treated, including hundreds of Confederates, even during the Union occupation that began in February 1862.
Nashville was the second largest military hospital network devoted to Union-use. Only Philadelphia had a larger military hospital system. As large as the Nashville military hospital system was, it could still could handle the amount of casualties that strained her capacity.
Thousands of wounded and sick Union soldiers were initially treated in a Nashville hospital and then routed to Evansville, Louisville or Jeffersonville for care in their respective hospitals. Many Union casualties from the Franklin-Nashville campaign were taken to Louisville for medical care.
One such Louisville hospital was #8, which later became known as the Monsarrat School (below).
Joseph Meyer was 23 years old when he enlisted in October 1864, Co.B., was mortally wounded at Franklin, died of wounds on 12/6/64 at Jeffersonville, Indiana. Buried at New Albany National Cemetery (IN), Gravesite B-86. |
Release Date: March 10, 2006
|DOE-Funded Project Revives Aging California Oilfield
New Technologies and Techniques Could Boost U.S. Proved Oil Reserves
WASHINGTON, DC - Technology developed under a U.S | Release Date: March 10, 2006
|DOE-Funded Project Revives Aging California Oilfield
New Technologies and Techniques Could Boost U.S. Proved Oil Reserves
WASHINGTON, DC - Technology developed under a U.S. Department of Energy-funded research project has breathed new life into one of America's largest mature producing oilfields.
The project, managed by the Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), is expected to add ultimately 13 million barrels of incremental oil production in a small portion of the Wilmington oilfield, a 73-year-old giant in the heart of Long Beach, Calif. If new technologies and techniques developed under the project are applied field-wide, it could boost Wilmington's ultimate oil recovery by 525 million barrels of oil. That jump, in a single oilfield, equates to a 2.5 percent increase in total U.S. proved oil reserves. An aggressive effort to transfer this technology could boost reserves in similar fields along the California coast by 1.4 billion barrels of oil.
A small, independent producer, Tidelands Oil Production Co., operates the western portion of the field as a subcontractor to the field owner, the City of Long Beach. Since 1932, more than 3,400 land-based wells have been drilled in the western portion of Wilmington oilfield. By the 1950s, that portion of the field had been completely developed under primary recovery, and waterflooding-the injection of water into a producing formation to "sweep" more oil to the wellbore-was started in order to increase recovery and control subsidence. Such secondary recovery efforts often are followed by tertiary recovery, also known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In Wilmington's case, the EOR choice was a thermal approach, namely steamflooding. The introduction of heat into the reservoir reduces a heavy crude oil's viscosity, making it more mobile and easier to recover.
Tidelands' project called for using advanced reservoir characterization and thermal production technologies together with horizontal drilling to improve the efficiency of a deep, heavy oil steamflood in Wilmington field. Steamflooding, typically an expensive process, had been economic in the Wilmington field even when oil prices were low, because the operators had access to a low-cost source of steam from a nearby power plant. However, inexpensive steam became unavailable when the power plant shut down. Future expansion of thermal recovery would require improving the efficiency and economics of heavy oil recovery apart from the steam source.
As part of the project, Tidelands developed:
Tidelands attributes its success t |
spanish flag in 1519?Advertisement
List of Spanish flags This is a list of flags used in the year of 1532. For more information about the national flag, visit the article Flag of Spain. - read more
The | spanish flag in 1519?Advertisement
List of Spanish flags This is a list of flags used in the year of 1532. For more information about the national flag, visit the article Flag of Spain. - read more
The Spanish flag was the first European marker to fly over Texas. Many Spanish conquistadors and missionaries came to Texas. The conquistadors searched for gold and land, while the missionaries came to Christianize the native tribes. - read more
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Inverse mapping is a procedure used to create associations between real or virtual objects that involves some type of reversal of another process or concept. Various types of inverse mapping are used in a wide range of mathematical applications.
2) In a computer network, inverse | Inverse mapping is a procedure used to create associations between real or virtual objects that involves some type of reversal of another process or concept. Various types of inverse mapping are used in a wide range of mathematical applications.
2) In a computer network, inverse mapping is a stealth-approach network scanning method that gathers information about inactive IP addresses on a network to try to determine which IP addresses are associated with active hosts.
According to the Systems Administration and Network Security (SANS) Institute, typical firewall procedures can help the attacker to gain the information they seek. Typically, firewalls and routers do not respond to a ping response packet if the target address exists on the network, but respond with an ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) host unreachable signal if the target is not available. The absence of response allows the attacker to guess which IP addresses of a given address block map to live hosts.
Inverse mapping may be a widely-used attack technique. In November 1999, the SANS Institute noticed evidence in their router and firewall logs that they were receiving responses to ping requests in cases where no network machine had sent the request. When SANS made that information available to its membership, many members reported similar network activity. |
News Release, Kansas Geological Survey, July 27, 2000
The grant will be used to develop a digital database of information about carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas. The database will integrate regional information on CO2 sources | News Release, Kansas Geological Survey, July 27, 2000
The grant will be used to develop a digital database of information about carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas. The database will integrate regional information on CO2 sources with potential sites for geologic sequestration.
Some scientists believe that human-induced increases in carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases, may contribute to the current cycle of warming the earth is undergoing today. Greenhouse gases, mostly water vapor but also carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the earth's atmosphere rather than radiating it back to deep space. Without these gases, the earth would be too cold to sustain life as we know it, like Mars. However, if human activities are generating more greenhouse gases than the atmosphere, land, and oceans can absorb, it will ultimately cause more warming than natural.
Geologic sequestration--trapping CO2 in geological reservoirs--may be one way to safely manage CO2 over long periods of time. Potential sites for such sequestration include oil and gas fields, coal beds, and abandoned subsurface mines.
The database, called the Midcontinent Interactive Digital Carbon Atlas and Relational DataBase (MIDCARB) |
In the world of giant Australian cuttlefish, where males outnumber females four to one, how does a runt male stand a chance finding a mate? On average, three out of every four males don’t get to mate.
Even if females | In the world of giant Australian cuttlefish, where males outnumber females four to one, how does a runt male stand a chance finding a mate? On average, three out of every four males don’t get to mate.
Even if females were to actually prefer runt males, how do these little guys get around the hordes of much larger male cuttlefish to get to the females?
Runt male cuttlefish get past larger males they couldn’t possibly defeat in a fight by disguising themselves as females.
Their skin camouflages into the mottled skin patterning typical of females, and they hide their fourth pair of tentacles, a pair the females don’t possess. Then they shape the remaining tentacles in an egg laying posture. The fact that they’re closer to the size of females than males certainly doesn’t hurt.
It’s so convincing that in a study of this behavior, these males successfully fertilized female cuttlefish 60% of the time. The typical success rate for the larger and uncostumed males is about half that, because so many of the large males do not get to mate at all. In evolution, you don’t have to beat the best, you just have to beat the average!
However, on the downside, the female impersonators get unwanted attention from fooled males who try to mate with them. |
Black holes have a maximum speed? Not really, just the usual Cosmic Speed Limit of the speed of light. From a Penn State Press Release….
A new study using results from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory provides one of the best pieces | Black holes have a maximum speed? Not really, just the usual Cosmic Speed Limit of the speed of light. From a Penn State Press Release….
A new study using results from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory provides one of the best pieces of evidence yet that many supermassive black holes are spinning extremely rapidly, according to a research team led by a Penn State astronomer. The whirling of these giant black holes drives powerful jets that pump huge amounts of energy into their environment and affects the growth of galaxies.
“We think these monster black holes are spinning close to the limit set by Einstein’s theory of relativity, which means that they can drag material around them at close to the speed of light,” said Rodrigo Nemmen da Silva, a visiting graduate student at Penn State and the lead author of a paper on the new results, which were presented Jan. 10 at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Tex. “Conditions around a stationary black hole are extreme, but around a rapidly spinning one would be even worse,” Nemmen said.
The research team compared data from the Chandra observatory with leading theories of jets produced by rotating supermassive black holes. A sampling of nine giant galaxies that exhibit large disturbances in hot gas around them showed that the central black holes in these galaxies must be spinning at near their maximum rates.
The research reinforces other methods previously used, which have indicated that some stellar and supermassive black holes are spinning rapidly. According to Einstein’s theory, a rapidly spinning black hole makes space itself rotate. This effect, coupled with gas spiraling toward the black hole, can produce a rotating, tightly wound vertical tower of magnetic field that flings a large fraction of the inflowing gas away from the vicinity of the black hole in an energetic, high-speed jet.
Computer simulations by other authors have suggested that black holes may acquire their rapid spins when galaxies merge, and through the accretion of gas from their surroundings. “Extremely fast spin might be very common for large black holes,” said co-investigator Richard Bower of Durham University in the United Kingdom. “This might help us explain the source of these incredible jets that we see stretching for enormous distances across space.”
One significant consequence of powerful, black-hole jets in galaxies in the centers of galaxy clusters is that they can pump enormous amounts of energy into their environments and heat the gas around them. This heating prevents the gas from cooling and it affects the rate at which n |
From OpenContent Curriculum
Scientific InformationDunlin (Calidris alpina) are a familiar shorebird around the world. It has a bright reddish back and black belly with a long drooping bill. It’s a medium | From OpenContent Curriculum
Scientific InformationDunlin (Calidris alpina) are a familiar shorebird around the world. It has a bright reddish back and black belly with a long drooping bill. It’s a medium-sized sandpiper with a short neck. The Dunlin that breed here on the Seward Peninsula apparently move west, migrating down the eastern side of Siberia and Asia to Japan and China. Their drooping black bill is used to probe and pick up food while wading in the shallows.
There are three subspecies of Dunlin that breed in North America. The subspecies C.a. arcticola is found in the Bering Straits.
Relevant Site Information
The name stands for the belly patch. Known locally to the kids as black bellies, Dunlins are a very common shorebird to the island. Hundreds will arrive in the spring to stage and move on to their breeding grounds. Some will stay and breed here and people will hunt for their eggs. They usually make 3 eggs. In the fall time, thousands may be found around the island probing for food along exposed sand bars. Young hunters will stalk these and traditionally take their kills home to their parents or grandparents to cook. |
Bidirectionally Testing Network Connections
Beginning in Spring 2009, I started seeing network problems at some customer sites: data transmissions would hang and time out; connections via OpenVPN links would work at first but time out as soon as more data | Bidirectionally Testing Network Connections
Beginning in Spring 2009, I started seeing network problems at some customer sites: data transmissions would hang and time out; connections via OpenVPN links would work at first but time out as soon as more data was transmitted; VPN connections using UDP would not work at all (but would work magically when changing OpenVPN's port to 80/TCP). All these symptoms are usually tied to traffic shaping, problems with the maximum packet size (maximum transfer unit, MTU) or other issues usually found between the end-points of the transmission. But how do you test and record the performance of "your" Internet?
Using Network Tools for Debugging
First of all, you can use network tools to inspect the path between the two communication partners.
- hping3 is a tool to construct arbitrary TCP/IP packets and send them to hosts. This is very useful for sending TCP SYN packets and seeing if TCP SYN+ACK packets return. You can also send packets with a custom payload, and check for MTU issues.
- ping is a well-known tool for sending ICMP Echo Request packets.
- tracepath is used for discovering the MTU between source and destination. It uses UDP packets, starting with a size of 65536 byte and reducing the size after receiving timeouts or errors.
- traceroute is the classic tool for displaying the intermediate hops between source and destination.
Most tools display error messages, round-trip/response times and other useful information. Although many people rely on the results of tools, always keep in mind that sending test packets is not the same as sending real data over different protocols. There are routers and other network devices out there that do not treat every packet equally.
One site reported very strange effects. Immediately after you used a Bittorrent client or a protocol over "bad ports", the bandwidth for "regular" network traffic dropped notably. After half an hour or more, the performance would return to normal. This behaviour may indicate a violation of net neutrality, the presence of filters, or other defects. The big problem is to find the cause, since it could be the network path, flaky hardware, broken software, prioritisation of network traffic, policy enforcement, or some entirely different reason. If there are intermediate network devices manipulating your packet flow, then there's a chance you will never identify or "see" these devices with the tools available.
Using Data Transmissions for Debugging
Using "real" data and "real" protocols for testing is better, but how do you do that? Clicking on download links in your Web browser and using a stop watch isn't well suited to finding hard facts. What about the other direction? Downloads are treated differently from uploads, if you're on an asymmetric Internet connection. You need to test transfers in both directions, and you need to use different protocols and ports. Why not let a script do all of this, and collect a nice summary?
First, we thought to use a shell script containing a few tools, and send data around. The problem is that you might want to do some statistics. Filtering the output and calculating transmission rates can be quite difficult. That's why a Perl script was created. It uses HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, FTP, SMTP, and IMAP. All protocols except SMTP are automatically used bidirectionally. The script uses a configuration file where login, password, paths, and other parameters can be configured. You can use different servers for every protocol, if you want. The data to be transferred can be given explicitly by file. If no file is given, then the script will create a given amount of random data using OpenSSL's pseudo-random generator code. The full config |
How did American foreign policy become more interventionist (aggressive) from the 1890s into the twentieth century? Note:
America?s Age of Imperialism was relatively short-lived, and somewhat anomalous in terms of overall US history. [ | How did American foreign policy become more interventionist (aggressive) from the 1890s into the twentieth century? Note:
America?s Age of Imperialism was relatively short-lived, and somewhat anomalous in terms of overall US history. [ [ For a few brief years in the 1890s, the US aggressively pursued overseas colonies, holding on to those colonies even in the face of indigenous resistance and, unlike its handling of continental territories, offering the new colonies no pathway toward equal statehood and citizenship. The Filipino Insurrection of 1899 to 1902 provides a particularly unsettling episode in terms of how Americans generally like to remember their past. Having driven the Spanish out of the Philippines, the US ignored the Filipinos? demand for independence, for which they had been fighting against the Spanish for several years, and instead took possession of the islands, treating the Filipinos as colonial subjects. For several years, Americans and Filipinos fought over the destiny of the Philippines in a brutal conflict which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands?perhaps even more than a million?Filipino civilians. ] ] Auto answered|Score 1|AndrewTang|Points 97|Note:
I'm sorry that that wasn't a good answer. Please hold on while I contact an expert.Weegy:
How did American foreign policy become more interventionist (aggressive) from the 1890s into the twentieth century?
Answer The main trend regarding the history of U.S. [ foreign policy since the American Revolution is the shift from non-interventionism before and after World War I, to its growth as a world power and global hegemon during and since World War II and the end of the Cold War in the 20th century. Since the 19th century, US foreign policy also has been characterized by a shift from the realist school to the idealistic or Wilsonian school of international relations. Foreign policy themes were expressed considerably in George Washington's farewell address; these included among other things, observing good faith and justice towards all nations and cultivating peace and harmony with all, excluding both "inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others", "steer[ing] clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world", and advocating trade with all nations. These policies became the basis of the Federalist Party in the 1790s. But the rival Jeffersonians feared Britain and favored France in the 1790s, declaring the War of 1812 on Britain. After the 1778 alliance with France, the U.S. did not sign another permanent treaty until the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. Over time, other themes, key goals, attitudes, or stances have been variously expressed by Presidential 'doctrines', named for them. Initially these were uncommon events, but since WWII, these have been made by most presidents.
] Expert answered|mel26|Points 40|
All Categories|No Subcategories|Expert answered|Rating 0| 4/21/2013 2:25:15 AM |
One of the more subtle forms of anachronism in historical novels is the intrusion of the author's modern prejudices, both in characterization and narrative.
The end of the 20th century has seen a change in living conditions and social attitudes that | One of the more subtle forms of anachronism in historical novels is the intrusion of the author's modern prejudices, both in characterization and narrative.
The end of the 20th century has seen a change in living conditions and social attitudes that threatens to make our ancestors almost incomprehensible. It certainly makes writing a good historical novel more of an accomplishment. Anyone can take their friends and neighbors and mentally redress them in those funny old clothes, then put them through those adventures the old books talk about, but this sort of thin fancy-dress novel does not feel very historical. Often it sounds like a cheap polemic on the evils of the old days, with the protagonists' soliloquies flogging such dead horses as slavery, racial prejudice, sexual disenfranchisement, bad hygiene, religious intolerance, and legally enforced class distinctions. We can all agree, here and now, that these are bad things and none of us would like living in a place where they operated, and assume your readers are equally enlightened.
At the time, though, these practices were the norm, and often considered valuable and virtuous. You take your work far above the mediocre if you arrange your novel to show why these things existed as long as they did, and how they affected even nice people's relations and thoughts, rather than just using them as straw-man villainies.
Take that word, villain. It started as _villein_, and meant a peasant farmer. At what point did it move from simply describing one level of society to meaning someone dishonorable to further meaning someone vile? You will find the latter connotation only once villeins are no longer part of ordinary life, indeed have become so uppity as to be landowners themselves, even rich merchants and bankers who can buy and sell impoverished noblemen. As you might also find, the much earlier tie between dishonor and villainy came from the elite class, who simply di |
In recognition of the conservation status of Sturgeon and Paddlefish, trade in all species of Acipenseriformes is regulated via inclusion in the Appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora | In recognition of the conservation status of Sturgeon and Paddlefish, trade in all species of Acipenseriformes is regulated via inclusion in the Appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Four species of sturgeon and paddlefish were listed in the CITES appendices by 1989. In 1997 CITES Parties agreed to include the remaining 23 species of sturgeon and paddlefish in the Appendices, and the listing entered into force in April 1998. CITES-listing aims to reduce the illegal trade of caviar on the world market; indeed the effective implementation of the CITES listing should contribute to the conservation of sturgeon stocks, particularly the sturgeon of the Caspian Sea. The Caspian region is one of the most important areas for sturgeon, and is home to the six species which collectively provide more than 90% of the world’s caviar production.
In response to concerns that trade of sturgeon products might be detrimental to the survival of species at the time of listing of all species in the Appendices, CITES Parties called for a Significant Trade Review of the species included in Appendix II. The review was Undertaken by the CITES |
- Multi drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a strain of TB bacteria that has become resistant to TB drugs.
- MDR-TB is difficult and costly to treat, and can be fatal.
- The current definition of MDR | - Multi drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a strain of TB bacteria that has become resistant to TB drugs.
- MDR-TB is difficult and costly to treat, and can be fatal.
- The current definition of MDR-TB is when a strain of TB is resistant to at least two first-line anti-TB drugs.
- Extensive Drug Resistant TB (XDR-TB also) is defined as MDR-TB that has also become resistant to three or more second-line drugs.
- Drug resistance is caused by TB patients failing to complete treatment regimens or receiving incorrect treatment.
What is multi drug-resistant TB?
Bacterial TB strains resistant to an anti-TB drug or a combination of these have emerged.
The current definition of multi drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is when bacteria become resistant to at least two first-line therapies - the drugs isoniazid and rifampin, considered to be the most potent against the disease.
What is XDR-TB?
XDR-TB stands for Extensive drug-resistant TB (also referred to as Extreme drug-resistance). This is a newly identified TB threat: MDR-TB that has also become resistant to three or more of the six classes of reserve second-line drugs.
This description of XDR-TB was first used earlier in 2006, after a survey by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention.
The emergence of XDR-TB is cause for great concern because it is widely distributed geographically, and renders patients virtually untreatable with available drugs.
A survey conducted by the WHO and CDC found that XDR-TB has been identified in all regions of the world but is most frequent in the former Soviet Union and Asia.
The medical community considers XDR-TB to be a major public health threat associated with high mortality rates, especially in areas with high HIV rates and poor health care resources. This is the case in many parts of Africa, where drug resistance is thought to be on the rise.
What causes MDR-TB?
MDR-TB is caused by poorly managed treatment of TB disease: when patients do not take all their medicines regularly for the required period because they start to feel better, when health workers prescribe the wrong drugs or the wrong combination of drugs, or when the drug supply i |
Abstract: Omega House in Athens: Christianizing the city of Athena
Lecturer: Barbara Tsakirgis
During the course of the American excavations of the Athenian Agora, a large Late Roman house was uncovered on the slopes | Abstract: Omega House in Athens: Christianizing the city of Athena
Lecturer: Barbara Tsakirgis
During the course of the American excavations of the Athenian Agora, a large Late Roman house was uncovered on the slopes of the Areopagus. Dating to the fourth through sixth centuries after Christ, the house contains three sizeable courtyards and a beautiful nymphaeum with attached dining room. One of the wells of the house contained undamaged sculptures of Roman luminaries and Greek gods. An image of Athena was beheaded and reused as a threshold. A mutilated relief, once dedicated to Pan and the nymphs, was found in the building. These and other features led the excavators to believe that the house |
After the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz killed more than 23,000 people in Colombia in 1985, the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance asked the U.S. Geological Survey to design a program to help foreign governments cope with | After the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz killed more than 23,000 people in Colombia in 1985, the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance asked the U.S. Geological Survey to design a program to help foreign governments cope with volcano crises. The result was the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, or VDAP. Based at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, this crack unit is standing by at all times, ready to lend a hand at the next volcano showing signs of blowing up. NOVA asked VDAP's chief, volcanologist Dan Miller, what it's like to be on the team.
NOVA: Earlier this year you spent five weeks in Ecuador. What were you doing?
Miller: In early December 2001 we started getting phone calls and e-mails from our colleagues down at the Geophysical Institute in Quito about earthquakes that were occurring under Cotopaxi volcano. Cotopaxi is a hu |
You've heard the myths. If you get a tan, you won't get skin cancer. If you use SPF 50 sunblock, you're safe. Only people with light skin are prone to skin cancer. None of these are true.
| You've heard the myths. If you get a tan, you won't get skin cancer. If you use SPF 50 sunblock, you're safe. Only people with light skin are prone to skin cancer. None of these are true.
It's suntan season in the Earth's northern hemisphere, so you'd better get the facts. We've got the lowdown on the real connection between going out in the sun and getting skin cancer — and some recommendations about how to protect yourself while also soaking up some healthy solar radiation.
Any doctor will tell you that getting sun is good for your health. Vitahimin D, crucial for bone and immune system health, is activated in your body when you expose your skin to sunlight. Some medical experts say just a half hour or more of exposure to sunlight will cause an enormous amount of the vitamin to circulate in your bloodstream. But too much sunlight can be deadly.
A suntan, like a sunburn, is produced by exposure to the ultraviolet radiation found in sunlight. Both sunburn and suntan are caused when ultraviolet rays damage your DNA, which can be the first step on the pathway to cancer. Writes medical researcher Sophie Balk, in an overview of skin cancer research published this year, "According to recent evidence, the tanning response means that DNA damage has occurred in skin." She and her colleagues warn that excessive tanning can lead to cancer — and they suspect that the rise in cases of skin cancer could be connected in part with the popularity of tanning salons. Excessive tanning also breaks down the collagen in your skin, which leads to the symptoms of aging such as sagging and wrinkles.
Surgeon and cancer researcher Adam Riker recently published a paper with his colleagues on the growing dangers from skin cancers like melanoma, which are becoming more common. They write, "Melanoma is the sixth most common fatal malignancy in the United States, responsible for 4% of all cancer deaths and 6 of every 7 skin cancer-related deaths." They estimate that 1 in 5 Americans will develop some form of skin cancer in their lifetimes, which means that each year there are at least 1 mil |
Standard Body Mass Index (BMI) Scale Doesn’t Measure Up for South Asians
Posted on Dec 12, 2011 | 0 comments
Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a measure of weight proportionate to height, is a | Standard Body Mass Index (BMI) Scale Doesn’t Measure Up for South Asians
Posted on Dec 12, 2011 | 0 comments
Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a measure of weight proportionate to height, is a standard used around the world to figure out when someone is overweight or obese. BMI is an estimate of body fat and a good gauge of your risk for diseases that are more likely to develop with excessive amounts body fat.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the higher your BMI, the higher your risk for certain chronic diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems and certain cancers.
However, if you are South Asian, you should know that the standard BMI scale may underestimate your disease risk.
South Asians tend to have a high percentage of body fat at a lower BMI. A study published in scientific journal The Lancet showed that for the same BMI of 22.3, an individual of Asian Indian decent had more than 21 percent body fat, compared to a Caucasian (white) individual with 9 percent body fat. This study showed that Asian Indians have more body fat at lower BMIs than Caucasian people.
Since even a little excess body fat can significantly increase one’s risk of developing diabetes and heart disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2004 lowered the BMI limits for South Asians to more accurately reflect risk for this population. According to WHO, Asian Indians with a BMI of greater than 23 kg/m2 are considered overweight and a BMI of greater than 27.5 kg/m2 are considered obese.
Another measure measure used to assess weight status, body fat and disease risk is waist-to-hip ratio. It measures visceral fat and is calculated by taking your waist circumference and dividing it by your hip circumference. A waist-to-hip ratio greater than 0.80 for women and 0.90 for men puts the individual at higher risk for diabetes and heart disease.
Since South Asians have a higher percentage of body fat – which is often times deposited in the abdominal area |
Title: Influence of artificial cavity age on red-cockaded woodpecker translocation success
Author: Saenz, Daniel; Schaefer, Richard R.; Conner, Richard N.; Rudolph, D. Craig; Carrie, Dawn | Title: Influence of artificial cavity age on red-cockaded woodpecker translocation success
Author: Saenz, Daniel; Schaefer, Richard R.; Conner, Richard N.; Rudolph, D. Craig; Carrie, Dawn K.; Best, M. Stephen
Source: In: Costa, Ralph; Daniels, Susan J., eds. Red-cockaded woodpecker: Road to recovery. Blaine, WA: Hancock House Publishers: 426-429.
Description: Red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis) translocations have been used to bolster woodpecker populations and to fill breeding vacancies. Artificial, insert cavities have been used to offset cavity shortages in woodpecker clusters and are the primary cavity type used in recruitment clusters in Texas and Arkansas, but inserts may lose their attractiveness to birds over time. Thirty-nine recruitment clusters received translocated birds on the Angelina, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston National Forests in eastern Texas and 13 clusters in the Ouachita National Forest in western Arkansas were surveyed from March through June 1998 and 1999 to determine the success rate of translocations into recruitment clusters containing new and old inserts. Clusters with inserts installed within 1 year of woodpecker translocations (n = 26) were occupied by at least 1 bird at 77% of the clusters, whereas clusters (n = 26) with older inserts had a lower success rate of 23% (x2 = 15.07, P > 0.001). If cavity inserts are the artificial cavity technique used, installation of new inserts just prior to woodpecker translocation should significantly improve the overall success rate of a red-cockaded woodpecker translocation program and facilitate the recovery effort.
Keywords: Red-cockaded woodpecker, Picoides borealis, new inserts, |
LAND AREA: 399.85 square miles
Black/African American: 24,121
American Indian: 222
Pacific Islander: 48
Two or more races: 785
Hispanic/Latino: 3 | LAND AREA: 399.85 square miles
Black/African American: 24,121
American Indian: 222
Pacific Islander: 48
Two or more races: 785
Hispanic/Latino: 3,917 (of any race)
From the 2010 Census, US Census Bureau.
Lenoir County, located in North Carolina's Coastal Plain region, was formed from no-longer-extant Dobbs County in 1791. It was named for General William Lenoir, a prominent Revolutionary War hero, Speaker of the State Senate, and trustee of the University of North Carolina. The new county retained Dobbs County's seat, Kinston, which was incorporated in 1762 as Kingsto |
The first thing to learn is that magnification is not as important as some advertisements can make it seem. Neither is it
meaningful to ask how far away you can see. What is important and meaningful are these things:
How dim of a | The first thing to learn is that magnification is not as important as some advertisements can make it seem. Neither is it
meaningful to ask how far away you can see. What is important and meaningful are these things:
How dim of a thing can I see (light-gathering)?
How detailed is the image (resolution)?
The answer to both of these questions is given by the size of the main optical element (the objective).
In refractors the objective is a lens.
In reflectors it is a mirror.
Whichever design of scope you buy, the size and quality of the objective element is the most important consideration. All
things being equal, bigger is better.
So the real question should be, how big is the objective?
The objective gathers and concentrates light. Generally speaking, the bigger the objective,
the dimmer of an object you will be able to see,
or put another way, objects will appear brighter with a bigger objective.
Other factors affect the brightness, but no matter how clever the design, a telescope can
utilize only the amount of light the objective gathers and delivers to the system. Bigger is better.
Higher resolution means an image with more detail. Other factors affect resolution but the maximum
resolving power is set by the diameter of the objective. Bigger is better.
2. Which type of telescope should I buy?
Before you buy a telescope, you should first consider binoculars. They are an important tool used by pretty much every
amateur astronomer you will meet. Many objects are too large to fit in the highly magnified view of a telescope
and thus are more appropriately viewed in binoculars. Very often astronomers use binoculars to "pre-locate" objects
before attempting to aim their telescopes at them. This technique can greatly reduce the frustration of trying
to locate difficult objects. There are other reasons to buy binoculars first. They can be used for many purposes, such as
sports, birds, planes, and so forth. If you are considering a gift for a young astronomer, binoculars
in the less-than $100 range are a great choice which will allow you to find out if Little Galileo is
really dedicated to the hobby, before investing in an expensive telescope. The 7x50 design is the one most
typically used by seasoned star-hoppers.
There are so-called "dime store" or "department store" telescopes that have objective lenses
in the 30 to 60 millimeter range. They are priced from $50 to $150.
These instruments have some drawbacks that have drawn disdain from
telescope enthusiasts; they are truly "toys." The optics tend to be of low quality. Some even have optics that
are made of plastic instead of glass.
The mounts are wobbly. The package includes eyepieces capable of producing magnification far in
excess of what is useful and this meaningless theoretical magnification is sometimes shamelessly used
as an advertising ploy. Experience shows
that these telescopes often wind up in a closet gathering dust, and eventually in a yard sale.
Meanwhile the same
price range will yield a reasonable pair of binoculars that will be valued for many years.
High Quality Refractors
Refractors use lenses to gather and focus light. The large "objective" lens refracts the light because
the density of glass is greater than the air around it.
Refractors have several design advantages over
other designs but some practical disadvantages as well.
One good thing is that they are enclosed which restricts the amount of dust and moisture
entering the interior of the tube. The optics rarely have to be collimated (adjusted) by the user.
Unlike most reflectors they do not have the central obstruction of a secondary mirror,
which means more light can enter the tube and also there is less
interference of the diffraction patterns - a desirable thing. The image is higher contrast and better resolution.
Refractors are considered ideal for planetary viewing.
One of the drawbacks with refractors is that different colors refract at different angles, making
it difficult to bring all the colors of an image to the same focus. In the simpler, cheaper models the stars can be
focused for blue, giving a fuzzy red halo, or focused for red, giving a fuzzy blue halo. This
problem is greatly mitigated in more expensive models by the addition of more complicated lens elements.
Some amateurs grind and polish and figure their own refracting lenses, but success requires a lot of skill so
this is much more rare than the amateur production of the reflecting mirrors used in other telescope designs.
Unlik |
Posted By John Rath On November 21, 2012 @ 9:17 am In HPC,Networking | 2 Comments
The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) generates over 100 petabytes of data every year | Posted By John Rath On November 21, 2012 @ 9:17 am In HPC,Networking | 2 Comments
The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) generates over 100 petabytes of data every year at its home near Geneva, Switzerland. Distributing this data to data centers around the world for analysis is important, and requires a big network to transport the big data.
CERN’s new data center in Budapest is set to be one of the first beneficiaries of a new terabit network created by GÉANT, a European data network for researchers and scientists. It will act as an extension to CERN’s existing data center as well as providing business continuity in case of any disruptions that could affect the CERN facility. GEANT launched its 50,000 kilometer pan-European research and education network in May, with Infinera and Imtech providing the transmission equipment and switching platform respectively.
The Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Hungary will host CERN’s new remote data center and will process and store data from CERN for the LHC. Together with CERN it will be the first to use multiple new 100Gbps links, and support the type of big data requirements the network was built to serve.
“Having a remote site and operations places a lot of requirements on the networking solutions,” said David Foster, Deputy Head of the CERN IT Department. ”Together with GÉANT and NIIF/Hungarnet, as well as our research and education and commercial partners we will be implementing state-of-the-art capabilities to connect CERN and Wigner. The GÉANT network is fundamental to our data transfer needs, and we’re delighted that we will be continuing this successful relationship.”
GÉANT’s migration to the latest transmission and switching technology is designed to support up to 2Tbps (terabits per second) capacity across the core network. 500Gbps capacity will be available across the core network from first implementation, delivering circuits across Europe that will allow individual users to transfer data at speeds of up to 100Gbps, or multiples thereof, thereby enabling faster collaboration on critical projects and meeting the rapidly increasing demand for data transfer.
“The Wigner data centre is exactly the kind of power user that the upgraded network will continue to support, and we look forward to working with all the partners involved to ensure the continued success of the LHC research,” said Matthew Scott and Niels Hersoug, joint General Managers of DANTE, which operates the GÉANT network.
At the recent SC12 conference in Salt Lake City industry partners demonstrated an inter-connect with three major LHC Tier-2 computing sites and the SC12 show floor using 100 Gbps technology (and all of Internet2’s Advanced Layer 2 Service links to SC12) through a collaboration between Caltech, the University of Victoria and the University of Michigan.
Article printed from Data Center Knowledge: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com
URL to article: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/11/21/big-data-for-cern-requires-a-big-network/
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Image Editor: http://www.flickr.c |
What is a clinical trial?
Clinical trials are research studies in which people help doctors find ways to improve health care. Each study tries to find better ways to prevent, diagnose, or treat health problems.
The purpose of a clinical trial is to find | What is a clinical trial?
Clinical trials are research studies in which people help doctors find ways to improve health care. Each study tries to find better ways to prevent, diagnose, or treat health problems.
The purpose of a clinical trial is to find out whether a medicine or treatment is safe and effective for treating a certain condition or disease. Clinical trials compare the effectiveness of this medicine or treatment against standard, accepted treatment or against a placebo if there is no standard treatment.
Taking part in a clinical trial is voluntary. No one can make you participate. If you choose not to take part, you will be offered the standard treatment for your health problem. You can talk to your doctor if you have questions about clinical trials.
Why are they important?
Clinical trials are important because they compare new treatments with accepted treatments. They allow researchers to find out if a new treatment works as well as or better than accepted treatments. The new treatment might have fewer or less serious side effects. The new treatment also might not work as well or might cause more side effects than standard treatments.
Clinical trials help drug companies make medicines that are safer and more effective with fewer side effects. Clinical trials also help these companies decide whether it is worthwhile to seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a certain medicine. If a medicine doesn't work as well as standard treatment, then the FDA isn't likely to approve it.
Clinical trials are also important in finding treatments if no standard treatment exists.
Taking part in a clinical trial may not benefit you directly. But in the future it may help other people who have the same disease.
How do clinical trials work?
Your doctor will help you find out if you are eligible to take part in a clinical trial. The company sponsoring the trial will have a very strict set of standards, or criteria, that all participants must meet.
If you meet the criteria, you may be "randomized" to get either the new medicine, a medicine that is considered standard therapy, or a placebo. That means that a computer is used to randomly assign you to one of the treatments. In many studies, neither you nor your doctor knows which treatment you are getting. But not all clinical trials randomize people. And if you have a serious disease, such as cancer, you will not be given only a placebo, unless no effective treatment is known.
After you are accepted by the clinical trial and you give your consent to take part:
- You will be given a structured program to follow.
- You will have a schedule of tests, doctor appointments, and treatments.
- You may be asked to keep a diary of your experience during this time.
Doctors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals may be part of your treatment team.
Be sure to carefully follow instructions. If you don't know what you are supposed to do next, call your doctor. Or call the person responsible for your trial.
A medicine or treatment must go through three phases before it is approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
What happens when the clinical trial is finished?
After a clinical trial is completed and the results are studied, the FDA decides whether to approve continued development of the medicine. If the |
Lack of clear risk factor identification is the main reason for the persistence of brucellosis infection in the Chinese population, and there has been little assessment of the factors contributing to Brucella contamination of raw whole milk. The purpose of | Lack of clear risk factor identification is the main reason for the persistence of brucellosis infection in the Chinese population, and there has been little assessment of the factors contributing to Brucella contamination of raw whole milk. The purpose of this study was to identify risk factors affecting Brucella contamination of raw milk, and to evaluate effective measures for disease reduction in order to determine preventive strategies.
Methods and Findings
A nationwide survey was conducted and samples were obtained from 5211 cows corresponding to 25 sampling locations throughout 15 provinces in China. The prevalence of Brucella in the raw milk samples averaged 1.07% over the 15 Chinese provinces, while the prevalence of positive areas within these regions ranged from 0.23–3.84% among the nine provinces with positive samples. The survey examined factors that supposedly influence Brucella contamination of raw whole milk, such as management style, herd size, abortion rate, hygiene and disease control practices. A binary logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the association between risk factors for Brucella and contamination of milk samples. Furthermore, a relative effect decomposition study was conducted to determine effective strategies for reducing the risk of Brucella contamination of raw whole milk. Our data indicate that disease prevention and control measures, abortion rate, and animal polyculture are the most important risk factors. Meanwhile, culling after quarantine was identified as an effective protective measure in the current Chinese dairy situation.
These results indicate that, although there is a low risk of contamination of milk with Brucella nationwide in China, there are individual regions where contamination is a significant problem. Controlling three factors–culling after quarantine, maintaining a low abortion rate, and avoiding mixing groups of cattle and small ruminants–could effectively reduce the risk of Brucella contamination of raw whole milk. |
Vidal-Naquet was born into a cultivated and bourgeois Jewish family. His father, Lucien, was a lawyer. The Vidal-Naquets had long abandoned religious practice, and like many assimilated French Jewish families, their religion, | Vidal-Naquet was born into a cultivated and bourgeois Jewish family. His father, Lucien, was a lawyer. The Vidal-Naquets had long abandoned religious practice, and like many assimilated French Jewish families, their religion, if they had one, was attachment to the democratic values of the French Republic. Vidal-Naquet's grandfather had been involved in the struggle to prove Dreyfus innocent; his uncle was named Georges (after Georges Picquart, the army officer who had helped uncover the affair), Emile (after Zola), and Alfred (after Dreyfus himself). The moral of the Dreyfus Affair was seen to be that the republic had triumphed over the army; truth over raison d'état.
Pierre remembered his father telling him the Dreyfus story during the German occupation. The family had taken refuge in Marseille and Lucien was excluded from the legal profession by Vichy's anti-semitic laws. From the end of 1942 the Germans occupied the whole of France, and Marseille was no longer safe. On May 15 1944, Pierre's parents were arrested and deported to Auschwitz. Pierre was not at home, and one of his teachers organised some fellow pupils to track the boy down and prevent him returning home. Thanks to this he was saved, with his two brothers and sister, and looked after by Protestant families in the Cévennes. Only after liberation did Pierre understand he would never see his parents again.
He completed his studies, and started a career as a historian of ancient Greece. His first posting was at Caen in 1955, but almost immediately he was catapulted into another parallel existence which absorbed him for years. In 1954 a revolt broke out in Algeria against the French. The French army rapidly resorted to ever dirtier tactics to break the rebels. In June 1957, Maurice Audin, a mathematics lecturer at Algiers University who opposed war, was arrested. Ten days later he disappeared after supposedly escaping from detention.
Vidal-Naquet was suspicious of the army's version of events, and he was one of the founders, in November 1957, of the Maurice Audin committee. In May 1958, Vidal-Naquet published his book, L'Affaire Audin, using his forensic historical training to demolish the official version, and demonstrate that Audin had been murdered by the French army (and probably tortured). His model in this exercise was the 1898 articles of the socialist Jean Jaurés demolishing the trumped up case against Dreyfus.
Thus began for Vidal-Naquet four years of political activism. In 1958 the Audin committee published an article entitled Nous Accusons. In 1960 Vidal-Naquet was one of 121 intellectuals who signed a petition defending the right of insubordination for conscripts called up to fight in Algeria. He testified in September 1960 in defence of Henri Jeanson, who was involved in actively supporting the Algeria rebels. For these activities Vidal-Naquet was suspended from his teaching post for a year in 1959-60.
After the end of the war, he published a Penguin Special, Torture: Cancer of Democracy, which denounced the entire edifice of torture, blaming not only the army, but the politicians who had authorised it (and also brought in cases of British torture in Cyprus and Kenya).
In 1962, Vidal-Naquet returned more fully to his teaching. From 1966 until his retirement in 1997 he taught at the prestigious Parisian École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He produced original work on the origins of Greek democracy, on Greek slavery and what Greek myths revealed about the social structures of ancient Greek society.
But throughout his life, he continued to make his voice heard in politics, opposing the Vietnam war (he was among the founders in 1966 of the French National Vietnam Committee) and the military dictatorship in Greece. From 1967 he tirelessly advocated the need for a two-state solution in the Middle East. In the late 1970s he also began to turn his attention to the rise of "negationism" in France - the theory that the Nazi gas chambers had not existed - and wrote a book denouncing what |
Conventional wisdom holds that planting trees–any trees–will help slow climate change because of the trees’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide. A new study shows that’s not necessarily so: where the trees are makes a big difference in how they’ll | Conventional wisdom holds that planting trees–any trees–will help slow climate change because of the trees’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide. A new study shows that’s not necessarily so: where the trees are makes a big difference in how they’ll affect the earth’s climate, with some trees actually contributing to global warming. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory modeled the effect of deforestation on temperature for boreal, temperate and tropical regions. In the tropics, keeping trees around helped to lower regional temperatures, as expected, but in the boreal zones, the trees actually caused slight warming. That’s because the ability of the trees to hold heat, and to keep the snow from reflecting sunlight back into space, offsets the amount of carbon dioxide they remove from the air. In the temperate zones, the effects cancelled out, leaving no net effect on temperature. The lead author of the study hastened to add that they are not recommending deforestation of boreal areas, but that the study confirms the value of reforesting in the tropics.
Source: John Simpson. Careful where you plant that tree. ScienceNOW Daily News, April 10, 2007. Photo: Boreal forest in Alaska by NOAA. |
“Let nature take its course.” Over the years, I’ve found this saying particularly applies to the process of giving birth. My personal experience as an ob-gyn and reams of scientific research demonstrate that Mother Nature knows best when a child is | “Let nature take its course.” Over the years, I’ve found this saying particularly applies to the process of giving birth. My personal experience as an ob-gyn and reams of scientific research demonstrate that Mother Nature knows best when a child is ready to be born. The start of natural labor is the main sign, but we’re not always patient enough to wait for it.
Today, one in three babies in the US are born by cesarean—the delivery of a baby through an incision in the mother’s abdomen and uterus. The rate of labor induction is also at an all-time high. Unfortunately, many of these births occur before the pregnancy is considered “term” at 39 weeks. These upward trends have long been a source of concern in the medical community, especially considering the increased risks to a baby who may not be fully developed at delivery.
Among cesarean deliveries, an estimated 2.5% (more than 100,000 births each year) are scheduled on a designated date by the mother and her doctor. Some women cite reasons such as a lower risk of future incontinence, better sexual functioning after childbirth, and fear of pain as motivations to schedule cesareans. Inevitably, some cesareans (and labor inductions, too) are scheduled before a pregnancy is full term, increasing the risk of negative outcomes for the newborn, including respiratory problems and time spent in the neonatal intensive care unit. The fact remains that due dates are estimates, and you can never be sure that the infant will have reached optimal maturity at the time of a scheduled delivery.
Women should keep in mind that cesarean delivery is no walk in the park. While it’s a safe option, cesarean delivery is a major surgery and comes with a number of risks, such as placental complications in future pregnancies, problems with anesthesia, infection, and longer recovery times.
Certain urgent situations—such as preeclampsia, eclampsia, multiple fetuses, fetal growth restriction, and poorly controlled diabetes—may make it necessary to deliver the baby before the onset of natural labor. However, newly issued guidelines from ACOG remind women and ob-gyns that in uncomplicated pregnancies, a vaginal birth that occurs after the natural onset of labor is ideal. Additional new ACOG guidelines reaffirm that cesareans and labor inductions should only be performed when medically-necessary.
Delaying delivery until labor starts naturally may not make ob-gyns too popular with a patient who’s uncomfortable and near the end of her pregnancy, but it’s a decision that will pay dividends by giving the baby the extra time it needs to face the world. |
Women who sit for long periods each day have a greater risk of developing early signs of Type 2 diabetes compared with men, U.K. researchers found, suggesting that exercise recommendations may need to be changed.
Sedentary women in the study | Women who sit for long periods each day have a greater risk of developing early signs of Type 2 diabetes compared with men, U.K. researchers found, suggesting that exercise recommendations may need to be changed.
Sedentary women in the study of more than 500 people had higher levels of insulin, a hormone that helps convert sugar in the blood into energy, as well as higher amounts of chemicals released by fatty tissue and linked to inflammation, according to researchers from the University of Leicester. The findings were published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
The study authors couldn’t pinpoint a reason for the gender difference, saying that women may snack more often than men when sedentary, or men may undertake more robust activities during exercise. The researchers said further studies should be done to determine whether lifestyle advice needs to be revised to prevent the onset of |
Scientists have now developed a new system for cars that can steer a vehicle to safety just in time. The safety system, known as a co-pilot, was developed by Sterling Anderson, doctoral student in mechanical engineer at the MIT and Karl Iagn | Scientists have now developed a new system for cars that can steer a vehicle to safety just in time. The safety system, known as a co-pilot, was developed by Sterling Anderson, doctoral student in mechanical engineer at the MIT and Karl Iagnemma, a principal research scientist in MIT's Robotic Mobility Group.
It uses an on-board camera and laser range finder to identify hazards in a vehicle's environment. The team devised an algorithm to analyze the data and identify safe zones - avoiding, for example, other vehicles speeding in the opposite direction. The system allows a driver to control the vehicle, only taking the wheel when the driver is about to enter a hazardous zone, said a university statement.Anderson, who has been testing the system in Michigan since last September, describes it as an "intelligent co-pilot" that monitors a driver's performance and makes behind-the-scenes adjustments to keep the vehicle from colliding with obstacles, or within a safe region of the environment, such as a lane or open area.
The age of KITT is getting closer
"The real innovation is enabling the car to share (control) with you," Anderson says. "If you want to drive, it'll just... make sure you don't hit anything. "The group presented details of the safety system recently at the Intelligent Vehicles Symposium in Spain.Robotics research has focused in recent years on developing systems - from cars to medical equipment to industrial machinery - that can be controlled by either robots or humans. For the most part |
When Copyright Meets the Classroom
If I create a PowerPoint for use in my classroom, can I protect myself from copyright infringement by simply adding the URL of the site in which I found the document at the bottom of the page?
The very short | When Copyright Meets the Classroom
If I create a PowerPoint for use in my classroom, can I protect myself from copyright infringement by simply adding the URL of the site in which I found the document at the bottom of the page?
The very short answer is that copyright is complicated. For educators, though, there are some basic things to know and guidelines to follow that make it less scary. Citing your sources is always a good idea. Beyond crediting your source, you are modeling a key skill for students: always pay attention to the source of information, primary and secondary.
Fair use is an educator's best friend. Start with the official policy on fair use to learn more about copyright and classroom use.
Materials in the public domain, or no longer covered by copyright restrictions, are also valuable to teaching. Learn more at Beyond Google Searching on copyright and searching for resources in the public domain.
Generally speaking, if you are using a copyrighted item for educational purposes with no financial gain, you're off to a good start for fair use. That said, if you plan to make the PowerPoint available in any other way (such as online for students to download), it is more complicated.
One of our blog entries, "Copyright: Finding Images to Tell the Story of History," offers links to a wide variety of resources for examining copyright, as well as for introducing your students to the concept. Don't be deterred by the fact that this post focuses on image copyright. There's still a wealth of relevant information!
Let's cut to the chase. Maybe you really just need to know about one document or image. The best way to get started is to check if the work is in the public domain, using a copyright term chart. Was the document published? If so and if publication took place prior to 1923, copyright has expired, and the work is public domain. Use the chart to look up the document in question.
If the document is not public domain, you can also try the University of Minnesota Libraries' tool, Thinking Through Fair Use. It provides a handy list of check boxes to help you determine if your purpose and item of choice can be considered fair use. The "Get summary" link is not currently working, but the end result should still give you a decent idea of whether or not you would be acting under fair use or, alternatively, violating copyright.
When looking into copyright, there are a number of issues to consider. Some of the most pertinent include:
- Type of material under consideration, such as recorded music, documents, song lyrics, and images. The rules vary for different media.
- How the material is being used. Wi |
Feb 24 2009
I didn’t plan to do two similar stories in a row, but this just came to my attention. There is a picture going around that purports to show a 100ft. snake swimming through a river | Feb 24 2009
I didn’t plan to do two similar stories in a row, but this just came to my attention. There is a picture going around that purports to show a 100ft. snake swimming through a river in Borneo. The picture was allegedly taken by from a helicopter by a disaster team monitoring flood conditions.
The image is certainly provocative – but as I pointed out yesterday, before we start hypothesizing about what the picture may be we first have to confirm that it is real. Pictures are no longer acceptable as evidence at face-value. The so-called Atlantis picture from yesterday was likely an innocent artifact. This picture is unlikely to be an artifact, but it can easily be fraud.
I’m sure that the marketers at Adobe are thrilled that their brand name photo-manipulation software, Photoshop, has become the generic term for using such software to alter images. So before we knock ourselves out trying to figure out what physical phenomenon may be in the picture we first have to confirm that it was not “photoshopped.”
I looked at the picture zoomed in, and nothing is obvious to me, but that is a minor point as I don’t think I would be able to detect a good photoshop job. The original digital photo (I am assuming it was originally digital – if on film then better still) would need to be examined. The metadata might indicate if it had been altered.
The press is immediately linking the notion of a giant snake to recent reports of the discovery of Titanoboa – an extinct giant boa from South America 60 million years ago. This beast was about 45 ft long and could snack on alligators. Scientists speculate that the warmer climate allowed for the boa to become larger than extant boas, which max out at about 30 ft. The largest snake on record was a python 33ft long.
This brings up an important point about plausibility. If a warmer climate was necessary to allow for a 45ft snake, then how can a 100ft snake be living today? Perhaps this is a warm-blooded snake, but that would be quite amazing. There is also the problem of a 100ft snake escaping detection for all this time. This is a point that comes up regarding any cryptozoological claim for a large yet undiscovered animal not living in deep ocean trenches or otherwise remote location. An undiscovered fish on the sea floor, or a small lizard in pristine forest – sure. But a large primate living in Pennsylvania – no.
Borneo does have remote dense jungle, and there are likely many undiscovered species there, but a 100 ft snake stretches plausibility a bit too much.
The giant snake of Borneo, dubbed Nabau by locals, is likely to join Nes |
How are war criminals prosecuted under humanitarian law?
Extract from ICRC publication "International humanitarian law: answers to your questions"
On becoming party to the Geneva Conventions, States undertake to enact any legislation necessary to punish persons guilty of grave breaches of the | How are war criminals prosecuted under humanitarian law?
Extract from ICRC publication "International humanitarian law: answers to your questions"
On becoming party to the Geneva Conventions, States undertake to enact any legislation necessary to punish persons guilty of grave breaches of the Conventions. States are also bound to prosecute in their own courts any person suspected of having committed a grave breach of the Conventions, or to hand that person over for judgment to another State. In other words, perpetrators of grave breaches, i.e. war criminals, must be prosecuted at all times and in all places, and States are responsible for ensuring that this is done.
Generally speaking, a States criminal laws apply only to crimes committed on its territory or by its own nationals. International humanitarian law goes further in that it requires States to seek out and punish any person who has committed a grave breach, irrespective of his nationality or the place where the offence was committed. This principle of universal jurisdiction is essential to guarantee that grave breaches are effectively repressed.
Such prosecutions may be brought either by the national courts of the different States or by an international authority. In this connection, the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were set up by the UN Security Council in 1993 and 1994, respectively, to try those accused of war crimes committed during the conflicts in those countries.
Why are the humanitarian rules not always respected and violations not always repressed?
This question can be answered in various ways. Some claim that ignorance of the law is largely to blame, others that the very nature of war so wills it, or that it is because international law and therefore humanitarian law as well is not matched by an effective centralized system for implementing sanctions, among other things, because of the present structure of the international community. Be that as it may, whether in conflict situations or in peacetime and whether it is national or international jurisdiction that is in force, laws are violated and crimes committed. Yet simply giving up in the face of such breaches and halting all action that seeks to gain greater respect for humanitarian law would be far more discreditable. This is why, pending a more effective system of sanctions, such acts should be relentlessly condemned and steps taken to prevent and punish them. The penal repression of war crimes must therefore be seen as one means of implementing humanitarian law, whether at national or international level. Lastly, the international community has created a permanent International Criminal Court, which will be competent to try war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
What is a war crime?
War crimes are understood to mean serious violations of intern |
Quilt Class 101 - Week 5
Constructing your Quilt Top (Part A)
Most Quilts are made up of fabric blocks sewn together. Sometimes we often look at a quilt and think how did they sew that one | Quilt Class 101 - Week 5
Constructing your Quilt Top (Part A)
Most Quilts are made up of fabric blocks sewn together. Sometimes we often look at a quilt and think how did they sew that one together. I like to think of it like a magic trick. On face value you wonder how it was done... But once it is broken down for you..ie a Quilt Pattern, It all of a sudden becomes so simple. You wonder how you didn't see it that way before..
Last weeks lesson I showed you a tip on how we could sew our blocks together. So you should now have a pile of blocks looking like this...
If your struggling on making so many 1/2 Square triangle blocks..
I do a little technique called Chain Piecing.
When your sewing each block, instead of at the end, Lifting your presser foot, dragging it out and snipping the thread, I sew my blocks continuously. I have a pile of the blocks sitting ready to go. I feed the first one in...then I continue to sew off the edge and I grab the next block. I line it up and feed it under the foot. I don't lift my presser foot, I just continue to feed each block in one after the other. For this particular block, I sewed down the left side of the line on all my blocks. They are all joined by a chain of thread. I then turned all the blocks and sewed again down the left side.. Continuing to feed each block through without lifting my foot.
Once you have them all sewn, in a long chain...
You just snip the chain of thread in between each square.
I find it saves alot of time.. and quick if your doing lots of the same piecing.
Rachael has another chain piecing technique you could follow here.
Once you have these.. and you iron them all out. Its now time to construct our QC Quilt. With each of my quilts, I like to play around with the designs... just to try out new patterns, layouts.. they can lead to inspiration for future quilts. Here are some of the designs I played around with today.
Here is the Layout for the QC QUILT.
The layout consists of
12 Blocks Per Row...
and 2 Rows for each colour.
Lay out all your blocks.
To Assemble your Quilt.
Start at the top row... Sew your blocks together. Start from the left block and work your way across until they are all joined together in that Row.
Next, Sew each block together in Row 2..
Continue Row by Row until you have all the blocks in each row joined.
Then Start at the top and sew Row 1 and Row 2 Together. Then add each row on until your entire Quilt Top in joined and one piece. Take care to sew an even 1/4" seam. I sew with a regular straight stitch length of 2.4 on my machine.
I will go into more detail tomorrow in piecing your rows together in
Constructing your Quilt Top Part B...
But if your wanting to get stuck into it.. You may want to re-read Cindy's Tutorial about Pinning..for lining up those seams accurately. You can also read HERE and Amy has a great Tutorial HERE for piecing.
I hope your enjoying Quilt Class 101..If you have missed a few of our classes... You can catch up HERE
Share your progress or tutorials or even your half square triangle block designs by linking up below.. |
> Welcome to Romanticism
101, a collection of teaching resources designed
to help students learn and act upon Romanticism. Based on the texts
included in this website, the quizzes and assignments included will
allow students to familiarize themselves with | > Welcome to Romanticism
101, a collection of teaching resources designed
to help students learn and act upon Romanticism. Based on the texts
included in this website, the quizzes and assignments included will
allow students to familiarize themselves with the Romantic movement
in different expressive mediums. Resources are separated into sections,
to allow for more specific learning.
Music | Optional Activities
1. Throw a Romantic
ball in which only Romantic music is played and dress in the fashions
of the nineteenth century.
2. Compile a CD of
your favorite Romantic songs.
3. Try to imitate
Strauss, Brahms, or any other Romantic musician and create your own
4. If the opportunity
arises, go see a Romantic Ballet or Opera and discuss the aspects of
Romanticism it portrayed. |
Detecting a Killer Toxin – IAEA.org
They are the seas’ silent killers, toxin-laden patches of algae that amass along coastal shores and wreck havoc on marine ecosystems. They appear with no warning and outbreaks have become more frequent | Detecting a Killer Toxin – IAEA.org
They are the seas’ silent killers, toxin-laden patches of algae that amass along coastal shores and wreck havoc on marine ecosystems. They appear with no warning and outbreaks have become more frequent. Virtually every coastal country in the world has suffered from their effects.
These are harmful algal blooms (HABs), more commonly known as “red tides” because their ominous presence is sometimes characterized by a massive red patch of water encroaching the shorelines. Often outbreaks are invisible and thus pose an even greater threat. HABs occur when colonies of algae – simple ocean plants that live in the sea – grow out of control and produce toxins that can poison fish, shellfish and other marine life, and pose a major threat to people’s health and fishermen’s livelihoods.
via Detecting a Killer Toxin - IAEA.org. |
SCSA is the DDI/DKI programming interface for the transmission of SCSI commands from a target driver to a host adapter driver. By conforming to the SCSA, the target driver can easily pass any combination of SCSI commands and sequences to | SCSA is the DDI/DKI programming interface for the transmission of SCSI commands from a target driver to a host adapter driver. By conforming to the SCSA, the target driver can easily pass any combination of SCSI commands and sequences to a target device. Knowledge of the hardware implementation of the host adapter is not necessary. Conceptually, SCSA separates the building of a SCSI command from the transporting of the command with data to the SCSI bus. SCSA manages the connections between the target and HBA drivers through an HBA transport layer, as shown in the following figure.
Figure 18-1 SCSA Interface
The HBA transport layer is a software and hardware layer that is responsible for transporting a SCSI command to a SCSI target device. The HBA driver provides resource allocation, DMA management, and transport services in response to requests made by SCSI target drivers through SCSA. The host adapter driver also manages the host adapter hardware and the SCSI protocols necessary to perform the commands. When a command has been completed, the HBA driver calls the target driver's SCSI pkt command completion routine.
The following example illustrates this flow, with emphasis on the transfer of information from target drivers to SCSA to HBA drivers. The figure also shows typical transport entry points and function calls.
Figure 18-2 Transport Layer Flow |
The Colonies: 1720-1763
In 1763, British America was 156 years old—over a century and a half in existence. From a quarter million people in 1700, its mainland colonies had grown by | The Colonies: 1720-1763
In 1763, British America was 156 years old—over a century and a half in existence. From a quarter million people in 1700, its mainland colonies had grown by a factor of eight, in seven decades, to over two million in 1770.1 Where England had been the new kid on the block in 1607, when Jamestown was founded, by 1763 the Kingdom of Great Britain was the dominant imperial power in North America. That year, with its victory in the French and Indian War, Britain gained all French claims on the continent—a vast area including Canada and the territory east of the Mississippi River. (Britain also gained Florida from Spain, but returned it after the American Revolution.) In this section we capture another snapshot of the British Atlantic colonies, this time from the 1720s to 1763. What overall view do you get of the colonies in these decades? How have they changed from the period 1690 to 1715 (see section #1). How has their relationship with Britain, and with each other, changed? To what extent have "they" become an "it"?
As you may have noticed, this section could be titled "How the French and Indian War precipitated the American Revolution" or "How Britain Lost the Colonies, Part One." Before reading, we encourage you to explore the three zoomable maps of North America created by Englishmen between 1755 and 1765. Notice the cartouches, naming systems, and zoom in to read the sidebar colonial histories in the Overton "British plantations" map. (50 pages.)
- Massachusetts. In section #1 we read a reviled governor defending himself against colonists' accusations of abuse of power (Gov. Joseph Dudley in 1708). Here we read from another embattled governor—Thomas Hutchinson, the last royal governor before the Revolution, a native-born New Englander deemed a traitor by the rebelling colonists (who looted his mansion while protesting the 1765 Stamp Act). During this tumultuous period Hutchinson published a history of the colony from its founding to 1749, later chronicling years 1749 to 1774. Here we read Hutchinson's perspective on the critical years 1760 to 1763, from the British defeat of the French in Canada to the final peace treaty which ceded all French territory east of the Mississippi River to the British. Although elated by the end of "encroachments" and attacks on their western frontier, the Massachusetts colonists bitterly resented the increased taxes and permanent military presence brought by the war. In a self-justifying tone, Hutchinson casts the British policies as reasonable for an imperial power in wartime, although he did not agree with all the British policies that led to rebellion. According to Hutchinson, how did the colonists' view of "independency" change from 1760 to 1763?
- - Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Province of Massachusets-Bay, Vol. III: 1749-1774, ed. John Hutchinson (grandson), publ. 1828, excerpts.
- Pennsylvania poets. Pennsylvania was the fastest growing colony of the 1700s—and the most expansively diverse, commercially successful, perhaps best governed, and, as often lauded by its poets, the most confident of its future. "The generation of young poets that emerged during the 1720s and 1730s presumed this success," writes literary scholar David Shields, "concerning themselves with discovering those qualities of mind and character capable of projecting the 'great' Pennsylvania that came to be."2 We read two works from this period, by accomplished poets Thomas Makin a |
Common Traditions and Symbols
Now that you know a bit of the origins of this frightful fest, it’s time to bone up on some of the traditions practiced with this fall holiday.
- Pumpkin Carving: Irish immigrants originally used hollowed | Common Traditions and Symbols
Now that you know a bit of the origins of this frightful fest, it’s time to bone up on some of the traditions practiced with this fall holiday.
- Pumpkin Carving: Irish immigrants originally used hollowed-out turnips as lanterns, says Miller, but upon coming to America, they adopted the use of pumpkins because they were more readily accessible. So pumpkins, transformed into jack-o-lanterns (carved with scary faces to ward off troublesome spirits), soon became harbingers of fall and the harvest.
- Bobbing for Apples: Although not a recommended activity for small children, bobbing for apples is a fun game where kids take turns dunking their heads in a bucket of water to try and grab an apple with their mouths. This tradition has been linked to Samhain celebrations and could possibly have ties to Pomona, the Roman goddess of Orchards, says Matt Cherry, Executive Director of the Institute for Humanist Studies.
- Dressing Up: For ages people have dressed up to reenact their past, ward off spirits, and for pure fun. The Celts in particular may have dressed up to disguise themselves from the spirits roaming the earth on Samhain. (Check out these http://www.babyzone.com/showers-and-parties/holidays/50-cutest-costumes-for-halloween_228520″>classic Halloween costumes, as worn by BabyZone readers!)
- Trick-or-Treat: What once began as a way to keep the evil spirits at bay by placing food and drink outside of one’s home, turned into a silly way to get free treats! Rather than real spirits tormenting the people, mischievous folk would dress up like the spirits and threaten harm unless given food.
Teaching Little Ones
The real story behind Halloween may be too frightening for youngsters, especially the part about the dead walking the earth! But it is possible to let your children in on this culturally important information without scaring the daylights out of them.
One good way to explain this interesting history, according to Miller, is to tell your kids that Halloween was brought to America by people from foreign countries. While relocating their homes to the United States, the immigrants brought many traditions from their homelands, one of which |
Congratulations to Bob Huskey, Dennis Leonard and everyone else who had a role in planning, and carrying out, Monday's rich and meaningful Memorial Day service at Idlewilde Cemetery. (See page A1 for the full story.)
The event should | Congratulations to Bob Huskey, Dennis Leonard and everyone else who had a role in planning, and carrying out, Monday's rich and meaningful Memorial Day service at Idlewilde Cemetery. (See page A1 for the full story.)
The event should go far in helping heal the wounds that are still felt over the inhumane treatment of the World War II-era residents of Hood River Valley who happened to be of Japanese heritage.
Rep. Greg Walden spoke passionately, applying the term "abhorrent" to the removal in 1942 of 16 names of Japanese-Americans from the wall of honor at the county courthouse.
Walden, a Hood River native, gave what was perhaps the strongest local public condemnation on record of the World War II forced internments.
Citing the heroism of the Nisei (the Japanese term for second generation Japanese in America) in World War II, he cited the words of Gen. John Pershing, the commander of forces in World War I, "time will not dim the glory of their deeds."
Among those deeds are those of Frank Hachiya, who died in action working to pass on information that would protect hundreds of his comrades - Frank Hachiya, born in Hood River and raised in Hood River and Japan. Niko Yasui gave a riveting address, in uniform, portray |
Your talent in sketching, drawing and design is not enough to become an automobile designer. In car designing, there are a lot of things that you have to consider before creating a model so knowing much about physics, aesthetics, and complex automotive design | Your talent in sketching, drawing and design is not enough to become an automobile designer. In car designing, there are a lot of things that you have to consider before creating a model so knowing much about physics, aesthetics, and complex automotive design is a necessity.
If you love cars, trucks, and vans, and you are dreaming to create one or at least create a design for one, then this job might satisfy you. Here are the steps to help you to become one good automobile designer.
Practice and Study
Practice your sketching or drawing skills while you’re young. This will give you a better chance of producing great outputs in the future. Join art and design classes to develop your skills in drawing. You also need to learn about physics and mathematics for crafting lightweight cars.
Enroll on car design classes
Visit schools with car design courses and ask the students about what exactly can you learn there. It is much better if you will enter a school that is close to car companies for a bigger chance of gaining a better knowledge about automotive design.
There are about 20 schools for automotive design nationwide and it will be difficult to get into one of them. Apply at more than one school and show off your skills. First you must have good grades in math, science and art subjects for a higher chance of qualifying.
Choose a specialty for automotive design
There are three areas for you to choose:
- Exterior designer – decides the design for the outer appearance of the automobile
- Interior designer – focuses more on interior design of cars
- Color / Trim designer – decides on what materials should be used on different parts of the car
Get a relevant college course
Here are the courses that you can take to become an automobile designer.
- Bachelor’s degree in industrial design
- Bachelor’s |
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Membership organisation, Women's Rights Organisation and Lobby group
- Alternative Names
- Housewives Co-operative Association (former name)
The Housewives Co-operative Association (later the Housewives Association of Victoria) was | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Membership organisation, Women's Rights Organisation and Lobby group
- Alternative Names
- Housewives Co-operative Association (former name)
The Housewives Co-operative Association (later the Housewives Association of Victoria) was formed in mid-1915 and soon became one of the largest women's organisations in the state. The movement, reacting to the spiralling cost of living during World War I, initially aimed mainly at 'bringing the producer and consumer into direct contact' and providing discounted goods to members. In 1921, however, it also adopted a clear political objective: 'To advocate the equal status of women and adequate representation on all boards and tribunals dealing with the home and the cost of living.' From the 1930s the Association focussed more on the provision of training and information relating to household management and also became more involved in broader activism to improve the civil and political status of women and with other social reform causes. |
A few basic Php questions
Ok, before I get started I want to say that I already asked about php basics about a month ago and got great responses from very skilled webmasters in here. I have a few questions that I find important to | A few basic Php questions
Ok, before I get started I want to say that I already asked about php basics about a month ago and got great responses from very skilled webmasters in here. I have a few questions that I find important to ask, and I would really apreciate it if some of you could take the time to answer any of them.
1- I know that in order for php to actually be able to communicate with a database the file needs to be named.php even if its 99% html. My question is if html will still work properly if no PHP is typed inside it but I still named the file "xxxx.php". For example, lets say that I have a complete website made in html and only one of the pages includes php codes. But I dont want the site to have.html in some pages and.php in others. I want the whole site to be.php. Will the html code work even if the whole site is.php or would it be better if I only name the page with php.php and have the rest of the pages that have no php remain.html? (Sorry if that was a bit confusing)
2- How exactly does a webmaster receive the info people type in the php forms a website has? I mean, do you place your email in the code and receive the info there, or is it more complex than that?
3- When I make a website on html, I just go to the webhost and place the images in the "images folder" and the code in the "public html folder".But how does it work with php? Lets say I have just a bit of php code inside an html page and I want that bit of php coding(a contact form for example) to work properly. Do I have to make any other changes on the webhost to get that php code to work?
Thanks in advanced for reading this. |
August 21, 2003: It's Mars Month!Is it a coincidence there've been so many Mars stories lately? Hardly. We can't take credit for this excellent explanation, picked up on the net and sent to us by | August 21, 2003: It's Mars Month!Is it a coincidence there've been so many Mars stories lately? Hardly. We can't take credit for this excellent explanation, picked up on the net and sent to us by reader Richard Guy, but we're glad to share it:
"Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular! This month and next month the Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000 years.
"The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75 power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August, Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.
"By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no human has seen in recorded history. So mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month."
Copyright © 2013 by Steve Jackson Games. All Rights Reserved. |
When I first read Le Monde puzzle this weekend, I though it was even less exciting than the previous one: find
is a multiple of.
The solution is obtained by brute-force checking through an R program:
and then the a next solution | When I first read Le Monde puzzle this weekend, I though it was even less exciting than the previous one: find
is a multiple of.
The solution is obtained by brute-force checking through an R program:
and then the a next solution is (with several values for N).
However, while waiting in the plane to Edinburgh, I thought more about it and found that the problem can be solved with paper and pencil. It goes like this. There exists an integer
Hence, solving the second degree equation,
which implies that
is one of the integral factors of. If we write
We thus deduce that is an integer, meaning that and thus that is an integer factor of. This obviously restricts the choice of, especially when considering that implies. Furthermore, the solutions to the second degree equations are then given by
The conclusion is thus that any which can be divided by a squared integer larger than or equal to provides a solution. Now, if we look at the decomposition of
we see (without any R programming) that is the smallest solution (in ). is the smallest solution with a possible solution in ( being another one). Which makes (at least) for a more bearable diversion in the plane…
An approach avoiding the second degree equation is to notice that implies that and share a largest common divider, i.e.
thus that divides (because both other terms are prime with ). Eliminating dividers common to and actually leads to, hence to the |
For the most part of our adult lives, there are some thing that we cannot live without. Food, water, a roof over our head, sex and community. Yes, Abraham Maslow called it the "lower order needs".
There's one | For the most part of our adult lives, there are some thing that we cannot live without. Food, water, a roof over our head, sex and community. Yes, Abraham Maslow called it the "lower order needs".
There's one thing that can be added to that list as a whole. The Sun. According to scientists, life on Earth would not survive if we did not have sunlight. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the term "sunny disposition" has come into being, and is used regularly these days.
To say the least, sunlight is important, but how much exposure is enough, really?
The reason why this aspect is being brought is due to the fact that there have been more heat-related deaths over the past two decades as opposed to the casualties in natural disasters.
While sunburn is just one of those things that happen if you're in the sun for too long, sometimes this can lead to heat stroke which proves to be fatal if you aren't quick with first aid.
Among all of these conditions, sun poison ing is actually caused by hypersensitivity of the skin (caused by the immune system) and not necessarily stemming from an overexposure to sunlight.
And let's discuss it more…
Sun Poisoning & its Symptoms
From a medical standpoint, the effects of both sun poisoning (also known as photodermatitis ) and sunburn aren't very different. Yet with the latter, the reason why one gets affected by the sun is because of overexposure while the former involves an abnormal sensitivity to the sun and might have nothing to do with overexposure as it can occur by just being a few minutes in the sun.
The symptoms of sun poisoning are rash, itchiness, blisters and redness of the skin that occur in areas that have been exposed to the sun. Some of the other symptoms that are not skin-based are chills, a rapid pulse, heavy breathing, fluid loss, electrolyte imbalance, dizziness, fever, fatigue, nausea and headache among other complications.
And just as it is vital that you take care of the symptoms that affect people with sunburn, it is vital that you take care of the symptoms that stems from sun poisoning as well.
And here are a few steps by which you can treat people who have been affected by symptoms of sun poisoning.
Steps to treat people with Sun Poisoning
People who have been affected by sun poisoning show symptoms that vary from case to case yet there are some common symptoms (and methods of treatment) that affect most people with this condition:
#1: Apply aloe vera (much like sunburns to sooth the sunburned skin). Pat the skin dry but DON'T rub!
#2: Take beta-carotene supplements
#3: Use tincture to reduce inflammation as well.
#4: Drink plenty of water, and stay out of the sun between noon and 3 PM atleast.
#5: Apply ice or cold compresses to the burned area can be soothing as well,
#6: Take an aspirin along with step #5.
#7: If you are nauseated or feel like vomiting, head to the emergency room, and ensure that you consult consistently with a dermatologist thereafter.
And with the current heat wave that is sweeping America, it bodes well that you watch out for friends and loved ones (and yourself, of course) who can get affected by sunburn, sun poisoning or even the heat stroke. |
Skeeter Scarecrow's Starry Sky February 2-10, 2013 Saturday & Sunday at 12:30 & 3:30pm Our narrator is a scarecrow named Skeeter. He tells us how the motion | Skeeter Scarecrow's Starry Sky February 2-10, 2013 Saturday & Sunday at 12:30 & 3:30pm Our narrator is a scarecrow named Skeeter. He tells us how the motion of the Earth causes day and night as we watch the Sun set. Skeeter shows us how to use the Big Dipper to find the North Star for directions then takes us on a tour of the major constellations of eac |
Stanford's GCEP will award $6.6 million for novel energy research
The Global Climate and Energy Project will award $6.6 million for research that leads to cleaner fuels and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
New awards totaling $6 | Stanford's GCEP will award $6.6 million for novel energy research
The Global Climate and Energy Project will award $6.6 million for research that leads to cleaner fuels and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
New awards totaling $6.6 million from Stanford University’s Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) will advance research on clean-burning fuels and technologies for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The funding will be shared by seven research teams – six from Stanford and one from Carnegie Mellon University.
The seven awards bring the total number of GCEP-supported research programs to 104, with total funding of approximately $125 million since the project's launch in 2002.
"GCEP's mission is to develop new technologies that will dramatically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions," said GCEP Director Sally Benson, a research professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford. "The proposals in the current round of funding involve potentially game-changing research – from electrochemical technologies that convert CO2 into fuel to analyses of large-scale systems for capturing CO2 from power plants."
The following three Stanford research teams will receive funding to develop carbon-neutral technologies that produce electricity or clean-burning hydrogen fuel:
- Steam-carbon fuel cells. The goal is to design a novel fuel cell that uses coal and water to generate hydrogen, water and a stream of carbon dioxide gas, which can be captured and sequestered. Investigators: Reginald Mitchell, Mechanical Engineering, and Turgut Gür, Materials Science and Engineering.
- High-efficiency thin-film solar cells. Researchers will create a low-cost silicon/gallium-based solar cell that's more than twice as efficient as conventional thin-film cells. Investigators: James Harris, Shanhui Fan and Yi Cui, Electrical Engineering; Mark Brongersma, Materials Science and Engineering.
- Advanced water-splitting. The goal is to develop corrosion-resistant electrodes for devices that use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Investigators: Paul McIntyre, Materials Science and Engineering, and Christopher Chidsey, Chemistry.
Two Stanford teams will receive funding to test new electrochemical catalysts that convert carbon dioxide into liquid fuels and chemicals:
- Electrohydrogenation: Enabling science for renewable fuels. Investigators: Robert Waymouth and Christopher Chidsey, Chemistry.
- Energy-efficient electrocatalysts for renewable fuels and chemicals. Investigators: Daniel Stack and Christopher Chidsey, Chemistry.
"Electrochemical technologies address one of the big challenges in renewable energy: storing intermittent wind and solar power in a cost-effective manner," said Tom Jaramillo, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and GCEP theme leader in electrochemical energy conversion. "These research projects could lead to interesting ways of using electricity from renewables to transform atmospheric CO2 into methanol and other carbon-neutral fuels."
In addition to the lab-oriented projects, two research teams will receive funding to develop computer models that evaluate the effectiveness of various technologies for capturing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants:
- Carbon-capture systems analysis. Investigators: Chris Edwards, Mechanical Engineering, and Adam Brandt, Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford.
- Advanced power plant carbon technologies. Investigators: Ed Rubin and Haibo Zhai, Engineering and Public Policy, and John Kitchin, Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon.
"Carbon capture and sequestration, and technologies that combine energy conversion with carbon-neutral fuel production could play major roles in the energy sector in the coming decades," said Pete Trelenberg, chair of the GCEP management committee and manager of environmental policy and planning at Exxon Mobil Corp. "The work represented by these GCEP awards is critical for the future."
GCEP is an industry partnership that supports innovative research on energy technologies that address the challenge of global climate change. Based at Stanford, the project includes four corporate sponsors – ExxonMobil, GE, Schlumberger and DuPont.
Mark Shwartz writes about energy technology for the Precourt Inst |
The orthodox school has witnessed for centuries that nature itself has never once cured any existing disease with another dissimilar one, however intense. What must we think of this school, which nevertheless has continued to treat chronic diseases allopathically, with medicines and | The orthodox school has witnessed for centuries that nature itself has never once cured any existing disease with another dissimilar one, however intense. What must we think of this school, which nevertheless has continued to treat chronic diseases allopathically, with medicines and formulas that can only cause a disease condition --God knows which --dissimilar to the one being treated? Even if these physicians have not hitherto observed nature attentively enough, the miserable results of their treatment should have taught them that they were on the wrong road.
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (10th April 1755 in Meien, Saxony, Holy Roman Empire - 2nd July 1843 in Paris, France) was a physician who, beginning with an article he published in a German medical journal in 1796, coined homoeopathic medicine. Hahnemann is also credited with introducing the practice of quarantine to the Kingdom of Prussia during his employment with the Duke of Anhalt-Kthen. He received his doctor of medicine degree at the University of Erlangen. Hahnemann is entombed in a mausoleum at Paris's Pre Lachaise cemetery.
I'm male, single |
Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE)
To promote abstinence education, as defined by Section 510(b)(2) in Title V of the Social Security Act, for adolescents aged 12 through 18. The entire focus of these | Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE)
To promote abstinence education, as defined by Section 510(b)(2) in Title V of the Social Security Act, for adolescents aged 12 through 18. The entire focus of these programs is to educate young people and create an environment within communities that supports teen decisions to postpone sexual activity until marriage. The CBAE program was discontinued in FY10. No new funds will be available and no new awards will be made.
Last Known Status
Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families
Types of Assistance
Uses and Use Restrictions
Pursuant to Section 510(b)(2) of Title V of the Social Security Act, the term "abstinence education," for purposes of this program means an educational or motivational program that:
(A) Has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
(B) Teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school age children;
(C) Teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems;
(D) Teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;
(E) Teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
(F) Teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society;
(G) Teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances; and
(H) Teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging in sexual activity.
Title XI, Section 1110 of the Social Security Act.
Public and private agencies responsible for the administration (or supervision of the administration) of projects under Section 1110 of the Social Security Act that teach abstinence, using the definitions contained in Section 510(b)(2) of the Act, to adolescents ages 12 through 18. Eligible applicants include: State governments; County governments; City or Township governments; independent school districts; private institutions of higher education; special district governments; public and State-controlled institutions of higher education; Native American Tribal governments (Federally recognized); public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; Native American Tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized Tribal governments); non-profits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education; non-profits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education; for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and, small businesses. Faith-based and community organizations that meet the statutory eligibility requirements are eligible to apply under this announcement. Sex education programs that promote the use of contraceptives are not eligible for funding under this program. The CBAE program was discontinued in FY10. No new funds will be available and no new awards will be made.
Adolescents ages 12 through 18.
Nonprofit organizations must submit proof of nonprofit status. OMB Circular No. A-87 applies to this program.
Application and Award Process
Preapplication coordination is required. Environmental impact information is not required for this program. This program is eligible for coverage under E.O. 12372, "Intergovernmental Review of Federal Programs." An applicant should consult the office or official designated as the single point of contact in his or her State for more information on the process the State requires to be followed in applying for assistance, if the State has selected the program for review.
OMB Circular No. A-102 applies to this program. OMB Circular No. A-110 applies to this program. Specific instructions are published in a program announcement made available through www.grants.gov.
All applications are reviewed by a panel of nonfederal experts that assigns scores according to the published criteria. The panel's scores are factored into the recommendations for funding. Scores and recommendations are reviewed by the Associate Commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau. Recomme |
Liberty not only means
that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice;
it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.
Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its | Liberty not only means
that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice;
it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.
Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom.
Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.
The particulars of a spontaneous order cannot be just or unjust. Nature can be neither just nor unjust. Only if we mean to blame a personal creator does it make sense to describe it as unjust that somebody has been born with a physical defect, or been stricken with a disease, or has suffered the loss of a loved one.
Without a theory the facts are silent.
I strongly feel that the chief task of the economic theorist or political philosopher should be to operate on public opinion to make politically possible what today may be politically impossible.
The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.
# A FREE SOCIETY
What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only he were free.
It is largely because civilization enables us constantly to profit from knowledge which we individually do not possess and because each individual's use of his particular knowledge may serve to assist others unknown to him in achieving their ends that men as members of civilized society can pursue their individual ends so much more successfully than they could alone.
In a civilized society it is indeed not so much the greater knowledge that the individual can acquire, as the greater benefit he receives from the knowledge posssessed by others, which is the cause of his ability to pursue an infinitely wider range of ends than merely the satisfaction of his most pressing physical needs. Indeed, a 'civilized' individual may be very ignorant, more ignorant than many a savage, and yet greatly benefit from the civilization in which he lives.
The case for individual freedom rests largely on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievements of our ends and welfare depend.
A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.
Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.
Human envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as 'the most anti-social and evil of all passions.'
Once politics become a tug-of-war for shares in the income pie, decent government is impossible.
The greatest danger to liberty today comes from the men who are most needed and most powerful in modern government, namely, the efficient expert administrators exclusively concerned with what they regard as the public good.
If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion.
# SPONTANEOUS ORDERS
A spontaneous order
is a system which has developed not through the central direction or patronage
of one or a few individuals but through the unintended consequences of
the decisions of myriad individuals each pursuing their own interests through
voluntary exchange, cooperation, and trial and error.
This process of spontaneous evolution is not restricted to explaining the growth of the economic order but can also account for the development of language, money, culture, law, social conventions and even morals and ethics. Although the spontaneous order develops through individuals pursuing their own interest, the individuals still behave by following commonly held rules rather than by acting in a random fashion, and these rules are themselves the product of evolution.
Many of the greatest things man has achieved are not the result of consciously directed thought, and still less the product of a deliberately coordinated effort of many individuals, but of a process in which the individual plays a part which he can never fully understand.
Ever since the beginning of modern science, the best minds have recognized |
Maintaining Your Vehicle's Tires
Properly maintaining your tires is part of being a smart consumer. Simple maintenance means saving money on gas and a smoother, safer ride for you and your family.
Why a safer ride? Because tires affect | Maintaining Your Vehicle's Tires
Properly maintaining your tires is part of being a smart consumer. Simple maintenance means saving money on gas and a smoother, safer ride for you and your family.
Why a safer ride? Because tires affect how your vehicle steers, how it brakes, and how it hugs the road. Your tires need to have the correct air pressure, tread depth, balance and alignment to be safe and cost-effective; so give your tires a visual inspection once every month.
Here are some things to look for:
Nails – Nails and other sharp objects that embed in your tires can cause air leaks, which can lead to blowouts and other dangerous driving situations.
Tread wear on one edge – The wheels could be out of alignment. Have your alignment checked by professionals periodically, and especially when you feel your car “pulling” to one side. This pulling could mean the tires don’t have equal air pressure, and tire rotation can correct this problem. Refer to your owner’s manual for rotation recommendations, but it is usually about every 5,000 to 8,000 miles.
Erratic tread wear – If you have random spots of tread wear on your tires, the wheels may be out of balance, or the shock absorbers or ball joints may need to be replaced. Seek the help of a professional. The sooner you fix it, the less money you may have to spend in the long run.
“Wear bars” – These bars look like narrow strips of rubber across the tread, and they appear at various points around the tire. As the tread wears down, it impairs the tire's ability to grip the road. No tread equals no traction. In fact, when your tires’ treads are worn down to 1/16”, you should replace them. An easy test: place a penny into a tread groove. If you can see Lincoln’s head, you should buy a new tire.
Over-inflation – Too much air lets only the middle section touch the road, which creates wear in the center and not on the edges. An over-inflated tire can cause vehicle-handling issues and uneven wear in the center of the tire tread.
Under-inflation – Too little air causes the tires’ sides to sag, creating wear on the edges, not in t |
Menopausal Hormone Therapy and Ovarian Cancer: Questions and Answers
- Menopausal hormone use (sometimes referred to as hormone replacement therapy or postmenopausal hormone use) involves taking estrogen alone or estrogen in combination with progester | Menopausal Hormone Therapy and Ovarian Cancer: Questions and Answers
- Menopausal hormone use (sometimes referred to as hormone replacement therapy or postmenopausal hormone use) involves taking estrogen alone or estrogen in combination with progesterone or progestin, a synthetic hormone with effects similar to those of progesterone (Question 1).
- In a recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, NCI and AARP reported that five or more years of estrogen plus progestin use significantly increased the risk of ovarian cancer for women who have not had a hysterectomy (Question 2).
1. What is menopausal hormone therapy?
Doctors may prescribe hormone therapy in order to alleviate symptoms associated with menopause, such as hot flashes, night sweats, sleeplessness, and vaginal dryness that occur as the body adjusts to decreased levels of estrogen. Menopausal hormone therapy (sometimes referred to as hormone replacement therapy or postmenopausal hormone use) usually involves treatment with either estrogen alone or a combination of estrogen with progesterone or progestin, a synthetic hormone with effects similar to those of progesterone. These two hormones are involved in regulating a woman's menstrual cycle.
Estrogen therapy alone is usually prescribed only for women who have had a hysterectomy. Progestin prevents the overgrowth of cells in the lining of the uterus, which can lead to uterine cancer. Therefore, a combination of estrogen plus progestin is typically recommended for women who have not had a hysterectomy (i.e., women with intact uteri). Hormones may be taken daily (continuous therapy) or on only certain days of the month (sequential therapy).
Before taking hormone replacement products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently recommends that women understand the risks and benefits of hormone therapy and talk to their doctors to make appropriate health care choices.
2. Have there been studies of menopausal hormones and ovarian cancer?
Several observational studies have investigated whether women who use menopausal hormones are more or less likely to develop ovarian cancer than women who do not use menopausal hormones. For some diseases, such as breast cancer and coronary heart disease, there are many studies that provide useful data. However, for rare diseases like ovarian cancer, there are fewer studies with the specific data needed to evaluate the potential association between use of menopausal hormones and ovarian cancer.
In a 2006 study, called the NCI Study of Hormone Therapy and Ovarian Cancer, NCI scientists had the opportunity to examine data from a large study that included 23,722 women who had hysterectomies and 73,483 women with intact uteri, to learn whether menopausal hormone use had an affect on risk of ovarian cancer (1).
3. What did the NCI Study of Hormone Therapy and Ovarian Cancer reveal about combination hormone therapy and ovarian cancer?
Overall, in this large study, the risk of developing ovarian cancer was higher in women who used menopausal hormone therapy than in women who never used such therapy. However, the increased risks differed by hormone therapy formulation and regimen and varied according to hysterectomy status.
The following results of the NCI Study of Hormone Therapy and Ovarian Cancer were reported in the October 4, 2006, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (1).
- Among women with hysterectomy, use of estrogen alone for fewer than 10 years was not associated with ovarian cancer.
- Among women with hysterectomy, use of estrogen alone for 10 or more years was associated with an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer.
- Among women with intact uteri, five or more years of sequential use of estrogen plus p |
Mystery island on 1908 map
The mystery of a disappearing island in the South Pacific may have been solved by a curious librarian at Auckland Museum.
Until this week, Sandy Island was believed to sit between Australia and New Caledonia in | Mystery island on 1908 map
The mystery of a disappearing island in the South Pacific may have been solved by a curious librarian at Auckland Museum.
Until this week, Sandy Island was believed to sit between Australia and New Caledonia in the South Pacific, plotted on Google Earth, marine charts and world maps.
But when a team of Australian scientists sailed past the island's supposed location on a recent research trip, the island was nowhere to be seen.
"We became suspicious when the navigation charts used by the ship showed a depth of 1400 metres in an area where our scientific maps and Google Earth showed the existence of a large island," said Dr Maria Seton, a geologist from the University of Sydney.
"Somehow this error has propagated through to the world coastline database from which a lot of maps are made."
The missing island has regularly appeared in scientific publications since at least 2000.
"Even onboard the ship, the weather maps the captain had, showed an island in this location," Dr Seton said.
Neither the French Government - the invisible island would sit within French territorial waters if it existed - nor the ship's nautic |
Astronomers solve poetic mystery
Astronomers believe they have solved the mystery of what inspired Walt Whitman to write about a'strange huge meteor-procession' in his poem Year of Meteors.
Whitman clearly | Astronomers solve poetic mystery
Astronomers believe they have solved the mystery of what inspired Walt Whitman to write about a'strange huge meteor-procession' in his poem Year of Meteors.
Whitman clearly spent a lot of time star-gazing, and a reference in the poem to a 'great comet' is clearly the Great Comet of 1860. The other celestial reference, says the research team, appears to have been to an Earth-grazing meteor procession.
A meteor procession occurs when a meteor breaks up upon entering the atmosphere, creating multiple meteors traveling in nearly identical paths.
"Meteor processions are so rare most people have never heard of them," says physics professor Donald Olson. "There was one in 1783 and a Canadian fireball procession in 1913. Those were all the meteor processions we knew of."
Whitman's description has in the past been ascribed to the 1833 Leonid meteor storm, the 1858 Leonids and a fireball in 1859.
The researchers were able to discount the meteor storm because the timeframe conflicts with the poem's. The 1858 Leonids were also out of the frame after the team discovered a dating error misattributing some of Whitman's observations of the 1833 Leonids to 1858.
The 1859 fireball was well-documented and happened during the timeframe of the poem - but this was a single meteor which appeared during daylight, not a procession at night.
But a chance clue from the 19th century artist Frederic Church solved the mystery. Olson remembered having seen a painting in an exhibition catalog which showed the scene Whitman had described.
The Meteor of 1860 clearly depicted a meteor procession. Not only that, but the catalog gave the date of Church's observation: July 20, 1860, well within the timeframe of Whitman's poem.
Armed with this intriguing new date, the Texas State researchers began poring through newspapers of the time - and found that a large Earth-grazing meteor broke apart that night. It created a spectacular procession of multiple fireballs visible from the Great Lakes to New York State - so that Whitman would have had a perfect view. |
In a new lab study, researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine believe they have discovered the method by which aging compromises the immune system. A compromised immune system is unable to fight infections and respond to vaccines.
In the study, conducted on aging | In a new lab study, researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine believe they have discovered the method by which aging compromises the immune system. A compromised immune system is unable to fight infections and respond to vaccines.
In the study, conducted on aging mice, researchers found that administering antioxidants may help reverse this loss of immune function.
The findings are published online in the journal Cell Reports.
“Aging is known to affect immune function, a phenomenon known as immunosenescence, but how this happens is not clear,” said study leader Laura Santambrogio, M.D., Ph.D.
“Our study has uncovered several ways in which aging can worsen the body’s overall ability to mount an effective immune response.”
Scientists understand that all cells generate chemicals called free radicals as a normal part of metabolism. These highly reactive, unstable molecules can readily damage proteins, lipids and other cellular components through oxidation (the reaction between oxygen and substances it comes in contact with).
Cells keep “oxidative stress” in check by producing several enzymes that are sc |
Shulzitski, Kathryn and McCartney, Michael A. and Burton, Michael L. (2009) Population connectivity among Dry Tortugas, Florida, and Caribbean populations of mutton snapper (Lutjanus analis), inferred | Shulzitski, Kathryn and McCartney, Michael A. and Burton, Michael L. (2009) Population connectivity among Dry Tortugas, Florida, and Caribbean populations of mutton snapper (Lutjanus analis), inferred from multiple microsatellite loci. Fishery Bulletin, 107(4), pp. 501-509.
(The document's language is
- Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat
Download (398Kb) | Preview
Determining patterns of population connectivity is critical to the evaluation of marine reserves as recruitment sources for harvested populations. Mutton snapper (Lutjanus analis) is a good test case because the last known major spawning aggregation in U.S. waters was granted no-take status in the Tortugas South Ecological Reserve (TSER) in 2001. To evaluate the TSER population as a recruitment source, we genotyped mutton snapper from the Dry Tortugas, southeast Florida, and from three locations across the Caribbean at eight microsatellite loci. Both Fstatistics and individual-based Bayesian analyses indicated that genetic substructure was absent across the five populations. Genetic homogeneity of mutton snapper populations is consistent with its pelagic larval duration of 27 to 37 days and adult behavior of annual migrations to large spawning aggregations. Statistical power of future genetic assessments of mutton snapper population connectivity may benefit from more comprehensive geographic sampling, and perhaps from the development of less polymorphic DNA mi |
From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
The desert ironwood is a species of evergreen tree with a dense hardwood from which its name is derived. The wood in the plant is so dense it was useful as a hot and long burning | From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
The desert ironwood is a species of evergreen tree with a dense hardwood from which its name is derived. The wood in the plant is so dense it was useful as a hot and long burning firewood. The plant was also used to make tools by the natives of the amazon region about 200 years ago. Back then the plant was well used, but now the shrub is protected in order to help preserve it.
The ironwood desert tree is the densest wood in the world, and the tree can grow to 45 feet high. It can live as long as 1500 years housing animals in the 500's. 230 plants grow under and around the iron wood. The plant decreases the temperature to 15% underneath the shrub. The shrub has been prohibited from harvesting to preserve it. The wood is also rare because it lives in the desert. 150 bird species live in it, 62 reptiles, 64 mammals, 25 ant colonies, and 25 other types of insects inhabit the desert iron wood. Because the desert ironwood lives in the desert it conserves water. The result from that is it becomes a denser wood. That's why it's called ironwood.
The shrub is considered to be a pea plant because the shrub's seeds look like pea pods and are distributed and planted by birds and other animals eating and not fully digesting them. The tree also has lavender flowers when blooming and pollen is distributed by bees native to the area (estimated around 50 types of bees). The plant gets most of its nutrition from the animals around the shrub and leaves falling from its branches..
The desert ironwood has a nickname of the "nurse plant" because it feeds and serves as a shelter for animals, and insects, and other plants. The ironwood is too hard for birds to hollow-out because of its density, but they can live in its roots. Insects live there as well as reptiles and birds. The seeds from the desert ironwood provide protein rich food for birds, rodents, and coyotes. The ironwood, of course, lives in the desert and is a great shelter for animals, plants, and insects. The plant is rare and in danger of being harvested for hot firewood and commercial purposes, but the government and others have protected it from use. It has a key role in the desert life of animals and insects. This shrub lives in the lower elevations, below 2,500 ft. The desert ironwood is dense because it grows slowly.
- Desert Ironwood Desert Plants
- Natural Resources Conservation Service Ironwood
- ironwood Author. Publisher. Date |
The reason we brush and floss our teeth is to reduce the number of bacteria, which feed on the food particles left on our teeth. The bacteria, found in a mesh of mucus and debris known as plaque, give off acid that eats | The reason we brush and floss our teeth is to reduce the number of bacteria, which feed on the food particles left on our teeth. The bacteria, found in a mesh of mucus and debris known as plaque, give off acid that eats into our tooth cavities.
Plaque is removed by regular brushing but flossing is important as it takes away the bacteria hidden between the teeth. Just brushing is like washing only 65% of your body and leaving the other 35% dirty. In time tartar can form, gums can inflame and disease can spread through the gums and teeth causing them to fall out.
How to floss:
- Choose a floss with fluoride and one to suit your teeth
- Measure an arms length of floss, about 18 inches long
- Wind each end around your middle fingers. Grasp 1 to 2 inches of the floss with your index finger and thumb.
- Gently glide the floss in between the teeth in a sawing motion
- Angle the floss so it hugs the tooth in a C shape
- Gently slide the floss up and down the surface of the tooth making sure it goes slightly below the gumline.
- When done angle the floss to hug the tooth in the opposite direction and repeat the above
- Continue flossing the whole mouth
- As you move on to each tooth unwind the floss from your fingers and rewind it so there |
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