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History • U.S.
Catalysts to Complexity: Late Holocene Societies of the California Coast
When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and | History • U.S.
Catalysts to Complexity: Late Holocene Societies of the California Coast
When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and an untold number of small, autonomous Native communities. These societies all survived by foraging, and ethnohistoric records show a wide range of adaptations emphasizing a host of different marine and terrestrial foods. Many groups exhibited signs of cultural complexity including sedentism, high population density, permanent social inequality, and sophisticated maritime technologies. The ethnographic era was preceded by an archaeological past that extends back to the terminal Pleistocene. Essays in this volume explore the last three and one half millennia of this long history, focusing on the archaeological signatures of emergent cultural complexity. Organized geographically, they provide an intricate mosaic of archaeological, historic, and ethnographic findings that illuminate cultural changes over time. To explain these Late Holocene cultural developments, the authors address issues ranging from culture history, paleoenvironments, settlement, subsistence, exchange, ritual, power, and division of labor, and employ both ecological and post-modern perspectives. Complex cultural expressions, most highly developed in the Santa Barbara Channel and the North Coast, are viewed alternatively as fairly recent and abrupt responses to environmental flux or the end-product of gradual progressions that began earlier in the Holocene.
Published By The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
0 x 0 in. 377 pages |
Last year researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia released the most rigorous estimate yet of how many species live on our planet: 8.7 million, not counting bacteria. Nearly 6.5 million of these species live on land | Last year researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia released the most rigorous estimate yet of how many species live on our planet: 8.7 million, not counting bacteria. Nearly 6.5 million of these species live on land versus 2.2 million in the ocean, according to the analysis. “Humanity has committed itself to saving species from extinction, but until now we have not had a good idea of even how many there are,” says coauthor Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie.
Previous estimates have ranged from as few as 3 million species to as many as 100 million. To arrive at a more certain answer, marine ecologist Camilo Mora examined life’s diversity at higher levels of taxonomy (genus, family, order, et cetera). When he and his team analyzed the 1.2 million known species listed in two enormous databases, they found a consistent pattern in the number of species per genus, genus per family, and so on. Much in the way seeing the top of a pyramid lets you predict the width of the bottom, Mora extrapolated the total number of species from the higher, more complete taxonomic groups to arrive at his estimate.
Mora’s approach is not without its critics, but it is the first one that can be validated. When applied to mammals, for instance, it gave the correct number of species: 5,500. |
Russell (Martian crater)
The Russell Crater dune field is covered seasonally by carbon dioxide frost. Numerous dark dust devil tracks can be seen meandering across the dunes.
|Eponym||Henry Norris Russell, an American | Russell (Martian crater)
The Russell Crater dune field is covered seasonally by carbon dioxide frost. Numerous dark dust devil tracks can be seen meandering across the dunes.
|Eponym||Henry Norris Russell, an American astronomer (1877-1957)|
Russell Crater is a crater found in the Noachis quadrangle of Mars located at 54.9° south latitude and 347.6° west longitude. It is about 139.7 km in diameter and was named after Henry Norris Russell, an American astronomer (1877-1957).
Dust devil tracks
Many areas on Mars experience the passage of giant dust devils. A thin coating of fine bright dust covers most of the Martian surface. When a dust devil goes by it blows away the coating and exposes the underlying dark surface. Dust devils have been seen from the ground and high overhead from orbit. They have even blown the dust off of the solar panels of the two Rovers on Mars, thereby greatly extending their lives. The twin Rovers were designed to last for 3 months; instead they have lasted more than five years and are still going. The pattern of the tracks have been shown to change every few months. The image below of Russell Crater shows changes in dust devil tracks over a period of only three months, as documented by HiRISE.
Russell Crater dust devil changes, as seen by HiRISE. Click on image to see changes in dust devil tracks in just 3 months.
|This article about the planet Mars or its moons is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.|
|This article about an extraterrestrial geological feature is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.| |
A Linguist Looks at the Ebonics Debate
Charles J. Fillmore
One uncontroversial principle underlying the Oakland Unified School District's December 18th "Ebonics" resolution is the truism that people can't learn | A Linguist Looks at the Ebonics Debate
Charles J. Fillmore
One uncontroversial principle underlying the Oakland Unified School District's December 18th "Ebonics" resolution is the truism that people can't learn from each other if they don't speak the same language. Anyone who doubts this has only to read the current public debate about the resolution itself. Educators, bureaucrats, and experts have been weighing in on the meaning of the resolution in the last two weeks. You might think all that these people speak the same language, but the evidence contradicts the appearance. All of the key words that keep coming up in these discussions clearly mean different things to different parties in the debate, and that blocks successful communication and makes it too easy for each participant to believe that the others are mad, scheming, or stupid.
As far as I can work it out (not from the language of the resolution but from the board's recent "clarifications"), the pedagogically relevant assumptions behind the "Ebonics" resolution are as follows: The way some African American children speak when they show up in Oakland's schools is so different from standard English that teachers often can't understand what they are saying. Such children perform poorly in school and typically fail to acquire the ways of speaking that they'll need in order to succeed in the world outside their neighborhoods. Schools have traditionally treated the speech of these children as simply sloppy and wrong, not as evidencing skills and knowledge the children can build on. The proposed new instructional plan would assist children in learning standard English by encouraging them to compare the way they speak with what they need to learn in school, and this cannot be accomplished in a calm and reasoned way unless their teachers treat what they already have, linguistically, as a worthy possession rather than as evidence of carelessness and ignorance. An important step toward introducing this new practice is to help teachers understand the characteristics of their students' speech so they can lead the children to an awareness of the difference.
It would have been more natural for me to describe the plan with such words as "building on the language the children already have to help them acquire the language they need to learn in school." But instead, I avoided using the word "language," since that is one of the words responsible for much of the confusion in the discussion around the school board's decision. The other words causing trouble are "dialect," "slang," "primary language," and, regrettably, "genetic." Neither side in these debates uses these words in ways that facilitate communication. Perhaps a linguist's view might introduce some clarity into these discussions.
The words "dialect" and "language" are confusingly ambiguous. These are not precisely definable technical terms in linguistics, but linguists have learned to live with the ambiguities. I mentioned "the language of the resolution" where I meant the actual words and phrases found in the text of the board's resolution. We can use the word "language" to refer simply to the linguistic system one acquires in childhood. In normal contexts, everybody grows up speaking a language. And if there are systematic differences between the language you and your neighbors speak and the language my neighbors and I speak, we can say that we speak different dialects.
The word "language" is also used to refer to a group of related dialects, but there are no scientific criteria for deciding when to refer to two linguistic systems as different dialects of the same language, or as different languages belonging to the same language family. There are empirical criteria for grouping ways of speaking to reflect their historical relationships, but there is an arbitrary element in deciding when to use the word "language" for representing any particular grouping. (Deciding whether BBC newsreaders and Lynchburg, Va., radio evangelists speak different dialects of the same language or different languages in the same language family is on the level of deciding whether Greenland is a small continent or a large island.)
There is a different and misleading way of using these words for situations in which, for social or political reasons, one dialect comes to be the preferred means of communication in schools, commerce, public ceremonies, etc. According to this second usage, which reflects an unscientific "folk theory," what the linguist would simply call the standard dialect is thought of as a "language," the others as "mere dialects," falling short of the perfection of the real language. An important principle of linguistics is that the selection of the prestige dialect is determined by accidental extralinguistic forces, and is not dependent on inherent virtues of the dialects themselves. But according to the folk theory, the "dialects" differ from the language itself in being full of errors.
I've been reading the San Francisco newspapers these last two weeks, and I see continuing chaos in the ways commentators choose to describe and classify the manner of speaking that is the target of the Ebonics resolution. The resolution and the public discussion about it have used so many different terms, each of them politically loaded ("Ebonics," "Black English," "Black Dialect," "African Language Systems," "Pan-African Communication Behaviors") that I will use what I think is the most neutral term, "African American Vernacular English," abbreviated as AAVE.
(1) Some participants in t |
Motion bases for aircraft and other types of simulators demand a combination of rapid acceleration and deceleration, tight positioning control, long life, and, of course high reliability. The larger the mass that needs to be moved, the more likely the | Motion bases for aircraft and other types of simulators demand a combination of rapid acceleration and deceleration, tight positioning control, long life, and, of course high reliability. The larger the mass that needs to be moved, the more likely the motion base will use hydraulics. Manufacturers have been able to increase the capacity of electromechanical actuators, so they present them as preferable to electrohydraulic systems.
However, many of the arguments minimize the advantages of hydraulics over electromechanical systems and exaggerate the disadvantages of hydraulics. Different motion bases have application advantages based on their particular design. Hence, the following analysis is intended for applications where it is necessary to lift and hold payloads for extended periods of time as well as accelerate and decelerate that payload while elevated. Of primary concern are motion bases designed primarily for flight simulation and similar applications.
Sizing and power requirements
Proponents of electromechanical motion bases repeatedly claim that electrical systems consume less power than hydraulic systems do. Let’s see if this is true through an example, which is summarized in the accompanying table.
Assume we need to lift and hold a 20,000 lb payload for extended periods of time. This is a common condition for flight simulators and similar applications where accelerating and decelerating dynamics are small, but large excursions of the platform are required. Such applications typically use six linear actuators arranged in a hexapod configuration.
As indicated by the table, the installed power requirement is 20% more for an electric motion base system, and consumption is greater. The most telling issue is when the motion base operates near its mid-stroke position, with no motion being commanded. In this case, the hydraulic valves feeding the cylinders close, and the variable-displacement pump in the hydraulic power unit (HPU) throttles to near zero displacement. This allows the HPU’s motor-pump to operate in a low-energy consumption mode. The electromechanical unit, on the other hand, must continue consuming energy equal to the entire weight of the payload, generating heat.
In this case, the hydraulic system generates heat that requires about 3.2 tons of refrigeration (38,000 btu/hr or 11.1 kW) to stabilize temperature. However, the electric unit generates heat requiring 13 tons of refrigeration (156,000 btu/hr, or 45.7 kW). This cost of hea |
Major grant aims at breaking the habit of implicit bias
A UW-Madison doctor who has long worked to increase the entry of women into the scientific workforce has won a grant to develop video games to uncover and neutralize implicit, unintentional biases | Major grant aims at breaking the habit of implicit bias
A UW-Madison doctor who has long worked to increase the entry of women into the scientific workforce has won a grant to develop video games to uncover and neutralize implicit, unintentional biases against women, minorities and people with disabilities.
After years of effort, many fields in science, math, engineering and medicine still have trouble attracting and retaining women and minorities, and all find women underrepresented in leadership, says Molly Carnes, director of the UW-Madison Center for Women's Health Research and a professor of medicine and industrial and systems engineering. She says even people who favor diversity and resist bias may unintentionally act upon implicit bias.
Although women have made major strides in medicine and the social sciences, they lag in engineering and physical sciences, Carnes says, and the fallout affects not just fairness but also economics. "For 25 years, the research agencies have said, if the U.S. is going to maintain its competitive edge in a global economy that is increasingly knowledge-based, we must invest in the domestic workforce in science, math, engineering and medicine. There has been some improvement, but we not taking full advantage of our domestic workforce."
The new grant, called the National Institutes of Health Director's Pathfinder Award to Promote Diversity in the Scientific Workforce, is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and administered by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
"The Pathfinder Award reflects NIH's long-standing commitment to promoting a scientific workforce that is representative of the diversity of the U.S. population," says NIH director Francis S. Collins. "Such diversity generates new perspectives, approaches and answers to challenging problems. We're optimistic that these awards will help identify new methods for addressing the compelling need to increase the number of people from underrepresented groups who pursue careers in the biomedical, behavioral, clinical and social sciences."
The grant is intended to fund what Carnes, who co-directs the UW-Madison Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute, calls "transformational approaches" that can change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors in academic institutions.
In her studies of implicit bias, Carnes says she focuses on faculty, who "are the driver of change in an academic institution." She says she "approaches implicit bias in decision-making as a bad habit that can be changed |
There are three levels of instrumental rationality, in order of decreasing thickness:
- Rationality with regard to genuine ends that one has. Some of these ends may be self-given and others may be ends that one has independently of what one desires | There are three levels of instrumental rationality, in order of decreasing thickness:
- Rationality with regard to genuine ends that one has. Some of these ends may be self-given and others may be ends that one has independently of what one desires and pursues.
- Rationality with respect to what one desires or what are goals of one's pursuits.
- Rationality with respect to arbitrary states of affairs. Thus, if a student fails an exam, that is rational with respect to the state of affairs of getting a low grade in the course, whether or not that state of affairs is one the student pursues, desires or should pursue or desire.
The thinnest option does not make actions even be prima facie rational. My sticking a pin in my nose is instrumentally rational in the third sense with respect to creating pain in myself, but is not even even prima facie rational. The third option only makes actions prima facie conditionally rational, provided that the state of affairs is one that is at least prima facie rational to pursue.
More controversially, I think the same is true of the middle option. That I pursue E and C appropriately promotes E only makes it even prima facie rational to pursue C when pursuing E is at least prima facie rational. That I have set myself to pursue a goal does not automatically make that goal be a genuine end of mine. And what I said about pursuit goes over, even more controversially, for for desires. So the middle option only gives conditional prima facie rationality: pursuing C is prima facie rational provided that pursuing E is.
One might think: "provided that pursuing or desiring E is." But there may be cases where desiring E is rational but pursuing E is not even prima facie rational. Suppose you will kill me unless I desire to step on a point-up tack. I form this desire quite rationally, but this rational desire does not give me a reason to step on the tack, given that I continue to believe that the action is not worth pursuing.
It is only the first kind of instrumental rationality that is a genuine form of rationality, that makes actions at least prima facie rational. In fact, the thinnest and medium options don't have any normativity to them at all: they just tell us about causal and logical connections between events in the world (thinnest) or events in the world and mental states (medium). |
Lesson 8: D&C 13; D&C 20:38–67; D&C 27:12–13; D&C 84:6–30; D&C 107:1–20; D&C 110 | Lesson 8: D&C 13; D&C 20:38–67; D&C 27:12–13; D&C 84:6–30; D&C 107:1–20; D&C 110:11–16; Joseph Smith History 1:66- 73
This lesson is on the restoration of the priesthood. I will spend two weeks on this lesson, the first devoted to the Aaronic priesthood and its restoration, the second devoted to the Melchizedek priesthood. I’m including study questions for both lessons here for those who do not wish to divide the lesson into two.
Joseph Smith History: 1:68- 72
Verse 68: The Father and the Son visited Joseph Smith in response to his soul- searching and his desire to know what church to join. John the Baptist visited him and Oliver Cowdery in response to their question about baptism by immersion. What does this suggest about revelation?
Verse 72: Why was it important that John the Baptist tell them who he was and what authority he operated under?
Doctrine and Covenants, Section 13
See also D&C 84:26- 27.
How does the use of the word “keys” here differ from its use in Matthew 16:19? How are they the same?
Numbers 18 spells out the responsibilities of the Aaronic priesthood anciently: They are to bear the sin of Israel and prevent others from getting too close to the tabernacle and its holy vessels (verses 1- 5). As priesthood bearers, they are a gift to Israel, and they should understand their priesthood service as a gift they give to Israel (verses 6- 7). Speaking to Aaron, the Lords says that he is in charge of the holy sacrifices and should depend on the Lord for his inheritance (verses 8- 20; the same things are repeated in verses 21- 32, speaking to the Levites as a whole). Compare these responsibilities of the ancient Aaronic priesthood with the responsibilities of the latter- day Aaronic priesthood (D&C 20:46- 59; 107:13- 14, and 20). How is priesthood service a gift to give? What does “authority” mean when we think of it in those terms? How might priesthood bearers today understand the instruction to depend on the Lord for their inheritance?
What is the ministering of angels? Is it related to Jesus’ experience after his forty- day fast (Matthew 4:11 and Mark 1:13)? Does the fact that it a telestial privilege (D&C 76:88) help us understand what it means to us? Sherem confesses that angels minister as part of his repentance (Jacob 7:17); Amaleki lists it among the things in which he believes (Omni 1:25); when, after Christ’s appearance, the disciplines receive the Holy Ghost, angels minister to them (3 Nephi 19:15); Moroni mentions the ministering of angels as something by which people have faith (Moroni 7:25), and he tells us that it is one of the gifts of the Spirit (Moroni 10:14). The fact that the ministering of angels is one of only two things mentioned by John the Baptist, the other being the gospel, suggests that it is something very important. Can you explain specifically what it is in a way that gives it its importance? Where do we find the ministering of angels today?
John the Baptist describes the gospel in two ways: it is the gospel of repentance, and it is the gospel of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins? Why do you think that he chooses those particular ways of describing the gospel, rather than others?
John speaks of keys, in the plural, but then he says “this shall never be taken from the earth,” using a singular pronoun. To what does the word “this” refer? So what?
Doctrine and Covenants 107:13- 14, 20
Ver |
Military history of Mexico
|History of Mexico|
The military history of Mexico consists of several millennia of armed conflicts within what is now that nation's territory and includes activities of the Mexican military in peacekeeping and combat related affairs worldwide. Wars between pre | Military history of Mexico
|History of Mexico|
The military history of Mexico consists of several millennia of armed conflicts within what is now that nation's territory and includes activities of the Mexican military in peacekeeping and combat related affairs worldwide. Wars between prehispanic peoples marked the beginning of Mexico's military history, the most notable of these fought in the form of a flower war. After the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the 16th century, indigenous tribes were defeated by Spain, thus beginning a three century era of Spanish dominance. Mexico's struggle for independence began primarily in the 19th century, and was marked by internal conflict of early rulers after defeating the Spanish in 1821. The Mexican-American War in the mid 19th century ended in the defeat of Mexican forces, and the loss of two-fifths of the national territory. In the remainder of the 19th century, a series of conflicts began in Mexico, as the War of the Reform and the defeat of the French during their intervention in Mexico marked events in that era.
Key military campaigns in the early 20th century include the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero War. These two conflicts, respectively, overthrew the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and challenged the largely anticlerical nature of the post-Revolutionary governments. Mexico stood among the Allies of World War II and was one of two Latin American nations to send combat troops to serve in the Second World War.
Recent developments in the Mexican military include deployment of troops to the United Nations, a cooperation with the United States in terms of patrolling borders, and relief sent during Hurricane Katrina.
- 1 Pre–Colonial Era
- 2 Spanish Conquest
- 3 19th century
- 4 Early 20th Century
- 5 Mid 20th Century
- 6 Recent developments
- 7 Timeline
- 8 See also
- 9 References
- 10 External links
During the age before Spanish conquest of Mexico, several wars ensued between the Aztecs and several other native tribes. Alliances between the Aztec state and Texcoco had become central to these pre colonial wars. Several of these conflicts were evolved to an organized warfare, known as the flower wars.
In flower wars the primary objective was to injure or capture the enemy, rather than killing as in Western warfare. Prisoners-of-war were ritually sacrificed to Aztec gods. Cannibalism was also a center feature to this type of warfare, as well. Historical accounts such as that of Juan Bautista de Pomar state that small pieces of meat were offered as gifts to important people in exchange for presents and slaves, but it was rarely eaten, since they considered it had no value; instead it was replaced by turkey, or just thrown away.
Perhaps the most famous of the Native Mexican states is the Aztec Empire. In the 13th and 14th centuries, around Lake Texcoco in the Anahuac Valley, the most powerful of these city states were Culhuacan to the south, and Azcapotzalco to the west. Between them, they controlled the whole Lake Texcoco area.
The Aztecs hired themselves out as mercenaries in wars between Nahuas, breaking the balance of power between city states. Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan formed a "Triple Alliance" that came to dominate the Valley of Mexico, and then extended its power beyond. Tenochtitlan, the traditional capital of the Aztec Empire, gradually became the dominant power in the alliance.
In 1519, the native civilizations of Mexico were invaded by Spain, and two years later in 1521, the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was conquered. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba explored the shores of southeast Mexico in 1517, followed by Juan de Grijalva in 1518. The most important of the early Conquistadores was Hernán Cortés, who entered the country in 1519 from a native coastal town which he renamed "Puerto de la Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz" (today's Veracruz). In a series of wars and counter-rebellions over the next two centuries, Spain would expand and consolidate its Mexican territories.
The Aztecs, the dominant empire in Mexico, believed "that Quetzalcoatl would return on in 'Ce-Acatl' or one-reed year. The Pre-Columbian calendar was divided into 52 year periods or cycles. Every 52nd year was a Ce-Acatl; the year 1467 was such a year. On their arrival in the new world, the Aztecs thought the Spanish conquerors had been sent by the gods, so they initially offered little resistance to the advances of the conquerors. (Ironically, Cortés does not mention the alleged "god worship" episode in his letters to King Charles V of Spain.)
After a major battle in 1519, during which the Spanish forces were defeated and sent into retreat, the Spaniards regrouped outside the Valley of Mexico. After eight months they were back, this time with an even larger contingent of native allies. By then, Spanish smallpox had ravaged the Aztec population, drastically reducing the Aztec fighting forces. The Spaniards surrounded and laid siege to the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan, bringing about the Aztecs' total defeat in 1521. Despite their metal weapons, horses, cannons, and |
Press Release No. 916
For use of the information media
Not an official record
WMO Update: La Niña Episode Coming to an End
Geneva, 23 May 2011 (WMO) – The La Ni | Press Release No. 916
For use of the information media
Not an official record
WMO Update: La Niña Episode Coming to an End
Geneva, 23 May 2011 (WMO) – The La Niña episode, which caused disastrously wet conditions in certain regions and drought in others, is coming to an end, according to the latest Update issued by the World Meteorological Organization. Development of El Niño or re-development of La Niña is not considered likely for the middle part of the year, but the outlook at this time is not clear for the second half of 2011.
Near-neutral conditions - with the ocean temperatures, tropical rainfall patterns, and atmospheric winds over the equatorial Pacific Ocean being near the long-term average - are considered the most likely scenario for mid-year 2011, it said, but cautioned that this time of year is known to be particularly marked by low forecast skill.
La Niña is characterized by unusually cool ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. It is the opposite of El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean surface temperatures in the same area. Both events drive the large-scale ocean-atmosphere circulation patterns in the tropics and have important consequences for weather and climate around the globe. Once established, they typically last for 9 months or more.
The current La Niña developed in mid-July 2010 and peaked in January 2011. Sea surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific were about 1.5 degrees Celsius colder than average from September 2010 to early March 2011, indicating a moderately strong La Niña event. However, the atmospheric aspects (changes in sea-level pressure, winds, cloudiness, etc) were among the strongest of the last century.
As a result of these atmospheric conditions, parts of northern and eastern Australia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and portions of northern South America (e.g. Colombia) suffered from extremely heavy rains in late 2010 and/or early 2011.
The La Niña episode was also linked to below average rainfall in eastern equatorial Africa, and below average rainfall in central southwest Asia and southeastern South America.
- A La Niña event of moderately strong intensity continued through the first quarter of 2011 in the oceans, and very strong intensity in the atmosphere.
- The La Niña event has been weakening in the oceans since about February, but is only now in the process of ending in mid-May. The atmospheric aspects of the event remained very strong through the end of April, and only now are weakening.
- In considering expected climate over coming months, it is important to recognize that atmospheric patterns typical of La Niña may in some regions continue for a couple of months after the disappearance of the cool waters in the tropical Pacific. Detailed seasonal forecasts should be consulted with these possible residual climate effects in mind.
- Looking ahead beyond mid-year 2011, there are currently no clear indications for enhanced risk of El Niño or La Niña in the second half of 2011. The ocean-atmosphere system has a rather low predictability at this time of year. Monitoring for another 1 to 2 months is required to more firmly establish the evolution of the system. Accordingly, near-neutral conditions are currently considered the most likely scenario for the second half of 2011.
The El Niño/La Niña Update is a consensus-based product prepared by WMO in close collaboration with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), USA, based on input from climate prediction centres and experts around the world.
Generally, during La Niña episodes rainfall is increased across the western equatorial Pacific, including northern Australia and Indonesia during December-February and the Philippines during June-August and is nearly absent across the eastern equatorial Pacific. Wetter than normal conditions also tend to be observed during December-February over northern South America and southern Africa, and during June-August over South Asia and southeastern Australia. Drier than normal conditions are generally observed along coastal Ecuador, northwestern Peru and equatorial eastern Africa during December to February, and over southern Brazil and central Argentina during June-August.
La Niña episodes also contribute to large-scale temperature departures throughout the world, with most of the affected regions experiencing abnormally cool conditions. These include: below-normal temperatures during December-February over southeastern Africa, Japan, southern Alaska and western/central Canada, and southeastern Brazil; cooler than normal conditions during June-August across India and southeastern Asia, along the west coast of South America, across the Gulf of Guinea region, and across northern South America and portions of central America; and warmer than normal conditions during December-February along the Gulf coast of the United States.
La Niña is also known to be associated with a relatively more activ |
Heat engines provide most of our mechanical power and are essential for long-range transportation. However, whereas significant progress has been made in the miniaturization of motors driven by electrostatic forces, it has proven difficult to reduce the size of conventional liquid or | Heat engines provide most of our mechanical power and are essential for long-range transportation. However, whereas significant progress has been made in the miniaturization of motors driven by electrostatic forces, it has proven difficult to reduce the size of conventional liquid or gas driven heat engines below 10^7 um^3 (10 million cubic microns). Here we demonstrate an all-silicon reciprocating heat engine with a volume of less than 0.5 um^3.(half of one cubic micron) The device draws heat from a DC current using the piezoresistive effect and converts it into mechanical energy by expanding and contracting at different temperatures. It is shown that the engine can even increase the mechanical energy of a resonator when its motion is governed by random thermal fluctuations. When the thermodynamic cycle of the heat engine is reversed, it operates as a refrigerator or heat pump that can reduce motional noise in mechanical systems. In contrast to the Peltier effect, the direction of the thermal current does not depend on the direction of the electrical current.
6 page pdf
We have demonstrated a solid-state piezoresistive heat engine and refrigerator that can be reduced to microscopic dimensions. The device might drive micromechanical oscillators, motors and sensors. However, even though man-made heat engines outperform biological engines on the macroscopic scale and are essential for long-rang transportation, it remains to be seen whether they can ever compete with biological or artifcial molecular motors on the microscale. Anyhow, their manufacturability and the possibility to operate them over a wider range of environmental conditions are signifcant advantages.
Previous work by others to make Quantum machine using cold atoms |
Scott W. Atlas, M.D., Contributor
I offer a doctor’s perspective on health care systems.
What a holiday gift! No one should be surprised that a new study casting doubt on the harm done by being overweight is being celebrated by the | Scott W. Atlas, M.D., Contributor
I offer a doctor’s perspective on health care systems.
What a holiday gift! No one should be surprised that a new study casting doubt on the harm done by being overweight is being celebrated by the American media. We all know that staying fat is a heckuva lot easier than using willpower to say no to the foods we all love, and who really wants to spend time sweating in the gym or exercising at home instead of sitting on the couch watching television while downing chips and soda? Unfortunately, the recent Journal of the American Medical Association publication analyzing life expectancy correlations to one imperfect calculation of relative weight (BMI, the body mass index) distracts readers all-too-eager to cling to its implications that being chubby is actually better.
The deleterious medical consequences of being overweight or obese should not even be debated at this point, because the findings are incontrovertible. Peeters found a six years reduction in life expectancy at age forty for obese men, and seven years for obese women, compared to non-obese people. The OECD estimates that the lifespan of an obese person is “up to 8-10 years shorter (for a BMI of 40-45) than that of a normal-weight person” – matching the loss of longevity seen in cigarette smokers. According to the OECD, for every 15 kilograms of excess weight, the risk of death increases by about 30%. A Harvard study in March 2012 showed that if adults become non-obese by 2020, the life expectancy in the US would increase by almost four years from that fact alone. The study went further to point out that the entire positive impact of declining smoking rates on American health would be completely overtaken – even reversed – by obesity if current trends continued.
The recent JAMA study implying that being overweight has longer life expectancy than being thin is not simply counterintuitive. Tragically, its authors give the public and the naïve lay media the excuse to suddenly disregard incontrovertible evidence found in hundreds of peer-reviewed publications for decades about the severely harmful effects of obesity on health. Beyond its impact on life expectancy, obesity and being overweight correlate to innumerable serious diseases and have overwhelming effects detrimental to quality of life. A long but incomplete list of serious diseases with increased incidence in obese and overweight adults and children includes diabetes mellitus, type 2; hypertension (high blood pressure); cardiovascular disease (heart disease); stroke; cancer of the prostate, colon, breast, uterus, cervix, kidney, and gallbladder; end-stage renal disease (chronic kidney disease) requiring dialysis or transplant; sleep apnea; gallbladder disease and gallstones; hip arthritis and gout; liver disease; pregnancy complications; complications from surgery; infertility; and Alzheimer’s Disease.
Even more worrisome is the fact that obesity rates are rising not only in adults but in children. Since obesity is estimated to show a lag time of about 25 years before more complete effects on premature death and disease are seen, public health experts predict an enormous impact on world-wide health and life expectancy in the future. For example, a strong link between childhood obesity and death from heart disease decades later was recently found, and there is abundant evidence that obesity is the culprit of the shocking increase in diabetes in children. Will this be the first generation in American history with a shorter life expectancy than their parents?
In an economic context, the burden of obesity to the U.S. health care system and U.S. taxpayers is at crisis levels and will only increase. Extra medical care for obesity comprises from 5 to 10% of total U.S. health care costs, half of which Medicare and Medicaid finances. Due to its high prevalence and its associations with multiple chronic diseases, worse treatment results and complications from even the best medical and surgical care, increased levels of disability, absenteeism from work, and premature death, the total societal costs from obesity in the U.S. every year exceed $215 billion. “Keeping obesity rates level could yield a savings of nearly $550 billion in medical expenditures over the next two decades,” recently projected Eric Finkelstein of Duke University.
Meanwhile, a different survey just published from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reported that 88 percent of Americans believe that individuals themselves shoulder a large or very large responsibility to solve the country’s obesity problem. Unfortunately, the same survey showed some significant denial about the seriousness of the problem. Among women, eighty-one percent say that overweight and obesity are serious health problems, and only sixty-nine percent of men agreed. Now is certainly not the time to minimize the tremendous health and economic burden from being overweight or obese.
Solving this nation’s most pressing health problem is more than any other single factor critically dependent on individual responsibility. While the AP-NORC survey underscored awareness of personal responsibility in a general sense, the list of nine options selected as possible ca |
For release: 10-07-03
There's a new glass in town. A company created the glass with the help of a unique Marshall Center facility — the Electrostatic Levitator — where molten spheres of glowing material float with | For release: 10-07-03
There's a new glass in town. A company created the glass with the help of a unique Marshall Center facility — the Electrostatic Levitator — where molten spheres of glowing material float with no visible means of containment. Inside the levitator, researchers melt materials without using contaminating containers. Containerless Research Inc., a small company in Evanston, Ill., produces "REAl" glass for use in numerous applications including lasers used for surgery and metal cutting, and amplifiers used in optical communications.Photo: REAl glass spheres (Containerless Research Inc.)
There's a new glass in town. The glass, developed with the help of a unique NASA levitator facility, is available for numerous commercial applications including lasers and optical communications.
"We have patented a family of new glasses and have established processes for making and using them in practical applications," said Dr. Richard (Rick) Weber, director of the Glass Products Division of Containerless Research Inc., the small company that invented and produces the glass in Evanston, Ill. "We're already making commercial quantities of glass rods and plates for use in lasers," he said.
REAl Glass™ — made from Rare Earth oxides, Aluminum oxide and small amounts of silicon dioxide — has unique properties that were identified using both the company's containerless processing techniques and a NASA ground-based research facility.
As part of a NASA research grant for a proposed International Space Station flight experiment, Weber conducted research in the Electrostatic Levitator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The levitator, where molten spheres of glowing material float with no visible means of support or containment, is one of the nation's few facilities where scientists can process materials without using contaminating containers.
"This shows how basic NASA research can lead to innovative materials and new products that can benefit everybody," said Dr. Michael Wargo, Enterprise Scientist for materials science in NASA's Office of Biological and Physical Research in Washington.
Containerless Research's development of applications and new products for lasers, optical communications, and surgical lasers is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
"The development of REAl Glass™ shows how the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program works by building on good ideas that come from basic research and helping small businesses grow into commercial manufacturers of innovative products," said Dr. Winslow Sargeant, who directs the National Science Foundation SBIR Commercialization Program for devices. "We are working with Containerless Research Inc. by supporting product research and development that can help them grow the business and continue to create new products and new jobs," Sargeant explained.
REAl Glass™ has qualities useful for creating materials for demanding optical applications. "We've taken many of the best qualities of the current materials and created a new glass that can be produced inexpensively," Weber said.
One of the most promising uses of the glass is for lasers. Whether it is a power laser for cutting metal for car bodies or a medical laser used for surgery, the "heart" of lasers is the gain medium, which is where REAl Glass™ can be used. This critical component increases or amplifies light, resulting in an intense, highly concentrated beam capable of precisely cutting metal parts or surgically removing or repairing human tissue.
"Most surgical lasers now use expensive single crystals, which limit the range of operating wavelength to very narrow bands," explained Weber. "REAl Glass™ would provide tunability, which can give more control over surgical procedures, an important factor in different types of surgery and for different skin types. Our glass can provide efficient power lasers and expand coverage to new wavelengths," he said.
REAl Glass™ also provides a medium for next-generation optical communications devices that need to be small, low-cost and powerful to provide fiber for home connections for broadband Internet. The company can customize the glass composition for these uses. The family of REAl Glass™ materials is patented under U.S. Patent No. 6,482,758 issued Nov. 19, 2002, and is only available from Containerless Research Inc., or under license.
For information on NASA's Electrostatic Levitator, a list of peer-reviewed articles describing this research, and to download photographs to accompany this news release, visit:
For information about REAI Glass™ and Containerless Research Inc. on the Internet, visit:
For more information:
Containerless Research Inc.
Office of Biological and Physical Research
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An Open Book of Human History
Bandelier National Monument protects over 33,000 acres of rugged but beautiful canyon and mesa country as well as evidence of a human presence here going back over 11,000 years. Petroglyphs, dwell | An Open Book of Human History
Bandelier National Monument protects over 33,000 acres of rugged but beautiful canyon and mesa country as well as evidence of a human presence here going back over 11,000 years. Petroglyphs, dwellings carved into the soft rock cliffs, and standing masonry walls pay tribute to the early days of a culture that still survives in the surrounding communities.Read More
Visiting Bandelier in Late Autumn/Winter
Visiting Bandelier in winter can be fun and exciting if you are prepared. Click here to plan a trip between October 29, 2013 and March 31, 2014.Read More
Capturing Landscape Changes Through Photograpy
There's a new resource management blog to check out. Learn how photography documents changes in the landscape. Read it now.Read More
Observations of a Park Ranger
"Visitors often remark that I must have the best job in the world." In this blog Ranger Theresa Ferraro provides insight into being a park ranger.Read More
Did I Hear You Say Big Ears?
Abert's Squirrel are best distinguished by their tufted or tasseled ears, but that is not the only thing that is unique about them.Read More
American Pika: At Bandelier?
You might not expect to find this cute little relative of the rabbit in Bandelier but they are found in the park's highest elevations.Read More
Elk - Good for Bandelier?
Prehistoric elk populations in Bandelier were small. Today's elk were reintroduced in the 1960's and may be doing too well.Read More
Too Smart For Their Own Good?
Not everyone likes coyotes but they play an important role in our food chain, keeping rodents populations in check and highways cleared of roadkill.Read More
Bandelier Herbarium Collection Goes Live!
The flora of Bandelier is now one of the best documented, and most current, vascular plant inventories available for any unit in the NPS.Read More
Did You Know?
Hummingbirds use a combination of plant material, lichens, and moss held together by spider webs to make a flexible nest. This nest can expand to meet the needs of the growing chicks. |
Environmental ministers meeting in Nairobi this week to tackle one of the most widespread pollutants will be asked to choose between strict curbs on mercury proposed by the European Union and a voluntary approach advocated by the United States.
The EU is calling for deadlines, bans | Environmental ministers meeting in Nairobi this week to tackle one of the most widespread pollutants will be asked to choose between strict curbs on mercury proposed by the European Union and a voluntary approach advocated by the United States.
The EU is calling for deadlines, bans and detailed promises, whereas the U.S. prefers partnerships between industries and governments with no specific goals or deadlines for reducing either the global supply or demand of mercury.
In 2001, the United Nations Environment Program, or UNEP, declared that "national, regional and global actions, both immediate and long-term, should be initiated as soon as possible" to reduce emissions of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that has contaminated fish and other food sources around the world.
Meeting at UNEP's world headquarters in the Kenyan capital through Friday, more than 100 environmental ministers from six continents will decide whether to begin drafting a binding international treaty to restrict the buying, selling and use of mercury.
Whether for small gold mines in Ghana or chemical factories in Louisiana, mercury is traded freely as a commodity on the world market. Every year, about 3,400 tons are purchased for use in industrial processes, particularly chlorine manufacture, and in products such as batteries.
Mercury is a natural element in the Earth's crust. When industries release it into the air, however, it travels great distances, contaminating oceans, lakes and rivers. The amount of mercury found in one out of six Americans exceeds levels that could cause neurological and developmental damage in a fetus or infant, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Unlike most other pollutants, mercury is used primarily in the developing world, not industrialized countries.
Coal-burning power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the U.S. — and in the world. But restrictions on the power industry will be left to individual nations under all the plans under consideration. Mercury alloys used in dental fillings also would remain unaffected.
The four industries that buy and sell mercury are the focus of the U.N. debate: chlorine production; battery manufacturing, which occurs mostly in China; small-scale gold mining in Africa, Brazil and Southeast Asia; and mercury mines in Spain, Kyrgyzstan, Algeria and China.
"Mercury mismanaged anywhere in the world contaminates U.S. food supplies," said Linda Greer, director of environmental health for the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council. "Mercury escaping from outdated chemical factories in India may easily appear in fish at a Manhattan grocery store or caught by anglers here in the U.S. Great Lakes."
In a report last year, the European Commission, the EU's executive body, concluded that mercury should be considered a special case for trade restrictions because "it does not make economic or environmental sense for the European Commission to protect the free-functioning market for a toxic substance."
In its proposal to the U.N., the EU vowed to end all exports by 2011, shut down its only mercury mine and close old chloralkali plants that use vats of mercury to produce chlorine. It wants the rest of the world to commit itself to doing the same.
But the Bush administration opposes a binding treaty. Instead, it has called for creating partnerships between industries, governments and environmental groups to share information about mercury-free technologies, health advisories on contaminated fish and the best business practices.
Claudia A. McMurray, deputy assistant secretary for the environment at the State Department, said partnerships are the best option because negotiating a treaty could drag out five to eight years. Many developing nations, she said, do not even understand the extent of their emissions yet or the possible solutions, so they are unprepared to negotiate and cannot commit themselves to milestones.
"A one-size-fits-all set of deadlines is not necessarily the right answer," McMurray said. "We see more individualized solutions."
At least 10 nations have shown interest in the partnerships, and the U.S. this week plans to pledge more than $1 million next year to support the U.N.'s mercury program.
The partnerships, McMurray said, would "make all the countries involved accountable. While they |
Doug Cross describes salinisation of freshwater aquifers following over-abstraction near the sea and resulting in negative hydrostatic pressure (30 April, p 28).
In the Murray-Darling river basin in south-eastern Australia, exactly the opposite | Doug Cross describes salinisation of freshwater aquifers following over-abstraction near the sea and resulting in negative hydrostatic pressure (30 April, p 28).
In the Murray-Darling river basin in south-eastern Australia, exactly the opposite has occurred. Excessive irrigation with good-quality fresh water from the Snowy Mountains on productive farmland situated over extensive salty aquifers has resulted in a disastrous raising of the saline water through positive hydrostatic pressure. First trees, then vegetable crops die, to be replaced by unproductive salt pans when groundwater breaks the soil surface.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content. |
Geography and History of the World © 2010 Indiana Edition
The Region Today: North Africa, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia
Agriculture provides the livelihood of most people in the region, but there has
also been significant industrial | Geography and History of the World © 2010 Indiana Edition
The Region Today: North Africa, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia
Agriculture provides the livelihood of most people in the region, but there has
also been significant industrial growth, especially related to petroleum. Lack
of water and environmental concerns pose challenges for the region.
The Economy Although only
small parts of the region are suitable for farming, much of the population works
in agriculture. Some crops are grown for export, but many foods must be imported Fishing.
The region holds much of the world's oil and natural gas reserves. Countries
rich in these resources have developed industries that boost their economies including service industries.
Roads, railroads, and airlines connect various cities and countries. Waterways
and pipelines provide transport for oil and natural gas. New technologies are
being used to expand communications networks, strengthening the region's interdependence
and global trade relationships.
People and Their Environment The region's rivers, oases, and aquifers are used as sources of water for people and for irrigation, but only a few countries have enough water for their needs. Many countries have built desalination plants to provide needed water. The Great Man-Made River- a system of two pipelines transports fresh water from underground aquifers to farms near the mediterranean. Wars and new technologies have had a negative impact on the environment. The Aswan High Dam blocks alluvial soil from fertilizing the Nile Valley. The on-going Irag War and insurgencies in multiple nations continue to result in air and water pollution. Pollution and overuse of water for irrigation also threaten the three large seas of the region. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, contamination due to leaks of nuclear waste and other pollutants became evident |
|Image is from Wikimedia Commons and is copyright free.|
This is a Yorkshire terrier named Tootie. Yorkies change considerably from puppy to adult, and this is thanks to the two main genes controlling the breed's color.
This dog | |Image is from Wikimedia Commons and is copyright free.|
This is a Yorkshire terrier named Tootie. Yorkies change considerably from puppy to adult, and this is thanks to the two main genes controlling the breed's color.
This dog is saddled tan, a gene which appears to be fixed in the Yorkshire terrier breed. Saddled tan is known in part for its noticeable changes as a dog grows. At birth, saddled tan dogs will appear to be the same as tan pointed dogs. However, saddled dogs will have their black start to recede at a rather young age. Despite this, saddled and tan pointed dogs are genetically the same on the Agouti locus: atat black and tan. The differences between the two are caused by as of yet unknown modifiers.
The red on this dog is moderate, but the lightening of the color seems to come from the next gene I will discuss as all Yorkies are born rather dark. As such Tootie is probably genetically CC dark red.
Tootie is also gray, which is a very different color from blue. The two are often confused since they end up looking rather similar. However, blue and gray are very different. Blue is caused by a recessive dilution gene and all blue puppies are born blue. Also, the entire dog is affected, with the nose and eyes becoming diluted as well. In contrast, gray dogs will be born black (or the dilutions thereof as graying chocolate is known) and pale with age. Progressive graying is also believed to be a dominant gene, though unlike blue this is only theorized from breeding data. Unlike in blues, the dog's nose and eyes are unchanged, staying as dark as any black dog. These characteristics (pale gray coat with dark nose and eyes) can be seen in Tootie. Since it appears that the breed is fixed for this gene, Tootie must be GG gray.
So, that's atat CC GG or graying saddled tan. |
Monday, August 5, 2013
Chemical Spill Kits
All laboratories with hazardous chemicals in them must have a spill kit present, sufficient to address the size and type of chemicals present. This is a fairly frequent deficiency noted in | Monday, August 5, 2013
Chemical Spill Kits
All laboratories with hazardous chemicals in them must have a spill kit present, sufficient to address the size and type of chemicals present. This is a fairly frequent deficiency noted in our lab inspections. You may build a kit to meet your requirements or you can purchase a pre-assembled kit from any of the safety product suppliers.
Kits should have sorbent pads, socks or similar items appropriate for your chemicals. You may also use granular sorbent which also may neutralize acid or base materials, and/or bind up organic materials. Select sufficient materials to accommodate the largest chemical container in your lab.
The kit should also have protective and waste disposal materials, such as goggles, gloves, disposal bags and a small pan to assist in picking up loose sorbent material.
One of the most important things (and one of our biggest problems) is that people do not replace the materials used in a spill response. Make this a priority item in your spill response plans.
Special hazards require special spill response materials. In addition to HF, noted above, labs with mercury present must have mercury-specific spill response. For labs with Biological hazards present, you should have received information in your Biosafety training indicating the proper material for the disinfection of any biological materials you may be using.
Only persons trained in spill response should attempt to clean up a spill. One of the most critical factors in this activity is understanding when a spill is appropriate for you to respond to yourself and when it is not. Please check out this link for more information on performing hazardous material spill response in your laboratories.
And, as always, feel free to contact me [email protected] with any question on this subject.
By: Mark Banister, [email protected], 412-268-1493 |
� Use the debris from Katrina to build put on the islands; use the rubbish such as trees, poles, broken pieces of wooden house, bricks, sand, biodegradable stuff, etc.
� Use all the soil dug | � Use the debris from Katrina to build put on the islands; use the rubbish such as trees, poles, broken pieces of wooden house, bricks, sand, biodegradable stuff, etc.
� Use all the soil dug up from building projects around the country and the world to help rebuild the islands
� Continue using trees and Christmas trees, as well as leaves
� Breed new salt resistant plants to plant and strghten the land
� Take the refuse from the landfills to rebuild the islands; use the biodegradable stuff.
� Build more concrete barriers around the isles for further protection
� Move the Mississippi water flow as well as other rivers to create more sediment.
� Take land/ soil from other (large) states that they don�t use/ inhabit fully.
� Build special filters to get rid of the salt water flowing into the fresh water places
� Use dams to stop damaging water flow
� Talk to other countries such as Japan and Austrailia how they deal with erosion if they deal with it.
I hope that somehow these will inspire or help to develop a way to ensure the survival of th |
Using this graphic and referring to it is encouraged, and please use it in presentations, web pages, newspapers, blogs and reports.
For any form of publication, please include the link to this page and give the cartographer/designer credit (in | Using this graphic and referring to it is encouraged, and please use it in presentations, web pages, newspapers, blogs and reports.
For any form of publication, please include the link to this page and give the cartographer/designer credit (in this case Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal)
M.J. Brodzik; data from NOAA snow charts revised by D. Robinson, Rutgers University
Uploaded on Tuesday 21 Feb 2012
Northern Hemisphere snow-cover extent anomalies 1966-2005
Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Data from satellite monitoring from 1966 to 20 |
Photo: Sanctu (Flickr)
Bluefin tuna is a favorite among sushi and seafood lovers for its flavor and melt-in-your-mouth texture. However, without changes to the way humans harvest this famous fish it may disappear from the oceans forever.
| Photo: Sanctu (Flickr)
Bluefin tuna is a favorite among sushi and seafood lovers for its flavor and melt-in-your-mouth texture. However, without changes to the way humans harvest this famous fish it may disappear from the oceans forever.
Bluefin Tuna Face Extinction
Because of overfishing and pollution, the Southern bluefin tuna was recently classified as a critically endangered species.
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) says that without global protection tuna will go extinct. They specifically point to high market prices because of popular demand as a main motivator of overfishing. Europe has already exceeded the amount of fish it can sustainably catch for 2011.
“All three bluefin tuna species are susceptible to collapse under continued excessive fishing pressure. The Southern bluefin has already essentially crashed, with little hope of recovery,” says Kent Carpenter, the IUCN’s Marine Biodiversity manager.
The Trouble With Fish Farms
Unlike salmon, tuna are almost impossible to farm. Tuna have long lives and do not reach sexual maturity until they are five to six years old. Born in Pacific waters around Japan, tuna swim to Mexico when they are one to two years old and remain there until they return to Japan to breed.
This means that any farmed tuna must be wild caught at some point. Fish farms that are increasingly emerging off of Mexico’s coast capture the young fish and feed them so that they yield more flesh when slaughtered. However, these fish never return to Japan to breed and so the wild population becomes lower.
The fish farms say that capturing the tuna to fatten up before slaughter is more environmentally sound because it means that less fish will need to be caught to meet the same consumer demand. Fatter fish give more meat so fewer individual fish are needed.
Only the Kinki University in Japan has been able to successfully breed, raise and slaughter tuna in a closed loop cycle, which raises hope that tuna farms can rely independently of wild-caught tuna in the future.
More U.S. Fish Farms
98 percent of the 5 billion pounds of seafood that Americans consume annually are imported. Because of this, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Commerce Department have opened offshore federal waters to fish and shellfish farms.
They hope this will boost American seafood production, create new jobs, provide safer seafood, and help to regulate environmental protections on fish population. A spokeswoman for the NOAA says that all new fish farms must obey federal regulations that seek to protect wild species and ocean ecosystems.
Seafood operations supported by this push for domestically raised fish and shellfish can exist inland as well as on the coast.
Environmental Health Vs. Profits
However, environmentalists says that fish farms will come at a price to ecosystems.
Fish farms rely on wild caught feeder fish like sardines that will reduce the amount of food for wild fish. Disease can spread from fish farms to wild populations and animals like sharks, whales, and dolphins can be caught in fish farm nets. Like other factory farms, the use of antibiotics can spread through the environment to sealife and make antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Environmentalists also worry that big companies and agribusiness interests will lobby against environmental protection in the interest of creating higher revenues. They point to the decade old fish farming industry in Hawai’i that is reliant on taxpayer money, has employee violations, and harms Hawai’i's natural habitat. |
Binod Behari Mukherjee was a famous Indian artist. He had to overcome quite serious physical restraints for at early age a disease affected his eyesight. He created his masterpieces regardless that he was myopic with one eye and completely | Binod Behari Mukherjee was a famous Indian artist. He had to overcome quite serious physical restraints for at early age a disease affected his eyesight. He created his masterpieces regardless that he was myopic with one eye and completely blind with the other. At the age of 50 he was unable to see, nevertheless this didn't stop him from painting.
Mukherjee was a student of the great Indian painter Nandlal Bose. He also adopted the teaching career and inspired many future artists who underwent his instruction in the subject “Art Theory”. The university he chose was the same one he had previously graduated from - Santiniketan's Kala Bhavan. In his paining Mukherjee mainly devoted to the murals expositions of landscapes. His sketches, however, were amazing as well, regardless of the lack of color in them. His works encompassed Western techniques combined with Indian or far Eastern traditions. In regard to the calligraphy, which was also an essential element of his work, he gained knowledge about its complexity by artists from Japan, which passed by his country in their search for muse and new experiences. Mukherjee did visit Japan himself and spent a couple of years there when he was in his mid fifties. His life and career achievements were immortalized in a documentary called "The Inner Eye". The movie deals with the complex physical situation the great painter turns out and his unfading stimulus and eagerness to continue creating amazing pieces.
He didn't limit the scope of the materials and techniques used in his works. Mukherjee used pastels, oils, watercolor, tempera and so on. Symbolism was highly unlikely to be observed in his paintings, for he rather preferred to ex |
Quinceañera OverviewThe Quinceanera, or sweet fifteenth birthday is a very special day in the life of many Hispanic girls. Celebrated in Mexico, Puerto Rica, Cuba, Central and Southern America, many families of Hispanic heritage | Quinceañera OverviewThe Quinceanera, or sweet fifteenth birthday is a very special day in the life of many Hispanic girls. Celebrated in Mexico, Puerto Rica, Cuba, Central and Southern America, many families of Hispanic heritage also observe Quinceaneras in the United States. And, while traditions vary according to family tradition, what remains at the heart of every fiesta Quinceanera is the celebration of a girl as she marks an important milestone: passing from childhood to adulthood.
Steeped in religion, for most Quinceaneras -- here and abroad -- their special fifteenth birthday starts with a religious ceremony (the misa de acción de gracias) and then followed by a reception at a family member’s home or special venue. At the mass, the Quinceanera is accompanied by up to fourteen maids (representing her fourteen years) and their fourteen escorts. Then, sat at the foot of the alter for the entire service, the mass gives the Quinceanera the opportunity to give thanks and lay flowers at the feet of the Virgin Mary. After the ceremony, female cousins and sisters distribute special favors to the congregation before the entire party heads off to celebrate with food, music and dancing.
At the heart of every Quinceanera’s fairytale day is a special dress. Traditionally an intricate design in bright or pastel colors, every Quinceanera spends a great deal of time and effort selecting the picture-perfect ball gown for her big day. In fact, with many dresses looking like elaborate wedding gowns themselves, a Quinceanera celebration can often seem like a dress rehearsal for a wedding! Yet, instead of affirming a commitment to a new husband, every Quinceanera reaffirms her devotion and commitment to her family. As for her footwear, most Quinceaneras start the day wearing flat shoes, symbolically switching them out for heels for the first dance with her father.
The original Quinceañera celebrations were important for ancient Aztecs and Mayans, dating back hundreds of years. As the tradition spread, Catholic Latinos added their own religious elements to the celebration. Many Quinceañeras celebrated in the US today begin with a special Thanksgiving Mass, known as La Misa de Acción de Gracias. The birthday girl is often given a seat of honor near the altar, and her Quinceañera court joins her. This court is similar to bridesmaids and groomsmen in a wedding, but the girls are called either “maids” or “dama”, and the boys are called “chamberlains” or “chambelán”. Usually there are seven maids, and seven chamberlains that serve as their escorts. The Quinceañera and her escort form the fifteenth couple.
Quinceañera Dress & Shoes
The traditional Quinceañera dress is either white or a light pastel color, like pale pink. They look similar to wedding gowns, but without the train that trails behind. The party decorations, cake, and favors should all coordinate with the color and design of the Quinceañera dress. The girl will arrive at her Quinceañera wearing flat shoes, which are ceremoniously exchanged for high feels. This symbolizes how she is taking her first steps as a woman, and leaving her children’s clothing and accessories behind. Usually her father assists with this ceremony, which is similar to when a father gives away his daughter at her wedding. Fathers are an important part of Quinceañera celebrations, as they are presenting their daughters as women for the first time.
The last doll is another tradition in the same style; it represents moving forward into adulthood. The Quinceañera is given a beautiful Quinceañera doll, which might be saved as a keepsake. The passing of the last doll is a custom wherein the Quinceañera gives the doll to a younger sister or cousin. This represents how she has put aside childish things, and is now a grown woman. Some Quinceañeras also feature a last piñata, where the young lady can enjoy this kid’s party game one last time. After these activities, there is a father-daughter dance that celebrates her coming of age. Traditional songs for the Quinceañera waltz include La Ultima Muñeca (The Last Doll), De Niña a Mujer (From a Girl to a Woman) and Vals de las Mariposas (Waltz of the Butterflies).
Gifts for the Quinceañera are an integral part of the festivities; each traditional Quinceañera gift has special symbolism for the young lady. Earrings are given to remind her to listen to God, and a bracelet or ring is gifted to represent the never-ending circle of life. Tiaras can represent the thorn of crowns worn by Jesus on the cross, or the mantle of responsibility that adults must shoulder. In some cases, the tiara represents one simple concept: the Quinceañera is queen for the day! Bibles and rosary prayer beads are also gifted as reminders to stay true to her faith despite the temptations that the adult world offers.
Learn more about the Fifteen Questions on the Q |
I have discovered more than once in recent free-time projects, that exploiting symmetry can help make code much simpler to write and understand. In fact, it makes some problems feel tractable, when at first they felt as though a complicated "brute | I have discovered more than once in recent free-time projects, that exploiting symmetry can help make code much simpler to write and understand. In fact, it makes some problems feel tractable, when at first they felt as though a complicated "brute force" technique was needed.
I'll give some examples of where simply adjusting coordinate systems made my problems much easier to understand and solve. By changing to the right coordinate system, symmetries in the problem can become more apparent.
One project I have been working on in my spare time is a digital instrument that uses the Lattice Boltzmann Method to simulate fluids. In it, I have fill the screen with hexagons (2DQ7), where each hexagon simulates how pressure waves move through a two dimensional surface. Thus, the problem arises: “In what structure store the hexagons, how would I map hexagon indices to screen positions, and how do I find neighboring hexagons?”
When I started the project, I approached these question the same way I would a lattice of squares (2DQ9). Working with pixels much longer than I have hexels, it was difficult to start from first principles.
The nice thing with a lattice of squares / screen of pixels is that a 2D array maps directly onto it in a reasonably straight-forward manner. In fact, it can be as simple as directly translating array index to pixel position.
I attempted to do a similar mapping with hexagons, and it “worked,” but I went through many iterations and errors as I walked through the different cases for drawing and finding neighbors. Doing things this way, I was shoving a hexagonal peg into a square hole.
Doing this was frustrating in two ways. The first is that I could draw such a numbering by hand easily enough, but it took many wrong implementations translating the procedure to code. The drawing code for even rows and that for odd rows ends up being very different from each other. Second, even once the code was implemented correctly, it felt wrong to be doing things this way. After all, a hexagon in an even row looks exactly the same as a hexagon in an odd row. The code should reflect this symmetry. My code reaked of code smell.
Ideally, we can find a mapping where hexagons are treated more symmetrically. That is, the mapping from 2D array index to screen position should be linear. Meaning, it should be a simple addition and multiplication. There should be no difference in even versus odd rows or any other unnecessary distinction between the different hexagons.
In this light, we see that our choice to attempt to fit the x and y directions at 90 degrees is a poor fit for a lattice of hexagons. Instead, we should choose an x and y direction (the basis in linear-algebra-speak)
Choosing an x and y direction not 90 degrees apart may look strange, but to do so when drawing a grid of hexagons will cause more pain that needed. Had I looked at the problem this way from the beginning it would have saved me at least four iterations of bug fixing, finding missing cases in drawing code and neighbor finding code.
Looking at symmetries in coordinate systems is also helpful when looking at the n queens problem. The first part of this is to specify what exactly it means for a set of queens to be attacking each other. Queens are said to be attacking each other if they lie in the same row, column, or diagonal.
Can we translate the notion of queens attacking each other into mathematics? If we are given a set of queens as (row, column) positions, can we determine if any are attacking each other?
Let's start with the rows. If more than one queen shares a row, then these queens are said to be attacking each other along that row. So, looping through all the row coordinates of the queens and finding the existence of duplicates (with a hash set, by sorting, or whatever other method you'd like to find duplicates) is equivalent to finding out if the queens are attacking along some row. The same argument applies to finding queens attacking along some column.
Is there a simple way to find queens attacking along the diagonals? Would it work in the same way as the rows and columns. It feels as though the problem and solution should be symmetric. We are just finding if the queens lie along a certain line in the row, column, and diagonals cases, after all.
Just as with the hexagons problem, with a change of coordinates (in this case, by rot |
I thought about it for a minute – how could a vegetable that’s underground be sprayed directly with pesticides? The nonorganic potatoes must not be that bad, I thought. So I bought them instead.
After I got home, I remembered an article | I thought about it for a minute – how could a vegetable that’s underground be sprayed directly with pesticides? The nonorganic potatoes must not be that bad, I thought. So I bought them instead.
After I got home, I remembered an article my daughter had e-mailed me entitled, “ The 7 foods experts won’t eat.” I pulled the article out of my file and….dang, sure enough, #4 was “Nonorganic potatoes.”
I was dead wrongI was definitely mistaken about underground veggies being relatively safe from pesticides. As it turns out, root vegetables absorb herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides that have washed into the soil. So these chemicals are not just on the vegetable’s surface, they’re absorbed into its flesh. Washing and peeling can’t get rid of them.
Because potatoes are the nation’s most popular vegetable and demand is so high, potato plants are sprayed at every opportunity to keep the spuds blemish-free. During the growing season, the potato plants are sprayed with fungicides… which wash and seep into the soil. At harvesting time, the vines are obliterated with herbicides to get them out of the way. More seepage down to the taters. After the potatoes are harvested, they’re sprayed directly with a chemical to keep them from sprouting. And they usually won’t sprout, even if you try to get them to. (Although I have sprouted a few conventional potatoes.)
Potato farmers won’t eat them!Said Jeffrey Moyer as chair of the National Organic Standards Board, “I’ve talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals.”
The only solution is buying organic potatoes, or growing your own. If you’re desperate, peeling may help somewhat….at least with the sprout-inhibiting chemical.
Buying organic protects wildlife tooRemember – when you buy organic, you’re protecting not only your own health, but the health of the wildlife and ecosystems next to and downhill from those farm fields. When crops are sprayed, so are the soil insects and worms, which are eaten by frogs and birds and lizards….the toxic sprays move right along the food chain, poisoning the whole system. And that includes the streams and lakes and rivers downhill from the cropfields…as well as ground water and well water.
So looks like I’ll be taking those icky taters back to the store. Now, we did have some organic sweet potatoes on hand last night. I wondered briefly how those would taste with chili beans. Quickly abandoned that idea.
Instead we decided to saute some portabellos in a little olive oil with some fresh rosemary, a sprinkle of toasted sesame oil, and a splash of tamari. We put each portabello on a big slice of rosemary-olive oil bread with melted soy mozzarella on top. Had a salad on the side. Now that was tasty.
Keywords: organic potatoes nonorganic potatoes |
Lincoln J. Beachey
|Lincoln J. Beachey|
March 3, 1887|
San Francisco, California
|Died||March 14, 1915
Panama-Pacific International Exposition
San Francisco | Lincoln J. Beachey
|Lincoln J. Beachey|
March 3, 1887|
San Francisco, California
|Died||March 14, 1915
Panama-Pacific International Exposition
San Francisco, California
|Cause of death||Aircrash|
|Resting place||Cypress Lawn Memorial Park|
|Parents||William C. Beachey|
|Relatives||Hillary Beachey (1885–1964), brother|
Lincoln J. Beachey (March 3, 1887 – March 14, 1915) was a pioneer American aviator and barnstormer. He became famous and wealthy from flying exhibitions, staging aerial stunts, helping invent aerobatics, and setting aviation records.
He was known as The Man Who Owns the Sky, and sometimes the Master Birdman. Beachey was acknowledged even by his competitors as "The World's Greatest Aviator". He was "known by sight to hundreds of thousands and by name to the whole world."
Born on March 3, 1887, in San Francisco, Beachey was a lonely, chubby kid who, according to authors Sam Kean and Frank Marrero, nobody would have suspected of becoming a hero. By the age of 10 he was hurtling down San Francisco’s steep Fillmore Hill on a bicycle with no brakes.
Following in his older brother Hillary's footsteps, he worked as a ground crewman for dirigible pilot Thomas Scott Baldwin. He helped build the dirigible "California Arrow" and made his first dirigible flight in 1905, at the age of 17. Later he helped design a faster, more aerodynamic dirigible known as the "Beachey-Baldwin".
In 1910 he piloted his Beachey-Knabenshue Racing Airship balloon at the 1910 Los Angeles International Air Meet at Dominguez Field, and raced fixed-wing aircraft around a course at an altitude of 100 feet (30 m). Meanwhile, his brother Hillary began flying aeroplanes at the meet (the Gill-Dosh Curtiss-type Biplane), and Lincoln soon began experimenting with such craft, too. The next year at the 1911 Los Angeles airshow Beachey got his big break: a star pilot got hurt and Beachey leaped in to take his place. He shot upwards 3,000 feet into the air…and his motor failed. He went into a nose-diving spin that no pilot had ever survived. And he did what no pilot had ever done: he turned into the spin, regained control, and landed safe and sound.
After that, Beachey joined the exhibition team of aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss. (Inventor of the moveable "aeleron" as an improvement of the Wright brother's "wing warping" design—which required more fragile wings capable of being bent in order to turn, or bank.) Unfamiliar with Curtiss' designs, it is said[who?] he crashed three times while learning to fly them, but soon achieved mastery of this new—and much more responsive—design.
In June the organizers of the U. S.-Canadian Carnival offered $1,000 to the first person to fly an aeroplane over Niagara Falls. Beachey responded in his Curtiss D biplane, and on June 27, 1911 Beachey took off into a drizzle and flew over the lower falls of Niagara Falls, then above American Falls, before an estimated 150,000 spectators. While gradually climbing into the sky, Beachey circled his plane over the falls several times. After he completed this performance he dove down into the mists of the falls, within 6 m of the waters surface. Then he flew his plane under "Honeymoon Bridge," 20 feet (6.1 m) above the rapids. (Local papers described his plane as looking like "a beat-up orange crate.")
Thus Beachey soon became an aviation superstar. At a time when the entire population of the US was just 90 million people, 17 million came out to see him fly in just one year. He invented figure 8s and the vertical drop, and was the first pilot to achieve terminal velocity by flying straight toward the ground. In fact, what Beachey did was so extraordinary and so dangerous, that a wave of pilots died trying to imitate him. After the death of a dear friend of his, Beachey vowed to retire. And he did—for three months. Until he finally gave in and strapped himself back in a cockpit to master the trick of all tricks: the loop. Lincoln perfected it—looping so effortlessly he seemed to own the sky.
At the 1911 Chicago International Aviation Meet, Beachey raced a train—and let his wheels touch the top of the moving train as it passed underneath. Here he also won multiple awards for his stunts, and set a new altitude record. To do this he filled his tanks with fuel, then said he would point the plane's nose skyward and keep going until the fuel ran out. For an hour and forty-eight minutes he spiraled upwards until the engine sputtered and died. He then glided in spirals to the ground, and climbed out, numb and stiff from the cold. The barograph aboard the plane showed he had reached a height of 11 |
Building Glossary A
A Joining - See Joining.
AA - Acronym for Aluminum Association.
AAA - Acronym for American Arbitration Association.
AAC - Initials representing Autoclaved Aerated Concrete.
AAMA - Acronym for | Building Glossary A
A Joining - See Joining.
AA - Acronym for Aluminum Association.
AAA - Acronym for American Arbitration Association.
AAC - Initials representing Autoclaved Aerated Concrete.
AAMA - Acronym for Architectural Aluminum Manufacturere's Association or American Architectural/Manufacturers Association.
Abacus - The top component of a column capital.
Abamurus - A masonry buttress for the support of a wall.
Above Grade - The portion of a building that is above ground level.
Abrams Law - The rule stating that with given materials, curing, and testing conditions, concrete strength is inversely related to the ratio of water co cement. Low water-to-cement ratios produce high strengths.
Abrasion - the process of wearing away a surface by friction.
Abrasion Resistance - Ability of a coating/surface to resist degradation caused by mechanical wear (mechanical erosion) due to its ability to dissipate the applied mechanical energy. Abrasion resistance can be enhanced by incorporation of surface modifying additives. Abrasion resistance is not necessarily related to hardness as believed by some, but is more clearly comparable with toughness.
Abrasive(s) - (1) A hard material used for wearing away or polishing a surface by friction. (2) The material that is adhered to or embedded in a surface such as sandpaper or a whetstone. (3) Substances rubbed on wood to smooth the surface. Flint, gamet, aluminum oxide, and silicon carbide are common abrasives.
Abrasive Aggregate - the aggregate used to increase the abrasiveness of the surface of a concrete slab.
Abrasive Blasting - A method of cleaning surfaces with a high-pressure stream of air and an abrasive material such as sand or steel grit.
Abrasive Floor - A floor with an abrasive adhered to or embedded in the surface to provide traction and prevent sloping.
Abrasive Nosing - A strip or anti-skid abrasive adhered to or attached to the nosing of a stair tread.
Abrasive Stair Tread - A stair tread with an abrasive surface.
ABS - Acronym for Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene, a type of plastic pipe used primarily for drain lines and vents. Generally a black colored plastic pipe and fittings used in drainage, waster, sewer and vent systems of both residential and commercial applications. ABS and PVC plastics have replaced much of the cast iron, lead and steel pipes formerly used for DWV (Drain, Waste, and Vent) systems. It is important to note that no solvent cement (and primer) can totally adhere ABS to PVC plastic. Also under normal conditions, quality ABS (where virgin resins are used) will not crack, chip or peel. Most common grade for ABS piping is schedule 40.(Modified 3/9/2008)
Absolute Humidity - (1) Absolute humidity defines the mass of water vapor in a given volume of most air or gas, and is usually reported in grams per cubic meter, although grains per cubic foot is more commonly used in the United States. The ability of air to hold water vapor depends on the air temperature. As temperature increases, air's capacity to hold water vapor increases. As temperature decreases, air's capacity to hold water vapor decreases. (2) The ratio of the mass of water vapor present to the volume occupied by the mixture. It represents the density of water vapor in the air.
Absolute Pressure - Is the sum of gauge and atmospheric pressure (psia). See Pressure.
Absolute Temperature - Is temperature measured on the Kelvin scale.
Absolute Zero - The lowest temperature theoretically attainable on the Kelvin scale. Approximately -273.16 degree-Celcius
Absorbent - (1) A material that has an affinity for certain substances and attracts these substances from a liquid or gas with which it is contact, thus changing the physical and/or chemical properties of the material. (2) A substance that attracts and holds large quantities of liquid. (3) A substance with the ability to absorb another substance.
Absorber Plate - That part of a solar energy system that collects the solar energy.
Absorption/Absorb - (1) The process by which a liquid is drawn into the pores of a permeable material. (2) The process by which solar energy is collected on a surface. (3) The increase in weight of a porous object resulting from immersion in water for a given time, expressed as a percent of the dry weight. (4) In physics, the taking up of light, heat, or other energy by molecules. The absorbed energy is converted into heat. Absorption in chemistry is the taking up on one substance by another. For example, a gas such as oxygen may be absorbed, or dissolved, in water. In the HVAC industry heat energy is absorbed from the medium being cooled and transfers that energy in the refrigerant. (5) Refers to the process of one material attracting and retaining foreign particles such as gas or liquid without transmission of these particles.
Absorption Chiller - A water chilling process in which cooling is accomplished by the evaporation of a fluid (usually water), which is then absorbed by a different solution (usually lithium bromide), than evaporated under hea |
To help each child understand how we received the Book of Mormon.
Learn and be prepared to sing or say the words to
“The Golden Plates” (Children’s Songbook, p. 86).
A Pearl of Great Price; also, if | To help each child understand how we received the Book of Mormon.
Learn and be prepared to sing or say the words to
“The Golden Plates” (Children’s Songbook, p. 86).
A Pearl of Great Price; also, if possible, a Book of Mormon for each child.
Picture 3-32, Moroni Appears to Joseph Smith in His Room (62492; Gospel Art Picture Kit 404); picture 3-33, Joseph Receives the Gold Plates (62012; Gospel Art Picture Kit 406); picture 3-34, Mormon Abridging the Plates (62520; Gospel Art Picture Kit 306); and picture 3-35, Moroni Hides the Plates in the Hill Cumorah (62462; Gospel Art Picture Kit 320); picture 3-36, The Gold Plates.
Make the necessary preparations for any enrichment activities that you will be using.
Suggested Lesson Development
Invite a child to give the opening prayer.
Follow up with the children if you encouraged them to do something during the week.
Mormon Wrote on the Gold Plates
Hum the first verse of “The Golden Plates.”
Display picture 3-36, The Gold Plates. Ask: Can anyone tell me what song I am humming? (The Golden Plates.)
Explain that the lesson is about the gold plates.
Tell the class that many years ago, some fathers kept histories of their families. Usually, just before a father died, he would give his family history to his son, who would continue writing the history. Families would keep their histories like this for many years. Prophets too wrote what happened to their families. But they also wrote about how Heavenly Father helped them and about the people who lived around them at that time.
Display picture 3-34, Mormon Abridging the Plates.
Explain that Heavenly Father called a prophet named Mormon to gather all the histories of his people, copy the most important parts, and write them on thin sheets of gold, like pages of a book. These were called gold plates.
Why do you think Mormon wrote the records on sheets of gold instead of paper?
Tell the children that gold is a metal that will last. Gold does not fall apart like paper and other materials or rust like many other metals.
Explain that Mormon used gold plates because they would last a long time. It took many years for Mormon to finish writing on the plates. Before Mormon died, he gave the plates to his son Moroni.
Display picture 3-35, Moroni Hides the Plates in the Hill Cumorah.
Explain that when Moroni had finished writing on the gold plates, Heavenly Father told him to bury the plates in a hill. Heavenly Father knew that the writings on the gold plates would be important to people living many years later. Moroni made a stone box to bury the plates in so that they would be safe until Heavenly Father wanted his children |
Towns and small cities proudly display their name on their local water tower. 3 examples from 3 States:
Towns and small cities proudly display their name on their local water tower. 3 examples from 3 States:
The Kansas leg | Towns and small cities proudly display their name on their local water tower. 3 examples from 3 States:
Towns and small cities proudly display their name on their local water tower. 3 examples from 3 States:
The Kansas leg of route 66 is very short, cutting a corner between Missouri and Oklahoma. I stopped in a small town called ‘Commerce’ to enjoy some of the well maintained services for travellers, before I lost the route
The Carterville website is worth a visit to see photographs of the old town and hear how the township sees itself. Here’s an extract copied from their website describing the town’s history:
Visitor’s from the U.S. and overseas seem to be especially interested in the older and smaller towns that reflect the values of America’s Main Street and Route 66, and Carterville, Missouri is just such a place.Having celebrated it’s 125th. Anniversary, Carterville’s colorful history was born in the early 1870′s and later prospered during the lead and zinc mining boom of the turn-of-the-century. In those days, the town’s population soared to over 5000. Two trolly tracks ran down the middle of Main street, and business thrived. Overcrowding and wealth, full employment, social clubs and the rowdy miners were common in those days, but the city did not diversify and depended on the mining industry for it’s survival. By 1920 the boom turned to bust, and Carterville’s miners moved on, leaving a dwindling population to deal with closing businesses and fewer income opportunities. The Great Depression would have finished the town off, except for one thing, a new federal road known then as Highway 66.Carterville’s Main Street bustled once again with automobile and truck traffic. In spite of losing over half of it’s population, the town now had ten filling stations in operation. Old buildings that once housed department stores, newspaper offices and banks were converted in hotels, auto service garages and cafes. Even though the town suffered another set-back when Route 66 was decommissioned in the mid 1980′s, Carterville had evolved into a quiet, friendly community…and seemed to be content. It can also be said today that Carterville owes it’s very survival to the Mother Road, Route 66.Today, interest in this most famous of all American highways is surging, and Carterville wants to show it’s pride in, and respect of, Route 66. Local residents display the symbol of Route 66 on their homes, businessmen have placed Route 66 banners on Main Street poles and painted the shield on the pavement for all to see. A Route 66 flag flies beneath Old Glory and events are held in the Fall to celebrate being a part of America’s Main Street.Carterville is now home to “Superman on 66″, a Superman memorbelia museum and ice cream parlor. The first Route 66 Visitors Welcome Center in southwest Missouri opened it’s doors this year in a 1937 era filling station, and several other old buildings have been purchased for a Route 66 themed Bed and Breakfast and restaurant. Plans are also underway to purchase a city block for use as a Route 66 Festival site to attract more regional visitors, and other Route-themed activities are being considered by the new “Festival Committee”.Everyone seems to be jumping on the Route 66 bandwagon, including the town’s police officers whose uniform shoulder patches sport the Route 66 emblem. Could it be that Carterville has the same spirit as the fictional town residents of “Radiator Springs” in the Pixar movie “CARS” had?
A lot of the drive through Missouri was like driving through south western English woodlands. Except for the almost completely deserted roads. To drive on such empty roads was a real luxury, I could drive as slow or fast as I wanted without worrying about irritating the car behind me….
5 days on the road and I’m only in my 2nd State, despite not exploring St. Louis or Springfield Missouri. It feels like slow progress and missing way too much….
Learning for next time: plan at least half a day each day for stopping to enjoy and photograph the local nature and small towns
As sundown approaches, driving west becomes more difficult
I’ve taken to rising early and getting on the road at day break with the sun behind me. Missouri is already feeling like it belongs in the wild west. I pulled-up in the small roadside town of ‘Halltown’ to enjoy the morning light and architecture.
The small, sleeping town, captures much of the feel of Missouri. The st |
Contact: Science Press Package Team
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Termites behind desert 'fairy circles'
Fairy circles in the Marienfluss Valley, Kaokoveld, Namibia. Transition of desert margin grass | Contact: Science Press Package Team
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Termites behind desert 'fairy circles'
Fairy circles in the Marienfluss Valley, Kaokoveld, Namibia. Transition of desert margin grassland to Mopane savanna. Fairy circles seem to be gaps in the grassland.
[Image courtesy of N. Juergens]
A new study uncovers the origin of fairy circles, circular patches of perennial grasses with a barren center that grow in the desert on the southwest coast of Africa. The research appears in the March 29 2013 issue of the journal Science.
Fairy circles occur in regular patterns and can persist for decades, but the cause of these striking rings that dot the Namibian desert remains a mystery.
Now, scientist Norbert Juergens shows that a particular species of sand termite called Psammotermes are likely creating the circles. Studying a 2000 kilometer-long belt of desert from mid Angola to Northern South Africa, the author noticed that whenever he found fairy circles, Psammotermes termites were also found within the bare patch of the circle and in the surrounding vegetation.
The author determined that Psammotermes is the only organism constantly found in the earliest life stages of fairy circles. In young fairy circles, Psammotermes feeds on the roots of grasses. More termite activity is correlated with reduced grass growth in the fairy circle.
Taking a closer look, Juergens discovered that the soil-living termites kill all grasses within the fairy circle by feeding on their roots. Because of the lack of grasses, rain water is not lost by transpiration (the evaporation of water from plants), but is instead stored in the depths of sandy soil, where it is sheltered against evaporation.
The soil water supply allows the termites to remain alive and active during the dry season, and helps grass plants growing at the margin of the fairy circle to survive and grow. The findings are an example of ecosystem engineering by termites, whose fairy circles are able to short-lived deserts into permanent grasslands. |
U.S. Department of State Background Note
Eighty-five percent of the Bahamian population is of African heritage. About two-thirds of the population resides on New Providence Island (the location of Nassau). Many ancestors arrived in The Bahamas when | U.S. Department of State Background Note
Eighty-five percent of the Bahamian population is of African heritage. About two-thirds of the population resides on New Providence Island (the location of Nassau). Many ancestors arrived in The Bahamas when the islands served as a staging area for the slave trade in the early 1800s. Others accompanied thousands of British loyalists who fled the American colonies during the Revolutionary War.
Haitians form the largest immigrant community in The Bahamas. 30,000-50,000 are estimated to be resident legally or illegally, concentrated on New Providence, Abaco and Eleuthera islands.
School attendance is compulsory between the ages of 5 and 16. The government fully operates 158 of the 210 primary and secondary schools in The Bahamas. The other 52 schools are privately operated. Enrollment for state primary and secondary schools is 50,332, with more than 16,000 students attending private schools. The College of The Bahamas, established in Nassau in 1974, provides programs leading to bachelors and associates degrees. Several non-Bahamian colleges also offer higher education programs in The Bahamas.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere in The Bahamas. Spanish slave traders later captured native Lucayan Indians to work in gold mines in Hispaniola, and within 25 years, all Lucayans perished. In 1647, a group of English and Bermudan religious refugees, the Eleutheran Adventurers, founded the first permanent European settlement in The Bahamas and gave Eleuthera Island its name. Similar groups of settlers formed governments in The Bahamas until the islands became a British Crown Colony in 1717.
The late 1600s to the early 1700s were the golden age for pirates and privateers. Many famous pirates--including Sir Francis Drake and Blackbeard--used the islands of The Bahamas as a base. The numerous islands and islets with their complex shoals and channels provided excellent hiding places for the plundering ships near well-traveled shipping lanes. The first Royal Governor, a former pirate named Woodes Rogers, brought law and order to The Bahamas in 1718 when he expelled the buccaneers.
During the American Revolution, American colonists loyal to the British flag settled in The Bahamas. These Loyalists and new settlers from Britain brought Colonial building skills and agricultural expertise. Until 1834, when Britain abolished slavery, they also brought slaves, importing the ancestors of many modern Bahamians from Western Africa.
Proximity to the U.S. continued to provide opportunity for illegal shipping activity. In the course of the American Civil War, The Bahamas prosp |
Meeting of Two Identical Pulses moving along a String
(See attached file for full problem description with diagrams)
Two identical pulses are moving in opposite directions along a stretched string that has one fixed end and the other movable, as shown in the | Meeting of Two Identical Pulses moving along a String
(See attached file for full problem description with diagrams)
Two identical pulses are moving in opposite directions along a stretched string that has one fixed end and the other movable, as shown in the figure.
Above each pulse a green arrow indicates the direction of motion of the pulse.
The two pulses reflect off the boundaries of the string, and at some later time, they pass through the middle of the string and interfere.
Below are six different sequences of snapshots taken as the two pulses meet in the middle of the string. Time increases from top to bottom in each sequence. Which sequence correctly represents the displacement of the string as the pulses interfere?
This question has the following supporting file(s):
This answer includes:
- Plain text
- Cited sources when necessary
Active since 2005 |
Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests
The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest biome, also known as tropical dry forest, is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round | Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests
The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest biome, also known as tropical dry forest, is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive several hundred centimeters of rain per year, they have long dry seasons which last several months and vary with geographic location. These seasonal droughts have great impact on all living things in the forest.
Deciduous trees predominate in most of these forests, and during the drought a leafless period occurs, which varies with species type. Because trees lose moisture through their leaves, the shedding of leaves allows trees such as teak and mountain ebony to conserve water during dry periods. The newly bare trees open up the canopy layer, enabling sunlight to reach ground level and facilitate the growth of thick underbrush. Trees on moister sites and those with access to ground water tend to be evergreen. Infertile sites also tend to support evergreen trees. Three tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregions, the East Deccan dry evergreen forests, the Sri Lanka dry-zone dry evergreen forests, and the Southeastern Indochina dry evergreen forests, are characterized by evergreen trees.
Though less biologically diverse than rainforests, tropical dry forests are home to a wide variety of wildlife including monkeys, deer, large cats, parrots, various rodents, and ground dwelling birds. Mammalian biomass tends to be higher in dry forests than in rain forests, especially in Asian and African dry forests. Many of these species display extraordinary adaptations to the difficult climate.
This biome is alternately known as the tropical bane forest biome or the tropical and subtropical deciduous forest biome. Locally some of these forests are also called monsoon forests, and they tend to merge into savannas.
Dry forests tend to exist north and south of the equatorial rainforest belt, south or north of the subtropical deserts, generally in two bands, one between 10° and 20°N latitude and the other between 10° and 20°S latitude. The most diverse dry forests in the world occur in southern Mexico and in the Bolivian lowlands. The dry forests of the Pacific Coast of northwestern South America support a wealth of unique species due to their dry climate. The Maputaland-Pondoland bushland and thickets along the east coast of South Africa are diverse and support many endemic species. The dry forests of central India and Indochina are notable for their diverse large vertebrate faunas. Madagascar dry deciduous forests and New Caledonia dry forests are also highly distinctive (pronounced endemism and a large number of relictual taxa) for a wide range of taxa and at higher taxonomic levels. Trees use underground water during the dry seasons.
Biodiversity patterns and requirements
Species tend to have wider ranges than moist forest species, although in some regions many species do display highly restricted ranges; most dry forest species are restricted to tropical dry forests, particularly in plants; beta diversity and alpha diversity high but typically lower than adjacent moist forests.
Effective conservation of dry broadleaf forests requires the preservation of large and continuous areas of forest. Large natural areas are required to maintain larger predators and other vertebrates, and to buffer sensitive species from hunting pressure. The persistence of riparian forests and water sources is critical for many dry forest species. Large swathes of intact forest are required to allow species to recover from occasional large events, like forest fires.
Dry forests are highly sensitive to excessive burning and deforestation; overgrazing and exotic species can also quickly alter natural communities; restoration is possible but challenging, particularly if degradation has been intense and persistent. Degrading dry broadleaf often leaves thorny shrublands, thickets, or dry grasslands in their place.
- "WWF - Tropical and Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forest Ecoregions". Wwf.panda.org. Retrieved 2012-09-25.
- 2006-01-13, Sciencedaily: Deep-rooted Plants Have Much Greater Impact On Climate Than Experts Thought Citat: "...The tap roots transfer rainwater from the surface to reservoirs deep underground and redistribute water...increases photosynthesis and the evaporation of water...by 40 percent in the dry season...During the wet season, these plants can store as much as 10 percent of the annual precipitation as deep as 13 meters (43 feet) underground, to be tapped during the dry months...tree roots acting like pipes to allow water to shift around much faster than it could otherwise percolate through the soil..." |
the centre of the Magnetiſm, or the Earth in the centre of the gravitating force), or any thing elſe that does not yet appear. For I here deſign only to give a Mathematical notion of | the centre of the Magnetiſm, or the Earth in the centre of the gravitating force), or any thing elſe that does not yet appear. For I here deſign only to give a Mathematical notion of those forces, without conſidering their Phyſical cauſes and ſeats.
Wherefore the accelerative force will ſtand in the same relation to the motive, as celerity does to motion. For the quantity of motion ariſes from the celerity, the quantity of matter; and the motive force ariſses from the accelerative force multiplied by the ſame quantity of matter. For the ſum of the actions of the accelerative force, upon the ſeveral particles of the body, is the motive force of the whole. Hence it is, that near the ſuffice of the earth, where the accelerative gravity, or force productive of gravity, in all bodies is the ſame, the motive gravity or the weight is as the body; but if we ſhould ascend to higher regions, where the accelerative gravity is leſs, the weight would be equally diminiſhed, and would always be as the product of the body, by the accelerative gravity. So in those regions, where the accelerative gravity is diminiſhed into one-half, the weight of a body two or three times leſs, will be four or ſix times leſs.
I likewiſe call attractions and impulſes, in the ſame ſenſe, accelerative, and motive; and uſe the words attraction, impulſe, or propenſity of any ſort towards a centre, promiſcuouſly, and indifferently, one for another; conſidering thoſe forces not phyſically, but mathematically: wherefore the reader is not to imagine that by thoſe words I anywhere take upon me to define the kind, or the manner of any action, the cauſes or the physical reason thereof, or that I attribute forces, in a true and phyſical ſenſe, to certain centres (which are only mathematical points); when |
Discovered 1980 Mar. 16 by C.-I. Lagerkvist at the European Southern Observatory.
University of Massachusetts astronomer Amy Jean Lovell (b. 1969) is known for her contribution to the study of com | Discovered 1980 Mar. 16 by C.-I. Lagerkvist at the European Southern Observatory.
University of Massachusetts astronomer Amy Jean Lovell (b. 1969) is known for her contribution to the study of comets and minor planets at millimeter wavelengths. The name was suggested by J. S. V. Lagerros.
Asteroids discovered by Uppsala astronomersJohan Lagerros |
Some 50,000 people in Finland live within the noise impact area of rail services, and some 880,000 people are exposed to noise from road and street traffic.
VR works towards reducing noise and vibration nuisances in rail services in cooperation | Some 50,000 people in Finland live within the noise impact area of rail services, and some 880,000 people are exposed to noise from road and street traffic.
VR works towards reducing noise and vibration nuisances in rail services in cooperation with the Finnish Rail Administration, which is responsible for the rail network.
VR is responsible for the maintenance of rolling stock, while the Finnish Rail Administration and municipalities are responsible for structural noise abatement.
Machining wheels to reduce noise
At the speeds driven in Finland, the noise from rail services is rolling noise generated by contact between the wheel and the rail. The key factor in the noise level is the condition of wheels and rails. Altogether 2,659 wheel-and-axle sets were machined by VR during the year to rectify wheel flats or material failures.
VR tested new low-noise starting motors to reduce noise emissions at depot areas. Brake shoes made of composi |
iA's Oliver Reichenstein outlines his ten simple guidelines for using typography online.
Try to maintain a relaxed distance from the screen. A great deal of design flaws originate from being too close to the screen. Good typography flows nicely from a comfortable | iA's Oliver Reichenstein outlines his ten simple guidelines for using typography online.
Try to maintain a relaxed distance from the screen. A great deal of design flaws originate from being too close to the screen. Good typography flows nicely from a comfortable reading distance. Realise that the average reading distance is greater for screen readers, therefore fonts need to be proportionally larger.
02 Forget Photoshop
Begin with a dry-erase board or a piece of paper, and then make a quick sketch with a vector program such as Fireworks or Illustrator. Once you've established a basic grid, begin working with CSS and HTML.
03 Find the right column size
Building grids is not as simple as it may seem. I could easily fill a page talking only about proper column sizes. In short, if you build a commercial site, ensure that your vertical grid is based upon standard ad forms. This can be quite a challenge, but creativity is a matter of solving problems - not constructing ideal worlds.
04 Know your typefaces
You have a limited choice of typefaces - basically it's still a question of Verdana, Arial, Georgia, Times and a couple of others. Because it involves a significant degree of detail, paper typography can be quite complex. What matters in web typography is not what font you choose, but how you use it. Knowing how typefaces of varying sizes render in various browsers and platforms helps.
05 Be generous with font size
Size matters. Most web designers still focus on aesthetics rather than the basic typographic rule: readability. As a rule of thumb, use a 1em or 100 per cent font size for reading text. On overview pages it can be smaller.
06 Offer contrast
Some say that black-on-white is too harsh a contrast, causing a shimmering effect. But the main problem is not black-on-white. The main problem is gray-on-gray or yellow-on-red. Make sure that even your oldest relative can see a clear contrast between font and background colour. Trained designers are especially sensitive to contrast and can easily misjudge a regular reader's eye.
07 Don't play with font colours
Make sure you establish a consistent font colour and/or underline for links. Links need to noticeably change when visited. These simple rules are not a matter of taste, they are the 101 of web usability.
08 Set whitespac |
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funicular (fyoo-NIK-yuh-luhr) adjective
Of, relating to, or operated by a rope or cord.
A cable railway on | |About Us | What's New | Search | Site Map | Contact Us|
funicular (fyoo-NIK-yuh-luhr) adjective
Of, relating to, or operated by a rope or cord.
A cable railway on a hill, especially one where simultaneously ascending and descending cars counterbalance each other.
[From Latin funiculus (thin rope), diminutive of funis (rope). The word funambulist (tight-rope walker) derives from the same root.]
"Was it -- oh! finally, was it Tyrolean, Standing on top |
12. Before sowing, remove all the plants and trees on the plot. Shade and the roots of trees prevent vegetables from growing well.
Roots of trees take out of the soil mineral salts which should feed the vegetables.
Trees also harbor insects | 12. Before sowing, remove all the plants and trees on the plot. Shade and the roots of trees prevent vegetables from growing well.
Roots of trees take out of the soil mineral salts which should feed the vegetables.
Trees also harbor insects which may eat the vegetables.
13. Before sowing, you must also work the soil with the spade or the hoe.
But do not turn over the soil. If you turn over the soil, you put on the top those layers of the soil that contain less humus and are of less good structure.
If you till deeply, you must put manure into the soil so as to improve the poorer layers underneath.
Working the soil well means that you let air and water into the earth, mix in manure (see paragraphs 33 and 34) and destroy weeds.
If the soil is too wet, you must wait a little before tilling.
14. A bed is the name for one of the small plots on which vegetables are grown.
Use a length of cord to trace out the beds and put pegs in the earth at the four corners of each bed. Each bed should be 1 metre wide.
In this way you can sow and look after the plants in the middle of the bed without damaging your vegetables.
Between the beds, leave room for a path. For example, leave 60 centimetres so that you can get through with the wheelbarrow.
Vegetable beds with path
If the plot is large and flat enough, make your beds 10 metres long. Then you will have beds 1 metre wide and 10 metres long; that is, 10 square metres (m2). For each bed of 10 m2, add 30 kilogrammes of manure to the soil (roughly the contents of a wheelbarrow).
If the plot is on a slope, make the beds across the slope.
Beds across the slope
When you have marked out your vegetable beds, remove the stones,
break up the clods of earth with the forked hoe or the rake, so that the surface
is quite flat.
Then firm down the earth, for example with the tamper.
Beds in dry season and in the rainy season
15. Decide where in your garden you will place:
- nursery beds,
- compost pits,
- tool shed.
Put up a fence. This can be made with posts, millet stems, maize stems, palm fronds.
Layout of a kitchen garden |
(NaturalNews) Anger and political unrest over escalating world food prices is becoming increasingly violent. Higher prices for the basic food commodities used by developing countries have produced clashes in Egypt and several African states. The government of Haiti has fallen from a political | (NaturalNews) Anger and political unrest over escalating world food prices is becoming increasingly violent. Higher prices for the basic food commodities used by developing countries have produced clashes in Egypt and several African states. The government of Haiti has fallen from a political segue that started with a protest against food prices. An international food expert has warned of more fighting with no short-term relief in sight.
According to an article from the Washington Times, "World food prices have risen 45 percent in the last nine months and there are serious shortages of rice, wheat and corn," said Jacques Diouf, head of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at a conference in New Delhi. "There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 to 60 percent of income goes to food."
Several people have been reported killed in disturbances as unrest in Haiti continues amid a doubling of the price of rice. A supermarket, several gas station marts and a government rice warehouse have been looted, according to the Washington Times.
The Prime Minister of Egypt has promised concessions to workers in the industrial city of Mahalla al-Kobra after days of rioting over rising food prices resulted in the death of one protestor. These clashes were described as the most serious anti-government demonstrations since riot |
Wild lions in Kenya are sending text messages to conservationists, or rather, their GPS collars are, in order for tracking of their whereabouts to take place. Lion mapping is important because human-lion conflict has resulted in the deaths of too many | Wild lions in Kenya are sending text messages to conservationists, or rather, their GPS collars are, in order for tracking of their whereabouts to take place. Lion mapping is important because human-lion conflict has resulted in the deaths of too many lions in recent years. Text messages every hour are sent to a server and translated into email messages, so researchers can see where the lions are, and if they are too close to livestock.
Loss of lion habitat and farming operations nearby have led lions to sometimes seek food in the form of domesticated farm animals. Farmers retaliate for their animal losses by killing lions. The retaliation is believed to mainly be poisoning of lions by lacing dead prey animals in the wild with toxic chemicals.
Kenya’s lions in the wild reportedly could disappear in about twenty years if the current rate of lion death continues. About one hundred were killed every year from 2002-2009. The total number of lions in Kenya has already declined to just about 2,000. Cameroon and Nigeria have already lost their lions.
Living with Lions works to help conserve and research wild lions in Kenya. Their Lion Guardians program functions by protecting both lions and livestock so farmers are less likely to kill lions. The Lion Guardians track the big cats carefully, and know their locations and movements. They also witness many tragic lion poisonings. Just recently they reported on their blog, “The male cub that survived was barely a year and even though cubs are normally weaned by 8 months, they are not independent of adults until 18 months and we therefore gave him zero chance to survive on his own. Having mysteriously survived the lethal poison, the Lion Guardians have been on the lookout for him.”
Image Credit: Falense/WikiCommons |
The Great Lakes in sunglint are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 31 crew member on the International Space Station. From the vantage point of the space station, crew members observe many spectacular phenomena including aurora, noctilucent | The Great Lakes in sunglint are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 31 crew member on the International Space Station. From the vantage point of the space station, crew members observe many spectacular phenomena including aurora, noctilucent clouds, airglow, and sunglint on Earth's water bodies. Sunglint is light reflected off of a water surface towards the observer such that it creates the appearance of a mirror-like surface. If the viewing and lighting conditions are ideal, that mirror-like surface can extend over very large areas, such as the entire surface of Lake Ontario (approximately 18,960 square kilometers). This photograph was taken while the space station was located over a point to the southeast of Nova Scotia (approximately 1,200 kilometers ground distance from the center point of the image). Lake Ontario, Lake Huron, the Finger Lakes of upstate New York, and numerous other bodies of water appear brilliantly lit by sunglint. To the west, Lake Erie is also highlighted by sunglint, but less light is being reflected back towards the observer resulting in a duller appearance. Much of central Canada is obscured by extensive cloud cover in the image, whereas a smaller grouping of clouds obscures the Appalachian range and Pennsylvania (lower left). The blue envelope of Earth's atmosphere is visible above the curved limb, or horizon line that extends across the upper third of the image. Such panoramic views of the planet are readily taken through space station viewing ports with handheld digital cameras which allow the crew to take advantage of the full range of viewing angles.
Image credit: NASA/JSC
More about space station research:
There's a Flickr group about Space |
Click on the boiler manufacturers name below to visit the appropriate
page of our online catalogue:
is the most important part of any central heating system. A central
heating system is only as good as its controls, the better the controls,
the | Click on the boiler manufacturers name below to visit the appropriate
page of our online catalogue:
is the most important part of any central heating system. A central
heating system is only as good as its controls, the better the controls,
the less wear and tear on the boiler and system. You will get more comfortable,
controllable temperatures and in turn the running costs will be less.
A Time Switch (clock) will switch all the system on or
off to the times you require
A Programmer will switch one, two or even three different
circuits on or off at different times or even on different days. Most
programmers have integral switches to set them up to your own personal
preferences, for example, to have the hot water and heating to come
on separately at a different time each day of the week. (Override buttons
are also fitted to programmers) A programmer should be set to cover
all the times that the property is occupied. A signal is sent out to
the cylinder and room thermostats and these will keep everything at
the desired temperatures.
If your system is warming a cylinder of water, you must have a Cylinder
thermostat, this should be set to about 55-60 deg °C and should
be positioned approximately 1/3 the height of the cylinder from the
bottom. Once this is satisfied it allows the hot water circuit to rest,
and boiler to rest if no other control is calling for heat, until some
hot water is used or the cylinder cools down naturally.
All central heating systems should have a Room Thermostat fitted, this will shut the heating circuit off, allowing the boiler
and system to rest once the air has reached the desired temperature.
As the air starts to cool slightly, the room stat brings the heating
on again to maintain the set temperature. This should be fitted about
1.5 metres high in an average temperature room with a radiator fitted,
but not in direct sunlight or above a radiator, and have no other source
of heat in that room. Usually these are best fitted in a hall or dining
room. Since April 2002 it is mandatory as part of the Building Regulations
that all new and updated systems have a room thermostat fitted.
A Programmable Room Thermostat is the same as a room thermostat,
except you can program different temperatures for different times of
the day and night, also there is no need for any other timing device
on this circuit (also acts as a frost stat). Some Models have a 7 day
option, so the temperatures and times can be set differently for each
day. This is the only control needed for combination boilers.
Radiator Valves (TRV's) fit on radiators in place of existing
valves. Inside the valve is a wax capsule which expands when heated
and stops the flow of water to the radiator. As the wax cools it contracts
and lets the water from the boiler flow into the radiator. A TRV should
not be fitted in the same room as the room thermostat as this can interfere
with its operation. When the room stat is satisfied it will shut the
pump & boiler off (providing another circuit is not calling). For best
economy just fit TRV's in rooms that are too warm (bedrooms) or in south
facing rooms and unused rooms. If you have a condensing boiler then
do not fit too many TRV's, usually no more than a third of all radiators,
as they will reduce the high efficiency of the boiler. |
Computers Usage in the Clothing Industry
The clothing and textile industry has changed for the better over the years through the development of computers and technology. Previously, the apparel and textile industry followed hand drawn designs and patterns to create garments. During the industrial | Computers Usage in the Clothing Industry
The clothing and textile industry has changed for the better over the years through the development of computers and technology. Previously, the apparel and textile industry followed hand drawn designs and patterns to create garments. During the industrial revolution, manufacturing equipment for clothing in the form of better sewing machines came onto the market and changed the face of the apparel industry. Now, most things in the clothing industry are computerized, from the design aspect, to the creation of the articles of clothing with machines, to keeping track of stock and sales through computerized programs.Hence the need for quick and effective Laptop Screen Repairs and computer repair.
Designers in the clothing industry have benefited greatly from technology and from the help of an apple repairs company.Graphics programs and software have helped designers to create their visions more easily. Many programs aid in the development of clothing through the ability to operate thousands of different choices regarding color, fabric, and sizing through the click of a button. Designers who prefer to freehand their designs from scratch can also create clothing through tablet computers that allow the users to draw their design onto the screen, then save and place the item into a program to be colored, shaded, and modified at a later date.
Computer programs for designers have also created a way to save time and money. Designers can now showcase their garments to manufacturers, buyers, and boutiques without having to ship out a garment. This saves time and fabric, as designs that don’t make the cut don’t have to be destroyed and popular designs can be mass produced for stores, buyers, and consumers. The clothing and textile industries benefits of computers and design software has created a billion dollar industry that is unlikely to be matched anywhere else. No matter what century you look to, clothing and design have been always a big part of life and with the aid of computers, clothing and design will grow to be bigger and better with each passing decade of technological development. |
OAKLEY – PG&E, along with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and community volunteers with the Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed worked to restore three acres of shoreline along Marsh Creek in Contra Costa County in one of | OAKLEY – PG&E, along with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and community volunteers with the Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed worked to restore three acres of shoreline along Marsh Creek in Contra Costa County in one of the fastest urbanizing watersheds in California.
The restoration effort on Saturday (Dec. 8) helped to create the only shaded habitat for wildlife along a four-mile stretch of land. Shade provided by the restored riparian vegetation will help cool water temperatures and improve spawning and rearing habitat for juvenile salmon.
The Nature Restoration Trust provided $25,000 to support this restoration effort. The Nature Restoration Trust is a partnership between PG&E and the NFWF to bring together public and private resources to conserve and enhance the natural habitats of fish and wildlife. Since 2001, PG&E has committed more than $1 million to this unique, public-private partnership to support habitat and wildlife restoration projects throughout Northern and Central California.
“Funding for projects such as these is important because it allows us to involve the community in restoring Marsh Creek and protecting water quality. We have found that those who volunteer with us bring home a new view of their creek and a better appreciation for the things they can do personally to help protect their environment,” said Diane Burgis, executive director of the Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed.
She thanked PG&E and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for their support. “Their grant allows us to expand our habitat restoration projects while fostering stewardship through education, outreach and community service activities,” she said.
Last year FOMCW removed seven tons of trash from waterways, trails and neighborhoods in the area. A new restoration garden helped divert trash from blowing into or being thrown into Marsh Creek.
“PG&E is proud to be part of this project to help protect, conserve, and restore Marsh Creek,” said Diane Ross-Leech, director of environmental policy at PG&E. “Our support is part of the company’s broader commitment to partner with the communities we serve to protect natural resources and educate others about how they can make a difference.”
Long-term goals |
Light-emitting diode projectors represent a significant advance over traditional projectors. Instead of using a bulb filled with gas at high pressure, they use an array of LEDs to generate the light that shines through, or off of, the image element | Light-emitting diode projectors represent a significant advance over traditional projectors. Instead of using a bulb filled with gas at high pressure, they use an array of LEDs to generate the light that shines through, or off of, the image element to project an image. LED projectors run cooler, consume less energy, have more accurate color and can last longer without a replacement bulb than a traditional projector, making them ideal in many ways for use in an business environment.
How LEDs Work
The LEDs in an LED projector use a process called "electroluminescence" to produce light. In a bulb, electricity passes through a wire, making it heat up to the point that it glows. LEDs, on the other hand, use semiconducting materials which allow certain types of energy to pass through them. When an electrical signal passes through the material in an LED, it kicks off electrons that are too big to pass through. To shrink themselves, they give off a photon, which is a particle of light, which then allows them to fit through to the other side. Since this process generates very little heat, it consumes much less power than a traditional bulb. It also puts much less stress on the LED, which is why it lasts so much longer than a regular lamp.
How Projectors Use LEDs
Instead of a bulb, projectors have arrays of red, green and blue LEDs. When mixed, they generate a very accurate color of white light. This light then gets reflected off of an array of tiny mirrors (in a projector with a Digital Light Processing chip) or gets passed through a sandwich of liquid crystal display layers (in an LCD projector). In other words, LED projectors are almost exactly the same as any other projector, except for the bulb.
LEDs run much cooler than traditional bulbs, so LED projectors can be smaller and quieter, since they do not need as much airflow or insulation to protect their users from a hot bulb. The combination of red, green and blue LEDs makes a white light that is a better representation of true white than most bulbs can generate. This gives LED projectors the ability to reproduce more colors than other projectors. Finally, because LEDs last so much longer than bulbs, LED projectors should never need a replacement. A 20,000 hour bulb will run for eight hours a day, seven days a week, for six years and ten months. It will last for over 27 years if used for four hours a day, five days a week.
LED projectors have one key drawback. As of the time of publication, they have the same problem as LED light bulbs – LEDs are expensive. While LED projectors are available at roughly similar costs to projectors with traditional lamps, they usually have much lower light output ratings. For example, one manufacturer's lineup includes a 3,000 lumen model, a 2,600 lumen model and a 500 lumen LED projector, all with similar suggested retail prices and specifications.
- Samsung: Lamp or LED: Which Projector is Right for Your Business?
- PC World: Ultraportable Projectors: LED Models Arrive
- Projector Reviews: LED Projectors
- HDTV Magazine: HDTV Expert - Useful Gadgets: Optoma ML300 LED Projector
- Techlinea: How Do LEDs Work?
- Aaxa Technologies: LED Projectors Versus UHP Projectors
- NEC: Multimedia Projectors |
‘To me, a democratic education means many things: It means what you learn in the classroom; it means what you learn outside the classroom; it means not only the content of what you learn, but it means the atmosphere in which you learn | ‘To me, a democratic education means many things: It means what you learn in the classroom; it means what you learn outside the classroom; it means not only the content of what you learn, but it means the atmosphere in which you learn it; it refers to the relationship between teacher and student. All of these elements of education can be democratic or undemocratic.
And so for the content of education to be democratic, it must take its cue from the idea of democracy, the idea that people will determine their own destiny. And therefore, it means students have a part in this. Students as human beings, as citizens in a democracy, have the right to determine their lives, have a right to play a role in the society. And therefore, a democratic education gives students the kind of information that will enable them to have a power of their own in the society.
”—Howard Zinn and David Barsamian, Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics (Pymble: HarperCollins, 2006), 132–3.
“If there are any human universals, love would certainly be chief among them. Yet, when we take a look around the world sometimes it feels like love, for holding such a high place in our imaginations and creative expression, is the least actualized of our ideals. Instead, fear and alienation maintain a stranglehold on humanity as they manifest in various forms of oppression – patriarchy, white supremacy, poverty, heterosexism, imperialism. What’s worse, the very notion of love is often distorted and associated with everything from unhealthy and destructive interpersonal relationships to violent reactionary movements of religious extremism. Not to mention that for our LGBTQ comrades, society has claimed that our expressions of love are immoral, wrong, and even evil. So what then do we, as revolutionaries, make of this thing called love? Do we really have time to be bothered with the trappings of the heart? How does love fit into the picture of that better world we are all imagining and fighting for? More importantly, how does love factor into the fight itself?”—http://www.organizingupgrade.com/2010/02/rooted-in-love/ |
vermilion, vivid red pigment of durable quality. It is a chemical compound of mercury and sulfur and is known as red sulfide of mercury; it was formerly obtained by grinding pure cinnabar but is now commonly prepared synthetically. Verm | vermilion, vivid red pigment of durable quality. It is a chemical compound of mercury and sulfur and is known as red sulfide of mercury; it was formerly obtained by grinding pure cinnabar but is now commonly prepared synthetically. Vermilion is a good pigment for protecting iron and steel and is therefore used in paints. It is commonly adulterated because of its high cost. Certain other materials are sometimes called vermilion; among them is imitation vermilion, prepared from a combination of red lead or basic lead chromate and certain other chemicals.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on vermilion from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Organic Chemistry |
Blue-flowered perennial plant (Cichorium intybus) of the aster family (Asteraceae). Native to Europe, it was introduced to the U.S. late in the 19th century. Chicory has a long, | Blue-flowered perennial plant (Cichorium intybus) of the aster family (Asteraceae). Native to Europe, it was introduced to the U.S. late in the 19th century. Chicory has a long, fleshy taproot; a rigid, branching, hairy stem; and lobed, toothed leaves, similar in appearance to dandelion leaves, around the base. Both roots and leaves are edible. The roots are used as a flavouring in or substitute for coffee. The plant is also grown as a fodder or herbage crop for cattle. |
Unicode is logically a 21-bit code. As modern computers don’t conveniently work with such units, there are various solutions: use 32 bits (4 bytes), wasting a lot of bits, especially if your data is dominantly in English; | Unicode is logically a 21-bit code. As modern computers don’t conveniently work with such units, there are various solutions: use 32 bits (4 bytes), wasting a lot of bits, especially if your data is dominantly in English; use a special scheme that uses one or two 16-bit units per character; and use a variable number of 8-bit bytes per character. These are known as UTF-32, UTF-16, and UTF-8 transfer encodings.
Windows uses internally UTF-16, whereas UTF-8 dominates e.g. on the Web, so you often need to convert between them. This is nontrivial but usually made with suitable library routines, maybe implicitly, depending on programming environment. UTF-32 is rarely used.
Technically, UTF-16 is very simple for all characters that fit into the 16-bit s |
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. See dwarf cornel.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A common name for two species of dwarf | from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. See dwarf cornel.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A common name for two species of dwarf dogwoods: Cornus canadensis - Canadian or Eastern Bunchberry; Cornus suecica - Eurasian or Northern Bunchberry.
- n. The fruit of either of these plants.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. The dwarf cornel (Cornus Canadensis), which bears a dense cluster of bright red, edible berries.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A common name of the dwarf cornel, Cornus Canadensis, on account of its dense clusters of bright-red berries.
- n. The fruit of the Rubus saxatilis.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. creeping perennial herb distinguished by red berries and clustered leaf whorls at the tips of shoots; Greenland to Alaska
bunch + berry (Wiktionary) |
The Large Hadron Collider
has been busily colliding protons since it opened last year, but a new set of experiments starting later this month could tell us more about the beginnings of the universe than we've ever known before. At C | The Large Hadron Collider
has been busily colliding protons since it opened last year, but a new set of experiments starting later this month could tell us more about the beginnings of the universe than we've ever known before. At CERN, where the LHC is housed in Geneva, scientists will attempt to create mini Big Bangs (the full-sized one is generally accepted as having created the actual universe about 13.7 billion years ago). The process will involve shooting lead ions through the 17-mile long collider, and accelerating them to relativistic speeds before colliding them head-on with protons
. According to popular wisdom this should cause an explosion resulting in the creation of brand spanking new particles. Although similar experiments have been conducted on a much smaller scale at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, this will be the first time scientists have attempted to accurately recreate conditions exactly like the Big Bang. Hit the source link for the full story. |
Biology is at the forefront of an intellectual revolution which, with computing and quantum mechanics, is evolutionising the way we view the world. It appeals to both Science and Arts students and can be successfully combined with other sciences, a modern language or | Biology is at the forefront of an intellectual revolution which, with computing and quantum mechanics, is evolutionising the way we view the world. It appeals to both Science and Arts students and can be successfully combined with other sciences, a modern language or English Literature.
“Chemistry is everything”, from the quantum world of atoms and molecules to the macroscopic world of stars and galaxies. Chemistry is pivotal to Science. It links with Physics to understand the fundamental chemical and physical processes in our universe and with Biological Sciences to understand the processes of life itself. The course makes available to the student the factual knowledge required for the subject and discusses its underlying principles and theories in a form which always encourages the students to think for themselves.
“God does not play dice” and Physics is nothing less than an attempt to discover and explain the fundamental workings of the entire physical Universe. From driving to college in your first car, as you listen to your music/iPod, to time travel in the TARDIS, Physics has transformed the world we live in. Be a part of the A Level Physics course and stay tuned to the technological development it drives, as these will only accelerate in the coming years. |
Male and female penduline tits abandon their nests in order to score new mates and boost their reproductive sucess.
Credit: Csaba Daroczy
Some avian parents hit the road when it comes to child-rearing: Both parents flee the | Male and female penduline tits abandon their nests in order to score new mates and boost their reproductive sucess.
Credit: Csaba Daroczy
Some avian parents hit the road when it comes to child-rearing: Both parents flee the nest, in search of new sexual conquests.
Males and females of the penduline tit (Remiz pendulinus) can mate with up to seven different partners in one breeding season. So childcare can be a time drain, keeping the birds from scoring more mates.
A new study of the small perching songbirds in southern Hungary reveals that both parents are willing to abandon the nest to boost individual reproductive success.
“As far as we know, this willingness for both sexes to abandon the nest for the sake of new mates is unique,” said one of the study researchers, Tamas Székely of the University of Bath in England.
Male penduline tits often take off before the female has laid her eggs, a strategy that would seemingly keep the female bound to the nest as a single parent. But sneaky females sometimes hide their eggs from the males so the mothers can high-tail out of the nest before the fathers know the eggs have been laid.
Over one breeding season, females care for more than half of all clutches, and males act as parents for up to 20 percent. The rest (about 30 percent) are abandoned by both parents.
"This could b |
Here's how not to avoid salmonella superbugs.
I've been writing a bit recently about the problem of antibiotic-resistant pathogens on factory animal farms, which are emerging as a lethal—and expensive—public-health threat.
The two major regulatory agencies that | Here's how not to avoid salmonella superbugs.
I've been writing a bit recently about the problem of antibiotic-resistant pathogens on factory animal farms, which are emerging as a lethal—and expensive—public-health threat.
The two major regulatory agencies that have a say in the matter—the USDA and the FDA—have acknowledged the severity of the problem, as has our main public-health-monitoring outfit, the CDC. Even the Government Accounting Office (GAO) has gotten into the act! None of this has led the federal government to actually crack down on the practice of feeding animals daily subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics.
Judging from the inaction, you'd think there's simply no alternative to antibiotics as an integral part of livestock feed—and resistant bacteria as an inevitable product of meat factories, along with all the pork chops and chicken wings.
Turns out though, there is an alternative: Just ban antibiotics on farms, and force producers to adopt organic standards. In a study just published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a team of researchers looked at 20 large-scale chicken facilities—10 conventional, and 10 that had recently converted to organic standards, which include a ban on antibiotics. The result: The organic facilities had sharply lower presence of drug-resistant bacteria.
Here's how lead researcher Amy Sapkota of the University of Maryland School of Public Health described the findings in an interview with the Washington Post:
We initially hypothesized that we would see some differences in on-farm levels of antibiotic-resistant enterococci when poultry farms transitioned to organic practices...But we were surprised to see that the differences were so significant across several different classes of antibiotics even in the very first flock that was produced after the transition to organic standards. [Emphasis mine.]
These results align with those of another recent research paper that compared conventional and organic poultry houses run by a single company. In that study, the organic facilities had not been recently converted—they had been organic for some time. Again, huge differences turned up. The conventionally raised birds were six times more likely to carry salmonella than the organic birds. And here's the kicker: 40 percent of the salmonella carried by the conventional birds had resistance to no fewer than six different antibiotics—vs. none of the salmonella from the organic birds.
Crucially, both studies are looking at large-scale organic operations—what Michael Pollan labeled "industrial organic" in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. According to a lucid explanation of USDA organic poultry standards [PDF] from the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA), organic birds have to get "access to the outdoors for exercise areas, fresh air and sunlight." But in The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan demonstrated that that rule is often implemented as a farce—birds have access to a door to the outdoors, but they never utilize it. Nor are there any stipulations on how densely the birds can be housed, ATTRA reports.
However, organic code forbids antibiotics and other "animal drugs." And without being able to resort to daily lashings of pharmaceuticals, operators probably can't stuff as many birds in an organically managed house as they do in a conventionally grown one. "Most [organic producers] look for at least 1.5 square feet (0.14 square meters) per bird," ATTRA states. In conventional chicken houses where the feed is laced with antibiotics, the birds get about a half a square foot each, according to this Humane Society of the United States document [PDF].
What all of this suggests is that antibiotics and the resistant bugs they generate are not an inevitable aspect of poultry production; they're an inevitable aspect of a highly consolidated food system. Recently, I wrote about how the ecological calamities of pork production could be largely solved by deintensifying it and spreading it out. The same is true of poultry production.
In an excellent recent report called "Big Chicken: Pollution and Industrial Poultry Production in America," the Pew Trusts reports that the number of chickens raised each year in the United States jumped from 580 million in the 1950s to nearly 9 billion today.
Astonishingly, just four huge companies process 60 percent of those birds in a handful of gigantic plants—and as they took control over the market, they closed small slaughterhouses and forced 1.5 million farms, widely dispersed across the country, to either dramatically scale up their poultry operations or exit the business. Since the '50s, the Pew report states, "the number of producers has plummeted by 98 percent, from 1.6 million to just over 27,000 and concentrated in just 15 states." The average poultry farm now churns out 600,000 chickens per year.
The result, of course, is the destruction of highly productive ecosystems like the Chesapeake Bay. All for a whole bunch of flavorless chicken laced with antibiotic-resistant superbugs. If only there were a better way! Oh, wait—there is. |
The Evergreen Valley College Library honors Black History Month (February) with very interesting displays of Library books. Shelley Blackman has organized these displays of books highlighting the Library’s extensive collection of African American History and Literature.
Please come by and take a | The Evergreen Valley College Library honors Black History Month (February) with very interesting displays of Library books. Shelley Blackman has organized these displays of books highlighting the Library’s extensive collection of African American History and Literature.
Please come by and take a look. |
The investment and innovation pouring into lithium-ion battery technology for electric cars could be a major boon for a greener power grid. According to a new report out today from Pike Research, the global market for lithium-ion batteries in utility-scale applications (st | The investment and innovation pouring into lithium-ion battery technology for electric cars could be a major boon for a greener power grid. According to a new report out today from Pike Research, the global market for lithium-ion batteries in utility-scale applications (storing energy from intermittent renewable sources like solar and wind) is set to grow to $1.1 billion by 2018 — at a rate faster than at least 10 other energy storage options for the grid, including pumped hydro, compressed air and flow batteries.
“Utilities will be the downstream beneficiaries of innovation and investment in lithium-ion batteries for the transportation sector,” explains Pike Research senior analyst David Link in today’s release. Lithium-ion is “quickly becoming the battery of choice for electric vehicle manufacturers,” he says, and this trend will deliver improvements in storage capacity and economics that will spur the utility sector to follow suit. By 2018, Pike expects lithium-ion batteries to make up more than a quarter of the $4.1 billion stationary energy storage business.
While investment in lithium-ion batteries for electric cars could help drive down costs for grid storage applications, utilities adopting the technology for grid storage could also give something in return. Batteries degenerate to about 80 percent storage capacity after 8-10 years in an electric car, but still hold value for grid storage and other applications at that point. So if auto and battery makers can find a healthy market for recycled lithium-ion batteries on the grid, it could help make electric vehicles more affordable. That’s part of why Nissan (part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, which is targeting global domination of the electric vehicle market) is now getting into the battery recycling business.
A number of battery makers, including A123Systems, Ener1 and Altairnano, are hoping to ride the lithium-ion grid storage boom. But as the power grid gets more digital intelligence and renewable energy in coming years, there’s plenty of room for other energy storage technologies. As Katie has explained in our FAQ about energy storage for the smart grid, “Next-generation smart grid without energy storage is like a computer without a hard drive: severely limited.” According to Pike Research, other “important storage technologies” will include advanced batteries like sodium sulfur, as well as kinetic storage tech including pumped hydro and compressed air. |
Mekong dams threaten rare giant fish
The report, River of Giants: Giant Fish of the Mekong, profiles four giant fish living in the Mekong that rank within the top 10 largest freshwater fish on the planet (see list of | Mekong dams threaten rare giant fish
The report, River of Giants: Giant Fish of the Mekong, profiles four giant fish living in the Mekong that rank within the top 10 largest freshwater fish on the planet (see list of top 10 at bottom of page).
At half the length of a bus and weighing up to 600kgs, the Mekong River’s giant freshwater stingray (Dasyatis laosensis) is the world’s largest freshwater fish. The critically endangered and culturally fabled Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) ranks third at up to 3 metres in length and 350kgs.
Dam will present unsurmountable barrier for giant fish
“A fish the size of a Mekong giant catfish, simply will not be able to swim across a large barrier like a dam to reach its spawning grounds upstream,” said Roger Mollot, Freshwater Biologist for WWF-Laos. “This would lead to the collapse of the wild population of this iconic species.”
Current scientific information suggests the Mekong giant catfish migrate from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia up the Mekong River to spawn in northern Thailand and Laos. Any dam built on the lower Mekong River mainstream will block this migration route.
The hydropower dam planned on the Mekong River at Sayabouly Province, northern Laos, is a threat to the survival of the wild population of Mekong giant catfish. The Sayabouly Dam is the first lower Mekong River mainstream dam to enter a critical stage of assessment before member countries of the Mekong River Commission advise on whether to approve its construction.
Mekong River home to more giant freshwater fish than any other
“More giant fish live in the Mekong than any other river on Earth,” said Ms Dang Thuy Trang, Mekong River Ecoregion Coordinator for the WWF Greater Mekong Programme. “Currently, the Lower Mekong remains free-flowing, which presents a rare opportunity for the conservation of these species. But the clock is ticking.”
The other Mekong giant fish featured in the report are the "dog-eating" catfish (Pangasius sanitwongsei), named because it has been caught using dog meat as bait, and the giant barb (Catlocarpio siamensis), the national fish of Cambodia and largest carp in the world. At 300kgs each, these fish tie for fifth place on the global top ten.
Dams will amplify the impact of climate change on fisheries and agriculture
However, the impacts of lower Mekong River mainstream dams are not restricted to these Mekong giants, they would also exacerbate the impacts of climate change on the Mekong River Delta, one of the world’s most productive regions for fisheries and agriculture.
Building the Sayabouly Dam would reduce sediment flowing downstream to the Mekong River Delta, increasing the vulnerability of this area to the impacts of climate change like sea level rise.
There are alternatives
WWF supports a delay in the approval of the mainstream dams, including the Sayabouly Dam, to ensure a comprehensive understanding of all the positive and negative impacts of their construction and operation.
To meet immediate energy demands, WWF promotes sustainable hydropower projects on tributaries of the Mekong River, prioritising those that already have hydropower dams developed on them.
The Global Top 10 Giant Freshwater Fish
- Giant freshwater stingray (Himantura chaophraya) 600kg (500cm, 240cm disc width) Mekong River Basin
- Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) 500kg (700cm) Yangtze River Basin
- Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas) 350kg (300cm) Mekong River Basin
- Wels catfish (Silurus glanis) 306kg (500cm) Widespread in Europe and Asia
- Giant pangasius (dog-eating catfish) (Pangasius sanitwongsei) 300kg (300cm) Mekong River Basin
- Giant barb (Catlocarpio siamensis) 300kg (300cm) Mekong River Basin
- Arapaima (pirarucu; paiche) (Arapaima gigas) 200kg (450cm) Amazon River Basin
- Piraíba (laulau; lechero) (Brachyplatystoma filamentosum) 200kg (360cm) Amazon River Basin
- Nile perch (Lates niloticus) 200kg (200cm) Nile River Basin
- Alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula) 137kg (305cm) Mississippi River Basin |
Viruses have historically been classified into one of two types – those with an outer lipid-containing envelope and those without an envelope. For the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina have discovered that hepatitis A virus, a common cause of enter | Viruses have historically been classified into one of two types – those with an outer lipid-containing envelope and those without an envelope. For the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina have discovered that hepatitis A virus, a common cause of enterically-transmitted hepatitis, takes on characteristics of both virus types depending on whether it is in a host or in the environment.
“The whole universe of virology is divided into two types of viruses – viruses that are enveloped and viruses that are not enveloped. If you look at any basic virology textbook, it will say that these are categories that distinguish all viruses,” said lead researcher Stanley M. Lemon, MD, professor of medicine and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Center for Translational Immunology.
Click "source" to read more. |
Using a Journal Article as a Professional Development Experience
Title: Digital Images + Interactive Software = Enjoyable, Real Mathematics Modeling
Author: Andy Ventress
Journal: Mathematics Teacher
Issue: April 2008, Volume 101, Issue | Using a Journal Article as a Professional Development Experience
Title: Digital Images + Interactive Software = Enjoyable, Real Mathematics Modeling
Author: Andy Ventress
Journal: Mathematics Teacher
Issue: April 2008, Volume 101, Issue 8, pp. 568-572
Rationale/Suggestions for Use
The concept of mathematical modeling is a topic that receives much attention when connecting concepts to real-world scenarios. “What models can teachers use and how can these models be used to make teaching and learning more engaging and meaningful for students?" This article goes beyond just providing participants with strategies to use digital cameras as a tool to capture images for use in the classroom by incorporating mathematical modeling. This article may be used with pre-service teachers or by in-service teachers interested in exploring ways to incorporate the use of digital cameras in their classroom.
Goal: Participants will capture real world images and determine how to use them in an instructional setting.
- Ask participants to brainstorm real-world images that they would like to display in their classrooms that might illustrate a mathematical concept. Have them add several images that might occur in the school building.
- Use this list to create a scavenger hunt and assign each group a digital camera and two-three images to find in the building and capture on camera.
- Display images from the scavenger hunt and have the participants identify how the image may be used to illustrate a mathematics concept.
- Have participants read the entire article and discuss additional ideas for the use of digital images in the mathematics classroom. Encourage the participants to consider how these ideas can be used in a culminating project for any unit. (Note: While they are reading the article download several of the images and save them as jpeg files to be imported into the Geometer’s Sketchpad or other software. Select images that can be used to generate a mathematics model.)
- Have the participants use the process outlined in the article to determine a mathematical model for each of the images (pp. 569-570, “Once the image is pasted into GSP… (see fig. 4)”. For those images that are not appropriate for mathematical models briefly discuss how the image can be used to illustrate a mathematical concept.
- Ask the participants to gather digital images to create a resource of digital images. Have the participants work in small groups to identify mathematical concepts and possible use for each image.
- Lead a discussion on the benefits of using digital images in the mathematics instruction.
- Possible questions for the facilitator:
- How might the use of digital images be used to actively engage students in the mathematics?
- How do digital images make connections to real-world phenomenon?
- What are some additional topics/images that you would like to have so that you can use them in the classroom?
Connections to Other NCTM Publications:
- Herman, M., & Laumakis, P. (2008, December). Activities for students: Using the CBR to enhance graphical understanding. Mathematics Teacher, 102, 383-389.
- Phy, L. (2008, April). Using technology to promote mathematical discourse concerning women in mathematics. Mathematics Teacher, 101, 582-585.
- Sharp, B. D. (2007, May). Making the most of digital imagery. Mathematics Teacher, 100, 590-593.
- Shultz, H. S. (1999, April). Using a digital camera to verify quadratic behavior. Mathematics Teacher, 92, 292-293.
- Walker, J. M. (2007, September). Where have flowers gone? Mathematics Teacher, 101, 88-92.
- Wanko, J. J. (2008, December). Technology tips: Exploring the cereal box problem with fathom. Mathematics Teacher, 102, 390-393.
- Williams, D. L. (2007, April). The what, why, and how of contextual teaching in a mathematics classroom. Mathematics Teacher, 100, 572-575. |
The sun had just hit the valley floor when I stepped out onto the snow. Seyyed Umar rode behind me, heavily swathed with blankets, on his horse. The snow was barely a foot deep and the climb up the hill to | The sun had just hit the valley floor when I stepped out onto the snow. Seyyed Umar rode behind me, heavily swathed with blankets, on his horse. The snow was barely a foot deep and the climb up the hill to the pass was an easy one. The staff trembled and creaked in my hand as it moved through the snow. The crust glittered with shards of light.
Then we saw the tower. It rose 200 feet, 61 metres, in a slim column of intricately carved terracotta set with a line of turquoise tiles. There was nothing else. The mountain walls formed a tight circle around it and at its base two rivers, descending from snowy passes, ran through the ravines into wilderness. A dense chain of pentagons, hexagons and diamonds, formed from pale slender bricks, wound around the column. On the neck of the tower, in Persian blue tiles the colour of an Afghan winter sky, were the words: "Ghiyassudin Muhammad Ibn Sam, King of Kings..."
Ghiyassudin was the Sultan of the Ghorid Empire who had built the mosque in Herat, the dervish domes in Chist-e-Sharif and the lost city of the Turquoise Mountain.
I walked around the base of the tower following the tall exuberant chain of polygons, which spelled out (though I couldn't follow the geometrical script) the Arabic text of one of the longest chapters of the Koran. The octagonal base, the three storeys, the remains of the balconies and the ornate complexity of the geometrical surface were all subdued by the clean, tapering lines and the beige fired brick.
Although the people that lived in the area had never talked of the tower and none of the 19th-century travellers had known of its existence, a foreigner did reach it in 1957. André Maricq's careful study confirmed that this had been the tallest minaret in the world at the time of its construction.
Thereafter a number of archaeologists had made the difficult journey. They concluded that the tower had been part of a mosque, and called it "the Minaret of Jam". They agreed on two things: that the tower was a uniquely important piece of early Islamic architecture, and that it was in imminent danger of falling down.
By the time of my visit, officers of the Society for the Preservation of Afghan Cultural Heritage had had no reliable reports on the tower of Jam for eight months. In the last decade, much of Afghanistan's cultural heritage had been removed or destroyed; the Kabul museum had been looted and the Taliban had dynamited the Bamiyan Buddhas. No one in Kabul was sure whether the tower was still standing.
Inside the guest room of a local commandant's house, we sat on the carpets while his son fed the fierce fire in the stove with dry twigs.
"What are you doing at the moment?" I asked.
"I am a director of a society which has been set up to protect the tower," the commandant, Bushire, replied. |
Family vacations were a major part of my childhood. Almost every summer my parents would pack up the car and take me and my siblings to some famous, historic or natural site. Along the way I saw many national parks, from the famed Yellowstone to | Family vacations were a major part of my childhood. Almost every summer my parents would pack up the car and take me and my siblings to some famous, historic or natural site. Along the way I saw many national parks, from the famed Yellowstone to the little known El Morro, a popular campsite where early explorers carved their names into the sandstone bluffs.
As I’ve grown up, many structures and icons of my childhood have disappeared, victims of time. National parks, however, were one part of my past that I thought would be around for my children to enjoy. Now I’m not so sure.
Yosemite National Park. Photo By Christopher Chan/Courtesy Flickr.
A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization shows how climate change is threatening America’s national parks. The report, National Parks in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption, identifies 25 national parks that are at the greatest risk. The report lists some of America’s most beloved parks, such as Yosemite, Zion, Joshua Tree, Denali and the Great Smoky Mountains.
A number of climate-based factors will change the face of nat |
09.11.09 - Space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew landed at 7:53 p.m. CDT Friday at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., capping off a 14-day mission to deliver supplies and research facilities to | 09.11.09 - Space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew landed at 7:53 p.m. CDT Friday at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., capping off a 14-day mission to deliver supplies and research facilities to the International Space Station and its six-person crew.
09.11.09 - There are four opportunities at two landing sites to bring space shuttle Discovery and its crew home to Earth today after a flight to resupply the International Space Station and deliver a new crew member.
09.10.09 - After monitoring weather right down to the wire, Mission Control reluctantly told Discovery’s astronauts that unstable conditions would not permit a landing Thursday at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
09.10.09 - The astronauts on space |
Intern, Ipswich Hospital, QLD
Aim: Indigenous Australian cancer patients have poorer outcomes than non-Indigenous cancer patients after adjusting for age, stage at diagnosis and cancer type. This is not exclusive to the Indigenous population of Australia. The | Intern, Ipswich Hospital, QLD
Aim: Indigenous Australian cancer patients have poorer outcomes than non-Indigenous cancer patients after adjusting for age, stage at diagnosis and cancer type. This is not exclusive to the Indigenous population of Australia. The aim of this review is to explore the reasons why Indigenous Australians face a higher cancer mortality rate when compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts. Methods: A literature search was conducted using PubMed and Medline to identify articles with quantitative research on the differing survival rates and cancer epidemiology, and qualitative data on postulated reasons for this discrepancy. Qualitative studies, non-systematic topic reviews, quality improvement projects and opinion pieces were also reviewed in this process, with the belief that they may hold key sources of Indigenous perspectives, but are undervalued in the scientific literature. Results: Although allcause cancer incidence is lower within Indigenous Australians, the probability of death was approximately 1.9 times higher than in non-Indigenous patients. Occurrence of cancer types differ slightly among the Indigenous population, with a higher incidence of smoking-related cancers such as oropharyngeal and lung cancers, and cancer amenable to screening such as cervical cancer. Indigenous patients generally have a later stage at diagnosis, and are less likely to receive curative treatment. This discrepancy has been attributed to health service delivery issues, low uptake of screening, preventative behaviours, communication barriers, socioeconomic status and non-biomedical beliefs about cancer. Conclusion: The implication of these findings on the future of Indigenous cancer care indicates the fundamental social, cultural and serviced-based change required for long-term sustainable improvement in reducing Indigenous mortality rates. To ‘close the gap’ we need to make |
What database system are you using? Also what do you mean by not access. You can query the rceords in a file using OPENROWSET in SQL Server. In your case you could just do a
select RecordCount from OPENROW | What database system are you using? Also what do you mean by not access. You can query the rceords in a file using OPENROWSET in SQL Server. In your case you could just do a
select RecordCount from OPENROWSET(‘MICROSOFT.JET.OLEDB.4.0′,’Text;Database=R:\YOURFILELOCATION\;HDR=No’, ‘SELECT count(*) AS RecordCount FROM YOURFILENAME.CSV’)
This will return the number of rows. This probably exists in whatever database server you are using.
You can get an approximation of the number of records using the record size, blocksize, number of tracks/cylinders of disk space.
You might also want to verify if all the records are the same size or variable (if variable, then use an average size minimum-size + maximum size. divided by 2)
1) Determine the record size (such as 80 bytes/record)
2) Divide this value into the blocksize (such as 3200 / 80 = 40) to determine the number of records per block
3) Determine the number of blocks per disk cyclinder (such as 20 blocks / cylinder)
4) Determine the number of cylinders used by this file (such as 30 cylinders)
The resulting number of records should be:
3200 / 80 = 40 (records/block)
40 * 20 (blocks/cylinder) = 800 records/cylinder
800 * 20 (cyl) = 16000 records (approx).
This should be fairly accurate, the only issue is the number of records in the last block, which can range from 1 record to 40 records (15,961 minimum number) |
| Beat The Heat Before It Beats You
Keeping Your Cool When It's Hot
It's summertime and you head out for a run. Before you even finish the first mile, your body feels as though it might ignite from the heat.
| | Beat The Heat Before It Beats You
Keeping Your Cool When It's Hot
It's summertime and you head out for a run. Before you even finish the first mile, your body feels as though it might ignite from the heat.
It's not your imagination. Fifteen minutes into your run and your body temperature could be as high as 5°F above normal. If you were to continue at this pace, fatigue and heat illness would no doubt take over. By following some simple rules, you can prevent heat exhaustion.
Top 10 Tips to Protect Yourself from Heat Illness
- Reduce the intensity of your workout, particularly the first few times you are exposed to higher temperatures.
- Use the heat stress index table to determine the risk of exercising at various combinations of temperature and humidity.
- When the heat stress index rises above 90°F, consider postponing your exercise session until later in the day.
- Beat the day's heat by working out early in the morning.
- Wear minimal clothing to provide greater skin surface area for heat dissipation.
- Wear lightweight, loose fitting, light colored clothing to reflect the sun's rays.
- Wear clothing made of a material that absorbs water, such as cotton.
- Drink before, during, and after exercising. (Drink six to eight ounces of fluid every 15 to 20 minutes during exercise).
- Consume more fluids than you think you need before and after exercise.
- Know when to say 'no' to exercise. Use common sense to prevent heat stress when it gets hot out.
Heat sensation risk of heat injury
|90°F - 105°F||Possibility of heat cramps.|
|105°F - 130°F||Heat cramps or heat exhaustion likely. Heat stroke possible.|
|130°F+||Heat stroke a definite risk|
Check the heat index.
Source: American Council on Exercise |
Why are we still relying on decades-old stereotypes when we talk about the Middle East?
Media narratives and the stereotypes they employ matter because they frame the way the world understands events. The reporting of Middle Eastern conflicts has the potential power to impact western political | Why are we still relying on decades-old stereotypes when we talk about the Middle East?
Media narratives and the stereotypes they employ matter because they frame the way the world understands events. The reporting of Middle Eastern conflicts has the potential power to impact western political responses.
What is the first image that springs to your mind when you hear the word “Arab |
Spreading the Gains from Immigration
"The United States is the single biggest recipient of immigrants - 35 million, or 12.4 percent of the population, in 2000."
Because immigrants are the main economic beneficiaries from immigration and do | Spreading the Gains from Immigration
"The United States is the single biggest recipient of immigrants - 35 million, or 12.4 percent of the population, in 2000."
Because immigrants are the main economic beneficiaries from immigration and do not participate in decisions on immigration policies, the level of immigrant flows is the least developed part of globalization. To encourage the residents of rich countries to accept a higher level of immigration, the government could provide innovative economic incentives to residents. Countries with a queue of immigrants like the United States could auction off visas for immigration to the highest bidders. They could charge new immigrants a sizable fee - maybe as much as $50,000 apiece -- or add a surcharge to incomes taxes, and use these "admission fees" to benefit existing citizens and gain their support for higher levels of immigration.
In People Flows in Globalization (NBER Working Paper No. 12315), Richard Freeman writes that such "radically economic policies" may represent a possible way to ameliorate one problem arising from "globalization": the fact that the flow of people across international borders in the form |
IERS Reference Meridian
The IERS Reference Meridian (IRM), also called the International Reference Meridian, is the prime meridian (0° longitude) maintained by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). It passes | IERS Reference Meridian
The IERS Reference Meridian (IRM), also called the International Reference Meridian, is the prime meridian (0° longitude) maintained by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). It passes about 5.3 arcseconds east of George Biddell Airy's 1851 transit circle or about 102 metres (335 ft) at the latitude of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. It is also the reference meridian of the Global Positioning System operated by the United States Department of Defense, and of WGS84 and its two formal versions, the ideal International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS) and |
I always knew that sand is silica and silica is what glass is made out of. But I never thought that glass can actually be recycled into sand. Why, don't ask me that; may be it's the imagination that I never cranked | I always knew that sand is silica and silica is what glass is made out of. But I never thought that glass can actually be recycled into sand. Why, don't ask me that; may be it's the imagination that I never cranked up. Or worse yet, may be I didn't observe the problem at all. Yes, I think, to give myself a benefit of doubt, that it was the latter. I have been living around beaches for about four and a half years now. But I never thought for a moment that beaches might be under erosion. Yes, they are! Every year water is pulling more sand in it at sea. Moreover, the modern construction practices, specially in the United States, has made it possible to erect buildings almost at the water line now. The second picture on the right shows buildings right on water. It has resulted in beaches' natural layout to be disturbed so much that they are virtually gone now. In South Florida, around Miami Fort Lauderdale area the situation is much worse. Due to man-made ports and high-rises more and more sand is being pulled back into sea.
The erosion is so mind-boggling that the authorities are now planning to somehow reverse that sand loss. One of the steps being taken is to put artificial sand on the beach. The problem, however, is the source. I had always known of one, the sea itself. That's how beaches the world over where authorities can afford do it. They pump sand from the vicinity of the beach, but under water, back to the land. South Florida (Broward County), on the other hand, is exploring something new and unconventional. They are now experimenting with recycling glass back to silica and throwing out on the beach.
Here are a few links from the Broward County website about the history and cost o |
- Hits: 1473
The Exeter Ship Canal, sometimes just called the Exeter Canal, downstream of Exeter, Devon, England was built in the 1560s which means it pre-dates the "canal mania | - Hits: 1473
The Exeter Ship Canal, sometimes just called the Exeter Canal, downstream of Exeter, Devon, England was built in the 1560s which means it pre-dates the "canal mania" period and is one of the oldest artificial waterways in the UK.
At the start of Exeter's history, the River Exe was tidal and navigable up to the city walls enabling it to be a busy port. In the 1270s or 80s, the Countess of Devon, Isabella de Fortibus, built a weir across the river to power her mills (this weir is remembered in the name of the nearby suburb Countess Wear). This had the effect of cutting off Exeter's port from the sea and damaging its salmon fisheries. In 1290, trade with Exeter's port was restored, only to be blocked by a new weir built in 1317 by Hugh de Courtenay, 9th Earl of Devon (Isabella's cousin), who also built a quay at Topsham. Because of the blockages on the river, boats were forced to unload at Topsham and the earls were able to exact large tolls to transport goods to Exeter. For the next 250 years the city petitioned the King to have the waterway reopened, to no avail, until 1550 when Edward VI finally granted permission. However it was by then too late because the river channel had silted up.
In 1563, Exeter traders employed John Trew of Glamorgan to build a canal to bypass the weirs and rejoin the River Exe in the centre of the city where a quay would be built. Work began in February 1564, and was completed in Autumn 1566 or early 1567. The canal had three locks with vertical gates – the first pound locks to be built in Britain. They accommodated boats up to 16 tonnes. The original cut was 3 feet (0.91 m) deep and 16 feet (4.9 m) wide (0.9 m by 5 m). It ran one and three quarter miles (2.8 km) from just below the Countess Weir to the centre of Exeter. This navigation was not very effective; it could not be entered at all states of the tide, and the double transfer of cargo over such a short distance made it uncompetitive with road transport. The weir that maintains the water level in the quay is still named "Trew's Weir" after the canal's builder.
In 1677 the canal was extended and the entrance was moved downstream to Topsham. In 1701 the canal was deepened and widened to allow the passage of ocean-going ships. At the same time the number of locks on the canal was reduced to one. Floodgates were also fitted to the canal entrance. These improvements lead to the canal being highly successful until demand for access declined with the end of the wool trade in the early nineteenth century and later with the rise of the railways.
There were many notable failures to connect Exeter and the South West to the national canal and rail networks:
The Grand Western Canal linking Exeter to Bristol (1796) was never completed;
The Bristol & Exeter Railway link to the canal basin was postponed in 1832 and 1844;
The South Devon Railway ran services to the canal from 1867, but by this time the canal was too small to attract the sizeable ocean-going vessels and the canal was taken over by its creditors for sixteen years. Use of the canal has declined gradually ever since.
The last commercial use of the canal was in 1972 when the Esso Jersey left the canal basin, carrying oil to its terminal, although the government-owned water board ran a sludge tanker, the Countess Weir, until 1997 by which time it was privately owned.
The fall of commercial traffic in the 1960s coincided with the rise of leisure use of the canal.
After some recent difficulties the future of the canal looks good with the city basin being included in part of a £24 million redevelopment. The quay area has been subject to redevelopment over recent years and is continuing to be converted to wider recreational use. The canal basin itself is popular for a range of water sports. Throughout the year a small hand powered passenger ferry (a pull ferry) operates across the canal during the day, though there is a footbridge close at hand. |
The study appears in the May 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers at the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also participated in the study.
"Breastfeeding is extremely | The study appears in the May 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers at the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also participated in the study.
"Breastfeeding is extremely valuable for infants boosting their immune systems and their mental abilities, and reducing their risk for infection" said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. "At this point, exercise, nutrition, and heredity appear to have a much greater influence on young children's weight than does breastfeeding alone."
The researchers undertook the study to reexamine an earlier study conducted by scientists in Bavaria, explained the study's first author, Mary Hediger, Ph.D., of NICHD's Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research. The Bavarian researchers reported that the greater the length of time that infants were breast fed exclusively, the less likely they were to be overweight.
The U.S. examined information from the birth certificates of 2685 children. This information was obtained from The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1988-1994), a nationally representative sampling conducted by the CDC. The researchers interviewed the children's mothers when the children were between 3 and 5 years of age, asking for such details as whether the children were breast fed or formula fed, how often they breast fed their children, at what age they stopped breast feeding, and whether the children received infant formula in addition to breast milk. The children were then measured for height and weight as part of a comprehensive physical examination. Extremely low birth weight children, many of whom are likely to be premature, were not included in the study. The researchers determined children's weight status with a formula known as the body mass index (BMI), a calculation used world wide to determine a person's amount of body fat.
The researchers found that children who were breast fed had a 16 percent reduced risk for being overweight. However, Dr. Hediger pointed out, the length of time that children breast fed and the timing of introduction of solid foods had little influence on their risk of being overweight.
Breast fed infants who began eating solid foods later than did other breast fed children had a very slightly reduced risk for being overweight about 0.1 percent for each month they were delayed in eating solid food. The researchers noted, however, that the strongest predictor of child's BMI was the mother's BMI. In fact, children were three times more likely to be overweight if their mothers were either overweight or obese.
Dr. Hediger explained that it is not known whether or not maternal overweight and obesity influences children's ri |
Strive for conciseness in your writing
A concise piece of writing is as short as it can be while still being complete. A brief piece of writing is short, but it may be incomplete. That is, missing essential facts or convenient | Strive for conciseness in your writing
A concise piece of writing is as short as it can be while still being complete. A brief piece of writing is short, but it may be incomplete. That is, missing essential facts or convenient words.
Don't eliminate words and phrases that provide linkage and clarity. These include a, an, and the. Most readers expect these articles in the natural flow of language. When you omit them, you force the reader to supply them. For example:
- When you have a problem, OSU Extension Service will help you solve it.
- When you have a problem, the OSU Extension Service will help you solve it. (Correct)
Shortening phrases by eliminating “which” and “that” clauses and unnecessary prepositional phrases (learn more about prepositional phrases):
- Many biological journals, especially those which regularly publish new scientific names...
- Many biological journals, especially those regularly publishing new scientific names...
-...now state in each issue the exact date of publication of the preceding issue.
-...now give the date of each preceding issue.
- In dealing with journals which do not follow this practice...
- With journals not following this practice...
-...the biologist often needs to resort to indexes in order to determine the actual date of publication of a particular name.
-...the biologist must turn to indexes to date a particular name.
These bracketed phrases can be omitted with no loss in meaning:
- Every thinking person these days seems inclined to agree [with the conception] that the world has gone mad.
- Anyone acquainted with violin construction knows that the better the wood is seasoned, the better [the result will be as far as] the tone of the instrument [is concerned].
- After 14 minutes, we arrived at [the spot where] the manure lagoon overflow [was situated].
- The following statistics [serve to] give a good idea of the effects of sauerkraut.
- He kept things moving at breakneck speed throughout the [entire] performance.
- The green [colored] leaves are rectangular [in shape].
- The architecture [of the buildings] and the landscaping [of the grounds] whisper a word of university pride to visitors.
You can reduce clauses to phrases:
- The man who was waiting in the lobby looked bored.
- The man waiting in the lobby looked bored.
Avoid “it” and “there” beginnings. These are known as false subjects and add unneeded words.
- It is suggested....
- I suggest....
- It is noted....
- We note....
Be ruthless in eliminating any other unnecessary words (as long as you keep your intended meaning):
- We will make arrangements to meet you.
- We will meet you.
- Let me take this opportunity to inform you that the meeting is at noon.
- The meeting is at noon.
Words to substitute
Some words and phrases to avoid if you don't want your writing to sound pretentious, bureaucratic, and pompous. The substitutes in the right-hand column are shorter and clearer.
|in the event that||if|
|for the purpose of||for, to|
|in order to||to|
|at the present time,
at this point in time
|until such time as||until|
|in view of the fact that||because, since|
|ascertain||find out, learn|
|be in a position to||can| |
NEW YORK (Jan. 10)
The history of Bukharian Jews of Uzbekistan is a bit murky. There is no documentation to prove it, but Bukharian Jews trace their history to the Jewish migration to the Persian Empire after the | NEW YORK (Jan. 10)
The history of Bukharian Jews of Uzbekistan is a bit murky. There is no documentation to prove it, but Bukharian Jews trace their history to the Jewish migration to the Persian Empire after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. There is evidence that in the 16th century, Bukhara became a center for the Jewish population in Central Asia and the community took on the name Bukharian Jews.
After the second half of the 19th century, the region increasingly fell under Russian rule, and Bukharian Jews were subject to the sporadic anti-Semitism that flared up elsewhere in the Russian Empire.
Ashkenazi Jews from the European sections of Russia began to settle in the region. Many were engineers, doctors or lawyers, and they provided the area’s first generation of local intelligentsia.
Bukharian Jew welcomed the Russian Revolution of 1917, which guaranteed civil liberties to all, but the reality proved to be harsher.
From the 1930s on, Bukharian Jewish practices were shaped by hostile surroundings, where Jews maintained traditional practices secretly despite state-sponsored atheism.
Although many younger immigrants had traditional grandparents, Jewish educational, cultural and religious centers in Uzbekistan were closed during Soviet purges of religion. In “A History of the Bukharian Jews,” David Ochildiev wrote that in the mid-1930s, the Soviets allowed only one synagogue in the largest Jewish communities. Jewish government officials, clergy, writers and teachers were fired, arrested or executed for advancing Jewish practices and culture. Farms were shut down, schools were closed, and publication of newspapers, magazines and books in the Bukharian Jewish language (a dialect of Farsi) ceased.
After World War II, Jews faced extortion and the threat of imprisonment or execution on false charges. In the predominantly Muslim country, anti-Semitism intensified after the founding of the State of Israel and the 1967 War.
Children attended school on Shabbat. Few Jews of any age attended synagogue, because doing so could cost worshipers a job.
Despite these strictures, Bukharian Jews enjoyed more freedom than elsewhere in the Soviet Union and families were able to keep traditions privately — lighting Shabbat candles, fasting on Yom Kippur, observing marriage ceremonies, circumcision, and life-cycle events.
Parents cooked Bukharian Jewish food, Jews formed tight-knit communities and married only among themselves.
“We did what our grandparents did, but we didn’t know why we were doing it,” said Queens barber Rachamim Dodoboyev, 24.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan’s economy deteriorated, and Islamic fundamentalism grew. The Jewish community emigrated en masse to Israel and the United States, particularly to Queens.
“There was no future for Bukharian Jewish children in Uzbekistan,” said Peter Pinkhasov, founder of BukharianJews.com. |
The skin depth effect in metals such as copper is usually thought of as a high frequency effect, but of course it depends what you mean by 'high'. What matters is the refractive index of the metal. Well above a certain frequency known as | The skin depth effect in metals such as copper is usually thought of as a high frequency effect, but of course it depends what you mean by 'high'. What matters is the refractive index of the metal. Well above a certain frequency known as the 'plasma frequency' the refractive index is real, and the metal is transparent. Below that frequency the index has an imaginary component, and because of this an e-m wave will be attenuated as it travels through the metal. For copper the plasma frequency is about 1012Hz, so for transmission line problems we are only concerned with the 'low frequency' behaviour.
In the case of a twin wire transmission line carrying a signal there will be resistive losses in the wires, and to replace this loss energy must be supplied from the surrounding field. To accelerate the conduction electrons there must be a component of the electric field, E, parallel to the wire, and the magnetic field, B, is in closed loops round the cable. The direction of flow of energy is given by the 'Poynting Vector' which is proportional to the vector cross-product ExB and this has a component into the wire at its surface. To maintain a current distributed throughout the wire the energy must reach the centre of the wire with little attenuation, and it is the refractive index of the metal which determines the rate of attenuation.
A detailed classical analysis of the refractive index and its effect can be found in 'The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol.2' by R.P.Feynman, (Addison-Wesley 1967) Chapter 32.
To summarise the effect, the refractive index at low frequencies is:
Refractive index, n = ( 1-i ).sqrt( k/f )
'sqrt' means the square root, k is a constant, f is frequency in Hz, and i is the square root of -1.
For copper the value of k is about 5 x 1017 sec.-1.
The electric field E in the conductor is given by E = Eo exp (iw(t - nx/c))
where w is angular frequency, Eo is the peak electric field component along the wire at its surface, t is time, and x is the distance into the metal.
The imaginary component of n multiplied by i gives a real exponential term, and so the field level falls exponentially inside the metal, and the skin depth is conventionally defined as the depth at which the field has fallen to e-1, about 0.37, of its original level. The value of n is a function of the frequency, and putti |
Sir Issac Newton and Edmund Halley would have been horrified. The great British physicist and his astronomer friend helped create a tradition of pioneering research that is being threatened to save a few million pounds. This month astronomers and particle physicists learned of a | Sir Issac Newton and Edmund Halley would have been horrified. The great British physicist and his astronomer friend helped create a tradition of pioneering research that is being threatened to save a few million pounds. This month astronomers and particle physicists learned of a 25% cut in research spending - partly to cope with cost overruns on big projects and partly because the recent spending review was not generous. The cuts would force Britain's retreat from some of the world's leading research projects and the work of hundreds of scientists is at risk. Among the schemes under threat are Britain's share of the International Linear Collider, intended to carry out research into the creation of the universe. Britain's part in the Gemini North telescope, on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, studying deep space, may survive in reduced form. But this country's role in its companion observatory in the southern hemisphere, based in Chile, will not. The board of the collaborative Gemini scheme issued a statement expressing its dismay at the news. So did a group of senior astronomers, writing to the Guardian. The new Science & Technology Facilities Council says that the cuts are necessary to fund big overruns in research projects in Britain, and it is true that modern astronomy and particle physics are among the most expensive areas of science. But primary research into the origins of the universe is something that this country is good at and should remain committed to. |
Chromolithography/Estimating, Assessing and Producing
It is often written that whatever the artwork it can be reproduced. That maybe so, but what of its quality - compared to the original. In this anthology we are concerned about | Chromolithography/Estimating, Assessing and Producing
It is often written that whatever the artwork it can be reproduced. That maybe so, but what of its quality - compared to the original. In this anthology we are concerned about art prints – prints that have been specifically made to be exhibited. The majority are made by the original artist as an adjunct to his work as a painter. These maybe reproduced from an existing painting or from a rough sketch or idea. So the question of whether or not it is a facsimile doesn’t come into it. The autolithographer: signs, dates, and titles his work, to his standards of workmanship. You have to appreciate that the autolithographer cannot produce work to compare to the professionalism of the commercial lithographic artist. Here is a step by step guide to artwork reproductions.
- When a new job estimated, for a hand drawn lithographic reproduction, a decision of how many colours required is the first consideration. Obviously if the job is for a cinema poster the number of colours would be less than for a facsimile of a fine art reproduction. The average number for a commercial reproduction is eight: buff, yellow, flesh, blue, red, black, pink, and grey.
- A swatch or tab of each colour to be printed is stuck onto a piece of card to remind the artist exactly what colour he is working to, and give the printer a guide - when mixing his colours.
- Multi-colour printings must register on the sheet of paper. The artist needs an accurate tracing to use as a guide to reproduce the original. To achieve this, the artist traces an outline guide. This guide, called ‘the key’, gives an exact position of each colour, shape, shade, brush stroke, shadow, and highlight. To position this correctly on the paper, register marks added for the printer.
- The guideline, on each stone or plate, has to be non-greasy. Either the |
OutlineClick the species name for a description of the organism
Phytophthora infestans is a devastating pathogen of critical food crops, causing late blight of potato and tomato. It is notorious as the causal agent of the Irish | OutlineClick the species name for a description of the organism
Phytophthora infestans is a devastating pathogen of critical food crops, causing late blight of potato and tomato. It is notorious as the causal agent of the Irish Potato Famine more than 150 years ago, and the crop losses due to P. infestans remain staggering today. Worldwide losses in potato production alone caused by late blight exceed $5 billion annually, making P. infestans the single most important biotic threat to global food security [3,4]. In recent years, severe late blight epidemics occurred following the migration to North America, Europe and other regions of aggressive mating type strains [5,6,7]. Strategies for managing late blight remain unsustainable and costly and most populations are now resistant to previously effective fungicides [4,5,8,9,10]. As a result of the destruction caused by P. infestans, in 2003 The American Phytopathological Society ranked it among the Immediate Priority fungal and oomycete genome sequencing targets. In 2002 the same group had ranked P. infestans #2 among 26 fungal and oomycete species. The first ranked organism on that list, Magnaporthe grisea, has since been sequenced at the Broad Institute.
P. infestans belongs to the oomycetes, a diverse group of deeply branching eukaryotic microorganisms that includes pathogens of plants, insects, crustaceans, fish, vertebrate animals, and microbes [11,12]. The diseases caused by these pathogens are notoriously difficult to manage on thousands of crop and ornamental plants, resulting in tens of billions of dollars of losses annually. Because of their filamentous growth habit, oomycetes had been traditionally classified in the kingdom of fungi. In fact, modern mo |
With southern Europe struggling under public debt, inflation and scant growth, Spain has broken a European record for unemployment. More than one in five Spaniards are out of work, posing a threat to quick recovery for southern Europe's biggest economy, and the | With southern Europe struggling under public debt, inflation and scant growth, Spain has broken a European record for unemployment. More than one in five Spaniards are out of work, posing a threat to quick recovery for southern Europe's biggest economy, and the region as a whole.
Mre than one in five working-age Spaniards are unemployed - more than in any other country in Europe. Spain's jobless rate has hit a 15-year high, nearly double the figure in neighboring Portugal.
But many Spaniards do not believe that number is accurate. Retiree Luis Cases says that in his hometown of Valencia, it feels like 95 percent of people are out of work.
"The people I know, it's 95 percent, no work," he said. "It's a bad situation for young people - and old men."
Cases describes what he thinks of the official jobless rate of 21.3 percent.
"No, rubbish! The government says rubbish! No, no, it's more, more, more," he said. "It's very, very difficult. There's no money. The young want to get married, have children and house. But where is the money?"
Spain is southern Europe's economic engine, and is in better shape to survive the global economic crisis than its neighbors. Ailing Portugal and Greece have asked for European bailouts, along with Ireland. But those countries have far fewer people out of work, raising the question of whether Spain's jobless rate is accurate, and what role unemployment actually plays in a country's economic well-being.
Aroa Lopez, from Madrid, says she thinks the Spanish government figure is too high, because many Spaniards collect unemployment benefits but still work at restaurants or other jobs where they are paid in cash.
"So many people take this money," she said. "It's difficult, because the government, when you don't have a job, pay you around two or three years. The government pays you, and it's very easy. So many people take the government money and have another job."
Vanessa Rossi, an economist at London's Chatham House think tank, acknowledges that the way governments calculate unemployment data could be problematic. While Portugal and Greece tend to under-report their jobless numbers, Spain may be doing just the opposite.
"The Spanish unemployment rate might actually be slightly lower than these figures," she said. "That's quite in contrast to many other countries that have the opposite problem - they under-report unemployment."
The Greek jobless rate is 15 percent - still a national record. Portugal's is around 11 percent. That is nearly half the rate in Spain, but unemployment has still hit Greece and Portugal harder. Rossi says it is because in Spain, high unemployment has long been a fact of life, even when the economy is booming. She says the remarkable thing is how low Spain's unemployment got a few years ago, during a huge construction boom - not how high it is now.
"In a sense, Spain's reverted to its previous model. It's not that it's unusual compared to its history, it's actually quite usual," she said. "And it's all the usual problems that were there before that property splurge."
The question is why Spain's unemployment has always been high, compared to the rest of southern Europe. Rossi offers one theory.
"It seems to be partly a structural issue in the way the employment laws operate," she said. "There's a reluctance to give people full employment. There are relatively few fixed jobs with full employment security."
She says Greece and Portugal have slightly different labor laws that do not end up exacerbating unemployment. But Rossi says Spain is still in better financial shape overall.
"In relation to the economy, I think it [Spain] could start to look a little livelier, and it need not go into the crisis that we've seen in Portugal, because the finances are a bit better," he said. "But that doesn't mean that you can get away from this unemployment problem that's been so persistent."
That persistent problem is on the minds of recent college graduates like Laura Lopez, who studied to be a teacher but now can't find a job.
"Last year, I finished my degree, but I couldn't find a job," she said. "So I have to define my life in other things."
Lopez says she and her friends are all under-employed, working in restaurants or part-time, even though they have university degrees. Such stories are common across southern Europe. And none of them is counted in official unemployment figures. |
- The definition of blasphemous is something profane, irreverent or disrespectful towards God or religion.
Taking the Lord's name in vain is an example of something that would be described as blasphemous.
Origin: Middle English blasf | - The definition of blasphemous is something profane, irreverent or disrespectful towards God or religion.
Taking the Lord's name in vain is an example of something that would be described as blasphemous.
Origin: Middle English blasfemous ; from Ecclesiastical Late Latin blasphemus ; from Classical Greek blasphēmos
- blasphemously adverb
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Origin: Middle English blasfemous, from Late Latin blasphēmus, from Greek blasphēmos, from blasphēmein, to blaspheme; see blaspheme.
- blasˈphe·mous·ly adverb
- blasˈphe·mous·ness noun |
The OMNI Thread Abstraction
|Sun Solaris 2.x||
|x86 Linux 2.0||
|with linuxthreads 0.5||
|Digital Unix 3.2||
read(sock), processing the data, then going | The OMNI Thread Abstraction
|Sun Solaris 2.x||
|x86 Linux 2.0||
|with linuxthreads 0.5||
|Digital Unix 3.2||
read(sock), processing the data, then going back into the read.
read(sock), or is elsewhere in the loop. If the former then read will return 0, indicating that the socket is closed. If the latter then eventually thread A will call
read(sock)and then this will return 0. Thread A should
close(sock), do any other tidying up, and exit.
shutdown(listenSock,2). Wherever thread A is in the loop, eventually it will return
ECONNABORTEDfrom the accept call. It should
close(listenSock), tidy up as necessary and exit.
shutdown(listenSock,2)— this returns
ENOTCONN. Instead the following strategy can be used:
getsockaddr(listenSock)to find out which port listenSock is on (or knows already), sets up a socket dummySock, does
this host, port)and finally does
accept(listenSock). This will return successfully with a new socket, say connSock. Thread A then checks to see if the "shutdown flag" is set. If not, then it's a normal connection. If it is set, then thread A closes listenSock and connSock, tidies up and exits.
write(sock)then it will return with
ENXIO. If thread A calls write after thread B calls shutdown this will return
write(sock)then it will return the number of bytes written before it became blocked. A subsequent call to write will then generate
EPIPEwill be returned if
SIGPIPEis ignored by the thread).
connect(sock)then it will return a successful connection. Subsequent reading or writing will show that the socket has been shut down (i.e. read returns 0, write generates
EPIPE). If thread A calls connect after thread B calls shutdown this will return
F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK). Then it calls connect on the socket — this will return
EINPROGRESS. Then it must call
select(), waiting for either sock to become writable or for the pipe to become readable. If select returns that just sock is writable then the connection has succeeded. It then needs to set the socket back to blocking mode using
fcntl(sock, F_SETFL, 0). If instead select returns that the pipe is readable, thread A closes the socket, tidies up and exits.
This document was translated from LATEX by HEVEA. |
History of Spanish
10 Facts About the Spanish Language
A collection of basic but interesting facts about the world's No. 2 language.
A Linguistic Look at Spanish
Linguists classify languages in many ways. This article explains three ways | History of Spanish
10 Facts About the Spanish Language
A collection of basic but interesting facts about the world's No. 2 language.
A Linguistic Look at Spanish
Linguists classify languages in many ways. This article explains three ways that languages are classified and how Spanish fits in them.
Is 'Emails' a Spanish Word?
Discussion of whether words such as 'emails' are legitimate Spanish.
'James' and 'Diego' May Share Common Origin
The Spanish equivalent of James is usually given as Diego, yet the two names don't seem at all alike. Here's why.
Why is There So Much English on Spanish-Language Web Sites?
Find out why Spanish-language Web sites have so many words in English.
Where Is Spanish Spoken Outside Spain and Latin America?
It's common knowledge that Spanish is the language of most of Spain and most of Latin America. But there are other places where Spanish is spoken as well.
Spanish Words Derived from Arabic
After Latin and English, Arabic is probably the biggest contributor of words to the Spanish language.
Spanglish: English's Assault on Spanish
English words are rapidly becoming part of the Spanish language.
Origin of the Names of the Days of the Week
The names of most of the days of the week in both English and Spanish come from the names of planets and the Roman gods.
Origins of the Abbreviation 'Vd.'
Although the abbreviation Ud. is most commonly used for usted in Spanish, sometimes you'll see the abbreviation Vd. Here's why.
Trivia for Spanish Students
Do you know some interesting facts about Spanish? If so, it may help you with this quiz.
Varieties of Spanish
Although Spanish is recognized as a single language, there are differences from country to country.
Why Does Spanish Add an Initial E to Some Words?
One characteristic of Spanish you may have noticed is that many words that are similar to English and start with letter combination such as "sp" or "sc" start with an e in Spanish. For example, "school" in English is escuela in Spanish and "special" becomes especial. Why is that?
Why Is Spanish Sometimes Called Castilian?
Sometimes Spanish is known as Castilian. This article explains why there are two names for the language and what the differences are between the two terms.
Origins of the Ñ in Spanish
The ñ is the only Spanish letter of Spanish origins.
Definition of 'Homonym'
Glossary definition of "homonym" with examples in Spanish and English.
Definition of "Calque"
Definition of the linguistic term "calque" with examples in Spanish and English.
Alfabeto - Alphabet
A look at the origins of the English word "alphabet" and the Spanish word alfabeto.
Size of Spanish Vocabulary
Although Spanish speakers have far fewer words at their disposal than English speakers do, the smaller vocabulary of the language shouldn't be seen as a sign of inferiority.
Introduction to Ladino
Ladino had its origins in 1492, when Jews were expelled from Spain. Today, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people speak Ladino, most of them in Israel, although very few of the people who use it are monolingual.
Origins of the 'Lisp' of Spain
Once upon a time there was a Spanish king who had a lisp, and so many Spaniards copied him that there mispronunciation because the norm — or so the story goes. But don't believe it.
Why Two Forms of the Imperfect Subjunctive?
What now exist as two alternate forms of the imperfect subjunctive used to be two separate tenses. |
Scientists and state officials are watching closely as crews try to stop the gusher that is leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico and trying to assess whether any oil from the spill could reach Maine’s coastline.
“Obviously, there’s concern,” said George | Scientists and state officials are watching closely as crews try to stop the gusher that is leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico and trying to assess whether any oil from the spill could reach Maine’s coastline.
“Obviously, there’s concern,” said George LaPointe, Maine commissioner for marine resources. “It’s a huge spill, and it’s ongoing. But we’re less at risk than other places.”
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection also is monitoring the progress of the spill, according to Barbara Parker, director of the DEP’s Division of Response Services.
“We have been monitoring it on a daily basis,” Parker said Tuesday. “We’re keeping an eye on the triangulations that NOAA puts out on where the oil is day to day. It seems hard to believe that it could get all the way up here.”
It probably won’t, according to oceanographer Larry Mayer, a professor in the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences. And if it does, he said, it likely will be so diluted that it would not pose a danger to the Maine coast.
There is an “extremely low probability” that the oil spill will have an impact on Maine, Mayer said this week.
“In science we never say never,” he said, “but oil from the spill in amounts that would create ecological problems in the Gulf of Maine — I really doubt it.”
Oil has been leaking from an underwater well for more than three weeks, spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists this week said that oil from the spill could move into the warm gulf loop current which could carry it out of the Gulf of Mexico past the Florida Keys and into the Gulf Stream, where it could threaten sensitive wildlife areas and popular beaches along the Florida coast.
While many scientists don’t believe the oil would travel beyond Cape Canaveral before moving out to sea where it would be diluted, scientists along the U.S. East Coast are monitoring the oil’s movement.
Mayer said the path of the Gulf Stream would transport oil away from the Maine coast. The Gulf Stream heads north along the East Coast but veers east after reaching Cape Hatteras, N.C., and away from the Maine coast by as much as several hundred miles.
There is one complication, he said, that comes in the form of warm core rings — areas of turbulence along the edges of the Gulf Stream that break off from the main current and channel some Gulf Stream water toward the Gulf of Maine.
“Gulf Stream waters pinch off of the Gulf Stream and move onto the Continental Shelf,” said Huijie Xue a physical oceanographer at the University of Maine, “But they really are blocked by Georges Bank.”
Xue said those warm core rings do not enter the Gulf of Maine intact, but some of the Gulf Stream water does spin off the rings and into the Gulf of Maine.
She agreed, however, that the likelihood of oil causing a problem in Maine is slight.
“The possibility of oil coming all that distance is already very small,” she said. “The chances of it having an impact in Maine are almost nonexistent unless it [the spill] keeps going and going.”
Despite the unlikely migration of the gulf oil to Maine, Mayer said, the materials used to break up the large plumes of oil could make it easier for oil to move in the water.
“That’s a lot of oil in the sub-surface, and the concern is that it might have a better chance of getting into the Gulf of Maine,” he said. “We don’t have much experience with that.”
Mayer said he also was concerned about the composition of the dispersants and the effect they might have. He said some components appear to be proprietary information and have not been disclosed.
“I’d like to know what that stuff is,” he said.
Despite that concern, Mayer said the large amounts of water moving through the Gulf Stream would certainly dilute any oil transported north. The average person wouldn’t know it was there, he said.
If oil from the spill does arrive in Maine, the state would work with multiple partners to deal with the problem, according to Barbara Parker at DEP. She pointed out that in March, Maine |
Washington, DC – Designer molecules that combine metals such as copper with natural organic materials could one day attack viruses in the body and treat a wide range of diseases.
That's the finding of chemists at Ohio State University, who have successfully tested such | Washington, DC – Designer molecules that combine metals such as copper with natural organic materials could one day attack viruses in the body and treat a wide range of diseases.
That's the finding of chemists at Ohio State University, who have successfully tested such molecules against portions of HIV and Hepatitis C virus RNA in the laboratory. They've also created molecules that act like ACE, or angiotensin-converting enzyme, inhibitors – drugs that are used to lower blood pressure.
At the American Chemical Society national meeting in Washington, DC, project leader James Cowan described how the same patent-pending technology could one day produce novel anti-tumor agents.
Drugs based on these molecules could produce fewer side effects compared to some of today's treatments, and they could also combat drug resistance, said Cowan, professor of chemistry at Ohio State.
Pharmaceutical companies tend to make drugs from the same limited set of ingredients, drawing upon only about a half-dozen of the more than 100 known chemical elements, Cowan explained. At the same time, drug-resistant bacteria and viruses are emerging.
"Faced with a problem like that, you can't ignore 95 percent of the periodic table," he said. "We have to start broadening the landscape of drug design."
His new molecules, called metal coordination complexes, mimic the activity of natural enzymes that break apart DNA, RNA, and proteins in the body.
Cowan and his colleagues have tailor-made different complexes to break apart portions of RNA that enable HIV and Hepatitis C viruses to function, as well as the ACE enzyme that constricts blood vessels in the body. In test tubes and in cell cultures of E. coli, the complexes targeted these particular RNA structures and enzymes and destroyed them.
The complexes work in one of two ways. Some use a process called redox chemistry to steal electrons from the bonds holding the target molecule together. Others use hydrolysis, meaning that they break down the target's chemical waterproofing, so that the water that is naturally present in a cell dissolves the target.
That's what makes these complexes different from most drugs.
"Most drugs are designed to inhibit – that is, they will bind to a protein molecule and just block its function," Cowan said. "But with metals you have the option of completely destroying the target."
He hopes that with proper tailoring to certain metabolic enzymes, these strategies could work against cancer. He also sees applications in homeland security, such as complexes that destroy the anthrax bacterium.
Even though these new complexes are partly made of metal, drugs based on them could potentially be less toxic to the body than conventional treatments.
Metals can be toxic, but so can some organic molecules that are used as drugs, Cowan po |
Ten books of surgery, with the magazine of the instruments necessary for it.
Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) was a French surgeon who specialized in battlefield medicine, especially wound treatment. He was the official royal surgeon... Show synopsis | Ten books of surgery, with the magazine of the instruments necessary for it.
Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) was a French surgeon who specialized in battlefield medicine, especially wound treatment. He was the official royal surgeon... Show synopsis Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) was a French surgeon who specialized in battlefield medicine, especially wound treatment. He was the official royal surgeon for the kings Henry II, Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III. A humane and dedicated physician, Pare was intensely concerned with the dissemination of knowledge about medicine. He contributed to the development of artifici |
Location: 1.3 kilometers east of JR Kamakura Station
Story: Hojo Yasutoki (北条泰時, 1183-1242), the third regent in the Kamakura period, built Shakado | Location: 1.3 kilometers east of JR Kamakura Station
Story: Hojo Yasutoki (北条泰時, 1183-1242), the third regent in the Kamakura period, built Shakado Hall here to pray for the repose of the soul of his father, Yoshitoki (義時, 1163-1224), the second regent.
The name of this area derives from the name of the hall. Even so, the exact location of the first Shakado Hall is not known. Above and around Shakado Tunnel are many caves called yagura (やぐら), a term that refers to burial caves for warriors or priests in the Kamakura and Muromachi periods.
Two well-known caves are Karaito Yagura (唐糸やぐら) and Jitsugetsu Yagura (日月やぐら). A plaque in front of Jitsugetsu Yagura explains that the name derives from the appearance of round holes within the cave, supposedly in the shape of the sun and moon, that hold the remains of the dead. Jitsu (日) in Japanese means the sun, and getsu (月) means the moon. Both caves are now within the boundaries of a private estate and are no longer accessible to the public. |
Basketball: Make Safety a Point
Basketball is an exciting sport, but it can also be tough on your body.
College and professional basketball players must train to avoid injury--and so should your youngster.
Experts say players can avoid injury by | Basketball: Make Safety a Point
Basketball is an exciting sport, but it can also be tough on your body.
College and professional basketball players must train to avoid injury--and so should your youngster.
Experts say players can avoid injury by strengthening muscles through a supervised weight-training program before the season. That helps prevent ligament injuries to knees and ankles, the most common court injuries.
Players must also warm up and cool down properly. Here are suggestions from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases:
First, jog lightly for four or five minutes.
Second, do five minutes of movements that simulate game play: Jump toward the basket, or sprint 10 yards, then stop quickly.
Cool down by gently stretching muscles that have tightened during exercise.
The safety tip-off
Prevent ankle sprains by wearing high-top sneakers with built-in ankle support.
Prevent knee injuries by strengthening leg muscles with a supervised weightlifting program. Start at least six or seven weeks before the season.
Never play with half-laced sneakers. It may look cool, but you're risking a sprained ankle or worse.
Drink plenty of fluids while playing, especially when it's hot. |
Johnson Space Center, Houston
Media Invited to NASA’S Desert-RATS Practice Run in Houston
HOUSTON – Area reporters are invited to experience life on an extraterrestrial surface, without leaving their own hometown.
The engineers, scientists and | Johnson Space Center, Houston
Media Invited to NASA’S Desert-RATS Practice Run in Houston
HOUSTON – Area reporters are invited to experience life on an extraterrestrial surface, without leaving their own hometown.
The engineers, scientists and technicians who travel annually to Arizona for a simulated exploration mission as part of the Desert RATS – or Research and Technology Studies – tests are preparing for the September field tests by putting on a practice run in the Johnson Space Center Planetary Analog Test Site – also known as the rock yard. Reporters who won’t be able to make it to the field tests in the desert can see the next best thing between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 11.
Interested news media representatives should e-mail Brandi Dean at [email protected]
by noon on Aug. 10.
The Desert RATS tests offer a chance for a NASA-led team of researchers from across the country to come together to conduct technology development research. The location of the actual field tests is chosen for its similarity to possible destinations for future planetary exploration missions.
That allows those planning the missions and designing the equipment to be used during them to determine what works and what doesn’t, before astronauts travel hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of miles from home. The practice runs in NASA’s rock yard – which include a large hill, a rock- and boulder-strewn field and three simulated impact craters – allow the engineers and scientists a chance to make sure they’re ready for the tests before they’ve traveled thousands of miles from home.
The NASA hardware that will be seen during the practice run includes:
- Space Exploration Vehicles – a pair of rovers that astronauts will live in for seven days at a time in Arizona.
- Habitat Development Unit/Pressurized Excursion Module – a simulated habitat where the rovers can dock to allow the crew room to perform experiments or deal with medical issues.
- And a suite of new geology sample collection tools, including a self-contained GeoLab glove box for conducting in-field analysis of various collected rock samples.
The media opportunity to be held in Arizona at the test site will be on Sept. 15. More details on that will be available soon.
For more |
Health Fast Fact, Thursday, Oct. 4
Congenital heart defects are conditions present at birth that affect how a baby's heart is made and the way it works. They are the most common type of birth defects. In the United | Health Fast Fact, Thursday, Oct. 4
Congenital heart defects are conditions present at birth that affect how a baby's heart is made and the way it works. They are the most common type of birth defects. In the United States, about 40,000 infants are born with a heart defect each year.
We reserve the right to remove any content at any time from this Community, including without limitation if it violates the Community Rules. We ask that you report content that you in good faith believe violates the above rules by clicking the Flag link next to the offending comment or fill out this form. New comments are only accepted for two weeks |
HTML 3.2 Mode is a major mode for Emacs (developed under GNU Emacs), which fastens up HTML writing by short-cuts for tags, entities and some useful functions like parameter quotifying, adding doctype string, etc. | HTML 3.2 Mode is a major mode for Emacs (developed under GNU Emacs), which fastens up HTML writing by short-cuts for tags, entities and some useful functions like parameter quotifying, adding doctype string, etc. It is designed as replacement for the HTML (1.0) Mode (htmlmode.el) by Marc Andreessen [email protected] from the NCSA, but both can be used together on one system / Emacs, too.
It's no more up-to-date for over a decade now. It was written back in the 90s for GNU Emacs 18 and 19. It no more work |
Subjectshowing only Business Show all Subject
Results 1 - 7 of 7 matches
Accounting Basics - Cribbingo part of Examples
Help students grasp accounting basics, the language of business, by playing Cribbingo | Subjectshowing only Business Show all Subject
Results 1 - 7 of 7 matches
Accounting Basics - Cribbingo part of Examples
Help students grasp accounting basics, the language of business, by playing Cribbingo.
Computer Fraud Word Search part of Examples
Identification of computer frauds as a computer attack, social engineering, or malware.
Processing Integrity Challenge part of Examples
The Processing Integrity Challenge makes use of game theory to help students learn how to determine relevant application controls for accounting systems to ensure processing integrity is achieved. It specifically addresses source data, data entry, processing, and output controls. The playing format is an adaptation of the television game show, Jeopardy, which is a novel way to reinforce concepts and provide immediate feedback to confirm students' knowledge.
Transaction Analysis Tic-Tac-Toe part of Examples
Drill and practice transaction analysis by playing tic-tac-toe.
The AIS Transaction Cycles Game part of Examples
The AIS Transaction Cycles Game is designed to provide drill and practice or review of the elements that comprise the Revenue, Expenditure, Production, Human Resources, and Financing/Investing cycles. The game is a PowerPoint version of Connect 4.
The Fund Identification Challenge part of Examples
Computer Fraud Challenge part of Examples
The Computer Fraud Challenge is based on the television show Hollywood Squares. The activity illustrates a variety of hacking and social engineering techniques that compromise confidential information, as well as malware that harms computers. |
Since the ascension of Pope Francis, there has been much debate over the new pontiff’s concern for the poor, social justice, and his desire for a simple life. Executive Editor Rob Tempio sees this discussion as at the very heart of | Since the ascension of Pope Francis, there has been much debate over the new pontiff’s concern for the poor, social justice, and his desire for a simple life. Executive Editor Rob Tempio sees this discussion as at the very heart of the debate within the Church over wealth between Augustine and the followers of Pelagius detailed in Peter Brown’s award-winning magnum opus, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-5 |
no one can help?
what happened? I really need that help, thank you,
- For Teachers
HI, everybody,, I need someone to help me,,I am biology teacher,, I wrote lesson plan and I want anyone to correct and check | no one can help?
what happened? I really need that help, thank you,
- For Teachers
HI, everybody,, I need someone to help me,,I am biology teacher,, I wrote lesson plan and I want anyone to correct and check up what I wrote?
no one can help?
what happened? I really need that help, thank you,
Grade: 7th A,B,C Date:Book: Biology Topic: Characteristics of Living Things.Unit: Cells and Life processes. Title: Characteristics of Living Things (1).Anticipatory set:Warm up: Show the students videos tell some of animals' movements.Review: What is the difference between living and non-living thing?Set readiness: What do animals and plants need to stay alive?Objectives : S.W.B.A.T.Name the characteristics of living things.**Identify chara |
Med people shun Med Diet
Overweight rising in region
29 July 2008, Rome - Hailed by experts as keeping people slim, healthy and long-lived, the Mediterranean diet has followers all over the world – but is increasingly disreg | Med people shun Med Diet
Overweight rising in region
29 July 2008, Rome - Hailed by experts as keeping people slim, healthy and long-lived, the Mediterranean diet has followers all over the world – but is increasingly disregarded around the Mediterranean.
According to FAO Senior Economist Josef Schmidhuber, over the past 45 years the famed diet revolving around fresh fruit and vegetables has “decayed into a moribund state” in its home area.
With growing affluence the food habits of people in the southern European, North African, and Near East regions, once held up as a model for the rest of the world, have sharply deteriorated, Schmidhuber reports. His findings are contained in a paper presented at a recent workshop organized by the California Mediterranean Consortium of seven US and EU academic institutions on Mediterranean products in the global market.
People on the shores of the Mediterranean have used higher incomes to add a large number of calories from meat and fats to a diet that was traditionally light on animal proteins. What they now eat is “too fat, too salty and too sweet”, Schmidhuber reports.
In the 40 years to 2002, daily intake in (15-nation) Europe increased from 2960 kcal to 3340 kcal – about 20 percent. But Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta, who started out poorer than the northerners, upped their calorie count by 30 percent.
“Higher calorie intake and lower calorie expenditure have made Greece today the EU member country with the highest average Body Mass Index and the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity,” says Schmidhuber. “Today, three quarters of the Greek population are overweight or obese.”
More than half of the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese populations are overweight too. At the same time there has also been a “vast increase” in the overall calories and glycemic load of the diets in the Near East-North Africa region.
All EU countries disregard the WHO-FAO recommendation that lipids should account for no more than 30 percent of total Dietary Energy Supply, but Spain, Greece and Italy ar |
while constructing the first railroad between Rutland and Burlington, Vermont, workers unearthed the bones of a mysterious animal near the town of Charlotte. Buried nearly 10 feet below the surface in a thick blue clay, these bones were unlike those of | while constructing the first railroad between Rutland and Burlington, Vermont, workers unearthed the bones of a mysterious animal near the town of Charlotte. Buried nearly 10 feet below the surface in a thick blue clay, these bones were unlike those of an y animal previously discovered in Vermont. After consulting with experts, the bones were identified as those of a "beluga" or "white" whale, an animal that inhabits arctic and subarctic marine waters in the northern hemisphere.
Because Charlotte is far inland (over 150 miles from the nearest ocean), early naturalists were at a loss to explain the bones of a marine whale buried beneath the fields of rural Vermont. Today, we can use the Charlotte whale to aid in the study of the geology and the history of the Champlain Basin. |
A Dry Future for India?
A Dry Future for India?
NEW YORK, April 15, 2009 – With nearly a sixth of all people in theworld, many of them still mired in poverty, India faces an unprecedented water crisis | A Dry Future for India?
A Dry Future for India?
NEW YORK, April 15, 2009 – With nearly a sixth of all people in theworld, many of them still mired in poverty, India faces an unprecedented water crisis in the next two decades. Major urban areasare unable to provide a reliable water supply, development of energy and the industrial sector face constraints, and scarcity of water forirrigation is a leading concern of farmers. With a lack of coordinated government investments in water infrastructure, governance, and agricultural productivity, India faces a serious resource and environmental challenge.
A panel discussion convened by the Asia Society, the Earth Institute's Water Center, and the South Asia Institute at Columbia University, keynote speaker Alok Sikka, of the Indian government's Ministry of Agriculture emphasized that India’s key challenge for the agricultural sector is water efficiency—producing more food using less water. The importance of this challenge lies inthe fact that water and development are inseparable. Water is essential for food production and agriculture is the largest consumer of water inthe country. Rice, for instance, is the most widely grown crop throughout the world, but it also requires large quantities of water tocultivate. Mr. Sikka recommended implementing more water efficient agricultural practices and investment in rainwater management, which,if not implemented, could lead to water shortage and food insecurity. Adding further to India’s resource strain is the use of water fordomestic and industrial purposes.
Panelist Abhiram Seth, Managing Director of AquagriProcessing Pvt. Ltd., suggested that one of the most promising new innovations is algae cultivation, which can improve the quality water when harvested, with the additional advantage of serving as abio-nutrient. Andrew Robertson, a research scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), provided an overview of climate change in India, which is projected to increase variability in seasonal conditions and enhance the effects of El Nino—effects which included a severe drought between 1790 and 1791in which millions of people perished. Finally, David Ludden, Professor of Political Economy and Globalization in the Department of History at New York University, examined the social aspects of water security in India. Professor Ludden asserted that safe water is a public resource to which access is a human right; yet it appears to be controlled by the relatively privileged and politically powerful, who engage marginally with the poor.
Overall, the speakers examined how the uncontrolled exploitation ofwater can be tamed, and discussed possible policy reforms in India's water sector that would help to ensure a sustainable supply of water inthe country. The panel discussion launched a four-day conference organized by the Earth Institute Water Center at Columbia aimed at addressing water security in India. |
Prolog's default search algorithm is depth-first search (DFS), which is sometimes not convenient: DFS doesn't always find the solution for all problems, and when it does, it might not find the optimal solution.
Let's say we want to | Prolog's default search algorithm is depth-first search (DFS), which is sometimes not convenient: DFS doesn't always find the solution for all problems, and when it does, it might not find the optimal solution.
Let's say we want to find the shortest path through a directed graph with nodes represented by symbols and arc by the predicate
arc/2. Then we can easily implement iterative deepening search to find the shortest path:
path(X, Z, Path) :- length(Path, _), path_r(X, Z, Path). path_r(Z, Z, ). path_r(X, Z, [X|Path]) :- arc(X, Y), path(Y, Z, Path).
path/3 backtracks over paths, ordered by length, if at least one path exists. Let's try it out:
?- path(a, g, P). P = [a] ; P = [a, b, f] ; P = [a, c, d, f] ; P = [a, b, c, d, f]
How this works: when
length/2 is called with a variable first argument, it generates a list of the desired length containing fresh variables. When, in addition, the second argument is a variable, it backtracks over all possible lengths starting at zero and stepping by one. The helper predicate
path_r is called each time with a fixed path length. |
The Simpson family has been growing fruit on the Leelanau Peninsula for three generations. This area of Michigan is gifted with a climate that makes it possible to grow a broad range of fruit. The major crops grown are sweet and tart cherries, | The Simpson family has been growing fruit on the Leelanau Peninsula for three generations. This area of Michigan is gifted with a climate that makes it possible to grow a broad range of fruit. The major crops grown are sweet and tart cherries, apples, wine grapes, pears, plums and strawberries.
We use integrated pest management techniques to grow our crops with minimal chemical inputs. Soils and plants are constantly monitored for imbalance or disease, so when a problem shows up we can make an educated decision on a course of action. To avoid unnecessary spraying we tuck grape shoots annually in catch wires and hand pluck leaves in the fruit zone. This creates an open canopy where air can circulate drying the dew and rainfall before fungal diseases can establish. All vineyard rows on the Leelanau Peninsula have permanent sod middles for several reasons. Our annual rainfall of about 35″ that can lead to soil erosion, the mixed species of grasses play host to beneficial insects and the grass cuttings aid in developing a healthier organic mix in the soil.
We are cooperating with Michigan State University on several research projects. The Agricultural Engineering Department has fabricated an advanced “propjet “sprayer which coats a vine so completely with spray material that a grower can feel confident in using a variety of “soft” and “organic” spray materials to combat fungus diseases. Our test plots have so far shown no difference in disease control using these “soft” materials versus conventional sprays due to the complete coating of the vines. We are also donating a plot of Vignoles grapes to research controls for the fungus disease “botrytis”. We should have data available in a couple of years about these treatments against a challenging disease. |
images by Wikimedia Commons
Having just come out of high school, I remember this chemical very well. Sulfur hexafluoride, plays a large part in Level 3 Structure and Bonding, in Chemistry. The bonding shape and | images by Wikimedia Commons
Having just come out of high school, I remember this chemical very well. Sulfur hexafluoride, plays a large part in Level 3 Structure and Bonding, in Chemistry. The bonding shape and angles make it a perfect candidate to display the octahedral shape etc.
Something that my chemistry professor neglected to mention was just how COOL this chemical is! Sulfur hexafluoride is much denser than air, and can act almost like a liquid, as seen in this video below where a boat made out of tinfoil floats on a layer of sulfur hexafluoride.
(suffering issues with the video showing, it will show if you view the post on the blog) |
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