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Risk management principles for trails and outdoor recreation
Outdoor, open lands pose inherent risks that can never be fully prevented. How can the risk be assessed and the user informed, to thereby reduce, but not eliminate, the risk?
From Hawaii Trail Analysis: Survey & Risk Management Data Profile: download complete document (95 pages, illustrations, tables; pdf format 4.0 mb)
Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, March, 2001
Natural hazards are ever-present, and in some circumstances, are an inescapable part of life (Smith, 1992). The spectrum of human response to natural hazards ranges from free will of public users having the ability to put themselves at risk, to closure of the attraction by the managing entity. Few would want all parks closed because of the risk of harm, yet at the same time, certain potential dangers must be acknowledged and addressed.
As the owner and manager of land on which the public is actively invited to recreate, the State of Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources has an obligation to promote public safety and a duty to warn. Whether this duty has been met depends upon many circumstances. However, reasonable care may include the following (Peterson & Hronek, 1992):
The development of a risk management program can be used as a means to increase safety while demonstrating the exercise of reasonable care. The fundamental purpose for risk management is to prevent risks from occurring, or reduce exposure to hazard, and may include conducting analyses for system safety, feature safety, liability and third party assumption of risk. It encompasses all of the actions taken to affect, mitigate, and control risk. Prior to elaboration on the elements of a risk management program, it will be helpful to define some basic terms.
A hazard is a potential threat to humans or an undesirable event that may occur (Smith, 1992; Lave, 1986). A falling branch over a well-used trail is a hazard, as well as a particularly slippery trail. As the term is used here, a hazard is defined as a source of danger or adverse consequences.
Any discussion of risk requires a definition from all parties involved in the planning process. This is not to argue validity, but to provide a reference point to explain our risk paradigms. In the most simplistic terms, risk is the probability of a hazard occurrence (Smith, 1992). It can also be defined as the likelihood per unit time of a hazard developing into an actual adverse effect causing loss, death, injury or illness to people (Okrent, 1986). The concept can be expressed symbolically as:
RISK = HAZARDS/SAFEGUARDS
This demonstrates that the risk might be diminished by increasing the safeguards, but may never, in theory, be reduced to zero unless the hazard itself or exposure to that hazard is eliminated. Risk may also be portrayed symbolically as
RISK = UNCERTAINTY + DAMAGE
This expresses risk as a measure of uncertainty as to whether damage will occur and the severity of the adverse effect, if it does occur (Waterstone, 1989).
Risk analysis is a policy tool that uses a knowledge base consisting of scientific information to aid in resolving decisions. It is typically defined as including three related elements: risk identification, risk estimation, and risk evaluation. The identification of a risk may target a candidate problem, for instance lack of user preparedness.
Risk estimation focuses on the probability of the risk event. Evaluation reviews the social consequences associated with the various magnitudes of risk events. As a concept, risk is typically viewed as being a function of two major factors: the probability that an event will occur and the consequence on the event exposure area (Petak & Anderson, 1982).
Factors which may assist in calculating the degree of risk are the nature of the hazard, the exposure potential, the characteristics of the exposed population, the likelihood of occurrence, the magnitude of exposures and consequences, and public values (Kolluru, 1996). Limitations on the use of risk analysis include inadequate data that can result in misspent resources and costly mistakes to lives and credibility (Rowe, 1989).
Risk assessment goes one step further than risk analysis by judging the importance of the consequences of a risk event. Thus, risk assessment necessarily involves making value judgments. The process may include the quantification of risk consequence levels, the estimation of human judgments about risk, and methodologies to integrate the two to evaluate tradeoffs among alternatives to reduce risk (Zimmerman, 1986).
Where risk assessment is the estimation and evaluation of risk, risk management involves the reduction or control of risk to an acceptable level, whether or not that level can be explicitly set (Rowe, 1989). In reality, these processes are not separable because the uncertainty in one affects the judgments made about the other and vice versa.
An essential part of risk management is determining what is an acceptable risk and deciding who is qualified to make this judgment. Some frameworks for making this determination include
A risk management plan is a proactive approach to managing risk. While it is virtually impossible to design a plan comprehensive enough to serve all purposes, there are significant benefits to developing a basic risk management program, including (Peterson & Hronek, 1992):
People make decisions and take actions based on their personal perception of risk, rather than on some objectively derived measure of threat. The management of environmental risks requires an understanding that often the major part of the problem will result from a difference between perceived and actual risks. The scientific, engineering and business facts of a situation may have little to do with the concerned public's perception of risks. As a result, most risk management plans seek to increase public awareness to hazards as a major activity of the overall program (Petak & Anderson, 1982).
Many types of recreation include the user's perception of risk as a vital element. Climbing, surfing, scuba diving, and other, sometimes more passive, recreational pursuits have elements of risk that may make the recreation more stimulating. While the risk factor of each activity may be evident, it must also be manageable. Use (or non-use) of the proper equipment is one aspect of the total risk.
Because of the variety of users, risk perception has no single replicable outcome; risk means different things to different people because each person holds a unique view of the environment and of environmental risk. Individuals may have a strong but unjustified sense of immunity to hazards and activities and tend to minimize the probability of bad outcomes (Douglas, 1985).
To compound the issue, when risk is recognized, the response to risk is also highly individual (Smith, 1992).
Therefore, gathering information on the users of an area is useful in developing a risk management plan. The advance knowledge of the users about the condition of the park or trail, the safety equipment they bring, the level of experience they have, and the attentiveness to signs are all elements which can provide information on their risk perception. Moreover, reviewing the physical conditions of the park or trail gives context to the responses of the users.
From Hawaii Trail Analysis Survey & Risk Management Data Profile: download complete document (95 pages, illustrations, tables; pdf format 4.0 mb)
Also see "The Design and Placement of Warning Signs on Improved Public Lands" (pdf 256 kb): Legal definitions and standards for signs that limit public liability for trail-related hazards while warning users in a clear and consistent manner.
Need trail skills and education? Do you provide training? Join the National Trails Training Partnership!
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Updated April 16, 2007 | 3.000196 |
The UK Chief Medical Officer is being forced to educate medical health professionals about the importance of Vitamin D supplementation after Vitamin D deficiency has been blamed for the recent deaths of at least 2 children in the UK. BBC news coverage has highlighted that Vitamin D deficiency is considered to be ‘a contributing’ factor in the deaths of a further 30 children. Given that the recommendation is for a mere 400 IU (10 mcg) for under 5’s and some adults, is it a case of too little too late? The UK is lagging behind the USA and Canada in recommending vulnerable groups to supplement with Vitamin D, so it’s no surprise we’re seeing such acute problems.
Worldwide, cases of rickets have been rising for sometime, with risks being even greater for dark-skinned people or those who habitually cover their bodies for religious reasons, given that vitamin D production in such people is compromised. UK orthopaedic clinics have been reporting at least one serious case per month. But this represents the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in the obviously wider context of less acute, but still serious conditions that can arise from Vitamin D deficiency and related hypocalcaemia (low blood calcium levels). Hypocalcaemia can also cause seizures, and breathing difficulties.
Government reports tend to only focus on the vitamin D/calcium link. However, vitamin D experts such as Reinhold Veith PhD and Michael Holick MD have been researching the huge costs to society of ignoring much more concerted action on vitamin D and health for literally decades! Vitamin D deficiency is also linked to a plethora of other health problems including, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, high blood pressure, diabetes, autoimmune problems, obesity and some cancers.
Blood levels of Vitamin D are naturally maintained by exposure of the skin to sunlight. This means that increasing sun avoidance (and high-SPF sunscreens) is a huge factor in declining blood levels of Vitamin D. Widespread media warnings, usually promoted by skin cancer specialists or sunscreen companies, have caused many to literally fear the sun. But it’s crucial to recognise that short (15-20 minute) exposures (of about 80% of the body area) that don’t burn the skin are vitally important to health. Many have mistakenly learned to believe that it’s the sun exposure itself, rather than the act of getting sunburned, that causes skin cancer.
Recommending regular bouts of sun exposure is of course sensible during the summer months, but in temperate latitudes, the angle of the sun is just too low to generate any significant vitamin D production in the skin, even if you felt the desire to expose yourself!
UK Government guidelines recommend taking 400 IU per day of Vitamin D for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and for children between the age of 6 months and five years old, who are not already obtaining supplemental vitamin D from formula milk. Whilst 400 IU is an appropriate dose for an infant, it doesn’t go anywhere near what an older child or adult would need. In terms of comparison, a caucasian sitting in the sun with arms and legs exposed for 20 mins would make the equivalent of around 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 if taken orally. It’s been well documented that in the absence of any sun exposure, at least 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day is necessary to maintain healthy levels in the blood. Carol Wagner MD advocates at least 100 mcg (4,000 IU) daily for all pregnant woman, a level that many interested in preventative healthcare take on a daily basis. See Vitamin D Council recommendations for different population groups.
A survey conducted by the UK Feeding for Life Foundation (FfLF), shows just how big the gap is between the published research and practice. When the report was published in October 2011, 51% of healthcare professionals were either not sure or were unaware of the supplementation recommendations, while 73% agreed they didn’t have enough training about the benefits of supplementation. Let’s hope the widespread media reports of recent days have reached more healthcare professionals. We are by no means out of the woods here in the UK!
Sadly, the recommendations include no advice on the best form of the vitamin to take. Evidence shows that vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol ), the form that is made naturally in the skin and found in good quality supplements, is consistently superior in its effect as compared with vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol ). Ergocalciferol is commonly included in prescription medicines or inferior supplements. The difference in the two forms was recently confirmed in a meta-analysis (study of studies).
The Feeding for Life Foundation tells us that 74% of UK parents are also unaware of the Health Department’s recommendations for vitamin D supplementation. Not surprising when so much has been spent on the mass media misinformation campaigns about food supplements. It’s hammered home that vitamin supplements are ‘dangerous’ and unnecessary as you can get all you need from a balanced diet. Then suddenly, parents find out that they should have been supplementing with vitamin D all along.
In the 21st century, with everything that has been learned about the seminal importance of vitamin D, it is criminally negligent that the deaths of these children and the distress suffered by their families could have been prevented by something as simple as taking a daily vitamin D3 supplement. Lesson learned? Time will tell. | 3.036576 |
|President Richard Nixon Announced He Would Resign From Office|
In his 1972 bid for a second term in office, Nixon defeated Democratic candidate George McGovern by one of the widest margins on record. Within a few months, his administration was embattled over the so-called "Watergate" scandal, stemming from a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 campaign. The break-in was traced to officials of the Committee to Re-elect the President.
A number of administration officials resigned; some were later convicted of offenses connected with efforts to cover up the affair. Nixon denied any personal involvement, but the courts forced him to yield tape recordings which indicated that he had, in fact, tried to divert the investigation. As a result of unrelated scandals in Maryland, Vice President Spiro T.
Agnew resigned in 1973. Nixon nominated, and Congress approved, House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford as Vice President. Faced with what seemed almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign the next day to begin "that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America."
|Richard Nixon delivering the "V" sign upon his final departure from the White House August 9, 1974|
|ŠAvStop Online Magazine Contact Us Return To News| | 3.116352 |
The "Index" unit of measure relates the value of a variable (or group of variables) to a base level. The base level is set so that the index produces results that are easy to understand and compare. The base level will always be the first period you selected.
The formula for calculating an index is as follows:
x1=(dv1/dv1)*100 = 100
x1 = index of first year selected, x2 = index of second year ...
dv1 = datavalue for first year selected, dv2 = datavalue for second year ... | 3.172783 |
March 3, 2009 2 Comments
Miles from shore in the open Caribbean Sea, cruise ships are dumping ground-up glass, rags and cardboard packaging. But vessels in other waters such as the Baltic and North seas are prohibited from throwing any solid waste overboard other than food scraps.
The difference? Many countries with coastlines on the world’s most fragile seas abide by a United Nations dumping ban that requires them to treat ship-generated garbage on land.
Caribbean islands, however, have yet to adopt the ban, saying they simply don’t have the capacity to treat ship garbage on shore. They also fear the ban could push ships to dock in less-regulated ports of call.
“We don’t have space to take nothing from nobody,” said Travis Johnson, assistant harbor master in Saba, an island of 1,500 people that is building a new pier to accommodate larger cruise ships.
The U.N.’s International Maritime Organization outlawed dumping in 1993 for the Caribbean, a largely enclosed area where the string of islands blocks currents that would flush waste into the Atlantic Ocean. It will not take effect, however, until enough of the surrounding nations report their capacity for treating trash from cruise ships — information that the vast majority of nations so far have withheld.
The United Nations created the ban to protect areas that are vulnerable because of heavy ship traffic or sensitive ecology. It has already taken effect in the Antarctic, the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the Persian Gulf and is due to come into force in the Mediterranean in May.
Environmentalists say debris dumped in the ocean can entangle sea creatures, damage water quality and alter ecosystems by providing habitats for opportunistic organisms. Not enforcing the ban also has its consequences for tourism. Some trash dumped in the ocean washes ashore with the winds and currents, fouling the beaches. In the Cayman Islands, the government has traced milk cartons on shore to a passing cruise ship.
“If you just dump this out at sea, eventually it gets back up on land,” said Jeff Ramos, a Curacao-based U.S. Coast Guard officer.
In the Mediterranean, environmental officials say, coastal nations are highly aware of marine litter and did not resist the ban. Under the current Caribbean regulations, ships can begin dumping garbage, including metal, glass and paper, three miles from shore as long as it is ground to less than an inch. Almost anything but plastic can be dumped beyond 25 miles.
The ban, if approved, would outlaw discharging of any solid waste at any distance except for food, which could still be dumped three miles from shore. The islands scattered across the Caribbean have struggled to establish a common policy because when it comes to the cruise industry, they see themselves as competitors.
Cruise-ship arrivals are major economic events, with passengers spending roughly $1.5 billion annually in Caribbean ports. Governments are wary of driving away ships that might find fewer requirements or lower fees elsewhere.
In one notorious example, Carnival Cruise Line withdrew from Grenada in 1999 amid a dispute over $1.50-a-head tax to pay for a new landfill.
“Countries haven’t forgotten that,” said Christopher Corbin, a Jamaica-based officer with the United Nations Environmental Program. “They are worried that they will get played off against each other.” | 3.457069 |
Huntington's Disease (HD)
Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited genetic disease that destroys motor neurons that are located in the areas of the brain that govern movement. HD affects 15,000 to 30,000 people in the U.S. Symptoms usually begin to appear in early to mid-adulthood and include involuntary movements of the limbs or facial muscles, problems with coordination, cognitive difficulties, and depression. The disease progresses and usually leads to death over 15 or 20 years.
While certain drugs are now used to treat some of the symptoms of Huntington's, there is no drug treatment for the underlying disease. CoQ10 is a nutritional supplement that plays a role in the function of mitochondria, the energy factories of human cells. CoQ10 is also an anti-oxidant, helping soak up compounds known as free radicals that do damage to DNA and other proteins in our body.
Research shows that both damage from free radicals and a reduced supply of cellular energy may contribute to Huntington's. A pilot study conducted by Beal and associates showed that after two or more months of CoQ10 supplementation (360 mg per day), 83% of patients showed significant improvements in biochemical markers of energy production.
In 1997, a multi-center clinical trial began comparing CoQ10 and the drug Remacemide, each at 600 mg per day, in early stage Huntington's disease. Preliminary media reports indicate that the drug Remacemide (a glutamate blocker) had no effect on the decline in Total Functional Capacity of Huntington's Disease patients, and was found to confer no clinical benefit. However, CoQ10 slowed the decline by 13%, and also slowed decline on the HD Independence Scale by 17%. Reports indicate that these results showed a trend toward significance but are regarded as inconclusive. The Huntington Study Group, which organized the study, hopes to conduct a larger trial in order to determine whether CoQ10 therapy does significantly reduce the rate of decline in the early stages of the disease.
What is CoQ10?
CoQ10 is an antioxidant (vitamin), manufactured in the human body, and also present in small amounts in some foods -- unsaturated oils, fish, meats and nuts. As we age, we produce less CoQ10; and it would be difficult to get a significant amount from foods. It plays a role in the function of mitochondria, the energy factories of human cells. CoQ10 helps "soak up" compounds known as free radicals that do damage to DNA and other proteins in our body.
Medications and CoQ10 - Interactions
Some medications may interfere with the action of CoQ10 or perhaps decrease its production in the body. Such medications include "statins", some diabetes drugs, chemotherapy drugs and other medications. Many doctors now routinely prescribe supplements of CoQ10 for their patients who are taking cholesterol-lowering statins including lovastatin (Mevacor), simvastatin (Zocor), and pravastatin (Pravachol), and the dietary supplement Cholestin.
Persons using some oral diabetes drugs (glyburide [Diabeta, Glynase, Micronase], phenformin, and tolazamide) should speak with their doctors regarding CoQ10, which may lower blood sugar. It's possible that beta-blockers (propranolol [Inderal], metoprolol [Lopressor, Toprol], and alprenolol), phenothiazines, tricyclic antidepressants, methyldopa, hydrochlorothiazide, clonidine, and hydralazine may create a need for CoQ10, but this is not firmly established.
And there is a single report that CoQ10 interfered with the medication warfarin (Coumadin), an anticoagulant. People using warfarin should not take CoQ10 without first consulting their physician.
How much CoQ10 is safe to take?
The typical recommended dosage of CoQ10 based on various past studies is 30 to 300 mg daily; however, recent studies have used amounts of up to 1200 mg per day. Do not take such a large amount without consulting your doctor. If you do take supplements, it's best to take these in divided doses, two or three times a day, rather than all at once.
What's the best form to use?
CoQ10 comes in hard capsule or soft-gel form. Which ever form you take it is important to remember that CoQ10 is fat soluble--that means it should be taken with a small amount of fat to help it get absorbed into the body and be most effective. Vitamin E may also enhance the absorption of CoQ10 (30 IU vitamin E is a good amount to take). It appears that CoQ10 and vitamin E work synergistically (better together than separately).
There appears to be none to few adverse effects associated with the usual amounts used in studies -- 30 to 300 mg per day. A very small percentage have some rare reported side effects including minor stomach upset, minimal loss of appetite, nausea, diarrhea. People taking CoQ10 late at night have reported insomnia.
Studies on the safety of CoQ10 have not been conducted on women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, or on children, and these individuals should not use CoQ10 prior to consulting with their physician.
**Although CoQ10 is definitely not a cure, studies such as these suggest how it may be beneficial to individuals with CHF and other heart ailments. However, as always, please consult your physician prior to starting any treatment plan.
Call Toll Free (888) 298-7363 | 3.297062 |
Gather the parts and follow the basic instructions and you can have a robot capable of following moving objects! With basic coding experience, you can also change the distance at which the robot senses moving objects or the speed the robot moves.
In order to do this project, a basic robot must be built that runs off of two 3-wire VEX servos. A good robot to build is the VEX Squarebot. Instructions for building this can be found under the Files section of this project or with any VEX robotics kit.
Step #1: Attaching the Ultrasonic SensorsNext
- Attach the ultrasonic sensors to the front of the robot side by side
- Use two screws per ultrasonic sensor, putting nuts on the back to hold the sensor onto the robot
- Use an allen wrench to spin the screws in
- Make sure the ultrasonic sensors are facing up with the VEX lettering on the bottom
- By adjusting the distance between the sensors, you can adjust how big of an object the robot will follow (a larger distance follows a larger object)
Step #2: Attaching Electrical ComponentsNext
- Attach the following components to the robot, holding them down securely:
- breadboard, Arduino, 6 AA Battery Holder, 1 9 Volt Battery
- Tape can be used to hold these components to the robot
- Place the Arduino and Breadboard next to each other to allow for wiring between them
- For further guidance, see the StalkerBot_Diagram.pdf file in the Files section
Step #3: WiringNext
- The next step is wiring! Follow the wiring instructions exactly to get a functional robot.
- Using the StalkerBot_Circuit.pdf file as a reference (available in the Files section), wire each component to the Arduino through the breadboard.
- Push the tinned ends of the wires (known as jumper wires) into the specified pinhole
Step #4: ProgrammingNext
- Program the finished robot using the code provided in the Downloads section called "StalkerBot_Code.pdf"
- Create a new Arduino program by going to "File" "New" in the Arduino application
- Copy the StalkerBot_Code into the new Arduino program
- Once the code has been moved to Arduino, connect a USB cable from the computer to the Arduino.
- Click the upload button in the Arduino window to upload the code to the robot
- be careful: the robot will start running the code as soon as it is uploaded
Step #5: The StalkerBot!
- The robot is now ready to use!
- To operate the robot without having a USB connection with the computer, connect the 9 Volt battery to the Arduino power input
After completing this project, you will now have a functioning stalker 'bot! To adjust the distance that it senses objects from, edit the inch values in the Robot Control if loops in the program. | 3.424772 |
With the potential for stronger and more frequent hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, getting a clearer picture of what climate change could bring is critical in assessing risk and planning storm protection.
That's what a new study, financed in part by the National Science Foundation, aims to provide. Climatologists will use complex computer models to recreate past weather patterns in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf and estimates of future greenhouse gas production to make predictions about storm intensity and frequency.
Greg Holland, the study's lead scientist and a climatologist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said that new supercomputers allow refined modeling techniques that provide "unprecedented capability to resolve the relatively complicated details of tropical cyclones."
The results of the study could be used to determine everything from the design of oil production equipment to future insurance rates, and that's reflected in the financial backing for this research. Great Britain's Willis Research Network, which is financed by an international reinsurance agency, and the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, a nonprofit consortium of energy companies, are supporters. So is the U.S. Department of Energy.
The study also could be used to help determine risk in decisions about things like building codes and in the bigger picture of flood protection systems. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ought to look to this study's findings as it designs and builds levees and other structures.
The study also could help make the argument for providing the New Orleans area with protection from the strongest storms, so-called Category 5 protection.
If the future brings stronger, more frequent storms, we must be ready. | 3.528719 |
One of the persistent fears of our modern era is that cell phone radiation may cause brain tumors. But here’s some good news: A team of researchers in northern Europe, however, has now combed through three decades of cancer registries and found no increase in the rate of brain tumors in the five to 10 years following widespread cell phone adoption in that region [Scientific American]. The researchers, from the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen, studied 20 to 79 year old men and women from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and paid special attention to cancer rates during the cell phone boom of the mid-1990s. The researchers published their analysis in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Overall the study found that cancer rates were unchanged from the period before mobile phones were widely used. The study was based on 59,684 brain tumour cases diagnosed over 30 years from 1974 to 2003 among 16 million adults. During this time, the incidence rate of cancers known as gliomas increased gradually by 0.5% per year among men and by 0.2% per year among women. For cancers known as meningioma, the incidence rate increased by 0.8% among men and, after the early 1990′s, by 3.8% among women [BBC News]. The researchers say the larger meningioma increase in women is due to the greater age of the women in this group.
Despite finding no increased risk for 10 years of cell phone use in Nordic countries, researchers say the cell phone-cancer issue is far from settled. A lack of correlation in these countries or elsewhere … doesn’t clear the air of doubt—even in the researchers’ minds. “The scientific literature is unsettled right now about the association between mobile phones and brain tumors,” [Scientific American] says Isabelle Deltour, the study’s lead author. Deltour says much of the uncertainty is due to the lack of a general understanding about brain tumors and the fact that some tumors take longer than 10 years to develop. However, the work will add to a growing body of knowledge as researchers continue to investigate any potential link between cell phones and cancer. A long-term international analysis known as INTERPHONE is due out soon and will add even more data to the investigation.
AT&T and Verizon Wireless Take Their Cat Fight to Court
Cancer Doctor Issues a Warning About Cell Phones, and Causes Panic
Microscope-Cell Phone Combo Could Spot Disease in Developing World
Image: flickr / JoshuaDavisPhotography.COM | 3.386419 |
You know this is a Protestant country, and the Catholics and Jews are here under sufferance."
Introduction: Over the past months I have described the development of anti-Judaism in Christian theology and its transformation into secular antisemitism with the 18th century Enlightenment. In the 19th century secular antisemitism quickly evolved into a political movement with an agenda aimed at excluding Jews from civil society and antisemitic parties appeared throughout the West. In Germany-Austria the political agenda changed from social exclusion to physical extermination with the goal of achieving a final solution to the West’s Jewish Problem. This week we turn to the evolution of political antisemitism in the country with the largest surviving post-Holocaust Jewish Diaspora population, the United States.
As in Europe, organized political antisemitism also appeared in the United States in the 19th century. And, as in Europe, a movement to deny Jews legal and social rights did not just appear: it emerged from an already present antisemitic culture.
The first Jews
to set foot in the New World arrived with Christopher Columbus in 1492
. In 1584 Joachim Gaunse, a Jewish metallurgist who accompanied Sir Walter Raleigh to the Virginia territory, was threatened with blasphemy
and forced to return to England. “In 1647
, the Portuguese authorities arrested Isaac de Castro for teaching Jewish rites and customs in Portuguese controlled Brazil and sent him back to Portugal where the Inquisition sentenced him to death and burned him at the stake.” Seven years later twenty-three Jewish refugees fled Portuguese Brazil for the more tolerant Dutch New Amsterdam (later renamed New York under the British) where they were barred entry by the colony’s Director General, Peter Stuyvesant. “The Jews who have arrived,” he wrote
the directors of the Dutch West India Company, “would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with Christians)… [we ask that] that the deceitful race -- such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ -- be not allowed to further infect
and trouble this new colony…” The Company apparently felt the Jew’s “customary usury and deceitful trading” would be of value and ordered Stuyvesant to let them stay. As for French colonial areas, the Jews were barred until 1759; and the Spanish, like the Portuguese, planted the Inquisition in the New World and persecuted and executed
their “suspect” Conversos
, Catholics of Jewish descent.
While the 1789 US Constitution, following Enlightenment principles, protected citizen rights regardless of religion, the first acts of “political” antisemitism came in the form of “states rights,” which allowed states to make local laws, including a state’s relations with Jews. Anti-Jewish legislation would only be rescinded in North Carolina in 1869, while New Hampshire finally relented and allowed “non-Protestants” to hold state office in 1887. Sabbath laws, forbidding commerce on Sunday, was another form of legal antisemitism. Such discriminatory laws remained on the books well into the twentieth century. Their antisemitic intent was clearly described when, “in the 1855 California assembly debate
on the topic, the speaker of the house argued that Jews ‘ought to respect the laws and opinions of the majority.’”
As for “popular antisemitism,” attitudes held by individuals: “when a Jew rose to national prominence
, he would always be open to attacks based upon his Judaism.” Mordecai Noah, a diplomat to Tunis from 1813-15, was recalled from his post having been denounced as an “enemy of Christ.” And, “Uriah Phillips Levy, then the only Jewish officer in the U. S. Navy, was dropped from the officer list in 1855… after six courts martial, two dismissals, and the killing of one opponent in a duel, all over slurs against his Judaism.”
Political antisemitism: Social stress is generally associated with a rise in antisemitism. This was also true during the Long Depression of 1873 to 1896. The period gave rise to the emergence of populist political parties, most of which were short-lived. With the appearance of the Populist, or Peoples Party, things changed and antisemitism entered American party politics.
During the presidential election of 1896 no “political party
was above using anti-Semitism, especially to appeal to Christian constituents, but it was the Populist Party who used anti-Semitism most distinctively.”
Watson on a 1904 People's Party campaign poster.
Tom Watson, who will reappear when we discuss the lynching of Leo Frank, was named vice presidential choice on the 1896 Populist Party presidential ticket and, in 1904, the party’s choice for president. The "Populists strengthened their cause by using religious metaphors to link money with a Jewish conspiracy [giving license to mainline parties to do the same]. Thus in 1896 Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, speaking in an idiom Protestant Fundamentalists were fully conversant with, could easily intersperse biblical imagery with economic necessity when he thundered, `You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.' The antisemitism evoked by the metaphor of the crucifixion was powerful and appealed to rural Protestants who possessed a similar religious and cultural heritage with other Americans in the South and the West," (Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America
, p.49-50). But when standing before a Jewish audience Bryan temporized, "We are not attacking a race, we are attacking greed and avarice, which know neither race nor religion. I do not know of any class of our people who, by reason of their history, can better sympathize with the struggling masses in this campaign than can the Hebrew race," from The First Battle
By the twentieth century racist antisemitism was even more open and popular, appearing in vaudeville, on the stage and even in the movies. In 1913, amidst a heated antisemitic atmosphere, an innocent Leo Frank was convicted of murder and, when the governor commuted his sentence, was dragged from his cell and lynched. One result of the lynching was the decision by B’nai Brith, of which Frank was regional director, to form the Anti-defamation League. Another was the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. By the 1920’s Henry Ford was distributing his Dearborn Independent by mail and in Ford Motor dealerships across the country. Its main contribution to the spread of antisemitism was publication, under the banner of the International Jew, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
. American antisemitism was equal to that taking hold in Europe, with Jews discriminated against in housing, employment and recreation.
A 1934 edition by the Patriotic Publishing Company of Chicago
Parties specifically targeting Jews proliferated in the years leading up to the Second World War. “The era gave rise
to domestic anti-Jewish bigots, such as Father Charles Coughlin, Gerald L. K. Smith and William Dudley Pelley, the leader of the Silver Shirts. It also witnessed the rise of the German-American Bund, led by Fritz Kuhn, and the notorious anti-Jewish speech by the aviator and US hero Charles A. Lindbergh to an America First Committee rally. Especially influential in the 1930s was Father Coughlin, a Catholic priest whose weekly radio broadcasts containing an openly antisemitic message reached millions. Coughlin's campaign paved the way for isolationist organizations, such as the America First Committee, to attract antisemites to their banners.”
Other writings in this Series:
4. From anti-Judaism to antisemitism: The Age of Reason
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What is the Future of Microwave Technology in Diagnostic Imaging?
Microwave imaging has been shown reliable in detecting breast tumors
One area we are exploring is microwave technology: the same basic technology used in microwave ovens can be used to create an image of breast tissue. By sending very low levels (1,000 times less than a cell phone) of microwave energy through tissue, researchers can form a three-dimensional image. These images capture the dielectric properties -- electrical conductivity and permittivity (electrical resistance) -- of the tissue, which translates into detecting anomalies, such as tumors or other aberrations.
Paul Meaney, a professor at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, has been working on microwave engineering for more than 15 years, primarily with Keith Paulsen, the co-director of the CIR, and also the Robert A. Pritzker Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering; professor of radiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth; and director of the Dartmouth Advanced Imaging Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Their work together has revealed that microwave imaging is not just for soft tissue, and it's not just for detecting tumors. They have determined that microwave technology can produce images of bones that correlate to other more commonly used techniques that measure bone density, like X-ray, ultrasound, or CT. Their work was published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, and it's the first study to use microwave technology to get images of the calcaneus bone, or heel, in humans.
The heel region is comparable to the allotted breast size. With some minor modifications to the microwave image system Dartmouth scientists constructed to study breasts, they were able to move from investigating soft tissue to looking at heel bones.
Can Microwave technology work for hips or spine? They start with the heel.
Meaney, the lead author on the research paper, explains that the calcaneus is comprised primarily of trabecular bone, "which means it has a honeycomb-like structure with a thin outer coating of cortical bone. Its structure and weight-bearing characteristics are similar to the hip and spine, but it's easier to get a picture of as it's small and not near any vital organs."
Could this be used to predict or detect hip fractures?
"This is a pilot study," says Meaney. "It helps us understand if microwave technology works in this way, and it did." This could help doctors gauge whether an elderly patient, for example, is susceptible to similar broken bones, like the hip bone.
Meaney says, "The microwave properties seemed to track well with the X-ray properties. But since this study only included two people, it's difficult to make strong conclusions. We think they are encouraging findings, though, and enough evidence to keep looking into it."
Meaney and Paulsen worked on this study with Douglas Goodwin, a radiologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center; fellow engineers Amir Golnabi, Tian Zhou, and Matthew Pallone at the Thayer School of Engineering, and Gregory Burke, formerly with the radiology department at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, now with the US ARMY ARDEC in Picatinny, NJ.
Learn about how you can help advance medicine by participating in clinical research at Norris Cotton Cancer Center: http://cancer.dartmouth.edu/pf/clinical_trials_care.html or call 1 (800) 639-6918 to speak with a cancer research nurse.
Watch this short video interview with Keith Paulsen to learn more about Dartmouth's research into advanced imaging, like microwave technology, for breast cancer.
This work was supported by NIH/NCI grant # P01-CA080139.
December 10, 2012
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Angela Stanford is a graduate student in the historical administration program at Eastern Illinois University. She was recently inducted into the Epsilon Mu Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta. This paper was written for Dr. Terry Barnhart’s 20th Century US Cultural History Class in the fall of 2001.
“The Price Asked and the Price Paid By Soldiers in Vietnam”
By: Angela Stanford
“Seriously, though, Pete, please take care of yourself and don’t be a hero. I don’t need a Medal of Honor winner. I need a son. Love, Mom”
How many other mothers shared the same thoughts as First Lieutenant Peter Mahoney’s mother as they wrote to their own sons stationed in Vietnam? How many nervously answered the telephone or read through the mail worried that it may bring news of their child’s death overseas? Roughly 60,000 parents of American soldiers realized their worst fears during the Vietnam War;losing their children. Thousands more mothers and fathers received their sons back, if they were lucky, physically intact, while others, though alive, returned to their families with bodies full of holes and scars and perhaps missing extremities. Nearly all of these men carried psychological scars. Most civilians were ill-prepared to receive these men back into their homes, and into society as a whole, because of the emotional damage they had sustained as soldiers.
The men who came home were not the same men who had gone away. The vets knew they were different and each sought understanding, but found few who cared to listen. Vietnam had become a dirty war, something immoral and wrong, and those who participated in it were viewed by many at home as disgraceful and undeserving of respect. Throughout the next several pages, the reader will see the extent to which soldiers suffered during their tours of duty, and how that was compounded by their return to the States. These experiences helped create some of the anger, pain, and controversy that still surround the Vietnam War. One will also see how and why some soldiers became involved in antiwar protests themselves.
United States’ involvement in affairs in the small Asian country of Vietnam began in the 1940s. By the end of Eisenhower’s presidential term, roughly 5,000 men were stationed in the country. By 1968, a critical and controversial year in the war during which Lyndon Johnson was president, that number had skyrocketed to over 500,000.
Vietnam was a different kind of war in a number of ways. Perhaps most obviously, it was the first war fought under the watchful eye of the world via television news cameras and reporters. People at home could keep up on the current happenings overseas, and some knew as much about military positions, strategies, and body counts as they did about the daily weather forecast and the hometown news. This war differed also in that the type of combat required differed completely from that of World War II. Soldiers fighting in the latter had had clearly defined combat lines, knew who the enemy was, and knew why they were involved in the war. The soldiers in Vietnam were fighting under unfamiliar conditions in a strange land that had different weather patterns and geographical features. Vietnamese civilians were sometimes as much the enemy as a soldier in uniform, and combat lines simply depended on the day. They saw “unrelieved combat,” and there were no fixed goals to work toward. Victories were measured by greatly distorted body counts—if a United States soldier found a dead Vietcong who had a gun, he was credited with six kills, one for the body, five for the gun.
One veteran described the overall situation well: “The nights were worst of all…there’s absolutely no lights; it’s kind of a very alone experience. It’s like tellin’ you to go out and fight Charley with a slingshot, and you know that the only friendly ground is the piece you’re standing on that very moment.” Although the majority of veterans returning home made proper adjustments and led productive lives after the war, some veterans did suffer from serious emotional distress as a result of the constant fear, uncertainty, and confusion they faced daily when in the bush. Coming back to the “world” proved difficult for them after having been so isolated and constantly under such stress, and society was unable to understand the behavior they witnessed. Support for veterans stood in lowly comparison to that which World War II veterans received upon their return home.
Many soldiers were proud to be serving their country in whatever way requested. In a letter home, Sp/4 Peter H. Roepcke, from Glendale, New York, explained, “Sure I want to be home with you and have all the things we dream about. But yet being here makes a man feel proud of himself—it shows him that he is a man. Do you understand?” Another man, PFC John Louis Brown, wrote to his sister shortly after missing her wedding due to his tour of duty in Vietnam. He, of course, would rather have been part of the event, in the presence of family and friends, and enjoying a time of celebration and joy, but instead he was fighting a war halfway around the world. In this particular letter, PFC Brown gives a rather noble reason for being in Vietnam.
I have a far greater task at hand that will ensure that not only my sister, but everybody’s sisters can get married in the church of her choice, have children, and instruct them in the religion of their parents, send them to the school of their choice. Until this is done for the whole world, brothers like me can’t possibly be at their sister’s wedding.
The Vietnam War, one can argue, was often misunderstood by those not stationed there. The confusion of the war, the blurred enemy lines, the constant uncertainty of enemy identity, and the always-present threat of death was enough to defeat even the strongest men, and many did succumb to the terrors of the Vietnamese jungle. The average age of the Vietnam veteran was between 19 and 20. They were still children, not men prepared to fight a war such as this. They were “plucked from city streets, farms, and small towns, often possessing only a high school education and little experience of the world.” The government had told the public that the war was to help the people of Vietnam, to help them resist the communist forces, and to help educate them in better agricultural practices so they could sustain themselves. The young men joining the ranks of the U.S. military had no reason to question their superiors. “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” Sp/4 Robert Devlin said confidently in a letter home. Not long into soldiers’ tours, though, most realized they had become a part of something much bigger and more complicated than they had expected.
A lack of understanding about the purpose of the war and disagreement with those in authority over them was common among men stationed in Vietnam throughout the duration of the war, but especially during the last several years. Some men interviewed after Vietnam said that had they known what Vietnam was really all about, they never would have enlisted in the first place, or at the very least would have taken on a shorter term. Others noted that the South Vietnamese, whom United States soldiers were instructed to protect and help, did not want American troops there at all. Some soldiers felt that the Army’s intent was good and they were proud to be serving, despite having some reservations and questions. A Marine veteran, Paul Atwood, believed
There’s nothing wrong with love of country, but I get afraid of where that feeling leads….It was clear to me that the Vietnam veteran was being scapegoated for the war, that collectively the United States had called upon vets to go and do something and then had turned its back on them afterwards.
Feeling that their own country abandoned them devastated many soldiers.
The feeling of abandonment was very common and evident in the many letters sent home. Letters kept soldiers connected to the world back home, to their families, and to anything that resembled the reality that no longer existed for them in the jungle. Corporal John Houghton wrote to the mother of a fallen friend and said this:
We’re all in desperate need of love….Some nights I don’t sleep. I can’t stand being alone at night. The guns don’t bother me—I can’t hear them anymore. I want to hold my head between my hands and run screaming away from here.
Holidays and birthdays were especially difficult for the men, and certainly for the families left at home. No one felt the separation and hopelessness quite as acutely as the men in Southeast Asia.
In war, killing in the name of duty became almost as ritualistic for some as putting on a pair of boots, and Vietnam was certainly no different.
The frightening thing about it all is that it is so very easy to kill in war. There’s no remorse, no theatrical ‘washing of the hands’ to get rid of nonexistent blood, not even any regrets.
Seeing killing and destruction from both sides desensitized men to the loss of life that they caused. “Men who do not expect to receive mercy eventually lose their inclination to grant it,” remembered one veteran.
Some soldiers, of course, never developed a mind for killing. They had a difficult time accepting the brutality of it.
After a firefight I felt drained and empty, it seemed pointless. Our battles were never decisive and tomorrow always came with the welcome of surviving one day only to have to face another.
Another man spoke about the constant fear everyone felt.
The ever-present reality of death invaded men’s minds and went with them to the battle ground and did not leave them when they were lucky enough to get some sleep. Faces of fallen friends or mutilated bodies of the enemy were continuous images. Sp/5 Richard Cantale had to identify a man brought in from the field, and it was only after finding the man’s dog tags that Cantale was able to do so. It was the body of his friend Rankin.
After I left the place, I sat down and cried. I couldn’t stop it. I don’t think I ever cried so much in my life. I can still see his face now. I will never forget it.
Young men saw blood and fear everyday, but had no idea how to deal with it. Many had not yet lived themselves, and gained experiences needed to begin to understand these types of things. Most, as mentioned before, were young, in their late teens and freshly out of high school. War for them had only been glory stories from World War II veterans. Despite these horrendous conditions, young men formed friendships within their ranks, and it killed them each time one was lost to the enemy. The following quote from one veteran who stood over a dying man from his patrol is especially poignant.
It ran through my mind for a moment, “Did his mother feel something, did his father feel something, did anybody? Was she reaching for a can of peas in the supermarket and feel a tug or a jolt and not know what it was? Does anybody close to him know that he just died?”
The prospect of returning home excited and relieved men after having been away for so long, but it also terrified many of them. Most had read the accounts of antiwar protestors standing in airport terminals greeting returning veterans by spitting on them. They had heard stories about vets who had gone home before them and were called baby killers. Many had received letters from wives and other family members telling them they could not wait to have them home so all their lives could get back to normal. What was normal now, though? These men had fought invisible enemies and the elements for months, and had been basically isolated entirely from home, from “the world,” and now they were expected to just fall back into their place in society. “When your time gets near, it sort of scares you because you know in your heart that you’re not like the people back home. It’s a funny feeling to be afraid to go home.” Some men worried about whether or not their own families would want to hear their war stories, and if they did have an opportunity to share them, would those at home understand? What would loved ones think of their sons after learning of some of the horrible things they had participated in? “I’m pretty proud of my last year…but they mean very little to anyone outside that group of Americans who have been over here and who have been through it.”
Most often, soldiers returning to the United States were flown here alone or in small numbers, and many of them were simply left at the airports with their families. There was no time to decompress, to unlearn the ways of living that had been normal for however long they had been gone. There were also no welcoming committees at airports, no big town parades celebrating their return, and no songs thanking all of those dedicated men who had given so much. The few who still had time to serve after being released from service in Vietnam went to bases in the States and finished their terms. There they had time to calm down, think out what had just happened, and come to terms with as much of it as possible. One can argue they readjusted to civilian life easier than did their counterparts who returned to their families directly after being discharged.
Stereotypes about the Vietnam veteran abounded throughout the Sixties and into the Seventies as men returned home. Many people viewed these new veterans as crazed killers who were on drugs, mentally unstable, and incapable of loving. Veterans were hard pressed to find sympathetic ears and often turned to each other and to psychiatrists in order to cope. Others turned to the world for comfort. “Nights I went to local bars, trying for a fast pickup and lay, dating every chance I could, and spending all my money…I had trouble sleeping.”
Veterans’ families often found it too difficult to cope with stories of war in Vietnam and they chose to ignore that anything had happened. They asked sons and husbands not to discuss their time in the bush, and uniforms were quickly stuffed into closets to help everyone forget. Some of the men who came back opposed to the war also found their families turning against them. One veteran just home from the war tried to talk his younger brother out of signing up for service in Vietnam. He was asked to leave the home, and both the brother and the father refused to speak to him again. Only his mother seemed to understand. Unfortunately, this was not an uncommon thing for veterans.
Faced with society’s indifference, uneasiness, and outright rejection and gripped by their own troubled memories of the war, thousands of veterans lapsed into silence.
Throughout Vietnam, the antiwar movement did not restrict itself to the general public at home. Just as it began losing ground at home about 1968, opposition to the war actually grew among the ranks of the soldiers themselves. Certainly it seems unexpected that those who were fighting opposed the war. Were they not supposed to be the citizens most filled with national pride and a sense of loyalty and duty? Reading accounts from many of them, one sees that in fact most veterans did not agree with the war, that most did not feel it was just, but fought anyway because it was their duty, the American thing to do, or because they were unable to bring themselves to resist outwardly and join any form of protest. Sp/4 John Riggan wrote home saying, “The longer I am here, the more my hatred of war grows…the tragedy is the price that I see reclaimed daily, and my only hope is that someday it can be justified.” Disagreement with U.S. involvement did not confine itself to the lowest ranks of soldiers. Even those in higher positions agreed, as did one sergeant named Phillip Woodall, who wrote his father that he was there because “I’m a soldier and it’s my job and there are other people depending on me. That’s my excuse. That’s all I have, theories and excuses, no solutions.”
However, some men did become active participants in the protest against the war and voiced their opinions clearly. “ ‘It was every revolutionary’s dream: to get the soldiers to lay down their guns.’” The group Vietnam Veterans Against the War organized in 1967, and became a very active and visible antiwar vehicle. One of the common complaints men made was the lack of support they felt from Washington.
They put us in a war that was as unwinnable as it was immoral. They put us into a war that even they could not explain, and so young men died for old men’s pride.
They felt that if the war was so important, so justifiable, why did the politicians not send their own children? Why only send those from the classes below them that had no way to protect themselves?
These weren’t the educated kids, these weren’t the kids sitting around intellectually singing hootenanny songs. These were guys who were disenfranchised and oppressed and they were taking it up. That’s what made the GI movement such a threat.
As veterans returned home, the controversy continued.
Some men applied for conscientious objector (C.O.) status and were assigned to non-combat positions. Many hours were spent on KP duty and more spent in medic areas cleaning up after the wounded and dying that passed through everyday. Michael Senecal, who obtained C.O. status and was sent to Vietnam to assist in a medic area, remembered not receiving any serious mistreatment with the exception of a few minor instances in Vietnam, but still felt the pressures and disgust other men felt.
Some of my daily tasks consisted of scrubbing blood, intestines, brains, and human matter in general from the canvas litters outside of the emergency room…the entire ‘feeling’ that a war zone emits disturbed me so entirely that, even today, I at times feel psychologically disoriented.
One of the more organized military protests was in the United States among the ranks of men at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. “The striking thing about Fort Jackson is its grotesque resemblance to a small American town.” Women could be seen carrying groceries down the sidewalks, and railroad tracks divided the place like any normal town, and yet one saw military men marching everyday, filing past them in formation. Fort Jackson had swimming pools, gymnasiums, theaters, libraries, and so on amongst the barracks and training fields. It was there that Private Joe Miles formed an antiwar group called GIs United Against the War in Vietnam. Miles had been an activist before being drafted into the war in 1968, and after beginning his term of service he continued to write to his political authorities about his views. Authorities transferred Miles to another base within a few weeks, but not before he had founded the group. After Miles’ departure, other men took over leadership positions and before long, the group had a large following.
The name of the group was intended to convey the group’s ideals. They wanted it to be clear that all races and nationalities were welcome, and that all of these men stood against the war. The name was to be respectable and recognizable enough so that simply mentioning it would cause someone to understand who was being referred to.
GIs United began as a group of black men gathering to discuss such things as racial equality, oppression of the working class, and certainly the oppression of GIs. They felt the ranks of soldiers being called on to fight in Vietnam were unfairly weighted toward the lower classes, also a complaint among civilian protestors. As more men became interested in the group and began attending meetings, the group became racially diverse and grew in strength. Private Jose Rudder, one of the men involved, said this about white men joining in:
We were first committed to instilling pride and integrity amongst the ranks of our brothers, and at the same time we were committing ourselves to the antiwar struggle and…as white GIs they would have to understand and accept this as white men, and they did.
Base officials, aware of the group’s presence and growing influence, tried to stifle its impact on base by passing a regulation that no more than eight men were to be gathered in any barracks at any given time because of the danger of URI, Upper Respiratory Infection. The men recognized the effort to disband the group, but continued to meet and educate people about the war and why it was wrong. Later, Private Joe Cole claimed:
The meetings were tremendously impressive. There was a profound respect. Although most of the people in the meetings, either white or black, had had no organizational experience, no one spoke out of turn.
On March 20, a group of men happened to be outside talking with each other and joking around, when the discussions turned toward more serious matters. More men gathered around to join and an impromptu GIs United meeting of about 200 or so men took place. Though the officials said nothing that night, four men were put in stockade the next day. Five others were also taken into custody, but one man, Private John Huffman, one of those five, was soon released after officials revealed that he had been an informer sent in to spy on the organization and bring back to them useful information they could use to disband the group. The other eight, Privates Cole, Andrew Pulley, Jose Rudder, Delmar Thomas, Edilberto Chaparro, Tommie Woodfin, Dominick Duddiek, and Curtis Mays were labeled the Fort Jackson Eight and charged with “demonstrating in uniform, demonstrating without approval of the post commander, disrespect to an officer, and breach of the peace.” All initially faced courts martial and ten years of hard labor at Leavenworth if the courts found them guilty. Through the use of some of the best lawyers and legal council, charges against all eight men were dropped. Six of them received undesirable discharges.
The Fort Jackson Eight, like other groups both organized and otherwise, exercised their rights as citizens to protest the war. They held peaceful demonstrations, tried to circle petitions within their vicinity, and even called media attention to their cause, making it nationally known that the GIs United were soldiers against Vietnam. Part of the Students for a Democratic Society’s Port Huron Statement describes well what GIs United were trying to combat with their organization, and what other groups also hoped to accomplish through their efforts.
Although mankind desperately needs revolutionary leadership, America rests in national stalemate, its goals ambiguous and tradition-bound instead of informed and clear, its democratic system apathetic and manipulated.
Vietnam has never officially been called a war, but one would have a difficult time trying to convince many of the almost three million veterans who served there that it was not. The service performed there is worthy of respect, and veterans deserve and need understanding. Only in the last twenty or so years has the war really been looked into and seriously studied in order to better understand it and the men who fought. Many of those who were there still suffer from nightmares and flashbacks, and depression and feelings of guilt are still present. “I’ll never understand what I did in Vietnam and what happened and why. I’m now trying to forget.” Many have never really returned—for them the war is still going on. Others have made new lives, but will never forget what happened and what part they played. The men who came back missing extremities or handicapped in other ways have arguably had an even more difficult time adjusting and learning. Countless men who served lost someone close to them, and dealing with that alone is one of the toughest parts of healing. Just as the men who were killed or missing in action will not be forgotten, nor will the war or the land called Vietnam.
“Once you were a strange, alien name…
then you were a small, damp green hostile land
Now you are…a part of me.”
Bernard Edelman, ed., Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam (New York, 1985), 4.
Myra Mac Pherson, “A Different War,” in The American Experience in Vietnam: A Reader, ed.
Grace Sevy (Oklahoma, 1989), 60.
Murray Polner, No Victory Parades: The Return of the Vietnam Veteran (Chicago, 1971), 21-2.
Edelman, 121.
Ibid., 230.
Fred Wilcox and Jerold M. Starr, “The Wounds of War and the Process of Healing,” in The Lessons of
the Vietnam War, ed. Jerold M. Starr (Pittsburgh, 1999), 261.
Paul Boyer, Promises to Keep: The United States Since World War II (Massachusetts, 1995),
Edelman, 3.
Willa Seidenberg and William Short, ed., A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance During the Vietnam
War (Massachusetts, 1992), 4.
Edelman, 208.
Ibid., 106.
Robert J. Mc Mahon, ed., Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War (Massachusetts, 1995),
Seidenberg and Short, 8.
Edelman, 118.
Ibid., 207.
Boyer, 313.
Edelman, 301.
Ibid., 286.
Ibid., xxxv.
Polner, 12.
Ibid., 80-1.
Christian G. Appy, “American Veterans and the Antiwar Movement,” in Major Problems in the History
of the Vietnam War, ed. Robert J. McMahon (Lexington, Massachusetts, 1995), 518.
Edelman, 228.
Ibid., 225.
Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York, 1987), 236.
Boyer, 314.
Seidenberg and Short, 56.
Alice Lynd, ed., We Won’t Go: Personal Accounts of War Objectors (Boston, 1968), 245.
Fred Halstead, GIs Speak Out Against the War: The Case of the Ft. Jackson 8 (New York, 1970), 16.
Ibid., 55.
Ibid., 33.
Ibid., 33.
Ibid., 13-4.
Boyer, 293.
Polner, 128.
Robert Jay Lifton, Home from the War: Vietnam Veterans, Neither Victims Nor Executioners (New
York, 1973), 265. | 3.181095 |
As ICT underpins today’s modern lifestyle it is essential that all children gain the confidence and ability, that they need in this subject, to prepare them for the challenge of a rapidly developing and changing technological world. The use of ICT provides a wealth of opportunities to extend and support learning and teaching. It contributes to raising standards by enhancing and extending children’s learning across the whole curriculum whilst developing motivation and social skills. Teaching support materials that use in ICT allow children to engage with the content of the lesson in a variety of ways – visually, with sound, with movement – and with the ability to revisit and repeat learning as required. Children can be actively involved in their learning. | 3.615665 |
Wilkes, a physicist, was inspired to build a computer by reading von Neumann’s description of EDVAC and attending the Moore School lectures in 1946. For over 50 years he made pioneering contributions in microprogramming, timesharing, operating systems, and more.
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), developed at Britain’s Cambridge University, ran its first programs in 1949. It became the first stored-program computer in regular use, heralding the transition from test to tool.
Cambridge’s EDSAC, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, used mercury delay line memory. Originally designed for radar displays, delay lines provided memory for many first-generation computers. EDSAC’s 32 mercury tanks could each hold 32 18–bit words.View Artifact Detail | 3.742081 |
Edward VI (1537 - 1553) was crowned the King of England at the age of 9 upon the death of his father Henry VIII. The First Book of Common Prayer was introduced under his reign (1549). He died of consumption when he was 15. Reports vary if he was always in poor health or if he merely got sick and died. He was succeeded by his older half-sister Mary I, a Roman Catholic, known to her Protestant enemies as "Bloody Mary".
The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989 | 3.160621 |
FEBRUARY 24 2012 21:25h
Moth infesting Italian vineyards
First discovered by Italian researchers in 2006, the pest was not identified until examination of the insect's genetic code showed it to be a new species.
The Italian scientists had turned to insect expert Erik van Nieukerken from the Netherlands Center for Biodiversity in Leiden for help.
"We first turned to the [scientific] literature to find out what was already known, which was appallingly little for this group [of moths]," van Nieukerken told the BBC.
A method known as DNA bar coding was employed to look at a section of the pest's genetic code.
"I figured out that this one, despite being quite common in North America, had no name," van Nieukerken said.
The new species, dubbed Antispila oinophylla, had previously been confused with a similar North American species that feeds on Virginia creeper.
However, the genetic studies revealed it to be a different species with a taste for grapevines. In its native range across eastern North America, researchers said, it feeds on several species of wild grapes.
Van Nieukerken said it would have been easy for the insect's cocoons containing larvae to be accidentally transported to Europe with plant material.
"They're very small and exactly the same color as the leaves," he told BBC Nature. "So if you were carrying plants, you would probably not notice them."
ROME, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A moth infesting vineyards across northern Italy is a previously unknown species of an insect known as a leafminer, scientists say. | 3.671534 |
The Institutions of Inequality
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
At the beginning of the American nation, when there was much discussion on how the country should be governed, Founding Father John Jay famously said, “Those that own the country should run it.” We now see very clearly that Declaration’s famous statement of,” All Men Are Created Equal,” was code for “All White Male Landowners Are Created Equal.” This actually played out when the lines of separation were drawn and the property-owners and the tenants were placed within their respective roles with the middle class acting as a buffer between the landowners, the Indians and the poor. Slaves weren’t even considered.
That “All Men Are Created Equal” as a truth that is “self-evident” has been a statement that has long been open to debate, for some believe that practical equality can never exist since people have differing abilities, education, talents and intellect. Thus there needs to be a higher value or merit placed on who a person is or what he does.
This can be seen in the example of the ‘value gap’ between a doctor and a ditch-digger. The doctor holds more ‘value’ or ‘merit’ than the ditch-digger due to the doctor’s education, his vocation and the ability to create wealth, while the ditch-digger is assumed to likely be mentally retarded or an ex-junkie or a bum with no comparable value at all. Obviously, a big problem in discussing equality as a starting point for a new social model is the difference of value between people that justifies separation, education, class and income.
Many philosophical doctrines and formulations on the subject of equality have been taken up by many people throughout the centuries, however these points almost always considered within the framework of the current money system, which makes discussion problematic since capitalist society does not support equality at all, because the system as it is cannot ‘run’ on equality if it is set up to run on competition, reward, profit, merit and scarcity.
In the dictionary, equality is defined as a noun, the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities. Mathematically, equality is the condition of being equal in number or amount. Or refers to the mathematical expression of the fact that two quantities are equal. The word, “equal” descends from the Latin, ‘aequus,’ meaning ‘even, level.’ When speaking about equality, the topic primarily seems to concentrate on moral, social or political equality, and hardly ever in economic terms. Usually, equality in society means fuck all except in the most piddling fashion as in “equal voting rights” or “equal protection under the law.”
Intimately bound up with the principle of Equality is that of Freedom and Individualism, or rather, the freedom to Be Individual. This freedom-individualization program only allows for the “idea of equality” to be considered as long as it does not impinge on “freedoms of the individual’s” right to property, wealth and competition. Transforming the capitalist system into an egalitarian-based society will be considered an unacceptable “loss”- a degeneration into a (God forbid) ‘socialist” or ‘communist” economic system.
The Values of Competition
Can a society based on competition ever become one that promotes and enforce economic equality for all? Obviously not. It appears that “freedom” of the individual negates, overrides and diminishes the principle of equality. For all the lips service given to “equality,” the fact is “Freedom” is given more value.
And what beings realize, either consciously or subconsciously, is that to ensure equality for all means that the Freedoms of the Individual that allows greed, profit, abuse and poverty to exist, will have to be curtailed and ended. Freedom actually means, “freedom to abuse others.” Equality would not allow any abuse, or the liberty to abuse others.
Speaking of which, “liberty” defined is to be “free” from oppressive social restrictions imposed by governmental authority on one’s behavior, life or politics. In philosophy, the notion of Liberty is extended to freedom from control and fate. Nobody sees that this freedom and liberty are actually controls and enslavement that forces us to exist in patterns of exploitation and domination, because in a competitive society, there must exist losers for the winners to vanquish.
The ironic thing is that the perceived desire for “freedom” and “liberty” covers up the fact that in our modern culture, liberty and freedom do not actually exist, since there are plenty of “non-freedoms” that human beings are subjected to, such as:
no freedom to not participate in the system and still survive
no freedom to travel freely
no freedom for survival
no freedom from governmental authority
no freedom from using money to survive
no freedom from work
no freedom from participating within capitalism
no freedom from poverty
It seems there are some lack of “freedoms” that we already seem prepared to live with, as long as we are prepared to have our individuality.
The Values of Happiness
Also tied up within the strong points of the Declaration of Independence is “the pursuit of Happiness.” But what makes anyone “happy” and why happiness is one of our “unalienable rights?” Why should we pursue it and how does this relate to “All men are created equal?” The question of the morality of the pursuit of happiness doesn’t seem to apply, since “evil beings” can be just as “happy” as “good beings.” This paean to Happiness might harkens back to Plato’s Republic, where Plato writes about how in his ideal society, happiness would be available to all, although each part (or individual) according to his value of one’s virtues, talents, inclination and birth (actually, ‘heredity’ or bloodline).
Within Plato’s Republic, the separation is explicit: each to his own self-created program and distinctive role. A farmer could not expect to be a successful blacksmith for instance. But more important is the template placed in the Republic that has an aristocracy paternally overseeing the lives of the sweltering masses, which has been the template of control and domination of a few over the many used to this day. We have all agreed that this social model is sufficient. So sufficient, we cannot even begin to consider other options in how we would like to live.
The Values of Justice
Another idea tied to Equality is justice, which is usually defined as along the lines of morality, fairness and equity. If justice is the quality of what is fair, reasonable or worthy, one would consider that justice must be concerned about what would be best for all – the equality for all – for we are all worthy to exist in equality. If inequality is allowed to exist, we should realize that this robs Justice of all moral force, because it is obvious that having to buy one’s own survival in this world is in itself “immoral” since human beings have to suffer and die if they can’t survive – and if one dies because of the inability to purchase her survival while others succeed – the entire meaning and value of morality is emptied, for then morality is reduced to the ability to compete with others where winners live and losers die; “good” or “evil” are now only concerned with values of competition in a hostile world.
Since no moral force is being applied to correct a situation that is in opposition in terms of the fairness Justice implies, we must see that any “balance of fairness” Justice implies for itself is based on illusion, due to the accepted immorality of the values of competition. In this sense, we have agreed that we are not worthy of Justice in terms of equality, and to legitimatize this, we have unwittingly created Institutions of Inequality:
and so on. These institutions of inequality are endemic within the current economic system to provide “losers” the society of competition requires. Justice has been allowed to manifest in protection for the principle for competitive society and inequality. The morality it enforces is the morality of domination, separation and greed.
The Value of Liberty
When talking about Equal Rights we must ask ourselves if there exists any objective standard for equal rights? Opponents of Equality do not believe any such standard exists. For them “Equality” is equality is defined as “sameness,” and they say further, it is quite obvious that All Men are Not the Same. But there has long been a historical tension between the values of Equality and Liberty, and the neoliberal mindset is certain that no such standard of Equality can ever be delivered with curtailing some freedoms within the current economic system.
They may be right, but does the removal of some individual liberties negate the principle of universal or economic equality? The notion of Liberty is concerned with the freedom from control and authority. It also indicates that “one can do as one pleases.” We have “taken the liberty” to exploit, abuse and profit from others and the Earth for our own benefit. Liberty is seen as “License” to compete and dominate, but never to further the aims of genuine Equality.
Liberty is conceived as a principle of freedom from oppressive social restrictions imposed by governmental authority on one’s behavior, life or political views. Apparently, the Libertarian views “oppressive social restrictions” as those that impede one’s individuality, choice or self-interest. Thus within their ethical system, they see a validity in taking the liberty of creating wealth by exploiting the workers of poorer countries is recognized through the “ethics” of the value of competition, thereby removing all meaning from the word “ethics” in the process.
The Threat of Equality
Thus it is not surprising that people are threatened when the subject of equal money or a basic income that covers human needs for all comes up for discussion, for we have not realized that we have unwittingly superimposed layers of ignorance, conceit and self-interest over the meanings of words that we have come to consider as the paragons of human consciousness. We have been conditioned and programmed to fear that which would give us a dignified life. When it comes to realizing that our grandiose ideas of ‘freedom” were only superimposed layers of deception that has produced the Institutions of Inequality while hiding the human suffering from our eyes, we know one thing: that everything is in reverse. | 3.68513 |
Jerry Brown has served as secretary of state, attorney general and governor for the state of California. (Courtesy photo)
Edmund G. Brown Jr., known as Jerry, was born in San Francisco on April 7, 1938. He attended both public and parochial schools, graduating from St. Ignatius High School in 1955. He completed freshman year at the University of Santa Clara before entering Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit seminary in August 1956. In 1960, he left the Society of Jesus and enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in classics the next year and then entered Yale Law School, where he graduated in 1964.
Following law school, Brown worked as a law clerk at the California Supreme Court, traveled and studied in Mexico and Latin America and then took up residence in Los Angeles, working for the prestigious law firm Tuttle & Taylor. In 1969, Brown was elected to the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees, placing first in a field of 124. In 1970, he was elected California Secretary of State.
Brown was elected governor in 1974 and re-elected in 1978, by a margin of 21 percent.
During Gov. Brown’s tenure, California created 1.9 million new jobs, almost double the national rate. During his eight years in office, Brown marshaled both Democrats and Republicans in the legislature to slow the growth of state government, eliminate capital gains taxes for many small businesses, abolish the business inventory tax, index personal income taxes, adopt the nation’s first energy efficiency standards, and make California the leader in co-generation, solar and wind energy.
As governor, Brown consistently had budgets approved on time and built a prudent budget surplus to serve as a “rainy day fund.” He reduced the number of state employees per 1,000 Californians from 9.6 in 1975 to 9.2 in 1982. The tax burden for California residents declined from $6.90 per $100 of income in 1975 to $6.72 in 1982.
While curbing the growth of state government, Brown instituted cutting-edge environmental protections that became guidelines for the nation to follow. He strengthened the California Coastal Commission and established comprehensive policies governing development along the coast. He signed the nation’s first legislation requiring high school students to demonstrate basic proficiency before graduation. State funding for higher education, including community colleges, more than doubled during Brown’s eight years as governor.
In the field of crime fighting, Gov. Brown enacted hundreds of tough anti-crime measures, including the “Use A Gun Go To Prison” Law and mandatory sentences for rape, sale of heroin, violent crimes against the elderly, child molestation and selling PCP. He established and funded the Career Criminal Prosecution Program, the Career Criminal Apprehension Program and the Crime Resistance Task Force.
After his governorship, Brown lectured widely, led delegations to China and the Soviet Union, studied Spanish in Mexico, spent six months in Japan studying Japanese culture and Buddhist practice, worked with Mother Teresa in India at the Home for the Dying and traveled to Bangladesh as a CARE ambassador of good will during the devastating floods of 1987.
Brown again practiced law in Los Angeles and in 1989 became chairman of the state Democratic Party. He resigned that position in 1991, expressing frustration with the growing influence of money in politics, and sought the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. During that campaign he refused to take contributions larger than $100 and used an "800" number to raise funds.
Despite limited financial resources, Brown defeated Bill Clinton in Maine, Colorado, Vermont, Connecticut, Utah and Nevada during the 1992 presidential primaries and was the only candidate other than Clinton to receive enough voter support to continue until the Democratic National Convention.
In 1998, Brown ran for mayor of Oakland against 11 other candidates and won in the primary with 59 percent of the vote. Before taking office, he successfully passed a voter initiative, changing the ceremonial office of mayor to that of a “strong mayor” form of city government. Brown was re-elected in 2002 with 64 percent of the vote.
As mayor, Brown spearheaded the revitalization of a downtown that had been dormant for decades. He helped create new housing units for more than 10,000 people, re-opened the beautiful Fox Theatre (which had been shuttered for 30 years), and attracted many new restaurants, businesses and art galleries to the city. Brown also personally founded the renowned Oakland School for the Arts (housed in the Fox Theatre) and the Oakland Military Institute. Both schools serve students from the sixth grade through the 12th and are among the best performing schools in Oakland. During his eight years as mayor, the number of serious crimes was reduced by over 30 percent compared to the previous eight year period.
On June 18, 2005, Brown married Anne Gust in a ceremony officiated by Sen. Diane Feinstein. Later the same day, they had a Catholic ceremony at St. Agnes, the San Francisco church where Jerry was baptized and his parents were married. The marriage is the first for both.
In 2006, Brown was elected California’s 31st attorney general with the largest margin of victory of any candidate running for statewide office.
As attorney general, Brown has fought for consumers and workers by pursuing those who perpetrated massive mortgage fraud, suing unscrupulous employers for not paying wages and benefits required by state law, shutting down companies that have jeopardized worker safety, and prosecuting businesses that have bilked California's workers' compensation system or otherwise circumvented state tax and employment laws. Brown has sued medical laboratories for massive overcharges, stopped rip-offs in the Medi-Cal program, cracked down on unlawful abuse of prescription drugs, fought misleading ad campaigns by major drug companies and arrested nursing home operators for forcibly drugging elderly patients.
Brown has also cracked down on violent gangs, and worked closely with local police and sheriffs to apprehend dangerous criminals, con artists and major perpetrators of fraud and financial crimes. As California's chief law enforcement officer, Brown leads a team of special agents and dedicated staff who conduct criminal investigations, enforce firearms laws and regulations, and manage the state's crime labs, including the third largest DNA database in the world.
On environmental issues, Brown has long been recognized as a national leader and as attorney general he has led the fight against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to stop pollution of water and air, defended California’s landmark tailpipe emission laws, and actively promoted local land use policies that reduce oil dependency and global warming.
Finally, Brown substantially lowered the costs of the Department of Justice to help resolve the state’s fiscal deficit. He streamlined the number of departmental positions and programs, resulting in an annual budget reduction in the state’s general fund of approximately $100 million, the elimination of more than 720 positions and the restructuring of 10 budgeted divisions into four.
Source: Jerry Brown Governor 2010 campaign | 3.00246 |
April 17, 2013
Emerging contaminants are pollutants that have been recently discovered in the environment and can have adverse effects on both the ecosystem and humans. Ranging in effect from neurotoxin to endocrine disruptors these contaminants can cause reproductive issues and hormone disorders and some become more dangerous as they bioaccumulate up the food chain. Some, but not all of these emerging contaminants are regulated by the EPA and those which are can sometimes be given too high an allowance, causing states to step in and impose stricter standards.
PBB’s and PDBE’s are forms of brominated fire retardants that are used in a variety of commercial products including furniture, electrical devices, and even children’s pajamas. Being hydrophobic and bonding very well to soil particles these chemicals have a tendency to bioaccumulate in the terrestrial ecosystem. (De Wit 2002) These characteristics also allow the chemicals to become a non-point source by binding to airborne particulates and potentially travelling very far, causing difficulty in locating the source of contamination. (ATSDR 2004) PBB’s and PDBE’s have been identified as possible neurotoxins and are known endocrine disruptors. Despite these risks there are no federal guidelines or cleanup standards for these chemicals. (EPA 2010)
Laboratory research has begun to develop potential treatment methods for PBB and PBDE contaminants in the terrestrial ecosystem however. One such study includes the degradation of polybrominated diphenyl ethers by a sequential treatment with nanoscale zero valent iron (nZVI) and aerobic biodegradation. Reductive debromination and oxidation of 1 mg of deca-BDE with 100 mg/vial of nZVI proved highly effective, resulting in a 67% reduction of deca-BDE over a 20 day period. This method could help pave the way to a remediation strategy for highly halogenated pollutants in contaminated sites. (Kim, Y.-M et. al 2012)
Perchlorate is another contaminant, mainly used in the production of munitions, explosives, and found as a product of Chilean fertilizer imports, which poses a threat to terrestrial ecosystems. Unlike PBB’s perchlorate is highly soluble, which greatly increases its potential to leach into groundwater sources. Found in heavy concentrations at military shooting ranges and development sites this chemical commonly enters the ecosystem through mass burnings or burying of old munitions by the military. (ITRC 2005) Perchlorate has been known to infiltrate food supply via groundwater and show up in traceable concentrations, which can affect the thyroid. (FDA 2008) There is federal regulation by the EPA for perchlorates under the Safe Drinking Water Act, though the effectiveness at 15 micrograms per liter permissible is debatable. In contrast the states of Massachusetts and California have stricter standards on perchlorates with permissible levels in water being 2 and 6 micrograms respectively. (CDPH 2010 & Mass. DEP 2006)
In regards to treatment, there are a handful of methods that have been used to remediate perchlorate. Perchlorate can be completely reduced to chloride by acclimated bacteria via cell respiration in fixed-bed bioreactors, although design factors need further investigation. (Kim & Logan 2000) Other off site laboratory methods include ion exchange with perchlorate-selective resins or liquid phase carbon adsorption using granular activated carbon (GAC). On site cleanups have also been underway. The Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR), a 22,000-acre property sit over an aquifer that has been contaminated by fuel spills and other past activities at MMR’s Otis Air Force Base. One cleanup effort is a program managed by the army that implements technologies such as the aerial magnetometry that assist with the detection of metal objects on or below ground surface.
More extensive research on emerging contaminants can be found via the hyperlink at the beginning of this blog entry.
By Rian Downs & Ryan Gobar
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). 2004. Toxicological Profile for Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers and Polybrominated Biphenyls. www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp68.pdf.
California Department of Public Health (CDPH). 2011. Perchlorate in Drinking Water. www.cdph.ca.gov/certlic/drinkingwater/Pages/Perchlorate.aspx
De Wit, C. A. 2002. An Overview of Brominated Flame Retardants in the Environment. Chemosphere. Volume 46. Pages 583 to 624.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 2008. U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Total Diet Study: Dietary intake of Perchlorate and Iodine.
Interstate Technology Regulatory Council (ITRC). 2005. Perchlorate: Overview of Issues, Status, and Remedial Options. www.itrcweb.org/Documents/PERC-1.pdf
Kijung Kim and Bruce E. Logan. Environmental Engineering Science. SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000, 17(5): 257-265. doi:10.1089/ees.2000.17.257.
Kim, Y.-M., Murugesan, K., Chang, Y.-Y., Kim, E.-J. and Chang, Y.-S. (2012), Degradation of polybrominated diphenyl ethers by a sequential treatment with nanoscale zero valent iron and aerobic biodegradation. J. Chem. Technol. Biotechnol., 87: 216–224. doi: 10.1002/jctb.2699
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). 2006. Perchlorate Information. www.mass.gov/dep/water/drinking/percinfo.htm#stds
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2010. DecaBDE Phase-out Initiative. www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/actionplans/deccadbe.html
“Food and water are basic rights. But we pay for food. Why should we not pay for water?” -Ismail Serageldin at the Second World Water Forum
Water privatization is a current, controversial issue that also seems to be relatively misunderstood. Water privatization is the private ownership of water-related infrastructure, and is not a new concept.
Public and private, artisanal and industrial, corporate and community controlled water supply systems coexist around the world (Bakker 36). “Privatization” of the water sector can be understood as private enterprises, rather than governments, obtaining control of water-related infrastructure. Examples include “operation of a water delivery or transport system, a complete transfer of system ownership, or even sale of publicly owned water rights to private companies” as defined by the Pacific Institute. Water, when privatized, is then treated like any other economic good. *
Proponents and opponents of water privatization stand divided on a number of issues, ethical as well as environmental and economical. Those in favor of water privatization believe that private management will encourage conservation of water, and it can be priced accordingly. It is believed that privatized, clean water could also better be delivered to those humans normally struggling to find safe access to it. Opponents believe water ought to be protected by more than market forces, and may find it unethical to make a profit supplying people with a resource essential for life, ecological health, and human dignity (Bakker 47). Opponents also find the possibility of private management, driven by greed, will create environmental harm–namely pollution and scarcity of water.
A question Susan Spronk poses in her article, is privatization really the alternative if a government fails to supply its citizens with a basic factor to all life? Bolivia provides an excellent case study to examine privatization efforts, as well as provide a case study from which we can base recommendations.
Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and also home to one of the world’s most contentious water privatization programs. With the World Bank’s assistance in the 1990s, the water systems of some of Bolivia’s poorest regions were put up for sale to private investors and shareholders. A US-owned company, Bechtel, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, gained rights to administer and distribute water in this specific area. Bechtel extended water access to many communities who had little to no access to water. However, a consequence of their involvement was less welcoming to neighboring cities—the prices for water had a sharp increase. Bechtel consumed and controlled local wells, water pumps, public system infrastructure that was already in place, and many other resources used by the community for water supply (Mulreany, Calikoglu, and Ruiz ). The costs for these improvements and additions were far too expensive and unrealistic for their generally poor customers–costing up to twice the previous cost people had been paying when water was government-owned. Access for them was still not possible.
These results highlight the complexities of water privatization and differences between economic theory and what happens in the real world–social factors play a huge role. Positive impacts of privatization–ie, access to clean water for underprivileged areas–must have a way to subsidise the cause for poorer communities, as in the case of Bolivia.
There are understandably many more factors to consider when, where, and how water would ideally be privatized (strength of current system, appropriate market, environmental concerns in the area), but from the Bolivia case study we can draw these conclusions: We propose that, when water becomes privatized in certain regions for economic gain, a strict set of regulations must be upheld in order for the practice to be fully supportable. Beyond making sure it remains affordable for local communities, human and environmental needs should be prioritized, and all those dependent on the source should have a voice in the decision-making process.
By Meghan Heneghan and Renee Daniel
Bakker, Karen J. “A Political Ecology of Water Privatization.” Studies in Political Economy (2002)
Gleick, Peter and Gary Wolff, Elizabeth Chalecki, Rachel Reyes . “The New Economy of Water: The Risks and Benefits of Globalization and Privatization of Fresh Water.” February 2002. Pacific Institute.
Mulreany, John P., Sule Calikoglu, and Sonia Ruiz. “Water privatization and public health in Latin America.”SciElo Public Health. 19.01 (2006): n. page. Web. 5 Apr. 2013. <http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?pid=S1020-49892006000100004&script=sci_arttext>.
Spronk, Susan . “Roots of Resistance to Urban Water Privatization in Bolivia: The “New Working Class,” the Crisis of Neoliberalism, and Public Services1.”International Labor and Working-Class History. 71.01 (2007): 8-28. Web. 5 Apr. 2013. <http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=4CD04064EA4920D7942DDE5BC7393B19.journals?fromPage=online&aid=1354424>.
Have you ever tasted a grain of salty baking soda in an otherwise a sweet cookie? That grain of baking soda could be classified as an emerging contaminant, as it has reached levels that were previously not at high enough levels to be noticed. As a society we have managed to develop infrastructure and sewage treatment plants for human waste, but there is new issue. There are certain materials that cannot be removed, and are accumulating in our water.These emerging contaminants, such as PCBs and nonylphenol, ingredients being used in industrial detergents, are being discovered in our waterways.
Analysis and removal of emerging contaminants in wastewater and drinking water.
As you might have been able to infer, an emerging contaminant is one that “is being discovered in water that previously had not been detected or are being detected at levels that may be significantly different than expected” as stated on the EPA website. These contaminants, which include human birth control and pesticides just to name a few, are interacting with our ecosystem, often causing adverse health issues in marine organisms. Although emerging contaminants are not as important as other water issues in the context of human health, it is tantamount to the health of the ecosystem that we fully identify what is going on in an attempt to mitigate these pollutants.
The problem with emerging contaminants is that it is not fully understood what the effects of certain unidentifiable pollutants are, but in the marine environment thus far, the effects have been adverse. Some EC’s, such as synthetic estrogen found in birth control that are not destroyed in the sewage treatment process, are released into the ocean and have been shown to cause serious problems for species in the water. According to the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, in a recent project that assessed emerging contaminant effects on coastal fish, they discovered that “some [emerging contaminants] have been shown to cause endocrine disruption after being released to the environment, as they either mimic or interfere with the action of reproductive hormones such as estrogen and testosterone” (SCCWRP 2012). Because many of these contaminants that are entering the marine environment are not monitored by any existing programs due the difficulty in analyzing and quantifying them, not much is know about what the full effects may be on marine organisms and human health.
A program that has existed since 1986 called Mussel Watch, performed by NOAA, is using the success of their water quality monitoring system to further understand emerging contaminants and their effects on the marine ecosystem as well as their potential effects on humans. Mussels, which are a bivalve, filter-feeding species, bioaccumulate contaminants in their tissues and can be used as indicators of local contamination. The program analyzes native bivalves by extracting tissue and analyzing the samples with instruments. The concern is that if the emerging contaminants that so little is known about is disrupting the health of marine species, it may also be bioaccumulating in humans and having unknown adverse effects. We already know and are working to eliminate existing pollutants that are continuously being monitored, but what about the ones we don’t know about? The goal of this addition to the Mussel Watch project is to come to a better understanding of what exactly it is we may be dealing with in the future.
We are currently at a point where we are still identifying all of the different contaminants and what impacts and risks they create to us and our ecosystems. There are various methods of treatment which are can be integrated into pre-existing treatment plants. However, it is a difficult issue that is not fully understood, which makes implementation difficult. It is a step forward, though, that we are addressing these problems before they manifest themselves on a larger scale with other populations, including humans.
By Clayton Greene and Dana Handy
Mira Petrović, Susana Gonzalez, Damià Barceló. “Analysis and removal of emerging contaminants in wastewater and drinking water.” TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry. 2003: 685-696. Online Journal.
“Project: Southern California Mussel Watch.” SCCWRP. N.p., 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 05 Apr. 2013. <http://www.sccwrp.org/ResearchAreas/Contaminants/ContaminantsOfEmergingConcern/SouthernCaliforniaMusselWatch.aspx>.
Terry L Wade, José L. Sericano, Piero R Gardinali, Gary Wolff, Laura Chambers. “NOAA’s Mussel Watch project: Current use organic compounds in bivalves”.Volume 37, Issues 1–2, January–February 1998, Pages 20-26. Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Ever seen one of the signs above before? The infamous (and rather alarming) red and white signs warn beachgoers that the water quality in that area is below safe standards. Enacted in 1997, California State legislature passed AB 411 to regulate safe water quality levels. Defined by the EPA, the federal standards are monitored through the Department of Health Services to protect swimmer’s health and local economies. Because 85% of tourism in the U.S. is dependant on coastal regions, there is a lot of pressure to keep local beaches clean. (NRDC-National Resources Defense Council).
Unfortunately, many of the beaches in the U.S. suffer from high levels of bacteria like enterococci and E. coli indicating animal and human waste present in the water. The NRDC graph below shows that beaches are consistently closed for high bacteria levels over other reasons. Officials will often also close beaches for precautionary reasons due to high amounts of rainfall and increased storm water pollution or in rare cases a known sewage leak or oil spill.
However, due to the uncertainty of the economy the EPA has cut $10 million typically given to states for beach water testing and oversight. Now local authorities are presented with the task of cleaning up beaches and identifying the sources of Fecal Indicator Bacteria. The EPA stated that local governments possess the skills and expertise to continue beach testing without federal support (Tribune Business News).
While some people fear that beaches will be in a terrible state due to the budget cuts, local officials are confident that they will be self-sufficient in beach testing. Local comities can also make a difference by promoting green infrastructures. A Green infrastructure is “a network of decentralized stormwater management practices – such as green roofs, trees, rain gardens, and permeable pavement – that can capture and infiltrate rain where it falls” (American Water Works Association). Ultimately green infrastructures would reduce runoff pollution and boost the health of local beaches making them safer for the many beachgoers and the surrounding communities.
Although, federal aid in beach testing has been very important in most states; however, budget cuts do not necessarily mean that all beachgoers health will be at risk. Local authorities are confident that beach testing and frequency will stay the same. According to a Fox news article Rhonda Kolberg, a member of the Door County Health Department, remains optismtic beach testing will continue frequently this year despite budget cuts. The public should continue to be strong advocates of beach cleanup and water quality testing not only to improve the beauty of U.S. beaches but also to improve their own health and economy.
By Christine Irvin & Esmy Jimenez
Myers, John. “Lake Superior Beach Bacteria Testing Set to Start next Week.” Proquest.com. McClatchy – Tribune Business
News, 23 May 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2013.
Smith, Laura. “Funding Cut Jeopardizes Beach Testing.” WLUK TV. N.p., 23 Mar. 2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2013.
“Testing the Waters.” Testing The Waters, Prevent Beach Pollution. Natural Resources Defense Council, 2012. Web.
27 Mar. 2013.
United States. Public Law. BEACHES ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND COASTAL HEALTH ACT OF 2000.
N.p., 10 Oct. 2000. Web. 27 Mar. 2013.
April 16, 2013
Saturday rolls around with a perfect weather forecast, so you head out to the beach hoping to soak up the sun and take a dip in the ocean. Your spirits are high as your feet hit the warm sand until you see a red sign reading “KEEP OUT: Sewage Contaminated Water. Exposure May Cause Illness.” Though the beach closure may seem to ruin your weekend, at least it prevents you from a worse fate: spending the weekend with the stomach flu, pinkeye, or another water-borne illness.
Thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act (hyperlink to: http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/beachrules/act.cfm) of 2000, recreational waters are required to be tested and monitored for indicators of water-borne pathogens. The measurement of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) levels is most common, as the BEACH Act complies with the Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements (US Environmental Protection Agency, 2000). Additionally, the public is to be informed of water quality and health risks associated with coming into contact with polluted water. Federal funds are to be distributed amongst local and state agencies to pay for water quality testing and information dispersal.
Though the nation is facing economic hardship, budget cuts regarding water quality should be limited. Federal funding and regulation is critical to ensure safe water without water-borne illness for swimmers and beach goers. In the long run, funding water quality tests pays off—public health costs due to gastrointestinal illness caused by polluted water were estimated to be tens of millions of dollars each year (Given, et al 2006). Not to mention that about 85% of the nation’s tourism comes from coastal states, much of that coming from visitors spending the day at the beach (NRDC).
However, testing and water quality requirements were already minimal due to a lack of resources, but recent budget cuts have made financial matters even more restricting. The proposed overall budget for the EPA in 2013 is $8.3 billion, $700 million less than the budget in 2012 (EPA, 2013). A $10 million Federal grant to test water quality usually given to states with a coastline or that border Great Lakes is also being cut out (Barboza, 2012). These budget cuts continue to make it difficult for states to receive high ratings on beach and water quality tests.
Most states that are in need of water quality testing and routine beach assessment do not currently have the funds, knowledge, or personnel to maintain water and beach quality well enough to keep beachgoers from falling ill. Heavily dependent on revenue from tourism and recreational water activities, these coastal states cannot afford to have poor water quality.
Jon Devine, an attorney with the National Resource Defense Council outlined a few possible consequences by saying, “the potential is that states will decrease the number of beaches they monitor, the frequency or cut back on resources they use to notify the public about conditions at the beach. We’d likely see a reduction in information about an important public health concern (Fears, 2011)”
The Federal government has been pushing for states to preserve beaches using their own resources and methods because they believe states have the knowledge, expertise, and funds required to enforce policies and do the work to sustain clean water and beaches. This certainly is not the case and the health of all beachgoers is at risk if the Federal government does not give states the funds and resources needed.
In order to maintain water quality and keep the public informed, the federal government must continue to enforce strict water quality standards and help state and local governments fund testing operations. If not, the health of beach goers and the success of coastal economies may be in jeopardy.
Brittany Hoedemaker is a freshman from Bellevue, Washington. She is currently an Environmental Studies major at USC. Devin Grigsby is a sophomore from Mill Creek, Washington. He is interested in sustainability and agriculture.
Barboza, Tony. “Federal Funds For Health Testing At Beaches To Be Eliminated.” LA Now. LA Times, 15 Feb. 2012. Web. <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/epa-to-eliminate-federal-funds-for-beach-water-testing.html>.
“Beach Act.” US Environmental Protection Agency. N.p., 2000. Web. <http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/lawsguidance/beachrules/act.cfm>.
Drajem, Mark. “House Republicans Propose Cutting EPA Budget, Preventing Rules.” Bloomberg. Business Week, 19 June 2012. Web. <http://www.bloomberg.com/ news/2012-06-19/house-republicans-propose-cutting-epa-budget-preventing-rules.html>.
“Frequently Asked Questions.” US Environmental Protection Agency. N.p., 2000. Web. 04 Apr. 2013. <http://water.epa.gov/type/oceb/beaches/faq.cfm>.
Given, S., et al., “Regional Public Health Cost Estimates of Contaminated Coastal Waters: A Case Study of Gastroenteritis at Southern California Beaches,” Environmental Science and Technology, 40, 2006, p. 4,851.
Scott, Monica. “Proposed Fed Budget Eliminates Beach Water-Quality Grants.” Local Voice. Coastal Point, 2 Mar. 2012. Web. <http://www.coastalpoint.com/content/ proposed_fed_budget_eliminates_beach_waterquality_grants>.
“Testing the Waters.” Natural Resources Defense Council. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2013. <http://www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/ttw/>.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. The Budget For Fiscal Year 2013. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Whitehouse.gov. Web. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/ fy2013/assets/environmental.pdf>.
“U.S. EPA 2013 Budget Cuts Programs, Supports States, Tribes.” Environment News Service RSS. International Daily Newswire, 13 Feb. 2012. Web. <http://ens-newswire.com/ | 3.239524 |
Nuclear Bomb Quiz
Nuclear power stands as one of humanity's greatest scientific achievements, as well as one of the greatest risk to its self-extermination. The power behind the nuclear bomb is as fascinating as it is terrifying, but what fuels its cosmic power? Fusion or fission or both? And what happens after the bomb is dropped?start quiz
Question 2 of 11
What war saw the first use of a nuclear weapon?
... The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, during the final month of World War II.
Question 3 of 11
Nuclear fission involves which process?
... Nuclear fission involves splitting the nucleus of an atom into two smaller fragments with a neutron. This method usually involves isotopes of uranium or plutonium.
Question 4 of 11
If two atoms of hydrogen are brought together in nuclear fusion, what do they form?
... In nuclear fusion, two smaller atoms, usually hydrogen or hydrogen isotopes, come together to form a larger one (helium or helium isotopes). This is how the sun produces energy.
Question 5 of 11
What kind of bomb was "Little Boy"?
... "Little Boy" was a gun-triggered fission bomb.
Question 6 of 11
What was the name of the secret U.S. atomic bomb program?
... The Manhattan Project was the name of the secret U.S. program to develop the atomic bomb.
Question 7 of 11
What is the center of a bomb blast called?
... The center of the bomb blast is called the hypocenter or ground zero.
Question 8 of 11
What is radioactive fallout?
... Radioactive fallout refers to the clouds of fine radioactive dust particles and debris that fall back to the ground following a nuclear blast.
Question 9 of 11
Which of the following Japanese cities did not sustain an atomic blast at the close of World War II?
... Hiroshima and Nagasaki both sustained massive damage due to atomic blasts. Japan's capital, Tokyo, was spared.
Question 10 of 11
What is nuclear winter?
... In the nuclear-winter scenario, the widespread detonation of atomic weapons would raise great clouds of dust and radioactive material that would travel high into Earth's atmosphere and block out the sun. The weaker sunlight would lower the planet's surface temperature and hinder photosynthesis, resulting in the mass extinction of life.
Question 11 of 11
How high do temperatures at the hypocenter of an atomic blast reach?
... At the hypocenter of an atomic blast, everything is immediately vaporized by temperatures as high as 500 million degrees Fahrenheit (300 million degrees Celsius).
When you're surrounded by cubicles and concrete, it's easy to forget that we live on a planet packed full of breathtaking natural beauty, so take a trip with us as we explore 10 of the very best the Earth has to offer.
From The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show to the latest breaking news, TV makes more memories than there are viewers. Here are 10 of the most talked-about broadcasts in television history. | 3.674611 |
It’s not hard to see why Native American cultures consider Rainbow Bridge sacred. The huge stone bridge that straddles this feeder canyon to the Colorado River in southern Utah is a dramatic and mysterious sight. More than 88 meters tall (290 feet), and spanning nearly 84 meters (275 feet) across Bridge Creek, the bridge and surrounding canyonlands are part of a National Monument established by President William Howard Taft in 1910.
This spectacularly detailed Ikonos satellite image from July 7, 2003, could almost be mistaken for an aerial photo. Rainbow Bridge is at the upper right of the scene, casting its shadow on the rugged canyon below. Downstream at bottom left, the blue-black waters of the northern portion of Lake Powell, created by the Glen Canyon Dam, are as dark as a shadow. Above the lake, the creek is little more than a series of greenish-brown puddles along a sandy wash. The West is in the midst of one of the region’s recurring multi-year droughts, and Lake Powell is at its lowest level since it finished filling in 1980. As the lake shrinks, many of the previously flooded side canyons are re-emerging, revealing archaeological and geological features that haven't been seen for decades. When the reservoir is full, Lake Powell extends underneath Rainbow Bridge.
Drought is a recurring theme for the Colorado Plateau region, a pattern that repeats itself on numerous time scales—from one season to the next, from one decade to the next, and from one geologic age to the next. It was the geologic-scale swinging of climate between wet and dry episodes that created rock that would respond to the forces of erosion so differently that some would remain standing while the river washed the rest away.
Rainbow Bridge is made from sandstone formed during end of the Triassic and the Jurassic. Extreme fluctuations in climate during the Triassic and Jurassic periods—the region was alternately a sea and desert on par with the Sahara--produced layers of sandstone with different levels of hardness. Water had the last word in the Jurassic, and the great sea returned to cover these layers of sandstone and compress them so tightly that they would persist until the present day.
As Bridge Creek flowed toward the growing Colorado River during the last ice age, it carved first through softer rocks and veered away from the harder Triassic and Jurassic sandstones, eventually creating a wide hairpin bend that flowed around a solid “fin” of sandstone that would become Rainbow Bridge. The previous course of the creek is visible above the bridge in this image. Water flows back on itself at bends and wide spots, creating swirling eddies along the banks. As the creek flowed around Rainbow Bridge fin, eddies formed on both the upstream and downstream sides. The sediment in the creek eventually scoured the softer layers of sandstone away, leaving the harder layers behind.
For more information on the cultural or geological history of this canyon, visit the Rainbow Bridge Website of the National Park Service.
Image copyright Space Imaging, Inc. | 3.618918 |
Filed under: Heart & Vascular
Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, or WPW syndrome, is the presence of an extra, abnormal electrical pathway in the heart that leads to periods of a very fast heartbeat (tachycardia).
The extra electrical pathway of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is present at birth. People of all ages, including infants, can experience the symptoms related to Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. Episodes of a fast heartbeat often first occur when people are in their teens or early 20s.
In most cases, the episodes of fast heartbeats aren't life-threatening, but serious heart problems can occur. Treatments for Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome can stop or prevent episodes of fast heartbeats. A catheter-based procedure, known as ablation, can permanently correct the heart rhythm problems.
Want to know more about this article or other health related issues? Ask your question and we'll post some each week for CNN.com reader to discuss or for our experts to weight in.
|Most Viewed||Most Emailed| | 3.09239 |
In chemistry, polarity refers to a separation of electric charge leading to a molecule or its chemical groups having an electric dipole or multipole moment. Polar molecules interact through dipole–dipole intermolecular forces and hydrogen bonds. Molecular polarity is dependent on the difference in electronegativity between atoms in a compound and the asymmetry of the compound's structure. Polarity underlies a number of physical properties including surface tension, solubility, and melting- and boiling-points.
Electrons are not always shared equally between two bonding atoms; one atom might exert more of a force on the electron cloud than the other. This "pull" is termed electronegativity and measures the attraction for electrons a particular atom has. The unequal sharing of electrons within a bond leads to the formation of an electric dipole: a separation of positive and negative electric charge. Partial charges are denoted as δ+ (delta plus) and δ− (delta minus). These symbols were introduced by Christopher Ingold and his wife Hilda Usherwood in 1926.
Atoms with high electronegativities — such as fluorine, oxygen, and nitrogen — exert a greater pull on electrons than atoms with lower electronegativities. In a bond, this can lead to unequal sharing of electrons between atoms, as electrons will be drawn closer to the atom with the higher electronegativity.
Bonds can fall between one of two extremes — being completely nonpolar or completely polar. A completely nonpolar bond occurs when the electronegativities are identical and therefore possess a difference of zero. A completely polar bond is more correctly termed ionic bonding and occurs when the difference between electronegativities is large enough that one atom takes an electron from the other. The terms "polar" and "nonpolar" bonds usually refer to covalent bonds. To determine the polarity of a covalent bond using numerical means, the difference between the electronegativity of the atoms is taken. If the result is between 0.4 and 1.7 then, generally, the bond is polar covalent.
Polarity of molecules
While the molecules can be described as "polar covalent", "nonpolar covalent", or "ionic", this is often a relative term, with one molecule simply being more polar or more nonpolar than another. However, the following properties are typical of such molecules.
A molecule is composed of one or more chemical bonds between molecular orbitals of different atoms. A molecule may be polar either as a result of polar bonds due to differences in electronegativity as described above, or as a result of an asymmetric arrangement of nonpolar covalent bonds and non-bonding pairs of electrons known as a full molecular orbital.
Polar molecules
Examples of common household polar molecules include sugar, for instance the sucrose sugar variety. Sugars have many polar oxygen–hydrogen (-OH) groups and are overall highly polar.
Due to the polar nature of the water molecule (H2O) itself, polar molecules are generally able to dissolve in water.
- Example 1. The hydrogen fluoride, HF, molecule is polar by virtue of polar covalent bonds — in the covalent bond electrons are displaced towards the more electronegative fluorine atom.
- Example 2. In the ammonia, NH3, molecule the three N–H bonds have only a slight polarity (toward the more electronegative nitrogen atom). However, the molecule has two lone electrons in an orbital, that points towards the fourth apex of the approximate tetrahedron, (VSEPR). This orbital is not participating in covalent bonding; it is electron-rich, which results in a powerful dipole across the whole ammonia molecule.
- Example 2.5. In the ozone, O3, molecule the two O–O bonds are nonpolar (there is no electronegativity difference between atoms of the same element). However, the distribution of other electrons is uneven — since the central atom has to share electrons with two other atoms, but each of the outer atoms has to share electrons with only one other atom, the central atom is more deprived of electrons than the others (the central atom has a formal charge of +1, while the outer atoms each have a formal charge of −1/2). Since the molecule has a bent geometry, the result is a dipole across the whole ozone molecule.
Ammonia: the two lone electrons are shown in yellow, the hydrogen atoms in white
Nonpolar molecules
A molecule may be nonpolar either when there is an equal sharing of electrons between the two atoms of a diatomic molecule or because of the symmetrical arrangement of polar bonds in a more complex molecule.
Examples of household nonpolar compounds include fats, oil, and petrol/gasoline. Therefore (per the "oil and water" rule of thumb), most nonpolar molecules are water-insoluble (hydrophobic) at room temperature. However, many nonpolar organic solvents, such as turpentine, are able to dissolve polar substances. When comparing a polar and nonpolar molecule with similar molar masses, the polar molecule in general has a higher boiling point, because the dipole–dipole interaction between polar molecules causes greater attachment. The most common form of such an interaction is the hydrogen bond, which is also known as the H-bond.
- Example 3. In the methane molecule (CH4) the four C–H bonds are arranged tetrahedrally around the carbon atom. Each bond has polarity (though not very strong). However, the bonds are arranged symmetrically so there is no overall dipole in the molecule.
- Example 4. The boron trifluoride molecule (BF3) has a trigonal planar arrangement of three polar bonds at 120°. This results in no overall dipole in the molecule.
- Example 5. The oxygen molecule (O2) does not have polarity in the covalent bond because of equal electronegativity, hence there is no polarity in the molecule.
Methane: the bonds are arranged symmetrically so there is no overall dipole
Boron trifluoride: trigonal planar arrangement of three polar bonds results in no overall dipole
Large molecules that have one end with polar groups attached and another end with nonpolar groups are good surfactants. They can aid in the formation of stable emulsions, or blends, of water and fats. Surfactants reduce the interfacial tension between oil and water by adsorbing at the liquid–liquid interface.
Phospholipids are effective natural surfactants that have important biological functions
Predicting molecule polarity
- This classification table gives a good general understanding of predicting molecular dipole of some general molecular structures. However, one should not interpret it literally:
|HAx||Molecules with a single H||HF|
|AxOH||Molecules with an OH at one end||C2H5OH|
|OxAy||Molecules with an O at one end||H2O|
|NxAy||Molecules with an N at one end||NH3|
|Nonpolar||A2||Diatomic molecules of the same element||O2|
|CxAy||Most carbon compounds||CO2|
- Determining the point group is a useful way to predict polarity of a molecule. In general, a molecule will not possess dipole moment, if the individual bond dipole moments of the molecule cancel each other out. This is because dipole moments are euclidean vector quantities with magnitude and direction, and a two equal vectors who oppose each other will cancel out.
Any molecule with an centre of inversion ( "i" ) or a horizontal mirror plane ( "σh ") will not possess dipole moments. Likewise, a molecule with more than one Cn axis will not possess dipole moment because dipole moments cannot lie in more than one dimension. As a consequence of that constraint, all molecules with D symmetry (Schönflies notation) will, therefore, not have dipole moment because, by definition, D point groups have two or multiple Cn axis.
Since C1, Cs,C∞h Cn and Cnv point groups do not have a centre of inversion, horizontal mirror planes or multiple Cn axis, molecules in one of those point groups will have dipole moment.
See also
- Bond dipole moment
- Covalent bond
- Chemical bonding
- Thorium monoxide has the highest known internal electric field of any molecule.
- The Origin of the "Delta" Symbol for Fractional Charges Jensen, William B. J. Chem. Educ. 2009, 86, 545. Link
||This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2011)| | 4.008518 |
Local Interstellar Cloud
The Local Interstellar Cloud (or Local Fluff or LIC) is the interstellar cloud roughly 30 light years or 9.2 parsecs across through which the Earth's Solar System is currently moving. It is currently unknown if the Sun is embedded in the LIC, or in the region where the LIC is interacting with the neighboring G-cloud. The Solar System is thought to have entered the Local Interstellar Cloud at some time between 44,000 and 150,000 years ago and is expected to remain within it for another 10,000 to 20,000 years. The cloud has a temperature of about 6,000 K, about the same temperature as the surface of the Sun. However, its specific heat capacity is very low as it is not very dense, with 0.3 atoms per cubic centimeter; less dense than the average for the interstellar medium in the Milky Way (0.5 atoms/cm3), though six times denser than the gas in the Local Bubble (0.05 atoms/cm3) which surrounds the local cloud. In comparison, Earth's atmosphere at the edge of space has 12 billion atoms per cubic centimeter, dropping to 52 million at 150 km.
The Local Interstellar Cloud's potential effects on Earth are prevented by the solar wind and the Sun's magnetic field. This interaction with the heliosphere is under study by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), a NASA satellite mapping the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space.
See also
- http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=14203, Into the Interstellar Void, Centauri Dreams
- "Near-Earth Supernovas". NASA Science. NASA.gov. January 6, 2003. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
- http://interstellar.jpl.nasa.gov/interstellar/probe/introduction/neighborhood.html, Our Local Galactic Neighborhood, NASA
- Boulanger, F.; Cox, P.; and Jones, A. P. (2000). "Course 7: Dust in the Interstellar Medium". In F. Casoli, J. Lequeux, & F. David. Infrared Space Astronomy, Today and Tomorrow. p. 251. Bibcode:2000isat.conf..251B.
- "U.S. Standard Atmosphere, 1976". Thermal Protection Systems Expert and Material Properties Database. NASA.gov. September 27, 2000. Retrieved 2012-06-24.
- "The Local Interstellar Cloud". Astronomy Picture of the Day. NASA.gov. February 2, 2010. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
Further reading
- Science Nasa: "A Breeze from the stars" Interstellar helium-enriched wind from Ophiucus.
- "Local Chimney and Superbubbles"
- Voyager Makes Interstellar Discovery
- Anderson, Mark (January 6, 2007). "Don't stop till you get to the Fluff". New Scientist 193 (2585): 26–30. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(07)60043-8. | 3.264471 |
United States presidential election, 1884
|Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Blaine/Logan, Blue denotes those won by Cleveland/Hendricks. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.|
The United States presidential election of 1884 was the 25th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1884. It saw the first election of a Democrat as President of the United States since the election of 1856. The campaign was marred by exceptional political acrimony and personal invective.
New York Governor Grover Cleveland narrowly defeated Republican former United States Senator James G. Blaine of Maine to break the longest losing streak for any major party in American political history: six consecutive presidential elections.
New York decided the election, awarding Governor Cleveland the state's 36 electors by a margin of just 1,047 votes out of 1,171,312 cast.
Republican Party nomination
The 1884 Republican National Convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, on June 3–6, with former United States Senator and former Speaker of the House James G. Blaine of Maine, President Chester A. Arthur, and Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont as the frontrunners. Though he was still popular, Arthur did not make a serious bid for re-nomination, knowing that his increasing health problems meant he would probably not survive a second term (he ultimately died in November 1886). Blaine led on the first ballot, with Arthur second, and Edmunds third. This order did not change on successive ballots as Blaine increased his lead, and he won a majority on the fourth ballot. After nominating Blaine, the convention chose Senator John A. Logan of Illinois as the vice-presidential nominee.
Famed Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman was considered a possible Republican candidate, but ruled himself out with what has become known as the Sherman pledge: "If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve." Robert Todd Lincoln, son of past President Abraham Lincoln, was also strongly courted by politicians and the media of the day to seek the presidential or vice-presidential nomination. Lincoln however was as adverse to the nomination as Sherman was.
|James G. Blaine||334||341||375||541|
|Chester A. Arthur||278||270||274||207|
|George F. Edmunds||93||85||69||41|
|John A. Logan||63||61||58||7|
|Joseph R. Hawley||13||13||13||15|
|Robert T. Lincoln||4||4||8||2|
|William T. Sherman||2||3||2||0|
|Vice Presidential Ballot|
|John A. Logan||780|
|Walter Q. Gresham||6|
|Joseph B. Foraker||1|
Democratic Party nomination
The Democrats convened in Chicago on July 8–11, 1884, with New York Governor Grover Cleveland as clear frontrunner, the candidate of northern reformers and sound-money men (as opposed to inflationists). Although Tammany Hall bitterly opposed his nomination, the machine represented a minority of the New York delegation. Its only chance to block Cleveland was to break the unit rule, which mandated that the votes of an entire delegation be cast for only one candidate, and this it failed to do. Daniel N. Lockwood of New York placed Cleveland's name in nomination. But this rather lackluster address was eclipsed by the seconding speech of Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin, who roused the delegates with a memorable slap at Tammany. "They love him, gentlemen," Bragg said of Cleveland, "and they respect him, not only for himself, for his character, for his integrity and judgment and iron will, but they love him most of all for the enemies he has made." As the convention rocked with cheers, Tammany boss John Kelly lunged at the platform, screaming that he welcomed the compliment.
On the first ballot, Cleveland led the field with 392 votes, more than 150 votes short of the nomination. Trailing him were Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, 170; Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, 88; Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania, 78; and Joseph E. McDonald of Indiana, 56; with the rest scattered. Randall then withdrew in Cleveland's favor. This move, together with the Southern bloc scrambling aboard the Cleveland bandwagon, was enough to put him over the top of the second ballot, with 683 votes, to 81.5 for Bayard and 45.5 for Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana. Hendricks was nominated unanimously for vice-president on the first ballot after John C. Black, William Rosecrans, and George Washington Glick withdrew their names from consideration.
|Ballot||1st||2nd Before Shifts||2nd After Shifts|
|Thomas F. Bayard||170||151.5||81.5|
|Allen G. Thurman||88||60||4|
|Samuel J. Randall||78||5||4|
|Joseph E. McDonald||56||2||2|
|John G. Carlisle||27||0||0|
|Russell P. Flower||4||0||0|
|Thomas A. Hendricks||1||123.5||45.5|
|Samuel J. Tilden||1||2||0|
|Vice Presidential Ballot|
|Thomas A. Hendricks||816|
Prohibition Party nomination
The 4th Prohibition Party National Convention assembled in Lafayette Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There were 505 delegates from 31 states and territories at the convention. The national ticket was nominated unanimously: John St. John for president and William Daniel for vice-president. The straightforward single-issue Prohibition Party platform advocated the criminalization of alcoholic beverages.
|John St. John||505|
Greenback Party nomination
The 3rd Greenback Party National Convention assembled in English's Opera House in Indianapolis, Indiana. Delegates from 28 states and the District of Columbia were in attendance. The convention nominated Benjamin F. Butler for president on the first ballot. Absolom M. West was nominated unanimously for vice-president.
|Benjamin F. Butler||323|
|Edward Phelps Allis||2|
Anti-Monopoly Party nomination
The Anti-Monopoly National Convention assembled in the Hershey Music Hall in Chicago, Illinois. The party had been formed to express opposition to the business practices of the emerging nationwide companies. There were delegates present from 16 states, but half of the delegates came from Michigan and Illinois.
Alson Streeter was the temporary chairman and John F. Henry was the permanent chairmen.
Benjamin F. Butler was nominated for president on the first ballot. Delegates from New York and Maryland bolted the convention when it appeared that no discussion of other candidates would be allowed.
The convention chose not to nominate a candidate for vice-president, hoping that other conventions would endorse a similar platform and name a suitable vice-presidential nominee.
|Benjamin F. Butler||124|
|Allen G. Thurman||7|
American Party nomination
The American (Prohibition) Party held its national convention in the YMCA building in Chicago, Illinois. There were 150 delegates, including many non-voting delegates. The party sought to merge the reform movements of anti-masonry, prohibition, anti-polygamy, and direct election of the president into a new party.
Jonathan Blanchard was a leader of the party. He traveled throughout northern states in the spring and gave an address entitled "The American Party - Its Principles and Its Claims."
During the convention, the party name was changed from the American Party to the American Prohibition Party. The party name had been the Anti-Masonic Party in 1880.
Equal Rights Party nomination
Dissatisfied with resistance by the men of the major parties to women's suffrage, a small group of women announced the formation in 1884 of the Equal Rights Party.
The Equal Rights Party held its national convention in San Francisco, California on September 20. The convention nominated Belva Ann Lockwood, an attorney in Washington, D.C., for President. Chairman Marietta Stow, the first woman to preside over a national nominating convention, was nominated for vice-president.
Lockwood agreed to be the party's presidential candidate, even though most women in the United States did not yet have the right to vote. She said, "I cannot vote but I can be voted for." She was the first woman to run a full campaign for the office (Victoria Woodhull conducted a more limited campaign in 1872). The Equal Rights Party had no treasury, but Lockwood gave lectures to pay for campaign travel. She won fewer than 500 votes.
General election
The issue of personal character marked was paramount in the 1884 campaign. Blaine had been prevented from getting the Republican presidential nomination during the previous two elections because of the stigma of the "Mulligan letters": in 1876, a Boston bookkeeper named James Mulligan had located some letters showing that Blaine had sold his influence in Congress to various businesses. One such letter ended with the phrase "burn this letter", from which a popular chant of the Democrats arose - "Burn, burn, burn this letter!" In just one deal, he had received $110,150 (over $1.5 million in 2010 dollars) from the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad for securing a federal land grant, among other things. Democrats and anti-Blaine Republicans made unrestrained attacks on his integrity as a result. Cleveland, on the other hand, was known as "Grover the Good" for his personal integrity; in the space of the three previous years he had become successively the mayor of Buffalo, New York, and then the governor of the state of New York, cleaning up large amounts of Tammany Hall's graft.
It came as a tremendous shock when, on July 21, the Buffalo Evening Telegraph reported that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock, that the child had gone to an orphanage, and that the mother had been driven into an asylum. Cleveland's campaign decided that candor was the best approach to this scandal: they admitted that Cleveland had formed an "illicit connection" with the mother and that a child had been born and given the Cleveland surname. They also noted that there was no proof that Cleveland was the father, and claimed that, by assuming responsibility and finding a home for the child, he was merely doing his duty. Finally, they showed that the mother had not been forced into an asylum; her whereabouts were unknown. Blaine's supporters condemned Cleveland in the strongest of terms, singing "Ma, Ma, Where's my Pa?" (After Cleveland's victory, Cleveland supporters would respond to the taunt with: "Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha.") However, the Cleveland campaign's approach worked well enough and the race remained close through Election Day. In fact, many Republican reformers, put off by Blaine's scandals, worked for the election of Cleveland; these reformers were known as "Mugwumps".
In the final week of the campaign, the Blaine campaign suffered a catastrophe. At a Republican meeting attended by Blaine, a group of New York preachers castigated the Mugwumps. Their spokesman, Reverend Dr. Samuel Burchard, made this fatal statement: "We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion." Blaine did not notice Burchard's anti-Catholic slur, nor did the assembled newspaper reporters, but a Democratic operative did, and Cleveland's campaign managers made sure that it was widely publicized. The statement energized the Irish and Catholic vote in New York City heavily against Blaine, costing him New York state and the election by the narrowest of margins.
In addition to Rev. Dr. Samuel Burchard's statement, it is also believed that John St. John's campaign was responsible for winning Cleveland the election in New York. Since Prohibitionists tended to ally more with Republicans, the Republican Party attempted to convince John St. John to drop out. When they failed, they resorted to slandering him. Because of this, he redoubled his efforts in upstate New York, where Blaine was vulnerable on his prohibition stance, and took votes away from the Republicans.
|Presidential candidate||Party||Home state||Popular vote||Electoral
|Count||Pct||Vice-presidential candidate||Home state||Elect. vote|
|Grover Cleveland||Democratic||New York||4,914,482||48.85%||219||Thomas A. Hendricks||Indiana||219|
|James G. Blaine||Republican||Maine||4,856,903||48.28%||182||John A. Logan||Illinois||182|
|John St. John||Prohibition||Kansas||147,482||1.50%||0||William Daniel||Maryland||0|
|Benjamin Franklin Butler||Greenback/Anti-Monopoly||Massachusetts||134,294||1.33%||0||Absolom M. West||Mississippi||0|
|Needed to win||201||201|
Results by state
|States won by Cleveland/Hendricks|
|States won by Blaine/Logan|
|John St. John
Close states
Margin of victory less than 5% (172 electoral votes):
- New York, 0.10%
- Michigan, 0.82%
- Connecticut, 0.94%
- Indiana, 1.32%
- New Jersey, 1.67%
- Virginia, 2.15%
- West Virginia, 3.19%
- Tennessee, 3.72%
- Illinois, 3.73%
- Ohio, 4.05%
- Oregon, 4.28%
- Wisconsin, 4.59%
- New Hampshire, 4.80%
Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (104 electoral votes):
- Iowa, 5.24%
- Maryland, 5.98%
- Florida, 6.23%
- California, 6.64%
- North Carolina, 6.66%
- Missouri, 7.47%
- Massachusetts, 8.03%
- Pennsylvania, 9.52%
Geography of Results
Cartographic Gallery
See also
- American election campaigns in the 19th century
- History of the United States (1865–1918)
- President of the United States
- Third Party System
- An American Almanac and Treasury of Facts, Statistical, Financial, and Political, for the year 1886., Ainsworth R. Spofford, http://books.google.com/books?id=1ZcYAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false (pg. 241)
- William DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, Gramercy 1997
- "1884 Presidential General Election Data - National". Retrieved May 7, 2013.
- Hirsch, Mark. "Election of 1884," in History of Presidential Elections: Volume III 1848-1896, ed. Arthur Schlesinger and Fred Israel (1971), 3:1578.
- Josephson, Matthew (1938). The Politicos: 1865–1896.
- Keller, Morton (1977). Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America.
- Kleppner, Paul (1979). The Third Electoral System 1853-1892: Parties, Voters, and Political Cultures.
- Lynch, G. Patrick "U.S. Presidential Elections in the Nineteenth Century: Why Culture and the Economy Both Mattered." Polity 35#1 (2002) pp 29–50. in JSTOR, focus on voting behavior in 1884
- Norgren, Jill. Belva Lockwood: The Woman Who Would be President (2007). online version, focus on 1884
- Morgan, H. Wayne (1969). From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896.
- Rhodes, James Ford (1920). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Roosevelt-Taft Administration (8 vols.).
- Mark Wahlgren Summers. Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884 (2000) online version
- "1884 Election Cleveland v. Blaine Overview", HarpWeek, July 26, 2008.
- Roberts, North (2004). Encyclopedia of Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms.
Primary sources
- The Republican Campaign Text Book for 1884. Republican Congressional Committee. 1882.
- Presidential Election of 1884: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
- 1884 popular vote by counties
- How close was the 1884 election? — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. | 3.104652 |
2. Names of Relations tabooed
Name, Words, Father, Mention, Wife, Pronounce
IT might naturally be expected that the reserve so commonly maintained with regard to personal names would be dropped or at least relaxed among relations and friends. But the reverse of this is often the case. It is precisely the persons most intimately connected by blood and especially by marriage to whom the rule applies with the greatest stringency. Such people are often forbidden, not only to pronounce each other’s names, but even to utter ordinary words which resemble or have a single syllable in common with these names. The persons who are thus mutually debarred from mentioning each other’s names are especially husbands and wives, a man and his wife’s parents, and a woman and her husband’s father. For example, among the Caffres a woman may not publicly pronounce the birth-name of her husband or of any of his brothers, nor may she use the interdicted word in its ordinary sense. If her husband, for instance, be called u-Mpaka, from impaka, a small feline animal, she must speak of that beast by some other name. Further, a Caffre wife is forbidden to pronounce even mentally the names of her father-in-law and of all her husband’s male relations in the ascending line; and whenever the emphatic syllable of any of their names occurs in another word, she must avoid it by substituting either an entirely new word, or, at least, another syllable in its place. Hence this custom has given rise to an almost distinct language among the women, which the Caffres call “women’s speech.” The interpretation of this “women’s speech” is naturally very difficult, “for no definite rules can be given for the formation of these substituted words, nor is it possible to form a dictionary of them, their number being so great—since there may be many women, even in the same tribe, who would be no more at liberty to use the substitutes employed by some others, than they are to use the original words themselves.” A Caffre man, on his side, may not mention the name of his mother-in-law, nor may she pronounce his; but he is free to utter words in which the emphatic syllable of her name occurs. A Kirghiz woman dares not pronounce the names of the older relations of her husband, nor even use words which resemble them in sound. For example, if one of these relations is called Shepherd, she may not speak of sheep, but must call them “the bleating ones”; if his name is Lamb, she must refer to lambs as “the young bleating ones.” In Southern India wives believe that to tell their husband’s name or to pronounce it even in a dream would bring him to an untimely end. Among the Sea Dyaks a man may not pronounce the name of his father-in-law or mother-in-law without incurring the wrath of the spirits. And since he reckons as his father-in-law and mother-in-law not only the father and mother of his own wife, but also the fathers and mothers of his brothers’ wives and sisters’ husbands, and likewise the fathers and mothers of all his cousins, the number of tabooed names may be very considerable and the opportunities of error correspondingly numerous. To make confusion worse confounded, the names of persons are often the names of common things, such as moon, bridge, barley, cobra, leopard; so that when any of a man’s many fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law are called by such names, these common words may not pass his lips. Among the Alfoors of Minahassa, in Celebes, the custom is carried still further so as to forbid the use even of words which merely resemble the personal names in sound. It is especially the name of a father-in-law which is thus laid under an interdict. If he, for example, is called Kalala, his son-in-law may not speak of a horse by its common name kawalo; he must call it a “riding-beast” (sasakajan). So among the Alfoors of the island of Buru it is taboo to mention the names of parents and parents-in-law, or even to speak of common objects by words which resemble these names in sound. Thus, if your mother-in-law is called Dalu, which means “betel,” you may not ask for betel by its ordinary name, you must ask for “red mouth”; if you want betel-leaf, you may not say betel-leaf (dalu ’mun), you must say karon fenna. In the same island it is also taboo to mention the name of an elder brother in his presence. Transgressions of these rules are punished with fines. In Sunda it is thought that a particular crop would be spoilt if a man were to mention the names of his father and mother.
Among the Nufoors of Dutch New Guinea persons who are related to each other by marriage are forbidden to mention each other’s names. Among the connexions whose names are thus tabooed are wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law, your wife’s uncles and aunts and also her grand-uncles and grand-aunts, and the whole of your wife’s or your husband’s family in the same generation as yourself, except that men may mention the names of their brothers-in-law, though women may not. The taboo comes into operation as soon as the betrothal has taken place and before the marriage has been celebrated. Families thus connected by the betrothal of two of their members are not only forbidden to pronounce each other’s names; they may not even look at each other, and the rule gives rise to the most comical scenes when they happen to meet unexpectedly. And not merely the names themselves, but any words that sound like them are scrupulously avoided and other words used in their place. If it should chance that a person has inadvertently uttered a forbidden name, he must at once throw himself on the floor and say, “I have mentioned a wrong name. I throw it through the chinks of the floor in order that I may eat well.”
In the western islands of Torres Straits a man never mentioned the personal names of his father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law; and a woman was subject to the same restrictions. A brother-in-law might be spoken of as the husband or brother of some one whose name it was lawful to mention; and similarly a sister-in-law might be called the wife of So-and-so. If a man by chance used the personal name of his brother-in-law, he was ashamed and hung his head. His shame was only relieved when he had made a present as compensation to the man whose name he had taken in vain. The same compensation was made to a sister-in-law, a father-in-law, and a mother-in-law for the accidental mention of their names. Among the natives who inhabit the coast of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain to mention the name of a brother-in-law is the grossest possible affront you can offer to him; it is a crime punishable with death. In the Banks’ Islands, Melanesia, the taboos laid on the names of persons connected by marriage are very strict. A man will not mention the name of his father-in-law, much less the name of his mother-in-law, nor may he name his wife’s brother; but he may name his wife’s sister—she is nothing to him. A woman may not name her father-in-law, nor on any account her son-in-law. Two people whose children have intermarried are also debarred from mentioning each other’s names. And not only are all these persons forbidden to utter each other’s names; they may not even pronounce ordinary words which chance to be either identical with these names or to have any syllables in common with them. Thus we hear of a native of these islands who might not use the common words for “pig” and “to die,” because these words occurred in the polysyllabic name of his son-in-law; and we are told of another unfortunate who might not pronounce the everyday words for “hand” and “hot” on account of his wife’s brother’s name, and who was even debarred from mentioning the number “one,” because the word for “one” formed part of the name of his wife’s cousin.
The reluctance to mention the names or even syllables of the names of persons connected with the speaker by marriage can hardly be separated from the reluctance evinced by so many people to utter their own names or the names of the dead or of the dead or of chiefs and kings; and if the reticence as to these latter names springs mainly from superstition, we may infer that the reticence as to the former has no better foundation. That the savage’s unwillingness to mention his own name is based, at least in part, on a superstitious fear of the ill use that might be made of it by his foes, whether human or spiritual, has already been shown. It remains to examine the similar usage in regard to the names of the dead and of royal personages.
|Written By Sir James George Frazer|
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Brief SummaryRead full entry
North American Ecology (US and Canada)Resident in southern North America migratory to the north (Scott 1986). Habitats are OPEN AREAS, INCLUDING DESERT, PLAINS AND DISTURBED AREAS. Host plants are usually herbaceous including many species, but mostly in one family, Cruciferae. Eggs are laid on the host plant singly. Individuals overwinter as pupae. There are multiple flights each year with the approximate flight time MAR15-NOV30 depending on latitude (Scott 1986). Considered Pieris protodice by Scott (1986). | 3.097637 |
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Italo Calvino’s existential classic, Il cavaliere inesistente (“The Nonexistent Knight”) is a novel about Sir Agilulf, a medieval knight who follows the rules of chivalry with complete devotion. Unfortunately, Sir Agilulf is only an empty suit of armor: although the knight trains and stands vigils and fights in the manner of a person, there is actually nobody inside the shell. Calvino’s perplexing fable evocatively captures the workaday world where many (maybe most) people are empty “suits” who exist merely to keep a seat warm, however this predicament is nothing when compared to that of the chiton, a primitive marine mollusk covered by a row of aragonitic shells. Not only are the chiton’s rocky eyes a constituent part of its armor, the chiton itself is part of its armor! Bands of dense muscles are interwoven through the plates and sensory cells are embedded within. When the chiton dies, the shell phalanx falls apart into perplexingly shaped hunks of calcium carbonate. The remarkable segmented shells are composed of 8 plates and they afford substantial protection to the chitons which are capable of rolling themselves into armored balls. Chitons are classed as the Polyplacophora. They take their common name “chiton” from the Latin word chitōn, which means “mollusc”. The Romans derived this word from the Greek word “khitōn”, meaning tunic.
For locomotion the chiton relies on its rubbery “foot”, a large band of adhesive muscles with which it crawls along the sand and rocks of the ocean bed. A chiton’s foot can produce substantial adhesion, and the creatures are able to cling to rocks with amazing tenacity. Most chitons are herbivorous grazers and eat algae, bryozoans, diatoms, and other microbes, all of which they scrape up with their sharp radula tongue–however, a few species of chiton have left the gentle lifestyle of herbivore behind and become predators. These hunting chitons trap their prey (usually small shrimp and fish) by making a box trap out of their enlarged, hood-like front end. They hold this segment of their girdle above the ocean bottom and then clamp down on unsuspecting prey which thinks they are small cavern-like rocks.
Chitons are ancient. Fossils of stem-group chitons date back to the beginning of the Ordovician over 488 million years ago (and these lineages probably stretch back earlier into the Cambrian). Yet the Chiton’s rocky aragonite eye is comparatively recent, having evolved only ten million years ago. Chitons are hundreds of millions of years older than mammals but their eyes are much more contemporary than our own.
The Ordovician Period, the second period of the Paleozoic Era, took place from 488 to 444 million years ago. During those 44 million years, the landmasses of earth were devoid of life except for hardy lichens, tiny algae, and a few lowly non-vascular plants. The oceans, however, teemed with diverse marine invertebrates and primitive vertebrates. The ecosystems of these great shallow seas seem familiar–with colorful intermeshed filter feeders, grazing herbivores, and swift deadly predators. And yet the creatures are so alien as to make Ordovician reconstructions almost resemble another planet. All of the creatures of a modern coral reef are replaced by strange analogs: the dominant filter feeder were not corals but weird sponge-like animals—the archaeocyathids. The grazers were conodonts and trilobites. The predators were primitive sharks, huge scorpion-like eurypterids, and above all, the nautiloids–for the Ordovician was a time when cephalopods ruled the earth.
Clever mollusks with multiple tentacles, eyes, and a method of jet propulsion, cephalopods had evolved in the Late Cambrian from a snail-like ancestor. Their taxonomy exploded in complexity during the Ordovician period. They also left the shallow continental shelves to range across the pelagic ocean and to descend into the benthic depths. The cephalopods of the Ordovician period were the nautiloids, animals which manipulated a bubble of air within a chambered shell to move up and down the water column. They could grab prey with their many tentacles or retreat into their calcium-based shell. The family quickly exploded in complexity. To quote palaeos.com:
At least ten different orders flourished at this time, all but one appearing for the first time during the early or middle part of the Ordovician. This astonishing diversity included straight, curved, loosely coiled, and tightly coiled shelled types, and even one group (the Ascocerids) that in order to become lighter and more streamlined lost the a large part of their shell altogether. These intelligent carnivorous molluscs replaced the Cambrian Anomalocarids as the dominant life form and top predator of the world’s ocean. The biggest, such as the endocerids, attained huge size; with shells of up to 10 meters in length they were the largest animal that, up until that time, had ever lived.
Some paleontologists have expressed doubts about this magnificent ten meter endocerid shell. But, even so, it is worth remembering that this measurement did not include the tentacles and the head of the creature. These giant orthocones must have been formidable predators, living on nautiloids, eurypterids, and jawless fish. The great monsters are believed to have had weak eyes (and could probably be avoided by staying shell-side of the behemoths). However an even bigger problem faced the tentacled masters of that world.
During Ordovician times, the land masses that are now South America, Africa, Madagascar, Antarctica, India, South Asia, and Australia were all joined together as a supercontinent, Gondwanaland. Over tens of millions of years Gondwanaland gradually drifted into the Southern Polar regions of the globe. This resulted in heavy glaciation, which in turn caused rapid deep freezes and sudden interglacial warm periods—in other words, an ice age. This great ice age caused the depth of the ocean to fluctuate wildly which brought a crashing end to the Ordovician and its dominant cephalopods. The mass extinction which ended the Ordovician period was the second worst in the history of the planet (eclipsed only by the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period). More than 60% of marine invertebrates went extinct (including whole families of mollusks). This was but one set back for cephalopods. The family has burgeoned and then crashed many times, but it marked the end of their time as apex predator. | 3.050115 |
*Both citrus fruit and foliage can be damaged if temperature falls below freezing for a prolonged period. However, weather conditions prior to cold temperature, duration of cold, position of the tree in the grove or yard, maturity of the fruit, and health and age of the tree can affect tree and fruit hardiness.
*Trees are more cold hardy when exposed to cooler temperature over several weeks prior to freezes. Sudden cold snaps can be particularly damaging to citrus. Cold tolerance develops most readily when trees are not flushing. Warm temperatures at any time during the winter may cause citrus trees to resume growth and reduce their cold tolerance.
*Ice formation in citrus tissues – not low temperature – kills or damages citrus trees and fruit.
*Fruit damage occurs when the temperature falls below 28°F for at least four hours.
*Frozen fruit can be salvaged for juice.
*Four hours at 20°F can kill 3/8 inch or smaller wood and temperatures below 28°F for 12 continuous
hours may kill larger limbs and possibly the entire tree.
*The most popular method of freeze protection employed by growers is irrigation. Small micro-sprinklers at the base of the tree emit a mist that turns to ice and engulfs the trunk and lower canopy. As the water changes to ice it give off heat (called latent heat of fusion) which protects the tree. As long as water is constantly changing to ice the temperature of the ice-water mixture will remain at 32°F.
*The major problems in the use of irrigation for cold protection occur when inadequate amounts of water are applied or under windy (advective) conditions.
*Depending on the type of freeze (advective/windy freeze or radiation frost) water can provide protection in one situation and cause damage in another, it is important to know what principles are involved and understand that dew point and what can happen when using water during a freeze.
Information provided by Mongi Zekri, multi-county citrus agent, University of Florida, IFAS, SW Florida Extension Service. | 3.555694 |
The USGS Water Science School
Introduction 1: Measuring stage 2: Discharge measurement 3: Stage-discharge relation
Streamgages continuously measure stage, as stated in the "Measuring Stage”" section. This continuous record of stage is translated to river discharge by applying the stage-discharge relation (also called rating). Stage-discharge relations are developed for streamgages by physically measuring the flow of the river with a mechanical current meter or ADCP at a wide range of stages; for each measurement of discharge there is a corresponding measurement of stage. The USGS makes discharge measurements at most streamgages every 6 to 8 weeks, ensuring that the range of stage and flows at the streamgage are measured regularly. Special effort is made to measure extremely high and low stages and flows because these measurements occur less frequently. An example of a stage-discharge relation is shown in the diagram below. The stage-discharge relation depends upon the shape, size, slope, and roughness of the channel at the streamgage and is different for every streamgage.
The development of an accurate stage-discharge relation requires numerous discharge measurements at all ranges of stage and streamflow. In addition, these relations must be continually checked against on-going discharge measurements because stream channels are constantly changing. Changes in stream channels are often caused by erosion or deposition of streambed materials, seasonal vegetation growth, debris, or ice. An example of how erosion in a stream channel increases a cross-sectional area for the water, allowing the river to have a greater discharge with no change in stage, is shown in the diagram below. New discharge measurements plotted on an existing stage-discharge relation graph would show this, and the rating could be adjusted to allow the correct discharge to be estimated for the measured stage.
Most USGS streamgages transmit stage data by satellite to USGS computers where the stage data are used to esti-mate streamflow using the developed stage-discharge relation (rating) (see diagram below). The stage information is routinely reviewed and checked to ensure that the calculated discharge is accurate. In addition, the USGS has quality-control processes in place to ensure the streamflow information being reported across the country has comparable quality and is obtained and analyzed using consistent methods.
Most of the stage and streamflow information produced by the USGS is available in near real time through the National Water Information System (NWIS) World Wide Web site (http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/). In addition to real-time streamgage data, the NWIS Web site also provides access to daily discharges and annual maximum discharges for the period of record for all active and discontinued streamgages operated by the USGS.
Streamgaging involves obtaining a continuous record of stage, making periodic discharge measurements, establishing and maintaining a relation between the stage and discharge, and applying the stage-discharge relation to the stage record to obtain a continuous record of discharge. The USGS has provided the Nation with consistent, reliable streamflow information for over 115 years. USGS streamflow information is critical for supporting water management, hazard management, environmental research, and infrastructure design. For more information on USGS streamgaging, go to the USGS Web site at http://water.usgs.gov. The National Streamflow Information Program offers more information on this topic., Go to the USGS Office of Surface Water Web site for more information on surface-water activities, and the USGS WaterWatch site gives you current streamflow conditions nationwide or in your area.
stream height (stage) relates to the amount of water flowing in a stream
Real-time USGS streamflow data
The water cycle: Streamflow | 3.852864 |
AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS Tractors were usually rated according to the number of 14 in. plough bottoms they would pull. In 1927, of 77 models on the American market pulling two or more bottoms, 9 were two-plough tractors; 28, three-plough; 22, f our-plough; and the remainder or 18, were capable of pulling five or more ploughs, up to ten. How ever, the tractors in the two-plough class were produced on the largest scale. Of the total of 178,074 wheeled tractors produced in the United States in 1926, were one-plough and two plough, while 45,523 had a rating of three-ploughs or two-to-three ploughs. Table I. shows the production of tractors in the United States.
In 1912 the large tractors of b to 12 plough capacities reached their zenith, and thereafter declined rapidly. The first popular small tractor was produced the following year and in 1914 3,000 tractors of this small design were sold. Although smaller, it was still of the same crude design as the larger machines, with exposed gears, plain bearings and similar features. About 1916 a number of engineers with motor-car experience entered the tractor field, and as a result of their efforts tractor design was greatly improved.
The tractor industry was hard hit by the heavy slump in prices of agricultural products late in 1920. Prices of tractors and other agricultural machinery did not drop nearly as rapidly nor as much as those of farm products, and the result was a "buyers' strike," the effect of which is clearly reflected in the production figure for 1922. A very keen price competition set in, and many tractor manufacturers went out of business during the next two years. With the improvement in the economic position of the American farmer the demand for tractors increased again, but the production record set in 1920 had not been equalled up to the end of 1926. During that year the exports of tractors from the United States amounted to 27% of the total production on a numerical basis and to nearly 25% on a value basis, the actual value of exports amounting to $29,561,023. A survey made by the U.S. department of agriculture in 1927 showed that there were then 29 concerns in the country manufacturing wheeled agricultural tractors and five manufacturing the crawler type.
It was of the frameless or backbone type, the crankcase of the engine and the cases of the change-speed gear and rear axle forming the supporting structure. The engine had four vertical cylinders of 4 in. bore and 5 in. stroke, which were cast in a single piece with the upper half of the crankcase, the lower half of this case being a separate casting. To the rear of the crankcase was bolted a housing which enclosed the flywheel, the friction clutch and the change gearing, and also formed the rear axle housing. There was no direct "through" drive, the power being always transmitted from the upper to the lower of two parallel shafts in the gearset, and an extension of the lower shaft carried the worm which meshed with the worm wheel on the rear axle differential gear.
Changing of gear was effected not by meshing the gears, which remained in mesh continuously, but by securing one or another of the gears to the shaft by positive clutches. The rear wheels were in. in diameter and the tractor was geared to give a ploughing speed of 24 m.p.h. with an engine speed of 5,000 r.p.m. In addi tion to the ploughing speed there were provided two other forward speeds and a reverse motion. Over the engine was mounted a double-compartment fuel tank holding 1 gal. of petrol and 16 gal. of kerosene, the petrol serving to start and run the engine until the carburetter was hot enough to vaporize the kerosene. Air was taken in through an air washer and the carburetter in which the kerosene, after having been sprayed into a stream of air to form a very rich mixture, was vaporised by being passed between two stampings of sheet steel, the outer faces of which were in contact with the hot exhaust gases. Additional air was mixed with this rich mixture close to the inlet valves. Ignition was by a flywheel magneto, engine lubrication by the circulating splash system, and circulation of the cooling water by the gravity or thermo-siphon system. Unlike most others, this tractor was not fitted with an engine governor by the manufacturer, but several speciality manu facturers offered governors specially designed for it and many owners of the tractor fitted them. The Fordson tractor had a wheelbase of 63 in. and weighed 2,562 lb. complete. The front axle was swivelled at its centre on a saddle casting bolted to the front of the engine and was braced near its ends by radius rods with flexible joints extending to lugs cast on the bottom of the engine crankcase. A belt pulley for power work was provided and ran at engine speed. | 3.362618 |
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Anthropologist Ten Kate made memorable journey in 1880’s U.S.
Dutch artist son fascinated by Indian culture
Publish Date: Feb 09, 2004
Tags: Dutch Exploration
SAN DIEGO, California - The anthropological journey to Baja California in 1882 and 1883 by Herman ten Kate was the culmination of many years of adolescent fascination with American Native culture and legend. The scholarly son of a painter by the same name, Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate wrote about his exploits and findings in his 1886 book Travels and Discoveries in North America.
Ten Kate (1858-1931) like his father and his uncle Mari wanted to become an graphic artist (another uncle was poet Jan J.L. ten Kate). A field trip to the Mediter-ranean island of Corsica however changed his outlook on life. Combined with an early zest for stories about cowboys and Indians in the Wild West, Ten Kate wanted to become an explorer instead.
He enrolled at the Leiden University and took general classes in geography, Eastern and Indo languages and ethnography. In 1878, Ten Kate wrote a couple of scathing articles about the U.S. government handling of the Nez Percés Indians, pleading for a more humane treatment of the Natives in the opening of the West.
He switched to universities in Paris, Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg to acquire more knowledge in anthropology and at age 24, he obtained his PhD in Heidelberg, Germany.
The Natives of North America however held his ongoing fascination and upon returning home, he persuaded the Dutch Geographic Society, the Holland Company of Sciences and especially his father, to foot the 9,000 guilders bill for an expedition into the U.S. and Mexico.
Travelling through the Southwest, the border region with Mexico and Baja California, Ten Kate did - alone and sometimes with fellow scientists such as American Frank Cushing - extensive scholarly research and hands-on observation among such tribes as the Papago, Mojave, Navajo, Apache and Zuni. Realizing that he was studying vanishing aboriginal groups, Ten Kate again berated the U.S. government on its treatment of the Natives.
Targetting Japanese expansionism
Upon his return home, Ten Kate wrote and kept editing his notes eventually to be published in a book which received little attention however. He unsuccessfully tried to land a job - in the Netherlands or the U.S. - as an anthropologist or ethnographer. Instead, the Dutchman secured participation in other expeditions and travelled to Lapland, once more to the American Southwest and later to Latin America, the Far East, and Australia, writing articles for science magazines in the Netherlands and abroad.
In 1895, Ten Kate became a Doctor of Medicine, but did not settle down until he visited Japan. For almost twenty years - interspersed with trips abroad - Ten Kate lived and worked as a physician in the Far East country. Japanese expansionism (in Korea and China among others) was singled out for heavy criticism. The world traveller also was not enamored with the situation in the Dutch East Indies either where the natives according to him deserved a much larger say in running their affairs.
After the death of his Japanese wife in 1919, Ten Kate returned to Europe, eventually settling in Tunisia, where he died in poverty twelve years later.
Ten Kate’s papers and articles, often critical of the various governments’ treatment of native people, did not receive the credits they merited. His independent research however could stand the test of time and continues to be valuable source of documentation. | 3.146944 |
Everyone in the city should take a moment and learn about what happened on this important day in American history. Instead of screaming about immigrants, it would be worthwhile to learn about what happened in this area on this day.
Maybe (just maybe) you'll learn something.
The Danbury Public School website has a great deal of information on the great fire.
A simple google search yields plenty of info on the fire.
St James Church explains why the church was spared from being burned by the British.
Bill Culhane was a member of the 1977 Bicentennial Commission and posted this message on the News-Times forum about the burning of the city (it's sad that the newspaper didn't do a story on the fire and opted instead to publish a meaningless hitpiece on the immigration boycott).
On April 26, 1777, General Tyron and 2,000 British troops marched to Danbury. Their ships were anchored in Norwalk, Connecticut. The British soldiers wanted to come to Danbury to destroy the military supplies that were being housed here for the colonial Army. They also wanted to burn homes of the colonists to show their power.
Many people who were loyal to the British before the burning of Danbury became patriots after the fire. The people of Danbury saw no reason for the British to burn private homes and farmlands. They did not understand why the British would even burn the homes of people loyal to the British.
The homes and farmlands of the people of Danbury were very important to them. They hated to run away from their homes for safety. They hated to come back and see their home burned to the ground.
The burning of Danbury by the British lit the fire of war in the hearts of the farmers, merchants, and craftsman in Danbury. However, throughout the war, some people who lived in Danbury believed in the British. These people were seen helping the British with the fires. They would take hay or straw into the houses and set them afire.
Sometimes a home in Danbury was kept from being burned if it became a headquarters for the British. However, when the British left it was usually burned as well. Mr. Stephen Jarvis, Senior was a Tory, a man who believed in the British. His house was the only house on his side of Main Street.
Reference to the fire can also be found on the city's logo.
There are two references on the seal to the British burning of Danbury in 1777. The central motto, on a diagonal band which divides the seal, is "Restituimus" or "We have Restored". Underscoring this point, atop the shield, is a phoenix rising from a fiery crown. The bird has in its beak a second motto, "Perege Modo", translated from the Latin as "Ever Onward" or Let Us Go Forward".
As bad as it was for the News-Times to not write anything about the fire in today's paper, it's equally disappointing that Mayor Boughton didn't do anything to commemorate this significant event today. As a former history teacher, Mayor Boughton should be the first person to know how important this day is in the history of Danbury as this city was a major supply depot during the war.
Instead of threatening to cut off funding to the Hispanic Center of Greater Danbury because of their school boycott, maybe Boughton should do something more constructive with his time like visiting the various schools in the area and speak to the kids about the importance of this day.
The News-Times not covering this event in today's paper is one thing, but you would expect more from a mayor who's last job was teaching history.
UPDATE (4.27.06): I forgot to mention this link. It's from Connecticut Heritage Gateway and it has great information on the history of Danbury. | 3.394485 |
May 20, 2013
- National Association for Continence
- The Simon Foundation for Continence
- Should be: The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
- American Urological Association
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
- American Urogynecologic Society
- Information on Kegel Exercises
- Urology Care Foundation from the American Urological Association
Urinary incontinence is the inability to control urination. It may be temporary or permanent, and can result from a variety of problems in the urinary tract. Urinary incontinence is generally divided into four types:
- Stress incontinence
- Urge incontinence
- Overflow incontinence
- Functional incontinence
Often, more than one type of incontinence is present. When this occurs, it is called mixed incontinence . Because incontinence is a symptom, rather than a disease, it is often hard to determine the cause. In addition, a variety of conditions may be the cause.
The urinary system helps to maintain proper water and salt balance throughout the body:
- The process of urination begins in the two kidneys, which process fluids and eliminate water and waste products to produce urine.
- Urine flows out of the kidneys into the bladder through two long tubes called ureters .
- The bladder is a sac that acts as a reservoir for urine. It is lined with a tissue membrane and enclosed in a powerful muscle called the detrusor . The bladder rests on top of the pelvic floor . This is a muscular structure similar to a sling running between the pubic bone in front to the base of the spine.
- The bladder stores the urine until it is eliminated from the body via a tube called the urethra , which is the lowest part of the urinary tract. (In men it is enclosed in the penis. In women it leads directly out.)
- The connection between the bladder and the urethra is called the bladder neck . Strong muscles called sphincter muscles encircle the bladder neck (the smooth internal sphincter muscles ) and urethra (the fibrous external sphincter muscles ).
The Process of Urination
The process of urination is a combination of automatic and conscious muscle actions. There are two phases: the emptying phase and the filling and storage phase.
The Filling and Storage Phase. When a person has completed urination, the bladder is empty. This triggers the filling and storage phase, which includes both automatic and conscious actions.
- Automatic Actions. The automatic signaling process in the brain relies on a pathway of nerve cells and chemical messengers ( neurotransmitters ) called the cholinergic and adrenergic systems. Important neurotransmitters include serotonin and noradrenaline. This pathway signals the detrusor muscle surrounding the bladder to relax. As the muscles relax, the bladder expands and allows urine to flow into it from the kidney. As the bladder fills to its capacity (about 8 - 16 oz of fluid) the nerves in the bladder send back signals of fullness to the spinal cord and the brain.
- Conscious Actions. As the bladder swells, the person becomes conscious of a sensation of fullness. In response, the individual holds the urine back by voluntarily contracting the external sphincter muscles, the muscle group surrounding the urethra. These are the muscles that children learn to control during the toilet training process.
When the need to urinate becomes greater than one's ability to control it, urination (the emptying phase) begins.
The Emptying Phase. This phase also involves automatic and conscious actions.
- Automatic Actions. When a person is ready to urinate, the nervous system initiates the voiding reflex. The nerves in the spinal cord (not the brain) signal the detrusor muscles to contract. At the same time, nerves are also telling the involuntary internal sphincter (a strong muscle encircling the bladder neck) to relax. With the bladder neck now open, the urine flows out of the bladder into the urethra.
- Conscious Actions. Once the urine enters the urethra, a person consciously relaxes the external sphincter muscles, which allows urine to completely drain from the bladder.
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Courgettes are the slender, dark green seasonal squash known as zucchini in much of the world. Courgettes are present in gardens throughout temperate regions, but they can also be grown on a small scale at home with the use of a grow bag. Grow bags are made of propylene material and provide a weed-free, sterile growing environment for your plants. To grow courgettes in a grow bag, you will need only some basic gardening tools and a plan.
Plant courgette seeds into a small-size flower pot filled with fresh potting soil. Plant the seed in early spring about 1 inch below the surface and water the soil until thoroughly moist. Allow any excess water to drain from the bottom of the pot, and then place it in a sunny location. Allow the plant to grow in direct sun and water to keep the soil moist until the root system has taken hold and the plant needs more space.
Fill your grow bag with compost that has been worked over by hand to eliminate clumps and compacting. Use a sharp knife to puncture the bottom of the bag in two or three places to allow for sufficient drainage and to prevent rot. Roll back the top edges of the grow bag to create a strong lip and shape the bag by hand so it stands on its own and suits your taste.
Transplant your young courgette from the small flower pot to the grow bag as gently as possible in the late spring. Use a spoon to scoop out a small hole about twice as wide as the root system of the plant and as deep as the flower pot it was residing in. Place up to three courgette plants into each grow bag; water the soil thoroughly, then allow it to drain. Move the grow bag to a sunny area and continue to water so the soil remains moist but not wet.
Apply a layer of finely chopped mulch, which will help drain off excess water and keep the soil moist. Sprinkle store-bought tomato fertilizer over the soil at the base of your courgettes once per week so the plant has the nutrients it needs to grow and develop healthy squash.
Things You Will Need
- Small flower pots
- Potting soil
- Grow bag
- Sharp knife
- Wooden stake
- Tomato fertilizer
- Growing bags are perfect for almost any growing area. They can be set onto balconies and tight spaces or used as moveable containers in greenhouses or outside in the garden. They both protect plants and eliminate wasted space.
- Grow bags may tip over as the plant gets larger and becomes top-heavy. Place a wooden stake into the bag next to the plant and tie off the top end of the stake to a nearby structure or fence. This will add stability and prevent damaged plants and spilled soil.
- Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images | 3.438938 |
Brendan Larvor , Humanist Philosophers’ Group, 2005
Relativism holds that no opinion is better than any other opinion. Taken to its logical conclusion, it destroys the whole enterprise of rational discussion. If every opinion is as good as any other, then the opinion I come to at the end of a long, informative and rigorous debate is no better than the one I started with—so, what good did the debate do? Worse, relativism says that the opinion of a world-renowned expert on some topic is no better than that of the least informed person. Relativism means that anykind of enquiry is pointless, not only scientific and philosophical investigations. If we take relativism seriously, there can be no point listening to the Still, Small Voice Within, consulting the spirits of our ancestors or reading the Holy Book. Relativism denies authority to every kind of expert, the shaman and the priest as well as the scientist and the doctor—and the teacher. According to relativism, the teacher’s professional opinion of a piece of coursework has no more authority than that of the student who wrote it, the older sister who refused to read it or the dog who chewed it.
Fortunately, relativism is philosophically very weak. If every opinion is as good as any other, there can be nothing especially compelling about the relativist’s opinion. Therefore, we cannot dissuade the relativist from his view, but neither can he force it upon us. We can walk away, and nothing he shouts after us need give us pause, because we can always shout back, “That’s just your opinion”.
No-one (except perhaps a few philosophical eccentrics) holds relativism in this full-blooded, corrosive form. On most topics, everyone thinks that there are facts and that the best opinion is the one that best captures those facts. What shape is the Earth? People who thought that it is flat were wrong. Their opinions were false. The Earth is almost spherical, except that it bulges a bit at the equator. The truth is that the Earth is a spheroid. This truth is true whether anyone believes it or not.
However, on some topics, this robustly objective sense of truth can crumble. When it comes to spiritual or ethical matters, people find themselves saying things like, “That may be true for you, but it isn’t true for him”. What does it mean to say that something is ‘true for him’? It means that he believes it, that it is his opinion. But it also means that his opinion is as good as any opinion can be, because it expresses the truth—the ‘truth-for-him’. This works for everyone: my opinion is ‘true-for-me’, yours is ‘true-for-you’, and so on. Every opinion is ‘true-for-the-person-who-holds-it’ and consequently every opinion is as good as any other.
Why does this happen? Why do we hear so much ‘true-for-you’, ‘false-for-me’, ‘true-for-him’, ‘false-for-her’ talk around religion and ethics?
The first explanation I want to offer is that in the Western world since the end of the Second World War (if not before), automatic deference to authority has collapsed. It is, of course, good that deference is no longer automatic; authorities ought to have to justify their privileges. People are less willing to believe or obey ex cathedra statements and commands than they were. The outpouring of grief at the death of John Paul II may seem to contradict this—was he not considered infallible in matters of doctrine? In fact, though John Paul II was greatly loved, he was little obeyed. Consider, for example, the very low birth-rate in Italy . Religious leaders may be venerated but their doctrines and instructions are not accepted uncritically. In Western Europe , at any rate, Kant’s slogan ‘Dare to think!’ is no longer an exhortation; it is more like an expression of the spirit of the age. Truly obedient Catholics would not ask each other, “What do you think of the new Pope?”, but many do. Religious authority nowadays, what remains of it, comes up from the people rather than down from God.
Religious leaders are not the only authorities who find their word doubted; there is also a widespread suspicion of scientific and technological expertise. Didn’t these experts bring us high-rise slums, the dot com bubble, Chernobyl and Turkey Twizzlers? An expert, in our culture, is often regarded as someone who has willingly exchanged reliable common sense for ivory-tower waffle. It is also part of our culture that authorities are for sale. No-one is surprised to find politicians on the take or scientists (or intelligence agents) fixing the results of their enquiries to suit their employers’ requirements. Bishops, scientists, politicians and experts of every kind are suspected where once they were respected. This culture of suspicion is a great leveller; we are not all equally well informed, but we are all equally human, fallible and therefore untrustworthy.
My second explanation of the tendency towards relativism is our natural reluctance to give offence. In theory, it should be possible to criticise a thought without insulting the thinker. In practice, things are not so straightforward. My declared opinions on some topic are, simultaneously, a set of statements open to objective evaluation and an expression of my personality. If my opinions are false, incoherent, inconsistent or bigoted, then perhaps I am credulous, intellectually lazy, irrational or bigoted. It is, therefore, only natural that people feel attacked when their thoughts are criticised. Academics protect themselves by distancing themselves from their thoughts as they express them. They do this with expressions like “Supposing someone were to say that…” or “It could be argued that…”
In other parts of society, it is normal to insist that the thought is part of the thinker, that the belief is part of the believer. This is especially characteristic of religious attitudes, which is why most people are reluctant to criticise religions. If I insist that my religious convictions are part of me, then it is impossible for anyone to criticise my religion without seeming to attack me personally. (This is why public debates between academic atheists and religious apologists so often misfire. Academics expect everyone to present arguments in an impersonal form, so that they may be debated and criticised without rancour. Canny religious apologists refuse to do this. They remind the audience that theirs is a personal faith, so that any criticism of their religion becomes a personal attack.) Since most people are reluctant to give offence, it is tempting to abandon the whole enterprise of trying to determine on objective grounds which religion, if any, is true. An easy way to do this is to insist that religious truths are relative to believers. If you believe it, it’s ‘true-for-you’.
This second motive operates at the level of societies as well as individuals. It seems arrogant and rude to announce that an entire society is plain wrong about the nature of the universe or the duties we owe each other. Our imperialist ancestors forced European manners, dress, languages and laws on their colonies around the world, and the results were never entirely happy. We are naturally cautious of making the same mistake. This proper caution is reinforced by the methods used in the humanities and social sciences, and this brings me to my third motive. Science is supposed to be objective, which means that scientists should try not to allow their personal idiosyncrasies or cultural backgrounds to influence their work. What does this mean for social science? If a social scientist studies people who believe that every night a demon on the underside of the Earth eats the sun and gives birth to a new, different sun the next morning, does the social scientist have to set aside scientific astronomy? After all, scientific astronomy is part of our cultural background. Similarly, historians try to understand the past ‘inits own terms’. To do that, historians have to reconstruct the mental lives of people who lived long ago, and this requires them to take seriously opinions that at first glance seem quaint or peculiar. We cannot understand why some people were burned as witches unless we are prepared to share the minds of folk who believed in witches (and everything that goes with that belief, such as magic, demons and trial by ordeal). In social science and history alike, then, it seems at first glance that to study people objectively we have to set aside our own convictions.
If I am right, the tendency to relativism arises from three decent motives that teachers try to foster in their students: independence of mind, politeness and objectivity. I wish to argue now that these three decent motives need not drive us to relativism. In fact, relativism works against these decent motives. First, we can be critical of our leaders and authorities without falling into the complete cynicism of the person who refuses to believe anything that they say. It is proper to require experts to demonstrate their expertise and authorities to show us their credentials, and it is a proper use of our independent intelligence to judge whom to trust. Indeed, if we value independent thought, we should resist absolute cynicism because it is the easy, unthinking option. The cynic who refuses to respect anyone else’s opinion for fear of being hoodwinked has given up on thinking critically. Schools and universities nowadays encourage students to think critically, and most teachers have known students who adopt a world-weary, blanket cynicism in an attempt to avoid the hard and risky work of critical thinking. Relativist ‘true-for-me, false-for-you’ talk helps such shirkers. After all, what is the point of critical thinking if “it’s all just somebody’s opinion”?
The second motive was politeness. When teaching religious studies or ethics, it is natural to worry about giving offence. But it is a shallow politeness that refuses to contradict someone else’s convictions. The opinions we most respect are the ones we bother to argue over. To say, “that may be true-for-you but it’s false-for-me” is to say that your opinion makes no difference. It means, “I can allow you to enjoy your convictions as a personal, relative ‘truth-for-you’ because I think them so primitive,childish or silly that they are nothing to me”. No-one who is really worried about climate change says, “Global warming may be false-for-you, but it’s true-for-me”. Besides, there are other, less patronisingways to avoid unpleasantness. We can agree to differ on a question without having to pretend that the question is somehow not real. Exploring different ethical, political and religious viewpoints in class is an opportunity to teach the art of discussing serious issues without falling out. As I mentioned, there are simple phrases that help to do this, that teachers could pass on to students. Critical thinking is a social activity. It includes the art of giving criticism without giving offence and taking criticism without taking umbrage. Of course, if students are to do this among themselves it is probably best for the teacher’s own convictions to remain unspoken.
The third motive for relativism was objectivity in the human sciences and humanities. This does not require us to abandon our convictions; it only requires us to suspend them temporarily while we think our way into some else’s perspective. Trying to be objective makes sense only if there is a common truth to pursue, independent of anyone’s opinion. Besides, the people under study may know something that we do not. The relativism of one ‘truth-for-us’ and a separate ‘truth-for-them’ prevents people in different cultures from learning from each other. Sometimes, students are tempted by moral relativism, because they do not want to see one society imposing its values on another. “What is ‘wrong-for-us’”, they say, “is not necessarily ‘wrong-for-them’”. But we can avoid imperialism without embracing moral relativism. We can affirm that some practices (such as slavery and torture) are wrong (for everybody) and insist that imposing our values by force is also immoral.
There can only ever be one truth. Independence of mind, politeness and objectivity are the virtues that we, and our students, need in order to look for it. Relativist ‘true-for-you/false-for-me’ talk undermines these virtues. Let us banish it from the classroom without delay! | 3.054683 |
Written by Michele Greenan, Natural History Collections Manager
A very interesting day to say the least! The trench has really started to show its true colors with features galore! A feature – generally speaking in archaeological terms – is the non-portable cultural evidence. It’s something that, if you take it, you destroy it (so you can’t really take it ‘as is’). Like, for example, evidence that a structure once stood at a particular spot but was later burned down. We see changes in soil and lots and lots of burned soil that form a nice square (in this case) pattern. We found evidence of a structure in 2008, and we have another one now! There are plenty of other things going on, too. There is a line of burned posts in place. We can kinda assume an association between the structures (or, structures in general) and the posts, but not really. We just don’t yet know.
This picture says it all … The sheer joy of doing archaeology and knowing you’re the first one to touch something after it was last held some 800 to 900 years ago. Here, a field school student shows us her find … a chunky stone. In the picture, you can barely see that the stone has been shaped to a perfect round, disk shape. The center of both sides is concave. These stones were used in playing a particular game of the same name. The collections of the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites has some beautiful examples of chunky stones, but most lack good provenience. This is a most excellent artifact! | 3.236248 |
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|Home > Life in Japan > Environment|
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
By ROWAN HOOPER
Scientific name: Pica pica
Description: Members of the crow family, magpies have an unmistakable black-and-white plumage, though if you see one close up you'll notice that the black actually has an iridescent blue sheen to it, and the long tail is slightly black-green. They are bold and noisy and are often thought of as arrogant birds. Their bills are strong and sharp; their bodies 40-50 cm long.
Where to find them: Northern Kyushu. Magpies nest in trees but also commonly on utility poles in Japanese urban areas. A study has found that nesting success is greater when on a utility pole
Where to find them: All over Japan, from Hokkaido to Kyushu. Magpies nest in trees but also commonly on utility poles in Japanese urban areas. A study has found that nesting success is greater when on a utility pole than in a tree — which might account for the recent expansion of the bird's range in Japan, as at one time magpies were only seen in northern parts. This expansion is also likely due to the increased availability of food in urban areas.
Food: Most things. Magpies are omnivorous scavengers, and eat anything from berries, beetles, worms and household scraps to dead mammals and evenliving ones, such as voles and young rabbits. They have also been blamed for eating the eggs and nests of songbirds. While they do eat smaller birds from the nest, this has always happened and the reason for thedecline in songbird numbers is more likely due to the increased use of chemicals in agriculture which has resulted in fewer insects and weedseeds for them to eat and feed their chicks with.
Special features: Magpies are highly intelligent, like all members of the crow family. When they have surplus food, magpies they hoard it for later, digging a hole in the ground with their powerful beaks and covering the food with a stone or twigs. They lay six eggs in April, and the chicks hatch before May. Both parents provide food, and chicks fledge after about 28 days, but are fed by the parents for another month before they become independent. They breed every year and may live until they are 20. They are known to gang up and "tease" cats, probably because cats are potential predators. In Europe, magpies are sometimes regarded as ill omens, but in Japan and China they are said to bring good luck.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BIO-IMAGE NET | 3.268377 |
Children learn so quickly, it's amazing, especially between the ages of one and five. As they and we get older our brains become less malleable or, as neuroscientists might say, our brains have less plasticity. A new study led by researchers at the University of Florida (UF) discovered that newborns learn even while they sleep, a finding that may lead to an early identification method for detecting autism, dyslexia, and other developmental disorders.
Researchers studied 26 sleeping newborns that were one or two days old. Using a standard classical conditioning technique, researchers coupled an auditory tone with a gentle puff of air to the babies' eyelids. After 20 minutes, the researchers stopped the puff of air and just played the tone, but 24 of the 26 babies squeezed their eyelids in anticipation of the puff of air. In these 24 babies learning took place.
The 24 infants were compared with a control group using EEG and video recordings to measure the changes that took place in the infants' brains, and the researchers recorded a neural measurement as objective evidence of 'memory updating.'
Learned eyelid movements reflect normal functioning of the cerebellum, at the base of the brain. Children with autism and some other disabilities show atypical cerebellar structures, leading researchers to believe that their discovery of newborn learning behaviors during sleep might lead to early identification and, therefore, early intervention of developmentally disabled infants.
The Florida study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first study to test learning activity of newborns during sleep. They have a more 'active sleep,' shown by rapid changes in heart and breathing patterns. Older children and adults don't share these sleep behaviors.
"This methodology opens up research areas into potentially detecting
high risk populations, those who show abnormalities in the neural
systems underlying this form of learning," said Dana Byrd, a UF research affiliate in psychology. "These would
include siblings of individuals with autism and siblings of those with | 3.785242 |
A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.
Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in 10 days, its levels measurable but minuscule.
The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.
The forecast, calculated Tuesday, is based on patterns of Pacific winds at that time and the predicted path is likely to change as weather patterns shift.
On Sunday, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it expected that no “harmful levels of radioactivity” would travel from Japan to the United States “given the thousands of miles between the two countries.”
The test ban treaty group routinely does radiation projections in an effort to understand which of its global stations to activate for monitoring the worldwide ban on nuclear arms testing. It has more than 60 stations that sniff the air for radiation spikes and uses weather forecasts and powerful computers to model the transport of radiation on the winds.
On Wednesday, the agency declined to release its Japanese forecast, which The New York Times obtained from other sources. The forecast was distributed widely to the agency’s member states.
But in interviews, the technical specialists of the agency did address how and why the forecast had been drawn up.
“It’s simply an indication,” said Lassina Zerbo, head of the agency’s International Data Center. “We have global coverage. So when something happens, it’s important for us to know which station can pick up the event.”
Read the rest @ NYT | 3.23111 |
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychological problem that can affect people from any part of the globe, and from every social class.
We can all sympathise with someone who lost his mind after his family got swept away by a tsunami. We have all heard stories of war veterans who were no longer the same after they came back home. Yet PTSD can also be triggered by seemingly minor events, such as being punished as a child for a misdeed one didn’t commit.
It is increasingly documented that women involved with men on the autism spectrum are extremely likely to suffer from PTSD due to the constant emotional trauma of caring for a person disabled by a neurological disorder, which prevents him from responding appropriately to the needs of others.
PTSD was not labelled as a psychiatric disorder until 1980, but people have suffered from PTSD throughout the history of mankind. During the American Civil War it was called “Soldier’s Heart.” It is possible that the prevalence of PTSD has increased in recent years due to the ability to access graphic news on TV and the Internet.
Humans are now able to see traumatic events all over the world and some people have trouble coping with the images. On the other hand, the general public’s increasing emotional numbness to exposure to painful world events or even violent video games is also worrying and perhaps even more dangerous from a clinical standpoint.
People are best able to cope with negative life experiences when they have a deep emotional reservoir of positive life experiences and trust-based relationships. A person with a solid foundation of self-esteem and love can eventually heal from something as terrible as witnessing a murder while someone with a poor sense of self could fall apart just because his home went into foreclosure.
Some people are simply more sensitive than others. It’s often hard to predict how one will react to traumatic stress until it happens. Having a history of trauma may increase one’s risk of getting PTSD after a recent traumatic event. There is a huge connection between childhood neglect or mistreatment and a person’s inability to process negative emotions.
While traumatic stress is happening, a person tends to block out the pain or reinterpret events in order to deal with the present situation. However, in the weeks, months, and years after the emotional trauma has passed, the person remains unable to cope effectively because of the memory of the pain. PTSD is characterised by periodic disconnect from present reality, where one’s mind relives a past event over and over, fully experiencing the emotions of that event as if it were happening now.
One clue that one is not processing one’s stress effectively is when one feels exhausted during the day and falls asleep on time, yet wakes in the night burdened by repetitive thoughts and cannot go back to sleep for hours. Some people are even afraid to go to sleep due to nightmares or images in their minds.
Other symptoms of PTSD include disinterest in normal everyday activities, avoiding things that remind one of that event, emotional numbness, startling easily, hyper-vigilance, paranoia, erratic heartbeat, fainting, inordinately angry outbursts, intense shame and guilt, and a constant sense of danger. Traumatised children may develop irrational phobias, lose their toilet training, and often relive their trauma in play. Palestinian children whose homes have been destroyed by the Israelis have often been documented building play houses, or wetting themselves when they hear loud noises.
The process of healing from PTSD requires going through a full grieving and healing process so that one can learn and grow from the negative life experience instead of letting it hold one back from truly living. Healing also involves learning to set internal boundaries against past and present abusers in one’s life as well as learning to steer one’s mind away from bad thoughts. It may help to keep a journal of one’s feelings or to make a schedule where one records the time lost daily ruminating about painful past events or conversations.
It is important to understand that PTSD is not a sign of weakness or cowardice but actually points to a strongly developed conscience and higher than average emotional intelligence. The only way to overcome PTSD is to confront what happened to you and learn to accept it as a part of your past while learning how to minimize stress and anxiety in your current life.
Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based freelance writer | 3.605691 |
Unit 11: Atmospheric Pollution // Section 3: Primary Air Pollutants
Primary air pollutants are emitted directly into the air from sources. They can have effects both directly and as precursors of secondary air pollutants (chemicals formed through reactions in the atmosphere), which are discussed in the following section.
Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a gas formed when sulfur is exposed to oxygen at high temperatures during fossil fuel combustion, oil refining, or metal smelting. SO2 is toxic at high concentrations, but its principal air pollution effects are associated with the formation of acid rain and aerosols. SO2 dissolves in cloud droplets and oxidizes to form sulfuric acid (H2SO4), which can fall to Earth as acid rain or snow or form sulfate aerosol particles in the atmosphere. Associated impacts are discussed below in Section 5, "Aerosols," and Section 7, "Acid Deposition."
Nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2, referred together as NOx) are highly reactive gases formed when oxygen and nitrogen react at high temperatures during combustion or lightning strikes. Nitrogen present in fuel can also be emitted as NOx during combustion. Emissions are dominated by fossil fuel combustion at northern mid-latitudes and by biomass burning in the tropics. Figure 4 shows the distribution of NOx emissions to the atmosphere in 2006 as determined by satellite measurements of atmospheric NO2 concentrations.
In the atmosphere NOx reacts with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and carbon monoxide to produce ground-level ozone through a complicated chain reaction mechanism. It is eventually oxidized to nitric acid (HNO3). Like sulfuric acid, nitric acid contributes to acid deposition and to aerosol formation.
Figure 4. Satellite observations of tropospheric NO2, 2006
See larger image
Source: Courtesy Jim Gleason, USA and Pepijn Veefkind, KNMI, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an odorless, colorless gas formed by incomplete combustion of carbon in fuel. The main source is motor vehicle exhaust, along with industrial processes and biomass burning. Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in red blood cells, reducing their ability to transport and release oxygen throughout the body. Low exposures can aggravate cardiac ailments, while high exposures cause central nervous system impairment or death. It also plays a role in the generation of ground-level ozone, discussed below in Section 4.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including hydrocarbons (CxHy) but also other organic chemicals are emitted from a very wide range of sources, including fossil fuel combustion, industrial activities, and natural emissions from vegetation and fires. Some anthropogenic VOCs such as benzene are known carcinogens.
VOCs are also of interest as chemical precursors of ground-level ozone and aerosols, as discussed below in Sections 4 and 5. The importance of VOCs as precursors depends on their chemical structure and atmospheric lifetime, which can vary considerably from compound to compound. Large VOCs oxidize in the atmosphere to produce nonvolatile chemicals that condense to form aerosols. Short-lived VOCs interact with NOx to produce high ground-level ozone in polluted environments. Methane (CH4), the simplest and most long-lived VOC, is of importance both as a greenhouse gas (Section 11) and as a source of background tropospheric ozone. Major anthropogenic sources of methane include natural gas production and use, coal mining, livestock, and rice paddies. | 3.807803 |
Throughout my study span, I have seen fellow peers working hard to achieve some good grades to improve their grade point average (GPA). Few, out of many, were able to do it; the rest failed even when they did manage to get hold of the notes of their ’4.o-GPA-friend’.
Where does the latter lot of students go wrong then?
Is it because the friend who you borrowed notes or books from might have left you in the dark and not provided you with the complete material?
Yes, we all have that thought. There will always be something kept from you, whether unintentionally or not. So just to be careful the next time around, here is are a few things that your A-grader friend will never tell you:
You were studying more or harder than your peer, yet he’s been able to score an A and you a B only?
Well here lies the difference between a horse and a mule. Try to focus your efforts, put more effort on the topic your teacher emphasised on, try and look for small clues in the lecture. For example, if a teacher puts emphasis on one particular topic more than the rest from the outline of the curricula and revises it before the mid-term exams, well there is your hint. Grab it and start working on that particular topic with a little more focus.
This is you working smart.
Sitting in the front row trying to be extra efficient won’t help every time. Try matching your notes with your classmates, and copy what you miss during a lecture or for any lectures you have missed. Lastly do read the notes and whatever reading material you have at least once.
Remember that hard work always pays off.
So you studied day and night, yet you couldn’t score an A?
Well here’s your answer:
“You need to work on your presentation, child!”
Put yourself in your examiner’s shoes for a second; three days and 150 papers to grade. They won’t be reading into your intellect and the quality of your content 100% of the time. In fact, they will skim and scan your paper first. Whether it’s an exam, quiz or a presentation, exhibiting the material and content in an appropriate fashion will take you a long way.
So, make their life easy and help yourself. Make headings, sub-headings, write quotes or figures in quotations. Don’t scribble and scrawl on your answer sheet- write in a legible script, within margins and don’t forget to draw a line when you’ve finished answering.
A little extra effort
There is a fine line between putting in a little effort and being over efficient. A teacher, no matter how staunch, will always appreciate a little extra effort from your side.
Be outrageous, choose an unconventional topic and go to an actual library for your research. Mighty Google can be mighty disappointing sometimes.
Chappafying (copy pasting) content from Wikipedia won’t work anymore since most of the professors ask for softcopies and have access to www.turnitin.com (leading paid plagiarism site). Spend the last 15 minutes arranging your material in the assignment, make it look appealing.
Remember, reading the topic before it has been discussed in class is a plus point and increases the possibility of an ‘A’ which we are all always trying so hard to get.
Developing a rapport with your professor
No matter how professional and unbiased your professor looks, he’s still a human being and wants respect in return. Saying hello while passing by or randomly walking in to his office for a small talk won’t hurt your ego or damage your reputation. Try doing some homework on your professors, find out what area they belong to, what languages they speak or what their interests are. Belonging to the same native area and speaking the same language helps a lot in trivialising the communication barrier. In fact, your professor will be pleased to entertain your queries and requests in the future as well. This can help in him/her in getting to know you better and really understanding where you are having problems, and how to help you out with them.
Trust me; it is always good to have a casual, yet respectable connection to your professor.
Charm and be charmed
The most important and yet the trickiest of all is mastering this technique.
Unfortunately I have seen many taking leverage, sometimes disproportionately, because of this but not all professors value this as much as others.
Try appreciating your professor’s hard work in delivering the lecture and helping you in your assignments rather than admiring the way they look or dress. Ask him if you can be of any help. Submitting folders or copying his notes will help you stay in their good books and they will start recognising your efforts more.
Sharing bumper sticker or pictures on Facebook can get you likes and comments but cannot help you score a graduate admission in a ranking university. In the real world, the one past the boundary walls of our university campus, hard work counts 80% of the time, the rest lies in how good you are at social networking and of course luck.
Focus on the hard work first and then look upon the rest.
In the words of Alex Rodriguez:
“Enjoy your sweat because hard work doesn’t guarantee success, but without it you don’t have a chance”.
Via, Tribune Blogs | 3.209323 |
Architecture in telecommunications is the framework for multiple networks. They tie unlike
protocols together into a compatible whole. By comparison, the term design connotes
thinking that has less scope than architecture. Architecture is design, but most designs
are not architecture. A single component or a new function has a design that has to fit
within the overall architecture. Architecture is a term applied to both the process and
the outcome of specifying the overall structure, logical components, and the logical
interrelationships of a computer. In addition, architecture also refers to operating
systems and networks. Architecture has been around forquite some time now, and was
actually a very good solution to a problem people had with incompatible devices.
By the mid-1970s, IBM sold its customers various computer devices, including printers,
computers, and terminals, which communicated with each other via a variety of incompatible
protocols. As such, IBM developed architecture to tie in all the other protocols,
providing the means for these devices to transmit to each other. This particular
architecture is called SNA and is specific to IBM.
Open Systems Interconnection
Protocols & Architecture
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The Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI) was developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO) to
allow multiple vendors to communicate with each other. This architecture, as opposed to
the SNA, is an open architecture. OSI laid the foundation for the concept of open
communications among various devices, and has had a deep influence on communications
despite the fact that it has not been widely implemented. OSI has a basic concept of
layering, where each of its seven layers can be changed and developed without affecting
any other layer. This layered architecture developed by the OSI has been the basis for
both Local Area Networks (LANs) and the Internet.
Layer 1 of the OSI was the most basic layer. It defines the
interface, or plugs, and types of media (e.g. copper, wireless, fiber
As such, it is more commonly remembered to as the physical layer.
Layer 2 on the other hand is known as the data link area,
as they provide
rules for error control and gaining access to the network. Due to this,
LANs, or networks within corporations, conform to this layer.
Layer 3 is called the network layer. This layer has more
for addresses and also has a lot more error control than Layer 2. So, it is
generally the basis of a larger-scale communication, like between
different networks. The TCP/IP suite of protocol allows devices all over
the world to communicate with each other through a particular way. The
U.S. Department of Defense that developed the TCP/IP suite in the
1970s did not charge end-users for it in its basic format, and thus it
became simple to acquire. The availability of this standard, easily
accessible protocol, is actually one of the prime reasons for the spread
of the Internet.
In conclusion, protocols are similar to etiquette between alike computers. It spells out
the order in which computers take turns transmitting and how long computers should wait
before terminating a transmission. Protocols also handle error functions such as error
correction, error detection and file transmissions in a common manner so computes can
"talk" to each other. Architectures on the other hand are like the translating
devices which allows devices, and these protocols, to talk to each other effectively. | 3.752896 |
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Subsurface Geology of the Kennebec River
During 1996 and 1997, the Maine Department of Transportation directed the drilling of 78 test borings in order to collect the necessary geotechnical data for the design and construction of a new four-lane bridge spanning the Kennebec River between Bath and Woolwich along U.S. Route 1 (Figure 1). These test borings were made both on land using truck-mounted drill rigs and in the river using drill rigs on barges. All test drilling was overseen by geotechnical engineers and geologists who kept detailed logs of each hole and collected sediment and bedrock samples for various geotechnical engineering analyses. The logs (written records) of these test borings also allow the geologist to construct cross sections depicting the composition and structure of the subsurface sediment and underlying bedrock. The map above shows the location of a cross section where the new Bath-Woolwich bridge is being built, approximately 150 feet (46 meters) north of the existing Bath-Woolwich bridge (known as the Carlton Bridge).
Of the 78 test boring logs, 16 were selected in order to construct a simplified cross section spanning 700 meters (Figure 2). In order to emphasize the elevation changes in the sediment layers, the vertical scale has been exaggerated in comparison to the horizontal scale as shown by the scale bars on the figure. Water depths along the section range from 0 to approximately 49 feet (15 meters). The river bed primarily consists of medium to coarse sand with some gravel, reaching thicknesses up to 46 feet (14 meters). This alluvial or river-worked sand and gravel also contains the remains of logs and various wood fragments both at the top of the unit and at depth. Many of these logs are very likely remnants of times past when logs were driven down the river to mills or simply the remains of trees that floated down the river naturally during periods of flooding. It is possible, however, that some of the wood fragments, particularly those that are deeply buried by as much as 39 feet (12 meters) of sediment, might be remnants of trees that became inundated by rising river levels when the drainage of what is now known as Moosehead Lake changed from the Penobscot River to the Kennebec River. This shift of drainage likely occurred between 7000 and 8000 years ago (G. A. Balco, 1996, Postglacial land and lake levels, Moosehead Lake, Maine: M.S. thesis, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, 153 p.). No samples of the wood from the Bath site have been dated to test this theory.
Under the sand unit, silty clay of marine origin reaches thicknesses of as much as 15 meters (49 feet). This unit, known as the Presumpscot Formation, was formed by the settling of fine-grained sediment (rock flour) from glacial meltwater that entered the ocean between 13,300 and 12,700 years ago in the waning stages of the last Ice Age. Shells and shell fragments of marine mollusks were found in some samples of this clay. Under the marine clay, some isolated pockets of sandy glacial till were encountered along the section. Glacial till, which is typically a heterogeneous mixture of sand, silt, clay, and stones, but may be predominantly composed of sand in some cases, was deposited directly by the glacier.
Beneath the clay and till, Ordovician to Cambrian age (443-545 million year old) bedrock of the Cape Elizabeth Formation was encountered and cored using diamond drilling equipment. The formation, variable in composition, contains metamorphic rocks such as muscovite-biotite schist and biotite gneiss.
Bridge construction borings provide a "window to the subsurface" to the geologist that often is not available by any other means. The Maine Geological Survey routinely utilizes test drilling data associated with bridge, dam, and other construction projects in combination with surface information gathered by geologists to produce maps of surficial geology, surficial materials, and sand gravel aquifers.
The Survey wishes to acknowledge the Maine Department of Transportation for providing copies of their many drilling logs for the Bath-Woolwich Bridge Project without which this website would not have been possible.
Originally published on the web as the July 1998 Site of the Month.
Last updated on October 6, 2005
|Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved.| | 3.40708 |
Timeline of hydrogen technologies
timeline of the history of hydrogen
- 1900 - Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin launched the
first hydrogen-filled Zeppelin LZ1
- 1901 - Wilhelm Normann
introduced the hydrogenation of
- 1903 - Konstantin Eduardovich
Tsiolkovskii published "The Exploration of Cosmic Space by
Means of Reaction Devices"
- 1907 - Lane hydrogen
- 1909 - Count Ferdinand Adolf
August von Zeppelin made the first long distance flight with
the Zeppelin LZ5.
- 1909 - Linde-Frank-Caro
- 1910 - The first Zeppelin passenger flight with the Zeppelin
- 1910 - Fritz Haber patented the
- 1912 - The first scheduled international Zeppelin passenger
flights with the Zeppelin LZ13.
- 1919 - The first Atlantic crossing by airship with the Beardmore HMA R34.
- 1920 -
Hydrocracking, a plant for the
commercial hydrogenation of brown coal is commissioned at Leuna in
- 1923 -
Steam reforming, the first synthetic
methanol is produced by BASF in Leuna
- 1923 - J. B. S.
Haldane envisioned in Daedalus; or, Science and
the Future "great power stations where during windy weather the
surplus power will be used for the electrolytic decomposition of
water into oxygen and hydrogen."
- 1926 - Partial oxidation,
Vandeveer and Parr at the University of Illinois used oxygen in
the place of air for the production of syngas.
- 1926 - Cyril Norman
Hinshelwood described the phenomenon of chain reaction.
- 1926 -
Umberto Nobile made the first flight
over the north
pole with the hydrogen airship Norge
- 1929 - Paul Harteck and Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer achieve
the first synthesis of pure parahydrogen.
- 1930 - Rudolf Erren - Erren engine - GB patent GB364180 -
Improvements in and relating to internal combustion engines using a
mixture of hydrogen and oxygen as fuel
- 1935 - Eugene Wigner and H.B. Huntington predicted metallic hydrogen.
- 1937 -
The Zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg was
- 1937 - The Heinkel HeS 1
experimental gaseous hydrogen fueled
centrifugal jet engine is tested at
Hirth in March- the first working jet engine
- 1937 -
The first hydrogen-cooled
turbogenerator went into service at Dayton,
- 1938 - The first 240 km hydrogen pipeline Rhine-Ruhr .
- 1938 - Igor Sikorsky from Sikorsky Aircraft proposed liquid hydrogen as a fuel.
- 1939 - Rudolf Erren - Erren engine - US patent 2,183,674 -
Internal combustion engine using hydrogen as fuel
- 1939 - Hans Gaffron discovered that
algae can switch between producing oxygen and
- 1943 -
Liquid hydrogen is tested as
rocket fuel at Ohio State
- 1943 - Arne Zetterström
- 1949 - Hydrodesulfurization
(Catalytic reforming is
commercialized under the name Platforming process)
- 1952 - Hydrogen maser
- 1952 - Non-Refrigerated
- 1955 - W. Thomas Grubb modified the fuel cell design by using a
sulphonated polystyrene ion-exchange membrane as the
- 1957 - Pratt & Whitney's model 304 jet engine using liquid
hydrogen as fuel tested for the first time as part of the Lockheed CL-400 Suntan project.
- 1957 - The specifications for the U-2 a double axis liquid hydrogen semi-trailer were
- 1958 - Leonard Niedrach devised a way of depositing platinum
onto the membrane, this became known as the Grubb-Niedrach fuel
- 1958 - Allis-Chalmers
demonstrated the D 12, the
first 15 kW fuel cell tractor.
- 1959 - Francis Thomas Bacon
built the Bacon Cell, the first practical 5 kW hydrogen-air fuel
cell to power a welding machine.
- 1960 - Allis-Chalmers builds the
first fuel cell forklift
- 1961 - RL-10 liquid hydrogen fuelled
rocket engine first flight
- 1964 - Allis-Chalmers built a
750-watt fuel cell to power a one-man underwater research
- 1965 - The first commercial use of a fuel cell in Project Gemini.
- 1965 - Allis-Chalmers builds the
first fuel cell golf carts.
- 1966 - Slush hydrogen
- 1966 - J-2 liquid hydrogen
rocket engine flies
- 1967 - Akira Fujishima discovers
effect which is used for photocatalysis in the photoelectrochemical cell.
- 1967 - Hydride
- 1970 - Nickel hydrogen
- 1970 - John Bockris or Lawrence W.
Jones coined the term hydrogen
- 1973 -
The 30 km hydrogen
pipeline in Isbergues
- 1973 - Linear compressor
- 1975 - John Bockris - Energy The
Solar-Hydrogen Alternative - ISBN 0470084294
- 1979 - HM7B rocket engine
- 1981 - Space Shuttle main
engine first flight
- 1990 - The first solar-powered hydrogen production plant
Solar-Wasserstoff-Bayern became operational.
- 1996 - Vulcain rocket
- 1997 - Anastasios Melis
discovered that the deprivation of sulfur
will cause algae to switch from producing
oxygen to producing
- 1998 - Type 212
- 1999 - Hydrogen pinch
- 1784 Experiments
- 1809 - Fleming, History of Meteorology 25 Pag.
- 1809 - Pilot balloon resources
- 1820 Cecil engine
- 1820 Cecil the letter
- 1874 - Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island
- 1896 Weather balloon
- Tsiolkovsky's Исследование мировых пространств
реактивными приборами - The Exploration of Cosmic Space by
Means of Reaction Devices (Russian paper)
- 1920 - Hydrocracking
- Improvements in and relating to internal combustion
engines using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen as fuel
- The Technological Steps of Hydrogen Introduction -
- NASA-LIQUID HYDROGEN AS A PROPULSION
- 1958 D 12 - Pag. 7
- 1960 -Fleet module Pag.3
- 1964 Allis Chalmers Pag.1
- Nickel-Hydrogen Battery Technology—Development and
- History of Hydrogen
- Lawrence W. Jones Toward a liquid hydrogen fuel economy, University of
Michigan Engineering Technical Report UMR2320, March 13, 1970 | 3.622704 |
Muslims believe that the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, was revealed to Muhammad over a period of twenty-three years, starting with the initial revelation at Mount Hira. After the Prophet's death, his successors compiled these divine revelations in a manuscript.
The Qur'an contains prayers, moral guidance, historical narrative, and promises of Paradise. It opens with a short prayer called the Fatiha, the most widely recited passage, and is divided into 114 chapters (suras) organized in descending length. For binding and reading purposes, manuscripts of the Qur'an are often divided into thirty equal parts, called juz'.
Every chapter of the Qur'an (except one) begins with the bismillah, the collective name for the invocation "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." Muslims often repeat this phrase at the start of an event or task—before giving a speech, beginning a meal, or even boarding a bus. The calligraphic bismillah is frequently written on both religious and secular objects. (See also Arabic Script and the Art of Calligraphy.)
The Qur'an places Muhammad at the end of a long line of prophets that began with Abraham. Although narrative is not central to the Qur'an, it includes the stories of Noah, Moses, and Jesus. It recognizes Jews and Christians as "People of the Book"; as a result, Muslims accept many of the teachings of the Jewish Torah and Christian Bible. Many of the great Islamic empires (like those in Spain, Iran, India, and Turkey) were tolerant of religious minorities. | 3.959997 |
Part i: Introduction; Part ii: American Indians before European contact; Part iii: Indian tribes from European contact to the era of removal; Part iv: The struggle for Indian sovereignty and cultural identity; Part v: North Carolina Indians today; Part vi: References
Part vi: References
Adolph L. Dial and David K. Eliades, The Only Land I Know: A History of the Lumbee Indians (1996).
Barbara R. Duncan and Brett H. Riggs, Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook (2003).
Tom Hartley, The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South Carolinians through the Era of Revolution (1993).
Theda Perdue, Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina (1985).
Douglas L. Rights, The American Indian in North Carolina (1947).
Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500–1800 (1990).
Stanley A. South, Indians in North Carolina (1980).
H. TrawickWard and R. P. Stephen Davis Jr., Indian Communities on the North Carolina Piedmont, a.d. 1000 to 1700 (1993).
Ruth Y.Wetmore, First on the Land: The North Carolina Indians (1975).
Learn NC resources on North Carolina Indian tribes.
Teaching About American Indians in North Carolina (Learn NC): http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nc-american-indians/cover
1 January 2006 | DiNome, William G. | 3.788943 |
Monday, April 12, 1999 Published at 18:05 GMT 19:05 UK
Tapioca treatment for cancer
For many adults, tapioca is inextricably linked to school dinners
Tapioca pudding - widely known as frog's eggs by many school pupils - may after all be good for you.
Scientists say the plant from which it is derived may help cure cancer.
Tapioca is derived from the cassava plant.
It is one of many plants which manufactures cyanide to deter animals who might want to eat it.
It does this by producing a chemical called linamarin which releases hydrogen cyanide when it is broken down by the linamarase enzyme.
Geneticists at Newcastle University have been taking genetic material from the cassava plant and adding it to a virus.
This is then introduced into cancer cells which have been impregnated with linamarin from the cassava plant.
The aim is for the cancer cells to produce hydrogen cyanide in high enough doses so that they commit suicide.
Professor Monica Hughes has been studying cassava and cancer for seven years.
She has cloned the genes from the plant which are responsible for producing hydrogen cyanide.
Her objective is to reduce the toxicity of the cyanide so that it will not harm humans.
Cassava is a staple crop for many people in Africa, Asia and South America, but, if it is processing wrongly, it can lead to cyanide poisoning.
Because the plant is rarely used in Western diets, it has not been subject to much scrutiny by geneticists.
Professor Hughes has been working with a research team in Madrid to modify the cassava gene and transfer it to a retrovirus.
This gives the retrovirus the ability to produce linamarase.
The Spanish researchers found that a brain tumour in a rat was totally eradicated after one week of the genetic treatment.
It allowed the localised release of small doses of cyanide through the breakdown of linamarin by linamarase.
The team found that part of the reason the tumour was so quickly destroyed was that the cells containing the retrovirus also affected surrounding cells.
They say tests on human tissue samples for certain cancers also look promising.
Professor Hughes' research has been funded by the European Union, but her funding has now run out and she is looking for other sources.
She says her next step is "to modify the genetic material with a view to making the treatment more effective when applied to mammalian cells".
A spokesman for Newcastle University said the research showed how genetically modifying plants could bring beneficial effects. | 3.04835 |
for National Geographic News
Human activity has long made the bedroom a hot and steamy place. Now, less sexy activities like burning coal and oil—major contributors to global warming—are making the whole planet steamier, a new study says.
Scientists expect the rising humidity to cause heavier rains, stronger hurricanes, and increased human heat stress. (Get the basics on global warming.)
Climate scientists have long predicted that a warmer world will allow more water to evaporate, thus making the planet more humid.
Indeed, several studies have shown trends of increasing surface humidity around the planet, but until now scientists were uncertain what was driving the trend.
The new study combined a fresh data set of surface humidity with climate models, "and actually attribute[s] those trends to human influence," said study co-author Nathan Gillett, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. (Related news: "Global Warming "Very Likely" Caused by Humans, World Climate Experts Say" [February 2, 2007].)
He and his colleagues report the findings in tomorrow's issue of the journal Nature.
Stormy, Steamy Future
Climate models predict that increased water vapor in the atmosphere will lead to heavier rains and raise the maximum potential intensity for hurricanes, Gillett noted.
"In heat waves, if the humidity is higher, then that results in larger heat stress on humans," he said.
And increased water vapor will accelerate the warming, said Benjamin Santer, a climate modeler at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California who was not involved in the study.
"Our best understanding is as we increase greenhouse gases and warm the atmosphere, we increase the atmosphere's capacity to hold moisture. And water vapor is in itself a potent greenhouse gas.
"Therefore you accelerate the warming," he said.
SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES | 3.575601 |
Combining these elements causes a reaction which results in the production of particles that are 600 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Around 100 nanometers in size, the reaction uniformly distributes them through the material, making it very strong.
The process is based on the emerging technique of Selective Laser Manufacturing (SLM), in which laser manufactures complicated parts from metal powders, at the University’s Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing. The new technique has the potential to manufacture aluminum composite parts as pistons, drive shafts, suspension components, brake discs and almost any structural components of cars or airplanes. It also enables the production of lighter structural designs with innovative geometries leading to further reduce of the weight of products.If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks
The team’s latest research findings are published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.
Parts for cars and airplanes are widely made from aluminum, which is relatively light, with other reinforcement particles to make it stronger. The traditional methods, generally involved casting and mechanical alloying, can be inaccurate and expensive, especially when the part has a complex shape. Over the last decade, new SLM techniques have been developed, which enable parts with more complicated shapes to be produced. The new SLM techniques can be applied to manufacture aluminium composite parts from specific powder mixtures.
To carry out this new technique, the researchers use a laser to melt a mixture of powders, composed of aluminum and a reactive reinforcing material for example an iron oxide combination. A reaction between the powders results in the formation of new particles, which act as reinforcements and distribute evenly throughout the composite material.
This method allows parts with complex shapes to be easily produced. The new materials have very fine particles compared with other composites, making them more robust. The reaction between constituents releases energy, which also means materials can be produced at a higher rate using less power. This technique is significantly cheaper and more sustainable than other SLM methods which directly blend very fine powders to manufacture composites.
University of Exeter PhD student Sasan Dadbakhsh of the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences said: “This new development has great potential to make high performance parts for car manufacturing, the aerospace industry and potentially other industries. Additive layer manufacturing technologies are becoming increasingly accessible so this method could become a viable approach for manufacturing."
Dr Liang Hao of the University of Exeter added: “This advancement allows the rapid development of sustainable lightweight composite components. This particularly helps to save a considerable amount of material, energy and cost for the production of one-off or small volume products.” | 3.715266 |
Marine Wildlife Encyclopedia
Spotted Cusk-eel Chilara taylori
As it is a favorite food of sea lions, cormorants, and other diving birds, the spotted cusk-eel is most active at night or on gloomy, sunless days. If danger threatens, this eel-shaped fish can quickly slip between rocky rubble or bury itself tail-first in sand or mud. Unlike true eels, it has scales and pelvic fins. The latter are reduced to one split ray set very far forward under the head. Its eggs are laid in open water and hatch into larvae that live close to the surface. These develop into juveniles that drift for an extended period before settling down to a sea-bed existence.
While the spotted cusk-eel lives in shallow water, one of its close relatives, the basketweave cusk-eel, has been found over 26,000 ft (8,000 m) deep in the abyssal zone, the greatest depth for any fish. | 3.123888 |
The Great Circle, formerly known as Mound Builders State Memorial, is located a couple miles south and west of th
e original town limits of Newark, Ohio. Surrounded by what was once a forest followed by wood lots followed by corn fields, the Great Circle is now encircled by neighborhoods, shopping centers, busy thoroughfares and all the other trappings of modern life. The Great Circle is 1200 feet in diameter and is extremely close to being exactly round according to Pi times the diameter. The earthen embankment wall is 10’ – 12’ high and is complimented by an interior ditch or moat of like dimensions in sort of a positive and negative space arrangement. There is nothing to indicate that the moat ever held water and even in times of persistent, hea
vy rain the accumulation of water in the so-called moat is negligible. The interior of the circle is acces
sed through a gate/causeway formed by the turn-out of two short sections of the wall and moat on the northeast side as see
n on the left. Compare this view with the rendering below it sketched by Benson J. Lossing in the 1850′s and appearing in his Pictorial Field-Book to the War of 1812.
The interior of the circle is mostly level and contains approximately 30 acres. How large an area is this? Think of it in this way. Something as massive as the Ohio State University football stadium would easily fit within the circle as evidenced in the image of the stadium below with the circumference of the Great Circle superimposed around it! The Druids could have constructed Stone Henge eight times over inside the circle, leaving
plenty of room to spare. I am often struck not so much by how or why they built the Great Circle as much as I am by
how they ever conceived of such a structure! At the center point of the circle is a low, multi-lobed rise referred to as the Eagle Mound, likely b
ecause of the abstract manner in which it resembles an eagle with its wings spread (right). Archaeological excavations conducted there in the 1928 by Emerson Greenman revealed that the mound contained no burials but, in true Hopewell style, the mound had been constructed over the remains of a large, rectangular, multi-post house and screening fence arranged
in a “T” shaped manner. The mound’s eagle shape was most likely an artifact of how the remains of the structures were covered with earth although this does not mean that the final shape of the mound wasn’t itself refined and stylized, also a distinct Hopewell trait. Did the structure ar
rangement dictate the shape of the mound or was the mound constructed in a way to not only cover the structural remains but to express or convey other meanings as well. It’s sort of like what came first, the chicken (or eagle) or the egg. That being s
aid it is interesting to note that a similar design is found as an engraved decoration on a small, pierced stone tablet from the Tremper Mound seen left. The tablet (A125/150), also referred to as a gorget, is rather thick and loaf shaped and made from high grade black Ohio shale. It was among the several hundred items recovered from the main artifact cache by William C. Mills during his 1915 excavations at Tremper. The lobed design is deeply incised with cross-hatched lines and accompanied by four smaller engraved and cross-hatched coma-shaped designs themselves reminiscent of a series of copper cut-outs recovered from the Hopewell Mound Group by Warren Moorehead. The designs are regularly spaced in what appears to be an intentional pattern. Perhaps in the end there is more to the “eagle” design than meets the eye.
The first published map of the Newark Earthworks was included in Caleb Atwater’s A Description of the Antiquities Discovered in Ohio and other Western States
(left) issued by the American Antiquarian Society in 1820. Atwater’s work was reviewed and favorably commented on by no less a person than Thomas Jefferson who, among his many interests, was an early advocate of the scientific study of North A
. In 1848 Charles Whittles
ey’s survey of
the Newark Earthworks (right) was published by the Smithsonian Institute in Squire and Davis’ Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley
, the initial publication of the Smithsonian in its “Contributions to Knowledge” series. Even after a century and a half, Ancient Monuments
is still acknowledged as the ‘bible” of mound archaeology in North America. There were in addition to these several other surveys completed throughout the remainder of the 19th Century. In the early 1860′s Licking County Surveyor David Wyrick produced a highly detailed map of the Newark Earthworks about the same time as did brothers James and Charles Salisbury residents of Newark and early practitioners of scientific archaeology. In 1894 Cyrus Thomas and James D. Middleton of the Bureau of American Ethnology published their 1888 survey of the Newark works in the monumental “Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of American Ethnology” appearing in the BAE’s 12th Annual Report. Thomas’ and Middleton’s treatise was considered to be the final word in the debunking of the previously common theory that the Moundbuilders were a seperate lost race rather than the ancestors of the Native Americans.
In 1853 the Great Circle was purchased by the Licking County Agricultural Society and for the next several decades was home to the Licking County Fair and occasionally the Ohio State Fair. At least locally the Great Circle was referred to as the “Old Fort”, perhaps in a passing allusion to the arcane notion that it was a place of refuge and defence for the Moundbuilder Race in their great showdown with the American Indians. It would seem that the allure of the “Old Fort” as the site of annual agricultural celebration became as much a part of
the event as the fair itself. The image on the right is of a late 19th century twin panel lithograph of the Fairgrounds Circle replete with idealized renderings of the fairgrounds buildings and local scenery. The upper register shows the Fairgrounds Circle from the eastern or gateway side with it’s substantial out buildings and well manicured lawns. The lower register shows the embankment from directly opposite the gateway with the horse
s coursing around the interior of the earthwork as the throngs of race fans cheer on their favorite steed. In the lower right margin it reads “sketched on site by H.P. Whinnery”. The image detail below it shows what might very well be Mr. Whinnery himself sitting on a
stump, sketching a picture of him sketching a picture of the horse race.
All this was enough to cause the director of the BAE, W. H. Holmes, to warn ominously that “if the present use of the Great Circle as a fair grounds is not discontinued, a few
generations will witness its practical demolition”. For a variety of reasons Holmes’ warning seemed to fall on deaf ears as the extreme use of the site would continue unabated well into the 20th century. Between 1896 and 1924 R. C. Lingafelter operated an amusement park enterprise at the Great Circle known as Idlewilde Park, sort of a forerunner of the Kings Island/Cedar Point theme parks of today. According to the advertising broadside below Idlewilde Park attractions included a swit
ch back railroad (a very early roller coaster) as well as a Ferris Wheel, a dan
ce pavilion, shooting galleries and other
amenities and amusements of the day. Below is an image of Idlewilde Park’s ornate main entrance facing the east circa 1900. It was located immediately in front of the earthwork’s gateway entrance about where the site’s museum is located. Note the fine Victorian fashions. Apparently Idlewilde Park was the
place to see and be seen! Eat your heart out Paris Hilton. Idlewilde Park
’s star began to fade about the time of the First World War as the popularity of nearby Buckeye Lake Amusement Park increased. Idlewilde Park finally closed it’s gates in 1924. The Licking County Fair like so many other things began to fall on hard times with the onset of the Depression years. The last Licking County Fair to be held at the Great Circle was in 1933.
To be continued… | 3.014473 |
Methods of acquiring information are as varied as the information as itself. The most important element of a long-term spying operation is the use of a cover and the creation of a legend. A cover is a secret identity, and a legend is the background story and documents that support the cover.
For example, a British agent whose cover identity is a Russian accountant would need to speak Russian and know a great deal about Russian financial laws. To make the cover seem more realistic, the legend must be very thorough. The agent will have a fake life history that he must memorize. Where did he go to school? Does he have a diploma to prove it? Where was he born? Who is his ex-wife? What are his hobbies? If the legend states that the agent enjoys fishing, he'd better have some fishing gear in his house. The failure or success of spies can hinge on such seemingly minor details.
Once the spy establishes a cover, he might spend years doing his job and establishing trust. Eventually, the spy will try to gain promotions or transfers to a position with access to vital information, or befriend someone with such access.
It is possible for a spy to memorize information and pass it on to his controller. However, it is much more reliable to photocopy papers and maps, often transferring the data to a tiny slip of microfilm or a microdot. Stealing original documents could blow the spy's cover, so a wide assortment of miniature cameras hidden in innocuous objects are used. For more details on these devices, check out How Spy Gadgets Work.
There are numerous technological ways for countries to spy on each other without ever sending an actual spy to collect information. Satellites equipped with cameras have been tracking the positions of military units since the 1960s. At first, the satellite would drop a bucket with the film inside over the ocean. In 1970, digital film technology was first developed, allowing the satellites to transmit the photographic data by radio. Today's spy satellites can take photographs with a high enough resolution to read the headline on a newspaper.
It was more difficult to get that kind of accuracy in the '60s and '70s -- spy planes such as the U-2 had to fly directly over enemy territory, exposing the pilot to the risk of being shot down, and the spying nation to the risk of international embarrassment.
Other forms of Tech Int, or technological intelligence, include super-sensitive microphones, phone wire taps, seismic equipment to detect nuclear testing and underwater sensors to find enemy submarines. Spies also scan, record and analyze enemy radio frequencies and cell-phone traffic. | 3.106866 |
Searching for images of the huge ice island headed towards Newfoundland that we reported on last night, I contacted the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. They have kindly shared with us the image below, taken by their Terra satellite on Wednesday, which shows the island as a solid white shape close to the center of the frame.
NASA/GSFC, Rapid Response
Iceberg PII-A is seen off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada on July 20th at 14.25 UTC, photographed from the Terra satellite.
A Manhattan-sized chunk of ice that broke off a glacier in Greenland nearly a year ago is drifting toward the coast of Newfoundland, Canada — providing a stunning sight to scientists and curiosity-seekers but also posing a potential threat to ships.
The ice island is 20 square miles — roughly 6.2 miles long and 3.1 miles wide. It was formed when a 97-square-mile chunk of ice broke off Greenland's Petermann Glacier on Aug. 5, 2010, possibly due to warming of the Atlantic Ocean. Continue reading.
A huge chunk of ice, roughly the size of Manhattan, is slowly making its way toward the Canadian coast. Msnbc.com's Al Stirrett reports. | 3.048734 |
UC San Diego electrical engineers have developed the world’s most complex “phased array” – or radio frequency integrated circuit. This DARPA-funded advance is expected to find its way into U.S. defense satellite communication and radar systems. In addition, the innovations in this chip design will likely spill over into commercial applications, such as automotive satellite systems for direct broadcast TV, and new methods for high speed wireless data transfer.
“This is the first 16 element phased array chip that can send at 30-50 GHz. The uniformity and low coupling between the elements, the low current consumption and the small size – it is just 3.2 by 2.6 square millimeters – are all unprecedented. As a whole system, there are many many firsts,” said Gabriel Rebeiz, the electrical engineering professor from the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering leading the project.
The work was done by two graduate students, Kwang-Jin Koh and Jason May, both at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) at UCSD. Rebeiz presented the new chip at DARPA TEAM Meeting, August 28-29, 2007 in Chicago, Illinois. Additional details of the chip will be submitted to an academic journal later this year.
This chip – the UCSD DARPA Smart Q-Band 4x4 Array Transmitter – is strictly a transmitter. “We are working on a chip that can do a transmit and receive function,” said Rebeiz.
“This compact beamforming chip will enable a breakthrough in size, weight, performance and cost in next-generation phased arrays for millimeter-wave military sensor and communication systems,” DARPA officials wrote in a statement.
“DARPA has funded us to try to get everything on a single silicon chip – which would reduce the cost of phased arrays tremendously. In large quantities, this new chip would cost a few dollars to manufacture. Obviously, this is only the transmitter. You still need the receiver but one can easily build the receiver chip based on the designs available in the transmitter chip. Our work addresses the most costly part of the phased array – the 16:1 divider, phase shifters, amplitude controllers and the uniformity and isolation between channels,” said Rebeiz
The chip also contains all the CMOS digital circuits necessary for complete digital control of the phased array, and was done using the commercial Jazz SBC18HX process. This is a first and greatly reduces the fabrication complexity of the phased array. The chip has been designed for use at the defense satellite communications frequency – the Q-band - which goes from 40 to 50 GHz.
“If you take the same design and move it to the 24 or 60 GHz range, you can use it for commercial terrestrial communications,” said Rebeiz who is also a lead on a separate project, funded by Intel and a UC-Discovery Grant, to create silicon CMOS phased array chips that could be embedded into laptops and serve as high speed data transfer tools.
The Intel project is a collaboration between Rebeiz, Larry Larson and Ian Galton – all electrical engineering professors at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering. Larson also serves as the chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“If you wanted to download a large movie file, a base station could find you, zoom onto you, and direct a beam to your receiver chip. This could enable data transfer of hundreds of gigabytes of information very quickly, and without connecting a cable or adhering to the alignment requirements of wireless optical data transfer,” explained Rebeiz who estimated that this kind of system could be available in as little as three years.
Phased Array Background Information:
Phased arrays have been around for more than half a century. They are groups of antennas in which the relative phases of the signals that feed them are varied so that the effective radiation pattern of the array is reinforced in a particular direction and suppressed in undesired directions. This property – combined with the fact that radio waves can pass through clouds and most other materials that stymie optical communication systems – has led engineers to use phased arrays for satellite communications, and for detecting incoming airplanes, ships and missiles.
Some phased arrays are larger than highway billboards and the most powerful – used as sophisticated radar, surveillance and communications systems for military aircraft and ships – can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The high cost has prevented significant spread beyond military and high-end satellite communication applications. Engineers are now working to miniaturize them and fully integrate them into silicon-based electronic systems for both military and commercial applications.
The new UCSD chip packs 16 channels into a 3.2 by 2.6 mm² chip. The input signal is divided on-chip into 16 different paths with equal amplitude and phase using an innovative design, and the phase and gain of each of the 16 channels is controlled electronically to direct the antenna pattern (beam) into a specific direction.
By manipulating the phase, you can steer the beam electronically in nanoseconds. With the amplitude, you control the width of the beam, which is critical, for example, when you send information to from one satellite to another but you don’t want the signal to reach any nearby satellites. And with amplitude and phase control, you can synthesize deep nulls in the antenna pattern so as to greatly reduce the effect of interfering signals from neighboring transmitters.
Source: University of California - San Diego
Explore further: Company pioneering new types of material for 3-D printer 'ink' | 3.032656 |
The Omega Nebula, sometimes called the Swan Nebula, is a dazzling stellar nursery located about 5500 light-years away towards the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). An active star-forming region of gas and dust about 15 light-years across, the nebula has recently spawned a cluster of massive, hot stars. The intense light and strong winds from these hulking infants have carved remarkable filigree structures in the gas and dust.
When seen through a small telescope the nebula has a shape that reminds some observers of the final letter of the Greek alphabet, omega, while others see a swan with its distinctive long, curved neck. Yet other nicknames for this evocative cosmic landmark include the Horseshoe and the Lobster Nebula.
Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux discovered the nebula around 1745. The French comet hunter Charles Messier independently rediscovered it about twenty years later and included it as number 17 in his famous catalogue. In a small telescope, the Omega Nebula appears as an enigmatic ghostly bar of light set against the star fields of the Milky Way. Early observers were unsure whether this curiosity was really a cloud of gas or a remote cluster of stars too faint to be resolved. In 1866, William Huggins settled the debate when he confirmed the Omega Nebula to be a cloud of glowing gas, through the use of a new instrument, the astronomical spectrograph.
In recent years, astronomers have discovered that the Omega Nebula is one of the youngest and most massive star-forming regions in the Milky Way. Active star-birth started a few million years ago and continues through today. The brightly shining gas shown in this picture is just a blister erupting from the side of a much larger dark cloud of molecular gas. The dust that is so prominent in this picture comes from the remains of massive hot stars that have ended their brief lives and ejected material back into space, as well as the cosmic detritus from which future suns form.
The newly released image, obtained with the EMMI instrument attached to the ESO 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla, Chile, shows the central region of the Omega Nebula in exquisite detail. In 2000, another instrument on the NTT, called SOFI, captured another striking image of the nebula in the near-infrared, giving astronomers a penetrating view through the obscuring dust, and clearly showing many previously hidden stars. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has also imaged small parts of this nebula (heic0305a - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic0305a.html - and heic0206d - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/html/heic0206d.html ) in fine detail.
At the left of the image a huge and strangely box-shaped cloud of dust covers the glowing gas. The fascinating palette of subtle colour shades across the image comes from the presence of different gases (mostly hydrogen, but also oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur) that are glowing under the fierce ultraviolet light radiated by the hot young stars.
Source: ESO (news : web)
Explore further: NASA builds unusual testbed for analyzing X-ray navigation technologies | 3.699244 |
"<"is converted to
"<". As the entities may be named, there is a dependency on the character set.
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let my_enc = encode ~in_enc:`Enc_utf8 () in let s1' = my_enc s1 in let s2' = my_enc s2 in ...
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`Html selects all entities defined
for HTML 4,
`Xml selects only
`Empty selects the empty set (i.e.
lookup is always called). | 3.291289 |
|Superior Strategies to Encourage Reading and Enhance Comprehension
by Victoria, a primary school teacher.
How do you define yourself as a reader?
Are you an avid reader who reads every chance you have outside of work? Or would you rather define yourself as more of a newspaper or magazine reader? Just like us, every one of our students possesses different reading interests. Not every student is realistically going to devour every single Harry Potter book or excitedly head over to your classroom library to peruse the historical fiction books about World War II. Additionally, not every student is going to understand every word he or she reads. Their fluency or prosody may be strong, but their comprehension may be a struggle.
Here are some ways you can make reading better for your students and enhance their comprehension in the process:
GENRE EXPOSURE / GRAPHIC NOVELS
First, expose your students to several genres and styles of literature. Writers use different tones when they write specific genres, particularly historical fiction. It is interesting to study word choice used in descriptions, dialect, and implied feelings through quotations. Keep your classroom library rich with literature; this year, I have found it particularly useful to organize the books by categories in bins. For those students interested in A Series of Unfortunate Events, for example, they have ventured to read other similar books by searching through the bins of fantasy books. They have also become interested in particular authors; I have heard a few students in conversation saying these exact words, \"I want to head over to the Andrew Clements bin because I like his style of writing.\"
Show your students that there are so many non-fiction books that connect to what they are learning in science and social studies.
Besides that, it is imperative that you read to your students often.
BECOME A MAGAZINE COLLECTOR
The only magazine my classroom subscribes to is Scholastic Storyworks, yet I have also acquired issues of OWL, Ranger Rick, Boys\' Life, National Geographic Kids, National Geographic Explorer, and more through Friends of the Library sales, thrift stores, and other teachers. Acquiring magazines in your classroom can help engage students who are not enthusiastic about reading longer books. Additionally, magazines are full of text features that can help your students to become great \"previewers.\"
Scholastic Storyworks, in particular, has online resources that you can use in conjunction with the articles in the magazine.
ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO RESPOND TO LITERATURE IN VARIOUS WAYS
Encourage students to respond to literature in a variety of ways. Sometimes give them the freedom to make a choice about how they respond to literature. Other times, you may desire for them to do something specific. Encourage your students to become writers, and prove to them that you are a writer as well!
WHY, OH WHY, OH WHY?
Are your students curious? All right, that wasn\'t the greatest question. Students obviously are curious about many topics. Have them develop \"why\" questions and encourage them to type in their questions to Google.com or another search engine to find answers.
ONLINE FIELD TRIPS
Taking online field trips, too, develops schema.
\"ROLE MODEL\" IS THE WORD
Encourage your students to become role models by starting a Book Buddies program with a younger class. My students have been Book Buddies with a kindergarten class since the fall of 2005. When we head to Book Buddies once a month (as much as twice a month), my students read a variety of literature, encourage the kindergarten students to write with details, teach them science concepts, and complete hands-on math activities with them. We always try to accompany our lessons with some sort of literature connection. Though my students are not reading books on their level when they read to the younger students, they learn how to be teachers and find ways to help their kindergarten students to understand what they are explaining to them.
Adapted from Scholastic.com | 4.125432 |
Cures for First-Day Jitters
4 of 11
Make Clothes Kid-Friendly
Young children learn to tie their shoes, operate zippers, and undress quickly enough to prevent accidents during this period of their development. Here are some things to think about before you buy new clothes for school.
- Take a good look at that jacket. Can your child easily put on and remove it, or does it have a troublesome zipper?
- Buy Velcro closures while you're teaching your child to tie his shoes.
- Think about those adorable overalls. They'll do nothing for your child's sense of competence and esteem if she can't get out of them to use the bathroom.
Next: Adjust Your Clock
More on: Preparing for Preschool | 3.033734 |
Saturn, all night long
On Thursday, January 13th, Saturn will be 750 million miles from Earth--the closest we get to the ringed planet this year.
January 12, 2005: When the sun sets on Thursday, January 13th, a golden star will rise in the east. Soaring overhead at midnight, it will be up all night long, beautiful and eye-catching.
January 13th is a special date for Saturn because that's when it is closest to Earth: only 750 million miles away, compared to a maximum distance of almost a billion miles. This makes the ringed planet unusually big and bright.
An astronomer would say "Saturn is at opposition" because Saturn and the sun are on opposite sides of the sky. Earth and Saturn are closest together at opposition; see the figure below. The sun, Earth and Saturn are lined up in a straight line with Earth in the middle. This happens every 13 months, approximately. The 2005 opposition of Saturn is so perfect that, if you were on Saturn, you would see Earth transiting the face of the Sun.
Left: Earth and Saturn are closest together when Saturn is "at opposition." The red circle is Saturn's orbit; the blue Earth's.
To find Saturn, step outside around 7:30 p.m. local time and face east. The planet is easy to see almost halfway up the sky next to Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini.
Got a telescope? Point it at Saturn. Even a small department-store 'scope will show the planet's rings. They are breathtaking. You might also notice a little pinprick of light near Saturn. That's Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
The European Space Agency's (ESA's) Huygens probe will attempt to land on Titan on January 14th. With hypothesized methane rain, gasoline seas, hot lightning and icy mountains, Titan could be the weirdest world in the solar system. Or not. No one knows because dense orange clouds hide the giant moon's surface. If Huygens survives its bold descent, we'll soon find out what's down there. Good luck ESA!
Above: A map of the evening-eastern sky in mid-January 2005. [Larger Map]
If bad weather spoils your view on January 13th, don't worry. Saturn will remain close to Earth, receding slowly, all month long. You can find it any evening in the eastern sky next to Castor and Pollux. January 23rd is especially good because the full moon will glide right past Saturn, marking its location for all to see.
Bright, golden, ringed, breathtaking: Saturn. It's worth a look. | 3.411994 |
For the past few decades there has been a long standing debate as to the origins of modern Europeans. The two alternative hypotheses are:
* Europeans are descended from Middle Eastern farmers, who brought their Neolithic cultural toolkit less than 10,000 years ago.
* Europeans are descended from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, who acculturated to the farming way of life through diffusion of ideas.
The two extreme positions are not really accepted in such stark forms by anyone. Rather, the debate is over the effect size of #1 vs. #2. Bryan Sykes, a geneticist at Oxford, has been arguing for the primacy of #2 for many years. His argument is most fully laid out in The Seven Daughters of Eve. In short the model is that on the order of 80% of the ancestors of Europeans today derive from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, while 20% derive from Middle Eastern farmers. Foremost amongst those who argue for #1 would be the famed genetic anthropologist L. L. Cavalli-Sforza. Cavalli-Sforza has objected strongly to Sykes’ characterization of his own position, and suggests that the most recent data do not refuse his model in any way. His point is that the “demic diffusion” model simply points to the critical role of demographic advance, and does not positive total genetic replacement. Or, even preponderant effect, seeing as how there will be dilution of the genetic signal along the wave of advance. It is therefore a glass-half-empty vs. glass-half-fully argument. Remember also that Sykes’ values are averaged across Europeans, so that the signal of Middle Eastern farmers would be greater in southeast Europe than in the British Isles.
Of course there are some methodological issues here; Sykes’ argument relied on mitochondrial DNA, passed only through mothers. Cavalli-Sforza initially relied on classical autosomal markers, though his group later focused on Y chromosomes, passed through males. Some workers have found values closer to 50% for Middle Eastern contribution. And most importantly, DNA extraction techniques are suggesting that inferences made from contemporary patterns of variation may not give us an accurate map of past patterns of variation. These techniques are coming together and suggesting that in fact European hunter-gatherers left a much smaller contribution to the ancestry of modern Europeans than Sykes et al. have inferred.
In this unsettled landscape comes a new paper which turns some assumptions about Y chromosomal variation in Europe on its head. The focus is on a subclade of the R1b haplogroup, which has its highest frequencies in Western Europe, in particular along the Atlantic fringe. The pattern of variation has led many to infer that this lineage, in particular the R1b1b2 haplgroup, is a marker of the Paleolithic populations of Western Europe. The high frequency of this marker among the Basques in particular is seen as evidence of this, because this group speaks a language which is a pre-Indo-European isolate (the Basques are used as a Paleolithic reference group in many papers). But perhaps not. A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages:
The relative contributions to modern European populations of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers from the Near East have been intensely debated. Haplogroup R1b1b2 (R-M269) is the commonest European Y-chromosomal lineage, increasing in frequency from east to west, and carried by 110 million European men. Previous studies suggested a Paleolithic origin, but here we show that the geographical distribution of its microsatellite diversity is best explained by spread from a single source in the Near East via Anatolia during the Neolithic. Taken with evidence on the origins of other haplogroups, this indicates that most European Y chromosomes originate in the Neolithic expansion. This reinterpretation makes Europe a prime example of how technological and cultural change is linked with the expansion of a Y-chromosomal lineage, and the contrast of this pattern with that shown by maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA suggests a unique role for males in the transition.
Let’s look at Figure 1 first to see how they get to their conclusion.
The first panel shows the standard SE-NW expansion of agriculture. The second the west-east decline in R1b1b2 frequency. These I’ve been aware of, and the patterns pointed to the inverse relationship between agriculturalists and R1b1b2. But the third panel points to something different. It shows the correspondence of variation in R1b1b2 with panel A. This is counterintuitive in light of our previous assumption. Regions where lineages have been extant the longest should have the highest variation. This is the insight which allows researchers to be confident that modern human beings emerged from Africa within the last 50,000 years or so; Africa has by far the most genetic variance of any region of the world. By contrast, the New World has the least. This is because serial bottlenecks from population A → B results in a loss of information, like serial photocopying. Genetic drift results in the extinction of many lineages, and the stochastic rise in frequency of a few lineages. In other words, in this model the high frequency of R1b1b2 in Western Europe is a function not of that marker’s long residence in that region, but a rapid population expansion of the lineage from a small group of founders, whereby other lineages simply went extinct due to stochastic factors on the wave of advance.
Here’s a graphic illustration of how the variation relates to geography. Remember that R-squared is the % of the variation of Y which can be explained by variation of X.
But probably the clincher has to be their calculations of “The Most Recent Common Ancestor” (TMRCA) of the individual lineages of R1b1b2 within the various populations. These data seem to suggest that it is in Turkey that R1b1b2 has the most time depth; that is, from the founding of the lineage via its unique mutations there was diversification over time. When new populations are founded they tend to only reflect a small proportion of the variation, so the TMCRA will be a lower value because there is a shallower time depth to the populations for them to build up new mutations.
But take a look at the 95% confidence intervals. There’s a lot of overlap, and though it is nice that the trend fits expectations, that is, regions with more R1b1b2 diversity should be those where there’s more time depth to build up that diversity, there have been so many flip-flops in this area that people will probably question dating here. One issue to note is that it seems likely that if the model presented here is true, that R1b1b2 is newcomer from the Middle East which rapidly expanded in frequency across Western Europe, it’s going to be hard to getting the clarity you need from molecular clock based methods because the demographic processes occurred rather rapidly. We know from archaeology that agricultural societies could sprout up almost instantaneously, as if they simply transplanted their culture to new locales. Some of this likely occurred via sea, using the Mediterranean and the Atlantic fringe.
The authors point out that in places like Japan and India there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence for agriculture resulting in the expansion of particular lineages, so the preponderance of acculturation in Europe as the mode of transmission seems atypical. Though I don’t see citations to the recent DNA extraction results which have unsettled historical population genetic orthodoxy, I think that should also change our priors a bit in terms of whether we should give much weight to this particular result. New data from India, which posits a hybrid autosome, predominantly recent exogenous Y lineages, and indigenous mtDNA lineages, may serve a model for Europe. The authors here do not reject that mtDNA is predominantly indigenous, so they posit that agriculture spread with male lineages from the Middle East who intermarried with the daughters of locals. One analog might be the emergence of mestizos in the New World, who have predominantly European male lineages and native female lineages. Finally, one question a friend brought up: if the higher frequency of R1b1b2 is a function of the wave of advance, why is it the same haplogroup all along the wave front? Standard population genetic theory tells us that fragmented small groups will tend to lose genetic diversity and fix particular alleles, but those alleles are not going to be the same. It seems that it is more plausible that there were serial bottlenecks through coastal migrations, and eventually these expanded inland once they stumbled onto the northwest European plain. But that’s just speculation.
Update: Also see Dienekes, I assume there’ll be a robust discussion thread on this paper….
Citation: Balaresque P, Bowden GR, Adams SM, Leung H-Y, King TE, et al. (2010) A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages. PLoS
Biol 8(1):e1000285. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000285 | 3.087428 |
The genus Shigella consists of four species: S. dysenteriae (subgroup A), S. flexneri (subgroup B), S. boydii (subgroup C), and S. sonnei (subgroup D). Shigella organisms may be very difficult to distinguish biochemically from Escherichia coli. Brenner (1984) considers Shigella organisms and E. coli to be a single species, based on DNA homology. Nonetheless, Shigella species are Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic, nonsporulating, nonmotile rods in the family Enterobacteriaceae. They do not decarboxylate lysine or ferment lactose within 2 d. They utilize glucose and other carbohydrates, producing acid but not gas. However, because of their affinity with E. coli, frequent exceptions may be encountered, e.g., some biotypes produce gas from glucose and mannitol. Neither citrate nor malonate is used as the sole carbon source for growth, and the organisms are inhibited by potassium cyanide (Andrews, 1998).
Andrews, W.H. 1998. Shigella, Ch. 6. In Food and Drug Administration Bacteriological Analytical Manual, 8th ed. (revision A), (CD-ROM version). R.L. Merker (Ed.). AOAC International, Gaithersburg, MD.
Andrews, W.H., and June, G.A. 1998. Food sampling and preparation of sample homogenate, Ch. 1. In Food and Drug Administration Bacteriological Analytical Manual , 8th ed. (revision A), (CD-ROM version). R.L. Merker (Ed.). AOAC International, Gaithersburg, MD.
Brenner, D.J. 1984. Family I. Enterobacteriaceae. In Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, Vol. 1. N.R. Krieg (Ed.), p.408-420. Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore.
Ewing, W.H. 1986. Edwards and Ewing's Identification of Enterobacteriaceae, 4th ed. Elsevier, New York.
FDA. 1998. Bacterial pathogen growth. Appendix 4. In Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guide, 2nd ed., p. 241-244. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Office of Seafood, Washington, DC.
Fehlhaber, K. 1981. Untersuchungen über lebensmittelhygienisch bedeutsame Eigenschaften von Shigellen. Arch. Exper. Vet. Med. (Leipzig) 35(6):955-964.
Jyhshiun, L., In, S.L., Frey, J., Slonczewski, J.L., and Foster, J.W. 1995. Comparative analysis of extreme acid survival in Salmonella typhimurium, Shigella flexneri, and Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 177(14):4097-4104.
Merker, R.L. (Ed.). 1998. Media and Reagents, Appendix 3. In Food and Drug Administration Bacteriological Analytical Manual, 8th ed. (revision A), (CD-ROM version). AOAC International, Gaithersburg, MD.
Sanzey, B. 1979. Modulation of gene expression by drugs affecting deoxyribonucleic acid gyrase. J. Bacteriol. 136:40-47.
Ward, D., Bernard, D., Collette, R., Kraemer, D., Hart, K., Price, R., and Otwell, S. (Eds.) 1997. Hazards Found in Seafoods, Appendix III. In HACCP: Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Training Curriculum, 2nd ed., p. 173-188. UNC-SG-96-02. North Carolina Sea Grant, Raleigh, NC.
Updated: 07/18/07 - Sea Grant Extension Program, Food Science & Technology, University of California, Davis
Send comments or questions to web editor. | 3.040637 |
Seafloor Observatory Reveals Arctic Ocean Environment
Posted: January 3, 2013 | By: Douglas Main [OurAmazingPlanet]
A new observatory at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean will help keeps tabs on the delicate environment, relaying information continuously throughout the year for the first time ever, according to a release from Canada's University of Victoria, which runs the station.
The observatory includes an underwater camera, microphone and a device that can measure ice thickness, as well as instruments to measure temperature, salinity and other data that can be used to monitor the health of the environment. There is also an above-ground weather station to track local weather patterns and climate data.
to read more. | 3.30255 |
Tol means Old and Kappiyam means a literary work. The name of the author could not be identified and the work apparently relates to Grammar in Tamil. It is learnt that the author was one of the 12 disciples of Sage Agastya the Father of Tamil Grammar. This sage was living in the south near Madurai, during the visit of Lord Ram to the south in search of his wife, abducted by the Lankan King Ravan. The age of Lord Ram precedes that of Lord Krishna and hence the work can safely be said to precede 3000 BC (the ideal period of Mahabharat Yudh). Lord Shiva and his Son Murugan is said to have laid the first tenets for the Tamil Language, probably long long time before sage Agastya could compile the same. | 3.356923 |
How Can Teachers Stop Bullying?
By SMW Staff
Each day in America, it is estimated that 160,000 students stay home from school to avoid being bullied. Look at the headlines; it’s easy to see that bullying is a growing problem in our schools. The good news is that it is a problem that many teachers can help tackle by creating a bully-free classroom.
“We all know that bullying is a major concern in our schools,” explains Peter J. Goodman, author of the book We’re All Different But We’re All Kitty Cats. “But there are things teachers can do to help address this problem and prevent it from happening.”
What can teachers do to stop bullying and create bully-free classrooms? Goodman has now bundled his popular book with anti-bullying curriculum, which helps children identify and work through their emotions and feelings. The curriculum, titled “Bully Free Students Make Bully Free Classrooms,” uses cats as characters to help teach children about bullying and accepting others even if they have differences.
5 Bullying Tips for Teachers
- Classroom bullying needs to be addressed at every level during the elementary school years so that a foundation has been laid.
- Teach kids to be upstanders, rather than bystanders. Children typically bully others because they believe they are in a power position to do so. But if peers stand up for the child being bullied, the power is taken away from the bully.
- Place an emphasis on teaching kindness. Show kids ways that they can be kind to one another, and recognize it when they do, complimenting them on it.
- Pair up kids who need a buddy. There are, at times, new kids or those who have a harder time in social situations. Teachers can help with this situation by pairing the child up with someone who has a stronger social personality, so they can stay together during particular activities.
- Work with students to brainstorm a list of classroom rules regarding kindness, tolerance, and bullying. Include ways that they can handle conflict resolution, as well, so that they know what to do if situations arise.
“When you combine several of these factors, you will have a much greater chance of creating a bully-free classroom,” added Goodman. “Children learn when they have fun, when the information is repeated, and when they can actively play a role.”
“Teachers have to be more proactive in this area so that we can create a safer classroom,” explains Karen Goldberg, a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in working with parents and families. “Addressing the issue now and creating a bully-free classroom can save a lot of problems from occurring later on. Plus, the kids learn skills they can use for a lifetime.”
The Kitty Cats book and curriculum has been written for children in pre-kindergarten through the third grade. The earlier children learn about the importance of preventing bullying, the better. To learn more about the book series and the anti-bullying curriculum, visit www.kittycatsbook.com.
About the Author
Peter J. Goodman has created a series of children’s books titled We’re All Different But We’re All Kitty Cats. The books are designed for elementary-school-aged children, to tackle common issues that they may encounter such as bullying, childhood fears, confidence, being different, and making friends. Through the use of a cast of cats, the author helps children better understand those issues, and learn how to deal with them. DreamBIG Press was started by Goodman, a multimedia children’s author and president of Gut Instinct Creative, an award-winning marketing communications company. For more information about dreamBIG Press or the book series, visit the site at: www.kittycatsbook.com or our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/kittycatsbook
More SingleMindedWomen.com Articles on Bullying | 3.995711 |
The following is aimed at beginners to ASP.Net...
When does it happen?
A postback originates from the client browser. Usually one of the controls on the page will be manipulated by the user (a button clicked or dropdown changed, etc), and this control will initiate a postback. The state of this control, plus all other controls on the page,(known as the View State) is Posted Back to the web server.
Most commonly the postback causes the web server to create an instance of the code behind class of the page that initiated the postback. This page object is then executed within the normal page lifecycle with a slight difference (see below). If you do not redirect the user specifically to another page somewhere during the page lifecycle, the final result of the postback will be the same page displayed to the user again, and then another postback could happen, and so on.
Why does it happen?
The web application is running on the web server. In order to process the user’s response, cause the application state to change, or move to a different page, you need to get some code to execute on the web server. The only way to achieve this is to collect up all the information that the user is currently working on and send it all back to the server.
Some things for a beginner to note are...
- The state of the controls on the posting back page are available within the context. This will allow you to manipulate the page controls or redirect to another page based on the information there.
- Controls on a web form have events, and therefore event handlers, just like any other controls. The initialisation part of the page lifecycle will execute before the event handler of the control that caused the post back. Therefore the code in the page’s Init and Load event handler will execute before the code in the event handler for the button that the user clicked.
- The value of the “Page.IsPostBack” property will be set to “true” when the page is executing after a postback, and “false” otherwise.
- Technologies like Ajax and MVC have changed the way postbacks work. | 3.10992 |
Survival at 40oC Above
29 January 2013
Author Debbie S. Miller spent time with the Desert Ecology Research Group in the Simpson Desert for her new children's book - Survival at 40oC Above.
The desert is hot, really hot, and dry. So how do the animals of the desert survive and thrive in these harsh conditions? Survival at 40oC Above is a new non-fiction children's book that explores the adaptations which allows desert dwelling animals to live in some of the most extreme weather conditions on earth.
Debbie S. Miller, the book's author, spent three weeks in the Simpson Desert with researchers from the School of Biological Sciences in April 2010. "I was a volunteer with the research team, so I helped trap and release animals, weigh and measure them, and I was able to photograph animals that people rarely see, due to their nocturnal ways," said Debbie. "Learning about the different marsupials and reptiles through the eyes of scientists and researchers was a fascinating opportunity."
Debbie says that the main purpose of the book is to introduce young readers to the different ecosystems and creatures of our world. "If children better understand the natural world around them, my hope is that they will appreciate all living things on earth and ultimately try to protect the wild places, like the Simpson Desert, that we cherish."
The members of the Desert Ecology Research Group certainly cherish the desert - they have been conducting field work in the Simpson for over 20 years! And Debbie is the latest to fall in love with the place. "The stunning, velvet-softred sand of the Simpson Desert was unforgettable," she enthused. "It was a great adventure traveling with the Dickman lab crew, to learn the local lingo,fly over the dunes in Land Rovers, hear their stories, learn about all of their studies in the field, and share those incredible desert sunsets."
Survival at 40oC Above (published as Survival at 120 Above in non-metric countries) is the sister-book to Survival at 40 Below- an exploration of animal adaptations to the extreme conditions of Debbie's home state, Alaska. "Being in the desert was an amazing experience for an Alaskan who is familiar with the Arctic, and animals such as polar bears and caribou. This was such a different world." And how did she manage to survive at 40oC above? "We had a few very hot days and that was a bit of an adjustment. Thank goodness that we found some shade on those days and we had lots of water."
To learn (or help your children learn) how the mulgara, dunnart, thorny devil, red kangaroo, sand goanna, spinifex hopping mouse and many more animals survive in the desert, be sure to pick up Survival at 40oC Above- available in Australia from 1 February 2013. | 3.494611 |
NOAA Teacher at Sea
Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow
July 20 — August 1, 2011
Mission: Cetacean and Seabird Abundance Survey
Geographical Area: North Atlantic
Date: July 24, 2011
Air Temp: 23 ºC
Water Temp: 21 ºC
Wind Speed: 11 knots
Water Depth: 35 meters
Science and Technology Log
Continuing our quest to count mammals and seabirds has brought us to shallower waters. Currently we are moving in an area south of Martha’s Vineyard. In this area we have had better visibility allowing us to sight species like the south polar skua and bottlenose dolphin. Increased sightings bring new equipment and tools utilized by scientists to give a clearer picture of the diversity of animals in our survey area.
In addition to seeing animals through binoculars, scientists also want to learn about animal genetics and vocalizations. Specialized equipment like a crossbow loaded with a biopsy dart or a towed hydrophone array can give scientists greater insight into the animals they are trying to study.
Pete, one of the marine mammal observers is also tasked with using a crossbow and biopsy dart to take a small sample of whale or dolphin tissue. When the visual sighting team (using binoculars) spots an animal, they direct the bridge (where the ship is controlled) to steer the ship toward the animal or group of animals. At this point, Pete begins to prepare his genetic sampling equipment. On the bow of the ship are two raised platforms, one on each side. With his crossbow in hand Pete harnesses himself to the ship, climbs on a platform and loads a biopsy dart. If the animals are close enough he will then fire the dart, which is tethered to the ship, and collect a very, small piece of skin and blubber from the animal. This tissue sample can be used by scientists to study the animal’s DNA, sex, health, diet, pollution levels and in females, check for pregnancy.
Another tool used to deepen a scientist’s understanding of marine mammals is a towed hydrophone array. Included in a thin tube towed behind the ship are underwater microphones or hydrophones. These are used to listen to noises in the ocean but for this cruise, the hydrophones are tuned to pick up sounds made by marine mammals.
One of the problems associated with using visual sightings to count marine mammals is they only spend a short period at the surface where they can be visually observed. To ensure that all animals are counted, scientists like Rob and Sandra listen for animals that may be underwater when the ship passes. Using multiple hydrophones they can use computer software to locate the noises and note the presence of animals that may be missed by visual observers.
Today was our first day of good weather that lasted all day. What that means is 12 hours on deck looking for animals. Even though I can take a break whenever I need it, I am worried that if I leave the deck I will miss something interesting. After that many hours on deck it is great to get some dinner and head for bed. I have been sleeping really well, making getting up at 6am to start surveying almost enjoyable.
Next posting I will talk about the CTD/Bongo sampling device that I am helping to deploy every day at lunch. | 3.119665 |
Frequently Asked Questions
- How can I support my child in mathematics at home?
- How much should I help my child with their homework?
- How can I support my child with learning Math Facts at home?.
- What type of questions are on the elementary grades math MCAS?
- How many questions are on the math MCAS and how long should the test take?
How can I support my child in mathematics at home?
Math is everywhere in our environment! We are using math each time we shop,
wall paper a room, set an alarm clock, wrap a present, or mix a baby's
formula. Our day to day responsibilities prompt us to ask mathematical
questions such as, "How many hours until my appointment?" or "How many plates
do I need to set for dinner?"
Supporting your child in mathematics at home is more straightforward than
one might think. You can support your child and foster a positive attitude
in mathematics by involving your child in these experiences and taking the
opportunity to discuss the importance of math in their daily lives. Model
reasoning and problem solving skills to solve everyday problems. Use your
child's day to day interactions to build their mathematical understanding
using authentic everyday experiences.
The link below provides meaningful and authentic math activities for grades
K-5, which support mathematical thinking at home.
How much should I help my child with their homework?
The Homework Policy within the School Handbook states the following
"Parents should provide an environment conducive to studying and working
independently. They may help students organize time, space and materials so
children can complete their homework effectively. Parents are encouraged to
help clarify directions and ask questions that may help students to organize
their thinking and recall information from class lessons. Because teachers
carefully select assignments, parents should encourage their children to work
independently. A handbook for parents with tips on how to help students
complete homework is available upon request from the office."
How can I support my child with learning Math Facts at home?.
If your child is participating in the Fastt Math program regularly, parents
are encouraged to request a copy of their child's current Fact Grid. This
report will show a student's current fluency status with all facts in their
current operation. This information is helpful because parents can determine
which facts their child is fluent with and which facts they need more
practice with. Click on the Math Websites' tab (located at the top left of
this page)to see specific websites that support and reinforce fact learning.
What type of questions are on the elementary grades math MCAS?
Each test session has a combination of multiple choice, short answer and open
response items. The following link defines each type of test question and
provides a sample question for each type of test item from previous tests.
How many questions are on the math MCAS and how long should the test take?
The test is administered in two sessions. Each test session has
approximately 16-19 questions with a total of about 40 test items. Each test
session takes about 45 minutes. All students will be granted additional time
to complete the test if needed. | 3.379864 |
The word Fascism itself had two meanings before being associated with the political movement. In Ancient Rome the magistrates carried with them a ceremonial axe bundled in rods called fasces to represent their power and authority. The modern word fascio also meant a group or band.
From the 1870s the term fascio was used in the names of radical social or poltical organisations, usually left-leaning.
However Fascism developed into a loose blend of many different ideologies and concepts. Finally Mussolini himself said that Fascism was a situation where the State was the power served by individuals and groups. The opposite, in a sense, from Socialism.
The main tenets of Fascism, according to Mussolini, were:
- parliamentary democracy can only lead to an innefficient and corrupt government
- for a nation to be strong it should be led by a strong party elite
- the party must be led by an inspired and unquestioned leader
- labour and capital must work together under the direction of the state
- the class system was abolished; everyone must work together under the state (which justified banning freedom of assembly)
Mussolini proclaimed, "Everything within the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state." The people should only, "believe, obey and fight."
|Whos here now: Members 0 Guests 1 Bots & Crawlers 0| | 3.380514 |
Glass Types and Glazing
All windows and doors
offered at 1stwindows feature dual paned (also known as dual glazed) glass. If
you require a custom glass configuration and do not see it listed please
contact us at (562) 494-9069.
Glazing refers to the glass in a window or
door and the act or process of fitting a window with glass. There are many
different glass types and treatments available. Assembled below are
descriptions of the most common glass types.
products give you year-round energy savings and comfort by helping manage
the sun's energy and the heating system energy in your home. Low-E glass
products are coated with microscopically-thin, optically transparent
layers of silver sandwiched between layers of antireflective metal oxide
coatings. In the summer, Low-E glass products let in visible sunlight
while blocking infrared and ultraviolet solar energy that drives up
cooling costs and damages curtains, window treatments, carpeting and
furnishings. And in the winter, Low-E glass products offer greater
comfort and reduced heating costs by reflecting room-side heat back into
the room. Emissivity is a measure of how much heat
is emitted from an object by radiation. Heat is transferred to and from
objects through three processes: conduction, convection, and radiation.
For instance, on a hot night, heat will be conducted through a
window from the outside, causing the inside pane to become warm.
or natural circulation, of the air in the room past the window will
transfer some of that heat into the room. But the window will also radiate
heat as infrared waves, which will warm objects throughout the room. This
radiative heating is why you can feel the heat of a red-hot piece of metal
(for instance, a heating element on an electric stove) from several feet
away. Low-emissivity, or low-e, coatings are put on window panes to reduce
the amount of heat they give off through radiation. In hot climates, where
the outside of the window will typically be hotter than the inside, low-e
coatings work best on the interior of the outside window pane. In cold
climates, where the inside of the window is typically hotter than the
outside, the low-e coatings work best on the inside window pane, on the
side that faces toward the outside.
Laminated glass is produced by permanently bonding two pieces of glass together with a tough plastic interlayer (polyvinyl
butyral) under heat and pressure. Once bonded together, the sandwich behaves as a single piece.
The interlayer is invisible when viewed through the glass and with glass on either side, the finished lite is indistinguishable from plain glass when installed. Most often, laminated glass is produced from annealed glass, but heat strengthened or tempered can be used when special performance needs are present. The benefit of laminated glass is that if broken, glass fragments adhere to the plastic interlayer rather than falling free and potentially causing injury. Laminated annealed glass can be cut or drilled. Laminated glass is required in sloped glazing applications that exceed any of the following conditions:
The area of each pane (single glass) or unit (insulating glass) exceeds 16 square feet.
The highest point of the glass is greater than 12 feet above any walking surface or other accessible area. The nominal thickness of each pane exceeds 3/16 inch.
Laminated glass is highly effective in reducing noise thus improving Sound Transmission Ratings. The best design incorporates laminated glass in an insulated unit. The damping characteristics of the plastic interlayer combines with the attenuating characteristics of the air space of the IG unit to maximize sound reduction.
Example: Two lites of 1/4" laminated glass in an IG unit with a 1/2" air space provide an STC rating of 42. This compares with two pieces of monolithic 1/4" glass in an IG unit with a 1/2" airspace the STC rating would be 35.
Laminated glass eliminates 99.9% of ultraviolet rays, making it highly effective in protecting furnishings, displays, merchandise,
Standard laminated glass is 7/32" with a .030 (approx. 1/32") polyvinyl butyral layer.
The tempering process produces highly desirable conditions of induced stress which result in additional strength, resistance to thermal stress and impact resistance.
Fully tempered glass must have a surface compression of 10,000 PSI (Annealed is below 3500
PSI) and heat strengthened must have a surface compression between 3,500 and 7,500
PSI. The basic principle employed in the heat treating process is to create an initial condition of surface and edge compression. The condition is achieved by first heating the glass, then cooling the surfaces rapidly.
This leaves the center glass thickness relatively hot compared to the surfaces. As the center thickness then cools, it forces the surfaces and edges into compression.
Wind pressure, foreign object impact and thermal stresses or other applied
loads must first overcome this compression before there is a possibility
of breakage. In the heat treatment process the key procedure is
application of a rapid air quench immediately upon withdrawal of hot
(1200 degrees F) glass from the tempering furnace. The immediate and
sustained application of an air quench produces the temper. A quenched
condition becomes stable when the glass is reduced to a temperature of
approximately 400-600 degrees F. Tempered glass is about 4 times
stronger than annealed.
A brown 'smoked' tint. Designed to reduce solar heat gain.
A gray 'smoked' glass designed to reduce solar heat gain.
Unique among all tinted glass, offering a dark-gray, almost black appearance which provides excellent glare control, shading coefficient and ultraviolet screening.
A green float glass that has excellent light transmittance and reduces solar heat gain.
A green tinted, spectrally select glass that provides a high daylight transmittance and UV transmittance.
This spectrally select glass has an 'aquamarine' appearance and is excellent for high daylight transmittance and has a low shading coefficient.
The reflective coating is applied just like hardcoat Low-E through spraying (Pyrolitic process) during the float glass manufacturing process.
It reflects light and heat with a metal oxide coating giving a mirror
effect and minimizes solar heat gain, and ultraviolet light damage to
interior as well as providing daytime privacy. May be tempered.
Heat absorbing and heat reflective glass can only be used on the exterior lite of a unit in order to avoid a build-up of heat inside the airspace, which will cause thermal stress cracks or seal failure.
Reflective type glass works with the play of light. Example: During daylight hours you can't see inside a building with reflective glass, (only your refection). At night there is just the opposite effect. You can see in, but the people inside can not see out.
Types of Reflective Tints
Solar Cool Gray
Solar Cool Bronze
Light and heat reflective. Has a low daylight transmittance, shading
coefficient and relative heat gain.
These are light and heat reflective. They have a low daylight transmittance, shading
coefficient and relative heat gain.
Heat Mirror film is a window insulation material that is transparent to light, but highly reflective to heat. It consists of a specially coated film which is mounted inside an insulating glass unit, midway between the panes of glass. The result is a finished product which looks clear, but has a dramatically improved insulation performance.
Compared with ordinary types of glass, Heat Mirror dramatically reduces heat loss and heat gain caused by conduction and radiation. These are two of the primary methods by which heat transfer occurs in glass. The third is convection.
Ordinary double pane and
triple pane glass only reduce conductive heat flow, and have little
effect on the radiated component of heat flow.
Heat Mirror combines a low-E coating with two air spaces to block both radiated and conductive heat flow. This unique construction enables Heat Mirror insulating units to offer higher insulating performance than other high performance glazing options.
The transparent Heat Mirror coating is actually 90% as reflective as aluminum foil. It is optically clear and reflects heat back to its source.
Because there are many climatic regions in our sales area, there is a family of Heat Mirror products to provide optimum thermal performance for virtually any application in a wide range of climates. Similarly, within a climatic region, each specific application has different performance requirements on each elevation.
The higher the Heat Mirror number (i.e., Heat Mirror 88 and SC75) the higher the solar transmission. Heat Mirror products with the highest numbers provide higher levels of visible light transmission and solar heat gain. The lower numbered products (HM 66, 55, 44) provide the best control of solar heat gain for the optimum control performance in southern climates on homes with significant solar exposure, or glass-intensive structures such as
Heat Mirror 88 is designed for northern climates, where warmth from the sun is desirable for supplemental heating. Heat Mirror 77 and 66 are designed for climates where overheating is the primary concern or on elevations like the south and west sides of a house where overheating can occur, even in the north. Heat Mirror 55 and 44 provide even greater levels of solar control for skylight, sunrooms and commercial buildings.
Heat Mirror Benefits
Superior insulation performance - has twice the insulation performance of standard insulating units.
Ultraviolet fading protection - Blocks out 99.5% of ultraviolet rays.
Provides improved sound control - Reduces outside noise 12% more effectively than standard insulating units.
Design freedom - Can increase the glazing area in the design of a home or commercial building because of its high performance characteristics.
Excellent shading coefficient
Some obscure or pattern glass gets its pattern by going through rollers after the float glass process that have the pattern on the rollers.
It adds privacy where window covering are impractical or undesirable (bathrooms, sidelights)
and is available in various colors and texture patterns provide a translucent of semi-opaque effect.
It may or not not be tempered.
Types of Obscure Glass
Our standard Obscure pattern
A fine etched pattern glass that is made by pouring an epoxy on the glass and letting it dry in a high humidity environment. The glue is then chipped away which removes portions of the glass.
A type of obscure with a vertical reed pattern.
A type of obscure with a rain pattern.
to the Learning Center
ęCopyright 2000-2005 1stwindows.com | 3.288899 |
Arthritic cane toads hobbling across Australia
Cane toads are paying a debilitating price for their invasion of Australia, researchers show. It seems the stress of constant movement has left many of the toxic pests vulnerable to severe arthritis.
Professor Rick Shine and his colleagues at the University of Sydney have been following the reviled pests as they spread into the Northern Territory.
Their latest research, published online today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that roughly one in 10 of the largest toads are suffering severe spinal arthritis.
The arthritis is linked to infection with the common soil bacteria Ochrobactrum anthropi.
In part, the situation seems to have arisen because the toads have evolved longer legs to adapt to the invasion, Shine says.
"Frogs' bodies are not well designed for long distance athletic challenges.
"But because of the invasion process, the cane toads have evolved into these road warriors that are travelling every night during the wet season."
During that season, the invasion front advances an average 130 metres each day, he says. For the toads, that means an extraordinary amount of physical wear and tear.
"There's a huge ball of bony tissue that's grown up around the joints," says Shine. "It substantially affects their ability to hop around."
Although radio tracking of the arthritic toads shows they keep moving, the researchers have found that if you chase them down a track, they begin taking shorter hops and show signs of stress after just a few metres.
"It certainly looks like they are extremely uncomfortable," he says.
Immune system run down
The fact that the toads are suffering in this way suggests their immune systems are worn down, which could prove to be a good thing for efforts to control the spread of the hopping pests.
"I think it's telling us it's not easy being an invader and that may well give us an Achilles heel when we start to talk about how to control toads. These guys at the invasion front are doing it tough."
The arthritis might also act as a brake on the accelerating spread of the species, Shine suggests.
"It may be that we're not going to see a great deal more acceleration of the toad front because they're really reaching the point that that's about as much as you can get a frog's body to do." | 3.34377 |
ALBANY, Ga. — Try hard not to miss this one. It won’t be coming back for (give or take)110,000 years.
The Pan-STARRS comet, expected any day, is warmly anticipated by astronomers around the world. With a little luck, it might even be seen with the naked eye.
Jim Friese, staff astronomer with the Wetherbee Planetarium, recommends a good set of binoculars — just in case.
Friese said that Pan-STARRS is known to be a “long-period”comet, or one that has journeyed from the “Oort cloud” about 1.5 light years distant, and will take around 110,000 years to make its orbit.
In comparison, Halley’s Comet, which was last seen in 1986, takes a mere 76 years to make the trip.
According to Friese, if Pan-STARRS actually does become visible without optical assistance (it may not) it will soon appear in the western portion of the sky on March 12 or 13 “just to the left of the crescent moon,” and move across the sky in the direction of the viewer’s right. It’s liable to fade very quickly, Friese says, but while it lasts it will probably be orange in color.
Pan-STARRS owes its unusual name to the state-of-the-art Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System, which was used in the comet’s discovery. The relatively new telescope system, developed at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astrology, is intended to detect dangerous asteroids or other astral bodies near the earth.
Another — possibly much greater — show expected later this year is the ISON comet, which has the potential to be seen even in daylight. ISON will travel through the inner solar system just 1.1 million miles from the sun. For the cosmically uninitiated, that’s a very close comet. In fact, the greatest threat to its promising light show is the chance it could be destroyed by the sun.
“If it isn’t taken out, it’ll be really spectacular,” Friese said. “But all comets are unpredictable. You never know what they’ll do.” | 3.359612 |
Zhang told China Daily, the country’s official English-language newspaper, that 200 million people would enter childbearing age during that time and abandoning the policy could harm the population's stability.
"Given such a large population base, there would be major fluctuations in population growth if we abandoned the one-child rule now," he said. "It would cause serious problems and add extra pressure on social and economic development."Gender disparityAccording to China Daily, 118 Chinese boys are born for every 100 Chinese girls. The natural ratio is 106 boys per 100 girls. Since there are now methods of predetermining gender prior to giving birth, women who are pregnant with girls are more likely to abort them. Girls are also more likely to end up in an orphanage, only one-fifth of children in orphanages are boys and the one-child policy makes it relatively easy for people outside of China to adopt Chinese girl babies and children.
High rates of infanticide also exist for girl babies born in urban areas.But China has said that the policy has been successful in preventing 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the United States.Beijing told delegates at UN talks in Vienna in August 2007 that the measure had helped combat climate change, meaning there was less demand for energy and lower emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.An opinion poll published by the Pew Research Centre in August 2008, said that the one-child policy was overwhelmingly accepted by the Chinese public with 76 per cent of people surveyed approving.
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Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
September 11, 2001 attack memorials and services
The first memorials to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks began to take shape online, as hundreds of webmasters posted their own thoughts, links to the Red Cross and other rescue agencies, photos and eyewitness accounts. Numerous online Sept. 11 memorials began appearing a few hours after the attacks, although many of these memorials were only temporary. (For an assessment of the response of webloggers to the attacks, see When blogging came of age .)
The Tribute in Light was the first major physical memorial at the World Trade Center site. A permanent memorial at the World Trade Center site is planned, as part of the design by Studio Daniel Libeskind. The plans call for preservation of much of the towers' foundational "bathtub", with glass towers wending around to a 1776-foot high spire.
One of the places that had many memorials and candlelight vigiles was Pier A in Hoboken, New Jersey, where many people saw the events of Sept. 11 (Pier A had a good view of the World Trade Center.) There was also a memorial service on March 11, 2002 at dusk on Pier A when the Tribute in Light first turned on, marking the half-year anniversery of the terrorist attack. A permanent September 11 memorial for Hoboken, called Hoboken Island, was chosen in September of 2004.
The first anniversary of the attack brought numerous memorials and services.
Vigils and services
In New York City, candlelight vigils were held across the city on Wednesday night (September 12) and Friday night (September 14) at 7:00 PM. (A related email hoax spread, encouraging people to "go outside at 7pm so NASA can take a photo". See Misinformation and rumors.)
Several thousand citizens march in a candlelight procession through the Adams Morgan district, through Dupont Circle, past dozens of embassies and onto the National Mall, where they join additional thousands of their fellow citizens holding vigil over The Pentagon, just across the Potomac River.
In the UK, in a break with the long-standing usual procedures at Buckingham Palace, the Queen ordered the Changing of the Guard to be paused for a two minute silence on September 13th, followed by the playing of the American national anthem (On June 4, 2002, to mark the Golden Jubilee celebrations for the Queen, New York City lit the Empire State Building in purple and gold, thanking the queen for having the American national anthem played). A memorial service was held in St. Paul's cathedral, London, attended by the Queen and politicians on the 14th September. A three minute silence at noon Paris time was held throughout Europe on the 14th. Rev. Billy Graham led a service at Washington National Cathedral, with President George W. Bush, past and present leaders, and other politicians in attendance. Bush spoke, beginning with the memorable phrase, "We are here in the middle hour of our grief." The service was not televised worldwide, because people in Canada saw a similar memorial service on Parliament Hill, which Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, and U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci presided over and over 100,000 people attended. In his speech, Chrétien told Cellucci that both the United States and Canada are not only neighbors, but family. The service on Parliament Hill, which Chrétien and Cellucci would later say in the months ahead, was a chance to show solidarity with the American neighbors, also included 3 minutes of silence across Canada at 12:20 p.m., ET. When Bush made his visit to Canada in 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin said that the service on Parliament Hill was the largest single vigil ever seen in the nation's capital.
Vigils and memorial services continued to be held in the following days. On Sunday the families of the victims of the crash of United Airlines flight 93 gathered at the crash site in Pennsylvania for a private ceremony, then joined in a service attended by governor Tom Ridge and First Lady Laura Bush.
Church services are held across the United States and much of the world. Here is [one service held September 16].
At 11 AM: Blessing of the Animals
- Special service dedicated to the World Trade Center search and rescue teams at the Church of the Resurrection, 119 E. 74th St., free (212.879.4320). Service begins at 11; blessing is at 12:30 PM.
A memorial is constructed and then set ablaze at the Playa del Fuego event on the October 19-21 weekend
On May 28, the last steel beam standing at the site was cut down and placed on a flatbed truck in a quiet ceremony.
Impromptu memorials are put up at Washington Square, with hundreds of candles and flowers, and Union Square, where people write messages on large rolls of paper taped to the ground amidst candles, including a 6-foot high concrete candle. A mural is spray-painted on a wall in the Lower East Side. In the coming days the memorials continue to grow, especially at Union Square Park, where thousands come to congregate, grieve, and celebrate--the statue George Washington in Union Square overtaken as a shrine for peace, memory and the United States, thousands of candles are added, a metal sculpture of the American flag and 2500 roses planted in the shape of the World Trade Center towers.
The Stars and Stripes appear on front stoops, flagpoles, cars, clothing, and on public buildings across the country.
A statue in honor of fallen firefighters, commissioned in 2000 by the Firefighters Association of Missouri , was in New York City en route to Missouri at the time of the attack. It was since donated to New York City in honor of the hundreds of firefighters who lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center.
On October 4, Reverend Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest, blessed two beams at the crash site which had formed a cross spontaneously, and then had been welded together by ironworkers.
On March 11, the damaged Sphere sculpture formerly in the World Trade Center was dedicated by the city as a temporary memorial in Battery Park City.
Beginning March 11, the Tribute in Light project, 88 searchlights placed next to the site of the World Trade Center created two vertical columns of light, lasting until April 14. This tribute is now done every year on September 11.
On September 11, 2002, representatives from over 90 countries came to Battery Park City as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg lit an eternal flame to mark the first anniversary of the attacks. Leading the dignitaries were Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Bloomberg, and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
On September 11, 2004 at 9:15am, Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli will dedicate his sculpture, "Tear of Grief", a 10-story high tribute to be erected on the Jersey City waterfront across the Hudson River from where the World Trade Center towers fell. The sculpture is an official gift of the Russian government to commemorate the victims of the attacks. That evening, the Empire State Building went dark for 11 minutes at 9:11 p.m. in remembrance.
Performances and benefits
On Thursday, September 20, the New York Philharmonic performed a memorial concert of the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem in Avery Fisher Hall. The concert was led off by the national anthem, and on the stage was a flag which appeared on stage during all Philharmonic World War II concerts. All proceeds went to disaster relief. At the request of the Philharmonic director, all applause was held, and the audience filed out in silence.
On Friday, September 21, America: A Tribute to Heroes
- A two-hour live telethon entitled "", with musical performances and spoken tributes by top American performers, was simultaneously broadcast on nearly every single network. Celebrities such as Al Pacino, George Clooney and Jack Nicholson manned the phones.
On Tuesday, October 2, beginning at 8 PM EDT: Come Together: A Night of John Lennon's Words and Music
- A tribute to John Lennon that became a concert of prayer and healing for New York City to benefit the relief efforts, hosted by Kevin Spacey and featuring Dave Matthews, Moby, Stone Temple Pilots, Nelly Furtado, Shelby Lynne, Alanis Morissette, Cyndi Lauper, The Isley Brothers, Lou Reed, Marc Anthony, Natalie Merchant, Yolanda Adams, Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono, was held at Radio City Music Hall and simultaneously broadcast live on the TNT and WB networks. It had been scheduled before the attack to be taped September 20 and broadcast on October 9 to promote a non-violent world.
On Thursday, October 4, at 9 PM EDT: ART Benefit for Sept. 11 Fund
- Silent auction of photography, mixed media, painting and sculpture to benefit the victims, at View Bar, 232 8th Ave., free (212.929.2243).
On Saturday, October 6, at 6 PM EDT: And the Sun Went Down
- Luvchild Theatre Ensemble performs a work in progress based on stories of people directly affected by the events of Sept. 11. All proceeds benefit victims and families, at New York Comedy Club, 241 E. 24th St., $10 plus two drink minimum (212.330.9314).
On Sunday, October 7: AMF National Bowl-a-thon
- National effort to raise $3 million for the Twin Towers Fund . In New York City at 3 PM: Chelsea Piers, $200 per lane.
On Monday, October 8: New York City Columbus Day Parade
- The annual Columbus Day parade is dedicated to victims and rescue and relief workers. The NYPD and FDNY do not march in the parade as they usually do, but send a single fire truck instead, in somber memory.
At 3 p.m. EDT:
- Free Brooklyn Philharmonic concert conducted by Robert Spano at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with music from American composers, including George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and Aaron Copland. The concert is rebroadcast on WNYC at 8 p.m.
- Roberto Novo and his stylists cut hair to benefit WTC victims at the Roberto Novo Salon, 192 8th Ave., $25 minimum (212.929.1652).
On Tuesday, October 9: Benefit for WTC Disaster Fund: Celebration of John Lennon's Birthday
- The East Village Antifolk scene play John Lennon's and their own songs to raise money. Performances from The Voyces , Joie DBG , Amos , Bionic Finger , Laura Fay , Barry Bliss , Tony Hightower , Linda Draper , Pat Cisarano , Lach, Testosterone Kills , Kenny Davidsen , Jude Kastle , Bree Sharp , Erica Smith , Fenton Lawless , Grey Revell , at the Sidewalk Cafe, 94 Ave. A, two-drink minimum (212-473-7373).
On October 17, Marvel Comics and other members of the comic industry release a tribute book, primarily with drawings of firefighters and police officers, with proceeds going to the victims. Other charity books are also in production.
Several reporters for The New York Times, including Metro reporter Wendell Jameson , are writing 150-word entries for each of the World Trade Center victims, which highlight brief anecdotes about their lives. They expect the effort to take about 10 months.
In Memoriam to add a memorial to an individual victim
Personal Experiences to add a general memorial or tribute by describing your experience
- America Survives
- Attack on America: The Victims' Voice
- From 88 Searchlights, an Ethereal Tribute, The New York Times, March 4, 2002
- THE VICTIMS: A Homegrown Memorial Brings Strangers Together
- Statue to Fallen Firefighters to Make Its Home in New York, New York Times, 9/19/2001
- THE PENNSYLVANIA CRASH: 44 Victims Are Remembered, and Lauded, New York Times, 9/18/2001
- NY Times--THE VIGILS: Surrounded by Grief, People Around the World Pause and Turn to Prayer Information to be incorporated
- Pilgrims Flock to Crash Site, The New York Times, September 9, 2002
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | 3.272205 |
A dictionary is more than a book of definitions; it is an index to a language, imposing an order on our inventory of words. Likewise a thesaurus is a table of contents, which takes the same stock of words but organizes them thematically rather than alphabetically. Both kinds of books reveal something about the underlying structure of the lexicon (the set of all words that make up a language). That structure is what mathematicians call a graph—a collection of "nodes" connected by "edges," usually drawn as a web of dots and lines.
When a language is viewed as a mathematical graph, the nodes are words (or sets of words), and the edges are relations between them. Any dictionary will help you to walk from node to node through the graph. For example, in defining the word elegant, the American Heritage Dictionary offers delicate as a synonym; on looking up delicate, you find dainty among the meanings listed; dainty in turn leads you to the entry for exquisite; and among the meanings of exquisite is elegant again. In this way you trace out one of many loops, or cycles, within the graph defined by this particular dictionary.
Exploring small regions of a lexical graph is a familiar process; you do it mentally whenever you grope for the right word. But trying to construct a graph for an entire language is another matter entirely. English has well over 100,000 words, and they are related to one another in dozens or perhaps hundreds of ways. Finding and recording all the connections is a task on the same scale as compiling a large dictionary. Furthermore, it has to be done with great precision and consistency, because the goal is to create a mathematical structure in which the relations between words are so explicit that the graph can be explored and manipulated algorithmically.
The construction of a lexical graph for English has been under way for almost 15 years in a project called WordNet, which now includes some 168,000 words and 345,000 relations among them. WordNet is the work of George A. Miller and his colleagues in the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University. (Other contributors are Christiane Fellbaum, Randee I. Tengi and the late Katherine J. Miller.) A book describing WordNet and its applications has recently been published, and the database that defines the lexical graph is available via the Internet and on a CD-ROM, along with software for browsing the graph.
Synonyms, Hypernyms and Other Nyms
In WordNet the emphasis is less on words than on the relations between words. And among the various relations defined in the lexical graph, the most fundamental is synonymy. Words that mean more or less the same thing are grouped into synonym sets, or synsets, much as they are in a thesaurus. The synsets (rather than individual words) then become the basic nodes of the graph.
A finicky logophile might well argue that true synonyms do not exist—that no two words are exactly equivalent. The compilers of WordNet take a pragmatic position on this issue. They classify words as synonyms if there is some class of sentences where one word can take the place of another without substantially altering the meaning. Thus yell, shout and holler have distinguishable nuances of meaning, but in many sentences the words are interchangeable.
Most words have multiple meanings, and synonymy is really a relation between the individual senses of the words. The adjective light is an approximate synonym both of weightless and of pale, but weightless and pale are not themselves synonyms. Each sense of light has to be given its own synset. (In the current version of WordNet light has 26 adjective senses as well as 15 noun senses, six verb senses and one adverb sense.)
Synonymy is the glue that binds WordNet together. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs all have synonyms. Nevertheless, the structure of the lexical graph comes mainly from other kinds of relations, which are somewhat different for each part of speech.
For nouns the most important relations are hypernymy and hyponymy, which organize concepts into a treelike hierarchy. Hypernyms and hyponyms embody the "is-a" or "is-a-kind-of" relation: A horse is a mammal is an animal is an organism. Thus the word horse (or the sense of horse referring to a hoofed quadruped) is a hyponym of mammal, which in turn is a hyponym of animal, and so on. Hypernyms describe the same relation seen from the other end of the telescope: Animal is a hypernym of mammal and also of reptile, bird, fish, etc. The biological examples are apt here, since the construction of such taxonomic hierarchies is a specialty of the life sciences. In WordNet the sequence of hypernyms for horse captures much of the phylogenetic detail a biologist would want to see recorded: horse → equine → odd-toed ungulate → ungulate → placental mammal → mammal → vertebrate → chordate → animal → organism → entity.
Another relation among nouns is summed up in the phrase "has a" rather than "is a." This is the relation between parts and wholes; words that represent parts or members are called meronyms, and those that denote wholes or groups are holonyms. The distinction between "is a" and "has a" can be subtle, but there are examples that make it clear. Consider the noun meal: Its hyponyms are words such as breakfast, lunch and dinner, but its meronyms are appetizer, salad, dessert and so on.
The same kind of treelike organization can be imposed on verbs, although verb trees tend to be somewhat stunted and shrubby compared with noun trees. The relation analogous to hyponymy in nouns has been dubbed troponymy in verbs. For example, the intransitive verb walk is a troponym of go or move or locomote; in other words, walking is a way of moving. And walk in turn has troponyms such as shuffle, amble, swagger and march. For some verbs there is also a relation analogous to meronymy in nouns, defining the component parts of an action. The verb step fills this role for walk, since walking entails taking steps.
A Theory of Knowledge
The tree structures within the lexical graph make WordNet into a rough taxonomy of the world. The database codifies a theory of knowledge. Concepts accorded a place near the root of a tree are identified as central, basic, primary; those near the leaves are marginal or peripheral. But who determines the branching pattern of the noun and verb trees? Are the fundamental categories of thought inherent in the language, or are they inventions of the lexicographer?
For the noun hierarchy, WordNet posits 11 "unique beginners"—nouns or noun phrases that have no hypernyms. The unique beginners are entity, abstraction, psychological feature, natural phenomenon, activity, event, group, location, possession, shape and state. Miller does not argue that these particular choices are the only possible ones, but neither are the 11 categories entirely arbitrary or idiosyncratic. They reflect an analysis by Philip N. Johnson-Laird of Princeton of the classes of nouns that can be modified by various adjectives. The categories also satisfy another important criterion: The hierarchy has a place for every English noun.
In practice, no single, immutable hierarchy can possibly capture the structure of the entire lexicon. Conflicts over the classification of words emerge not only at the root but at all levels of the tree. Consider the small subtree of nouns that denote close family relations. The generic term relative can serve as the root of the subtree, but what are its immediate hyponyms? In one scheme the relative node has two subordinate nodes, kinswoman and kinsman. At the next level the subordinates of kinswoman include mother, sister, daughter; those of kinsman include father, brother, son. But the same words could equally well be organized another way, giving relative three hyponyms, namely parent, sibling and child; then each of these nodes divides by gender into mother and father, sister and brother, daughter and son. As it happens, WordNet is inconsistent in its treatment of the lexical family tree. Sister and brother follow the first model: They are listed as hyponyms of kinswoman and kinsman respectively. But mother and father are hyponyms of parent, and similarly daughter and son are grouped under child.
Of course neither solution is clearly right or wrong. Whether the more natural division is by gender or by generation depends on context, and people have no trouble keeping both hierarchies in mind at the same time. Furthermore, both schemes lose some of their appealing symmetry when they are extended to other relatives, such as cousin, which carries no indication of gender in English. (But I can't resist noting that cousin derives from the Latin consobrinus, which originally referred only to a cousin on the mother's side, and which derives in turn from soror, sister.)
These tangled hierarchies are not the only oddities lurking in the lexical trees. One might reasonably suppose that hyponymy, meronymy and other relations between synsets would be transitive. In many cases they are. A mouse is a mammal, a mammal is an animal, and sure enough a mouse is an animal. Often, however, language fails to obey the Aristotelian rules. A house has a door and a door has a knob, but most people would find it odd to say that a house has a knob.
In citing these inconsistencies and peculiarities I don't mean to suggest that the graph-theoretical approach to the lexicon is fundamentally wrong. On the contrary, I would argue that these bugs are features! It seems to me that WordNet is most illuminating just where the construction of the graph runs into difficulties. This is where we may have a chance to learn something about the underlying structure of the language.
Discourse in theoretical linguistics proceeds largely by example and counterexample, by constructing sentences that the prototypical native speaker would or wouldn't find acceptable. Much of this discourse has been carried on with rather small specimens of language—with "toy" grammars and lexicons that generate only a tiny subset of all possible sentences. But building a lexicon of 50 or 100 words and leaving the rest of the language as an exercise for the reader risks missing something important. Indeed, it is characteristic of graphs that some properties do not emerge until the last nodes and edges are added.
Black and White
The treelike organization of both nouns and verbs in WordNet leads naturally to the hypothesis that all words are best catalogued in such structures. The treatment of adjectives therefore comes as a surprise. In WordNet adjectives do not grow on trees; instead they come in matched pairs of opposites—black and white, clean and dirty, fast and slow, good and bad. And on reflection, the pairing of antonyms does seem like the natural organizing principle for this class of words. In free-association tests, many adjectives strongly evoke their opposites, suggesting that we file them mentally in symmetrical pairs.
There is something else odd about adjectives. Other relations in WordNet are between meanings or concepts, which are conveniently represented by synsets, but the antonymy of adjectives seems to be a relation between specific words. Hot, sultry, torrid and sweltering may all belong in the same synset, but the antonym cold is strongly associated with only one of these. If you ask people "What's the opposite of hot?" you'll get an immediate answer, but "What's the opposite of torrid?" is a harder question.
The solution adopted in WordNet is to organize adjectives in clusters around focal pairs of antonyms. Thus hot and cold stand face-to-face like gang leaders, each surrounded by a throng of allied words, fiery and blistering on one side, frigid and chilly and frosty on the other. If you ask WordNet for the antonym of torrid, it responds: "indirect (via hot) → cold."
This scheme for organizing adjectives was not planned when the WordNet project began in 1985. The need to provide antonym pointers between specific word forms was something discovered while building the graph, and it was not an altogether welcome discovery. Up to then it had been assumed that all edges of the graph would extend between synsets; the database format had to be altered to accommodate the antonym pointers.
WordNet includes some 3,500 clusters of adjectives arranged in antonymous pairs. Most of them fit neatly into the bipolar plan. Indeed, many of the adjectives can be graded, or arranged along a one-dimensional continuum. Hot and cold, for example, have tepid at the neutral point between them, with warm and cool occupying less extreme positions. A few adjectives, however, refuse to conform. Angry is the chief example mentioned by WordNet's authors. Angry is the focus of a cluster of related words, which can be graded according to intensity from annoyed to furious, but English seems to offer no antonym to angry. The asymmetry is a reminder that although language is a human invention, it is not an engineered product; it doesn't have to be consistent.
WordNet includes adverbs as well as adjectives but finds little to say about them. They are grouped into synsets, and some of them are linked to adjectives from which they are derived, but there are no taxonomic trees or bipolar pairs. Other parts of speech—the prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns and other "little" words—are omitted altogether.
Six Degrees of Lexicography
Looking on language as a graph invites the kinds of questions that graph theorists ask. Many of these questions have to do with connectivity—with the number of edges linking pairs of nodes.
The ultimate in connectivity is a clique, which is a graph where every node is directly linked to every other node. But a clique is not a plausible architecture for a lexical graph. (For one thing, there are not enough words to uniquely name all the relations between words.)
At the opposite end of the connectivity spectrum is a graph with no edges at all, just isolated nodes. Again the lexical graph can look nothing like this. Suppose a word occupied such a lonely outpost. With no relations to any other words—no synonyms, no hypernyms, no antonyms—what could it possibly mean? What could one say about it—or say with it? Even pairs of nodes linked only to each other are problematic. They would be no more useful than the dictionary—famous in the lore of lexicography although I don't know if it really exists—that defines furze as gorse and then defines gorse as furze.
A more realistic question is whether the lexical graph consists of a single connected component. Can you find at least one continuous path from any given node to any other? For WordNet in its present form the answer is clearly No. With the exception of some adverb-adjective links, there are no edges between different parts of speech, and even within the noun and verb hierarchies the graph breaks into several disconnected pieces. But the mind's lexical graph is surely richer in relations than WordNet and may well be connected. Trying to find a plausible path of relations between two randomly chosen words is easy enough that it doesn't even make a very good parlor game. (And suppose you found a pair of words that stumped everybody, that seemed to have nothing whatever in common. They would then be related by their shared membership in the unusual class of words that are not otherwise related.)
In the end the question of connectivity comes down to what kinds of relations between words qualify as edges of the graph. Within the mental lexicon there are surely many more kinds of links than WordNet admits. Consciously or unconsciously, we form word associations based on common etymology (river and arrive), based on assonance or rhyme (slumber and encumber), based on pairing in familiar phrases (law and order). None of these relations are likely candidates for inclusion in WordNet, but a few other kinds of edges could be important additions to the graph.
Selection rules operating between parts of speech might be the most valuable enhancements. As noted above, adjectives can supply useful clues to the classification of nouns. For example, the adjectives living and dead can describe only biological organisms (except in figurative uses). In a similar way, many verbs are restricted to certain classes of subjects and objects. You can count sheep or noses, but you can't count water; you can open a door but not a contradiction. Would adding such constraints to the graph be a practical undertaking? That depends on whether or not the constraints follow the hyponymy and troponymy hierarchies. If the selection rule for the object of eat could be encoded by creating a single link to the node for food, which would then subsume all the hyponyms of food, the number of edges added to the graph would be manageable. But English is surely not quite that tidy; in the worst case, inserting a separate edge between every verb and each of its potential objects would bring an exponential explosion in the number of edges.
Even though WordNet does not currently include selection-rule information, Philip Resnik of the University of Maryland has used the WordNet database, along with a large corpus of English prose, to derive probabilistic selection rules. For example, he notes that if you choose a sentence at random from the corpus, the subject is more likely to be a hyponym of person than a hyponym of insect. But if the verb in the sentence happens to be buzz, the probability of finding an insect in the subject position rises considerably. The magnitude of the change in probability conveys information about the strength of the selection rule.
Another possible elaboration of WordNet would address what Roger Chaffin of the University of Connecticut has called "the tennis problem." Miller writes: "Suppose you wanted to learn the specialized vocabulary of tennis and asked where in WordNet you could find it. The answer would be everywhere and nowhere. Tennis players are in the noun.person file, tennis equipment is in noun.artifact, the tennis court is in noun.location, the various strokes are in noun.act, and so on. Other topics have similarly dispersed vocabularies. At least part of the dissatisfaction with a purely hierarchical organization of nouns can be attributed to this neglect of co-occurrence relations."
WordNet is a product of hand-crafting. Essentially all the words were manually entered into lexicography files, with simple textual markers to indicate the various relations between synsets. For example, the character @ denotes a hypernym, ~ is for hyponyms and ! marks antonyms. The entire structure of the lexical graph is implicit in these files, but the relations are not very readily accessible in this form. The files are therefore compiled with a program called the Grinder, which produces a database in which each relation is encoded as a position, or offset, within a file. Long lists of numerical offsets are not very congenial for human readers, but they are easily traversed by a computer program.
WordNet is supplied with a point-and-click browser interface. As with an ordinary on-line dictionary or thesaurus, you can type in a word and get a listing of synsets and an explanatory gloss for all the word's senses, but this overview is only the beginning of what the browser offers. Depending on the part of speech, you can then climb up or down in a lexical tree, search for coordinate terms (siblings at the same level of the tree), find antonyms, rank synonyms by their frequency or similarity, list meronyms, and so on.
The browser serves well for casual exploration of WordNet, but more serious work with the lexical graph generally requires writing specialized software to read the database files. Several such projects have been undertaken both within the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton and elsewhere. Philip Resnik's work on selection rules is mentioned above. Another major endeavor is a series of "semantic concordances"—texts linked to the lexicon in such a way that every substantive word is tagged with the appropriate sense from the WordNet database. One of the texts tagged in this way is Stephen Crane's novella The Red Badge of Courage.
Still another application, described by Ellen M. Voorhees of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, uses WordNet to improve the accuracy of text retrieval from document databases. By encoding the content of a document in terms of WordNet synsets instead of individual words, a query can specify particular senses of words. If this approach succeeds, it might solve the problem of searching the Web for coke and finding soft drinks and illicit drugs when what you're looking for is carbon.
In my own view, the construction of WordNet would be of interest even if the finished product had no applications at all. It is a linguistic counterpart to the human genome program. Just as we all inherit DNA but cannot ordinarily peer into our own genes, we all possess some mental representation of a lexical graph but know little about its overall structure.
Access to WordNet
The WordNet database and browser programs can be downloaded from the Web site http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu:80/~wn/main/. Versions of the browser software are available for the Macintosh, for Microsoft Windows and for various flavors of Unix. The same materials are also offered on a CD-ROM distributed by the MIT Press.
© Brian Hayes | 3.65133 |
This We Believe
Essential Attributes and Characteristics of Successful Schools
This We Believe Color Chart
This We Believe B&W Chart
The Association for Middle Level Education, formerly National Middle School Association, position paper, This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (2010), has an overarching framework of four essential attributes that connect with the 16 characteristics of successful middle grades schools.
An education for young adolescents must be
Using the distinctive nature of young adolescents as the foundation upon which all decisions about school organization, policies, curriculum, instruction, and assessment are made.
Ensuring that every student learns and every member of the learning community is held to high expectations.
Providing all students with the knowledge and skills they need to take responsibility for their lives, to address life's challenges, to function successfully at all levels of society, and to be creators of knowledge.
Advocating for and ensuring every student's right to learn and providing appropriately challenging and relevant learning opportunities for every student.
Characteristics of Successful Schools
This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (2010), organizes the 16 research-based characteristics of effective middle grades education into three areas: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment; Leadership and Organization; and Culture and Community.
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
Educators value young adolescents and are prepared to teach them.
(Value Young Adolescents)
Effective middle grades educators make a conscious choice to work with young adolescents and advocate for them. They understand the developmental uniqueness of this age group, the appropriate curriculum, effective learning and assessment strategies, and their importance as models.
Students and teachers are engaged in active, purposeful learning.
Instructional practices place students at the center of the learning process. As they develop the ability to hypothesize, to organize information into useful and meaningful constructs, and to grasp long-term cause and effect relationships, students are ready and able to play a major role in their own learning and education.
Curriculum is challenging, exploratory, integrative, and relevant.
Curriculum embraces every planned aspect of a school's educational program. An effective middle level curriculum is distinguished by learning activities that appeal to young adolescents, is exploratory and challenging, and incorporates student-generated questions and concerns.
Educators use multiple learning and teaching approaches.
(Multiple Learning Approaches)
Teaching and learning approaches should accommodate the diverse skills, abilities, and prior knowledge of young adolescents, cultivate multiple intelligences, draw upon students' individual learning styles, and utilize digital tools. When learning experiences capitalize on students' cultural, experiential, and personal backgrounds, new concepts are built on knowledge students already possess.
Varied and ongoing assessments advance learning as well as measure it.
Continuous, authentic, and appropriate assessment measures, including both formative and summative ones, provide evidence about every student's learning progress. Such information helps students, teachers, and family members select immediate learning goals and plan further education.
Leadership and Organization
A shared vision developed by all stakeholders guides every decision.
When a shared vision and mission statement become operational, middle level educators pursue appropriate practices in developing a challenging academic program; they develop criteria to guide decisions and a process to make needed changes.
Leaders are committed to and knowledgeable about this age group, educational research, and best practices.
Courageous, collaborative middle level leaders understand young adolescents, the society in which they live, and the theory of middle level education. Such leaders understand the nuances of teaming, student advocacy, exploration, and assessment as components of a larger middle level program.
Leaders demonstrate courage and collaboration.
(Courageous & Collaborative Leaders)
Leaders understand that successful schools committed to the long-term implementation of the middle school concept must be collaborative enterprises. The principal, working collaboratively with a leadership team, focuses on building a learning community that involves all teachers and places top priority on the education and healthy development of every student, teacher, and staff member.
Ongoing professional development reflects best educational practices.
Professional development is a continuing activity in middle level schools where teachers take advantage of every opportunity to work with colleagues to improve the learning experiences for their students.
Organizational structures foster purposeful learning and meaningful relationships.
The ways schools organize teachers and group and schedule students have a significant impact on the learning environment. Interdisciplinary teams common planning time, block scheduling, and elimination of tracking are related conditions that contribute to improved achievement.
Culture and Community
The school environment is inviting, safe, inclusive, and supportive of all.
A successful school for young adolescents is an inviting, supportive, and safe place, a joyful community that promotes in-depth learning and enhances students' physical and emotional well-being.
Every student's academic and personal development is guided by an adult advocate.
Academic success and personal growth increase markedly when young adolescents' affective needs are met. Each student must have one adult to support that student's academic and personal development.
Comprehensive guidance and support services meet the needs of young adolescents.
Both teachers and specialized professionals are readily available to offer the assistance many students need in negotiating their lives in and out of school.
Health and wellness are supported in curricula, school-wide programs, and related policies.
(Health & Wellness)
Abundant opportunities are available for students to develop and maintain healthy minds and bodies and to understand their personal growth through health-related programs, policies, and curricula.
The school actively involves families in the education of their children.
Schools and families must work together to provide the best possible learning for every young adolescent. Schools take the initiative in involving and educating families.
The school includes community and business partners.
(Community & Business)
Genuine community involvement is a fundamental component of successful schools for young adolescents. Such schools seek appropriate partnerships with businesses, social service agencies, and other organizations whose purposes are consistent with the school's mission. | 3.949843 |
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Fancy portrait is an art historical term for an imaginary portrait of a real or literary character. The fancy portrait takes the form of a conventional portrait but is defined by the fact that its depiction of the character is derived from the artist's imagination rather than any authentic record of the person's physical appearance. Though imaginary portraits of historical characters have existed since antiquity, the term came into use in the nineteenth century, when "portraits" of literary characters became popular, and were widely reproduced in the form of engravings. It was also applied commonly to humorous caricatures and later to portrait photographs (in the work of Julia Margaret Cameron for example) in which the subjects adopt imaginary personas.
- Imaginary portrait of the Marquis de Sade
- Vanessa (Millais painting)
- Imaginary portrait of Hipponax, from the "Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum | 3.721933 |
Bladder cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the United States. About 65,000 Americans are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year. The symptoms may include blood that you can see in the urine (gross hematuria), or often may involve microscopic blood cells in the urine that only your doctor can identify on a urine examination.
Early diagnosis and treatment can often lead to successful cure or management of bladder cancer. Diagnosis of bladder cancer can usually be done with a series of quick office tests, and if needed, imaging tests.
Dr. Shaw believes in early detection through simple office tests, cure whenever possible, and long-term followup on a regular basis to ensure that the bladder tumors do not return. Dr. Shaw uses the latest screening tests of the urine, as well as in-office fiberoptic digital technology to ensure that the bladder is completely and thoroughly evaluated.
In recent decades there has been a steady increase in the incidence of bladder cancer. However, we are making progress in treatment and survival rates are improving. But what are its symptoms? How should it be treated? The following information should help you understand and discuss the condition further.
The bladder is a hollow balloon-shaped mostly muscular organ that stores urine until ready for release. The urine is produced in the kidneys. It flows through tubes called the ureters into the bladder and is discharged through the urethra during urination. The bladder muscle aids urination by contracting (tightening) to help force out the urine.
A thin surface layer called the urothelium lines the inside of the bladder. Next is a layer of loose connective tissue called the lamina propria. Covering the lamina propria is the bladder muscle. Outside of the bladder is a layer of fat.
The ways in which bladder cancers develop and progress are only partly understood. However, a number of substances that cause the cancers to develop have been identified. Chief among them are cancer-causing agents in cigarette smoke and various industrial chemicals. Cigarette smoking alone has been estimated to cause 50 percent of all bladder cancer cases in the United States. Long-term workplace exposure to chemical compounds such as paints and solvents has been estimated to cause another 20 to 25 percent of bladder cancer cases. Carcinogens in the blood stream are filtered out by the kidneys to eliminate them from the body. However, these carcinogens remain in the bladder for a few hours interacting with the lining of the bladder before they are removed by urination. Through this process the bladder becomes a high risk organ for cancer, particularly in smokers.
More than 90 percent of all bladder cancers originate in the urothelium, the inner lining of the bladder. The majority of diagnosed bladder tumors are confined to the urothelium or the lamina propria and have not invaded the bladder muscle.
Blood in the urine (hematuria) is the most common symptom. It eventually occurs in nearly all cases of bladder cancer and is generally described as "painless". Although the blood may be visible during urination, in most cases, it is invisible except under a microscope. In these, the blood is usually discovered when analyzing a urine sample as part of a routine examination. Blood in the urine, similar to blood in the stool or coughing up blood, is a potential warning sign of cancer, and should not be ignored.
Hematuria does not by itself indicate or confirm the presence of bladder cancer. Blood in the urine has many possible causes. For example, it may result from a urinary tract infection or kidney stones rather than from cancer. It is important to note that hematuria, particularly microscopic, might be entirely normal for some individuals. A diagnostic investigation is necessary to determine whether bladder cancer is present.
Other symptoms of bladder cancer may include frequent urination and pain upon urination (dysuria). Such "irritative" symptoms are less common. When present in the absence of a urinary infection (which may have similar or identical symptoms) exclusion of a bladder cancer as the possible cause is mandatory.
The diagnostic investigation begins with a thorough medical history and a physical examination. The doctor will ask the patient about past exposure to known causes of bladder cancer, such as cigarette smoke (either through personal smoking or through "second-hand" smoke) or chemicals. Also, because hematuria can come from anywhere in the urinary tract, the doctor typically order radiological imaging of the kidneys, ureter and bladder to check for problems in these organs. In this era, this is most often accomplished by a CT Urogram (CT scan focused on the urinary tract).
Diagnostic tools to check for bladder cancer include various types of urinalysis. In one type, the urine is examined under a microscope to look for cancer cells that may have been shed into the urine from the bladder lining (urinary cytology). A urine cytology is analogous to a Pap Smear, in this case looking for cancer cells that are sloughed off in the urine. Urine can also be tested for substances known to be closely associated with cancer cells (tumor markers).
The urologist's most important diagnostic tool is cystoscopy, which is a procedure that allows direct viewing of the inside of the bladder. This is most commonly performed as an office procedure under local anesthesia or light sedation. First, a topical anesthetic gel is applied, so the patient will feel little or no discomfort. The doctor then inserts a viewing instrument called a cystoscope through the urethra and into the bladder. Looking through the cystoscope, the doctor is able to examine the bladder's inner surfaces for signs of cancer. Modern cystoscopes are soft and flexible, and this procedure is generally well tolerated.
If tumors are present, the doctor notes their appearance, number, location and size. As removal (resection) of the tumors cannot usually be done under local anesthesia, the patient is then scheduled to return for a surgical procedure to remove the tumor under general anesthesia or spinal anesthesia. In a manner as before, the doctor inserts an instrument, called a resectoscope, into the bladder. This is a viewing instrument similar to the cystoscope, but contains a wire loop at the end for removing tissue. This procedure is done through the urethra and is called a transurethral resection of bladder tumors. The removed tissue is sent to a pathologist for examination. Pathologists are specialists who interpret changes in body tissues caused by disease.
In addition to removing visible tumors, the doctor may remove very small samples of tissue of any suspicious-looking areas of the bladder. A pathologist also examines this tissue.
If a biopsy is taken and bladder cancer is found, the pathologist who examines the tissue will grade the tumor according to how angry the cells appear. The most widely used grading systems classify tumors into two main grades: low and high. The cells of low-grade tumors have minimal abnormalities. In high-grade tumors, the cells have become disorganized and many abnormalities are apparent. The grade indicates the tumor's "aggression level"—how fast it is likely to grow and spread. High-grade tumors are the most aggressive and the most likely to progress into the muscle.
Staging of bladder cancers is based on how deeply a tumor has penetrated the bladder wall. Table 1 lists stages of penetration using the TNM classification system.
Stages Ta and Tis (in the urothelium) and stage T1 (in the lamina propria) are the non-muscle-invasive stages. Most Ta tumors are low grade, and most do not progress to invade the bladder muscle. Stage T1 tumors may be much more likely to become muscle invasive but many, especially if not initially deeply invasive of the connective tissue, can be managed successfully by resection and medications placed in the bladder (see below). Stage Ta tumors often recur after treatment but they tend to do so with the same stage and grade. Stage T1 tumors must be watched carefully for the possibility that they may recur at a higher and potentially lethal stage.
The Tis stage classification is reserved for a type of high-grade cancer called carcinoma in situ (CIS). CIS usually appears through the cystoscope as a flat, reddish, velvety patch on the bladder lining. It is difficult to remove and is best treated with immunotherapy or chemotherapy. If untreated, CIS will likely progress to muscle-invasive disease. CIS in the bladder is a serious finding – it is cancer not just a premalignant lesion.
Removing stage Ta and stage T1 tumors: Transurethral resection of the bladder (TURBT) is the usual treatment method for patients who, when examined with a cystoscope, are found to have abnormal growths on the urothelium (stage Ta) and/or in the lamina propria (stage T1).
Alternative methods, such as laser therapy, compare favorably with TURBT in terms of treatment results. However, TURBT has the major advantage of providing tissue suitable for a pathologist to use in determining a tumor's grade and stage. The tumor structure is left too distorted for this purpose after the alternative treatment methods, so biopsies of the tumor must be taken before treatment.
Intravesical chemotherapy and immunotherapy: Following removal, intravesical chemotherapy or intravesical immunotherapy may be used to try to prevent tumor recurrences. Intravesical means "within the bladder". These therapeutic agents are put directly into the bladder through a catheter in the urethra (the catheter only stays in for a few minutes), are retained for one to two hours and are then urinated out.
The chief intravesical agents currently available are thiotepa, doxorubicin, mitomycin C and bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). The first three are chemotherapy drugs. The fourth, BCG, is a live but weakened vaccine strain of bovine tuberculosis. It was first used to immunize humans against tuberculosis. It is now one of the most effective agents for treating bladder cancer and especially for treating CIS.
All four agents have some benefits and risks. Among the benefits: Comparison studies have shown each of the four to be superior to TURBT alone for preventing tumor recurrences following TURBT. Studies have also shown both BCG and mitomycin C to be superior to doxorubicin or thiotepa for reducing recurrence of T1 tumors and high-grade Ta tumors. However, there is no absolute evidence that any intravesical therapy affects the rate of progression to muscle-invasive disease although some studies with BCG suggest this may be the case.
Among the risks: Each of the four agents produces irritative side effects such as painful urination and the need to urinate frequently. In addition, BCG therapy carries a 24 percent risk of flu-like symptoms and a small risk (4 percent) of systemic infections. Thiotepa has a 13 percent risk of suppressing bone marrow activity — causing a reduction in white blood cells and platelets. The main side effects for each intravesical agent are shown in Table 2, along with estimated probabilities of occurrence.
Recent studies have indicated a possible benefit of reducing recurrences by instilling these chemicals into the bladder immediately following resection of a bladder tumor, typically in the recovery room. BCG is not used in this way because of the risk that it might be absorbed into the bloodstream in this setting.
Once the grade and stage of the tumor has been determined, the urologist may decide to initiate a course of intravesical therapy with these agents. Generally, BCG is chosen if either stage T1 or carcinoma in situ is present. These patients are at highest risk of recurrence and progression and BCG is the most effective agent for preventing these adverse events. In general, Mitomycin is used for stage Ta tumors. Indications for these treatments are based upon the number of tumors that were present, their size, their appearance, the grade of tumor, and whether or not they penetrated the wall of the bladder (but not including the muscle layer). In general, six weekly treatments are given, in which a catheter is placed in the bladder, the medication is instilled, the cathether is removed, and the patient is instructed not to urinate for at least an hour.
Once the bladder has been assessed as free of disease at the first three month post-treatment cystoscopic inspection, many physicians consider it appropriate to apply additional treatments of these same drugs to forestall or prevent future recurrences. While recent studies demonstrate this concept of "maintenance therapy" is useful for some patients receiving BCG, it is of less certain benefit for those receiving the other three chemotherapeutic drugs. Whether additional treatments are given or not, periodic cystoscopies are required to detect tumor recurrence early, if it is going to develop. During the first one to two years surveillance is carried out on a quarterly basis but then can gradually be reduced to twice and eventually even once per year thereafter.
Cystectomy: Surgical removal of the bladder may be an option for patients with CIS or high-grade T1 cancers that have persisted or recurred after initial intravesical treatment. There is a substantial risk of progression to muscle-invasive cancer in such cases, and some patients may want to consider cystectomy as a first choice of treatment. If so, they should ask their doctor for information about both the risks of cystectomy and the methods of urinary reconstruction ("urinary diversion").
An alternative is to repeat intravesical therapy. There is some evidence that patients may respond to repeat therapy. However, the evidence is too weak to draw firm conclusions about whether any amount or type of intravesical therapy, in any combination, can affect progression of high-grade disease. Patients with high risk disease, such as high grade TA or T1 cancer or CIS, who fail BCG are at particularly high risk and should strongly consider radical cystectomy.
Fortunately, bladder tumors are rare in children.
Smokers develop bladder cancer at two to three times the rate of non-smokers. People who work with dyes, metal, paints, leather, textile and organic chemicals may be at a higher risk. People who have chronic bladder infections may also be at higher risk.
Not at this time, although periodic check of the urine for microscopic blood may promote earlier detection. | 3.431342 |
Free Online Dictionary
|Wikipedia English The Free Encyclopedia||Download this dictionary|
Detention is the process when a state, government or citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom of liberty at that time. This can be due to (pending) criminal charges being raised against the individual as part of a prosecution or to protect a person or property. Being detained does not always result in being taken to a particular area (generally called a detention centre), either for interrogation, or as punishment for a crime (see prison).
|See more at Wikipedia.org...|
The following video provides you with the correct English pronunciation of the word "detain", to help you become a better English speaker.
© This article uses material from Wikipedia® and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
|Wikipédia Français||Download this dictionary|
|Pour la suite, voir Wikipédia.org…|
© Cet article se sert du contenu de Wikipédia® et est autorisé sous les termes de la Licence de Documentation libre GNU
|THE Eng-Cro Dictionary||Download this dictionary|
zadržati (brod u luci)
Free for individual usage/Besplatan za osobnu uporabu
|Farsi dictionary||Download this dictionary|
حبس کردن ،بازداشت کردن ،بازداشتن ،معطل کردن ،توقيف کردن
علوم نظامى : دستگير کردن
|Dizionario inglese-italiano 1.0.012||Download this dictionary|
TRATTENERE. FAR PERDERE TEMPO A. DETENERE. TENERE AGLI ARRESTI
| detain in English | detain in French | detain in Italian | detain in Spanish | detain in Dutch | detain in Portuguese | detain in German | detain in Russian | detain in Japanese | detain in Greek | detain in Korean | detain in Turkish | detain in Hebrew | detain in Arabic | detain in Thai | detain in Other Eastern-European languages | detain in Other Western-European languages | detain in Other Russian languages | detain in Polish | detain in Hungarian | detain in Czech | detain in Latvian | detain in Catalan | detain in Croatian | detain in Serbian | detain in Albanian | detain in Urdu | detain in Slovenian | detain in Estonian | detain in Bulgarian | detain in Danish | detain in Norwegian | detain in Romanian | detain in Swedish | detain in Farsi | detain in Macedonian | detain in Latin | detain in Hindi
You think you have ethics... Take the survey NOW! | 3.078845 |
Rare panda birth at Austrian zoo
The first panda in Europe to be conceived naturally by parents in captivity has been born in Austria.
Most pandas conceived in captivity are the product of artificial insemination but Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo said it wanted "to let nature run its course".
Female pandas are only fertile for three or four days each year.
The cub, which measures 10cm (4in) and weighs 100g (0.22lb), is the product of the zoo's two resident giant pandas, female Yang Yang and male Long Hui.
The pair, both now seven years old, were loaned by China to the zoo in Vienna in 2003, and conceived their first cub on 27 April 2007, zoo officials said.
At a news conference, director Dagmar Schratter said the two "live in perfect harmony".
But she said her team "had almost given up", adding that an ultrasound on 6 August had shown no evidence that Yang Yang - whose name means sunshine - was pregnant.
The arrival of the cub was discovered early on Thursday after unusual noises were heard coming from the panda's enclosure. CCTV footage confirmed the birth.
Ms Schratter said the cub, whose sex will not be known for a few weeks, will be named by Chinese officials.
China established a loan system in 1984 under which foreign zoos pay up to £500,000 (740,000 euros; $1m) to house the animals.
The giant panda is native to the upland bamboo forests of China's Sichuan province. However, only about 1,600 remain in the wild, with some 160 in captivity.
Half of the panda's mountainous bamboo habitat was lost between 1974 and 1988 and the animal is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Story from BBC NEWS: | 3.292025 |
"Syria" can mean the while Mediterranean coast between Turkey and Egypt. More precisely, it is used as a modern equivalent of the Hebrew term "Aram".
The Aramean people occupied the city-states to the north and east of Israel, roughly in the area now occupied by Syria. These cities were usually dominated by Damascus, still the Syrian capital (pictured, above and left from Clack).
Though Israel and Syria sometimes banded together, for example in Ahab's time, to oppose Assyria, usually they were rivals. Jeroboam II is said to have conquered Damascus and restored both it and Hamath to Israelite control (2 Kings 14:28).
Its situation at an oasis, and at a place that the
major trade route must pass, made Damascus
commercially important. The main route cannot follow the coastline and is blocked
East and West of Damascus
by mountains and desert.
This page is part of the Hypertext Bible Commentary - Amos , if you have reached it as a standalone
page, to view it in context, go to www.bible.gen.nz
© Tim Bulkeley, 1996-2005, Tim Bulkeley. All rights reserved. | 3.394989 |
dysmenorrheaArticle Free Pass
dysmenorrhea, also spelled dysmenorrhoea, pain or painful cramps felt before or during menstruation. Dysmenorrhea may be primary or secondary. Primary dysmenorrhea is caused by specific imbalances in the woman’s endocrine system during the menstrual cycle. Secondary dysmenorrhea denotes menstrual cramps caused by some other distinct organic disorder. In most cases dysmenorrhea is primary.
Primary dysmenorrhea may occur a few days before the period, at the onset of bleeding, or during the total episode. The pain varies from a severe incapacitating distress to relatively minor and brief intense cramps. Other symptoms may include irritability, fatigue, backache, headache, leg pains, nausea, vomiting, and cramping. Primary dysmenorrhea is caused by the endocrine system’s release of excessive amounts of prostaglandins; these are hormonelike substances that stimulate the uterus to contract, thus causing the familiar cramps of the disorder. Drugs that block prostaglandin formation can decrease the severity of uterine contractions and can eliminate pain for many women with dysmenorrhea.
Secondary dysmenorrhea is much less common. It can be caused by genital obstructions, pelvic inflammation or degeneration, abnormal uterine wall separation or development (i.e., endometriosis), chronic infection of the uterus, polyps or tumours, or weakness of the muscles that support the uterus. Often the pain is dull, aching, and persistent. Tumours produce sharper pains. Treatment is directed toward the underlying disorder.
What made you want to look up "dysmenorrhea"? Please share what surprised you most... | 3.254794 |
AraucaníaArticle Free Pass
Araucanía, región, southern Chile. It lies between the Biobío and Toltén rivers and is bordered by Argentina on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It is divided into the provinces of Malleco and Cautín. The region embraces the coastal mountain range, the fertile Central Valley, and the Andean cordillera.
It is the home of many Araucanian, or Mapuche, Indians, who maintained their independence under Spanish and Chilean authority until the late 19th century despite periodic campaigns to subdue them. The settlement of the conquered area by Chileans and Europeans, beginning with German colonists in the 1850s, has been encouraged by the national government.
Two partially navigable rivers, the Imperial and the Toltén, traverse southern Araucanía region from east to west. The cordilleran ridges and volcanoes at Tolguaca, Lonquimay, and Llaima and the forests, lakes, and hot springs at Tolguaca, Río Blanco, and Manzanares are prime scenic attractions. Tourism, however, ranks below farming (especially in wheat), cattle raising, and lumbering in economic importance. The region is heavily forested. The Pan-American Highway and the main north-south railway pass through Temuco, the regional capital. Area 12,300 square miles (31,858 square km). Pop. (2007 prelim.) 945,500.
What made you want to look up "Araucania"? Please share what surprised you most... | 3.283667 |
ocean linerArticle Free Pass
ocean liner, one of the two principal types of merchant ship as classified by operating method; the other is the tramp steamer. A liner operates on a regular schedule of designated ports, carrying whatever cargo and passengers are available on the date of sailing. The first liners were operated in the North Atlantic, notably by Samuel Cunard of Britain, beginning in 1840. Cunard liners continued to be leaders, though soon joined by French, German, U.S., and other ships, subsidized by their national governments and competing in size, speed, and passenger accommodations. The heyday of the ocean liner lasted from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. Among the most famous were the “Mauretania,” sister ship of the ill-fated “Lusitania” and for 23 years holder of the blue ribbon for transatlantic speed; the “Aquitania,” also a Cunarder, the last four-funnelled vessel; the German “Vaterland,” seized in New York in 1917 and renamed “Leviathan,” for many years the largest ship afloat; the 80,000-ton “Queen Mary” and “Queen Elizabeth,” giant Cunarders of the 1940s and 1950s; the French Line’s “Normandie,” which set a new transatlantic speed record of just over four days but which was destroyed by a fire in New York harbour in 1942; and the “United States,” which set a new transatlantic record of three days, ten hours, averaging 35 knots, or 41 land miles per hour, in 1952.
The reign of the transatlantic liners as glamour ships of the world was gradually ended by the rise of air travel. A vast fleet of liners, ranging from passenger-cruise vessels to refrigerated cargo ships, continued to cover the world.
What made you want to look up "ocean liner"? Please share what surprised you most... | 3.603546 |
paticca-samuppadaArticle Free Pass
paticca-samuppada, ( Pali: “dependent origination”) Sanskrit pratitya-samutpada, the chain, or law, of dependent origination, or the chain of causation—a fundamental concept of Buddhism describing the causes of suffering (dukkha; Sanskrit duhkha) and the course of events that lead a being through rebirth, old age, and death.
Existence is seen as an interrelated flux of phenomenal events, material and psychical, without any real, permanent, independent existence of their own. These events happen in a series, one interrelating group of events producing another. The series is usually described as a chain of 12 links (nidanas, “causes”), though some texts abridge these to 10, 9, 5, or 3. The first two stages are related to the past (or previous life) and explain the present, the next eight belong to the present, and the last two represent the future as determined by the past and what is happening in the present. The series consists of: (1) ignorance (avijja; avidya), specifically ignorance of the Four Noble Truths, of the nature of humanity, of transmigration, and of nirvana; which leads to (2) faulty thought-constructions about reality (sankhara; samskara). These in turn provide the structure of (3) knowledge (vinnana; vijnana), the object of which is (4) name and form—i.e., the principle of individual identity (nama-rupa) and the sensory perception of an object—which are accomplished through (5) the six domains (ayatana; shadayatana)—i.e., the five senses and their objects—and the mind as the coordinating organ of sense impressions. The presence of objects and senses leads to (6) contact (phassa; sparsha) between the two, which provides (7) sensation (vedana). Because this sensation is agreeable, it gives rise to (8) thirst (tanha; trishna) and in turn to (9) grasping (upadana), as of sexual partners. This sets in motion (10) the process of becoming (bhava; bjava), which fructifies in (11) birth (jati) of the individual and hence to (12) old age and death (jara-marana; jaramaranam).
The formula is repeated frequently in early Buddhist texts, either in direct order (anuloma) as above, in reverse order (pratiloma), or in negative order (e.g., “What is it that brings about the cessation of death? The cessation of birth”). Gautama Buddha is said to have reflected on the series just prior to his enlightenment, and a right understanding of the causes of pain and the cycle of rebirth leads to emancipation from the chain’s bondage.
The formula led to much discussion within the various schools of early Buddhism. Later, it came to be pictured as the outer rim of the wheel of becoming (bhavachakka; bhavachakra), frequently reproduced in Tibetan painting.
What made you want to look up "paticca-samuppada"? Please share what surprised you most... | 3.039734 |
Sample Video Lessons
These videos provide an introduction to kiln-glass, and a chance to sample our online education program.
Substances like dusts, oils and fingerprints must be removed from glass before it's fired or they may be visible in the finished work. In this lesson you will learn how to clean glass properly to avoid problems caused by surface contamination.
With the proper tools and techniques even beginners can produce clean, accurate glass shapes for kilnforming projects. In this lesson you will learn everything you need to get started cutting sheet glass.
Hot glass will adhere to kiln shelves if not prevented by a separator. In this lesson you will learn how to use Bullseye Shelf Primer, an affordable and highly effective separator.
Many kilnforming methods are based on fusing, the heat bonding of separate pieces of glass. In this lesson you will learn how to fuse together layers of glass on a kiln shelf, while exploring glass as a unique art-making material.
As kiln-glass becomes more and more popular, increasing numbers of types of glass are appearing on the market. So how does a beginner decide which glass to use? This lesson suggests some of the criteria to consider as you investigate your choices.
A segment slab is a multicolored glass block used in one approach to the pattern bar technique. The segment slab is composed of sheet glass strips that are tack-fused together, cut into parts, and fired within a containment system until the glass flows and forms an internal pattern. In this lesson you will learn how to create a segment slab, cut it into cross-sectional pieces to reveal the internal pattern, and use the cross-sectional pieces to design and make finished work.
Firing crushed glass powders on sheet glass allows one a direct method to create imagery, pattern and nuanced shifts in value and hue. In this lesson you will learn about the tools and techniques involved and will get a broad overview of the ways glass powder can be used in art and design.
This lesson introduces Tom Prochaska, Rafael Cauduro, Catharine Newell and Jeff Wallin, four artists who draw with glass, exploring the unique opportunities provided by the method.
Kiln-glass can be used as lighting fixtures, furniture, staircases, room dividers, public art and other architectural features. Bullseye Glass Company partners with design professionals to develop and install architectural-scale kiln-glass works.
Derived from Ted Sawyer's talk at BECon 2009, the following 20-minute presentation focuses on the theory and process of getting the stress out of fused glass work and acts as an introduction to the new annealing cycle recommended by Bullseye.
The term “kiln-glass” covers an enormous range of working methods and types of work, including everything from simple platter-like forms to cast sculptures, painterly panels and architectural installations.
Glass is a unique art-making material. In this lesson you will learn about the fundamental properties of glass, the basic forms of art glass and their uses, and how art glass is made at Bullseye Glass Company.
The range of objects that can be made in kiln-glass is extensive and involves a variety of interesting techniques. In this lesson you will learn about the types of glass projects commonly created in a kiln and how you could begin making them.
How does a young, self-supporting artist build a career in kiln-glass? Nathan Sandberg explores the possibilities in this Artist Talk, presented 14 October 2012 at Bullseye Resource Center Portland. | 3.040794 |
Book Description: The 1930s exodus of 'Okies' dispossessed by repeated droughts and failed crop prices was a relatively brief interlude in the history of migrant agricultural labour. Yet it attracted wide attention through the publication of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939) and the images of Farm Security Administration photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein. Ironically, their work risked sublimating the subjects-real people and actual experience-into aesthetic artefacts, icons of suffering, deprivation, and despair. Working for the Farm Security Administration in California's migrant labour camps in 1938-39, Sanora Babb, a young journalist and short story writer, together with her sister Dorothy, a gifted amateur photographer, entered the intimacy of the dispossessed farmers' lives as insiders, evidenced in the immediacy and accuracy of their writings and photos.Born in Oklahoma and raised on a dryland farm, the Babb sisters had unparalleled access to the day-by-day harsh reality of field labour and family life. This book presents a vivid, firsthand account of the Dust Bowl refugees, the migrant labour camps, and the growth of labour activism among Anglo and Mexican farm workers in California's agricultural valleys linked by the 'Dirty Plate Trail' (Highway 99). It draws upon the detailed field notes that Sanora Babb wrote while in the camps, as well as on published articles and short stories about the migrant workers and an excerpt from her Dust Bowl novel, "Whose Names Are Unknown". Like Sanora's writing, Dorothy's photos reveal an unmediated, personal encounter with the migrants, portraying the social and emotional realities of their actual living and working conditions, together with their efforts to organize and to seek temporary recreation.An authority in working-class literature and history, volume editor Douglas Wixson places the Babb sisters' work in relevant historical and social-political contexts, examining their role in reconfiguring the Dust Bowl exodus as a site of memory in the national consciousness. Focusing on the material conditions of everyday existence among the Dust Bowl refugees, the words and images of these two perceptive young women clearly show that, contrary to stereotype, the 'Okies' were a widely diverse people, including not only Steinbeck's sharecropper 'Joads' but also literate, independent farmers who, in the democracy of the FSA camps, found effective ways to rebuild lives and create communities. | 3.154257 |
Carbon Credits and The Great Bear Rainforest
First Nations peoples have lived in harmony with the huge forests of North America for thousands of years. These forests have served as huge lungs for the earth helping to naturally regulated greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Sadly, forest-based carbon offsets and other land use carbon offsets have been largely forgotten under the Kyoto world carbon scheme… but this is about to change. The “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change” indicates that 35% of greenhouse gas emissions are tied to land use change, a quite significant figure compared to the 15% due to fossil fuels. There is a movement now, to include land-based offsets in the word greenhouse gas regulatory system after 2012, something that will be carefully debated in the Copenhagen COP 15 Climate Meetings in December.
The United States is now moving toward regulation with the passage of a climate bill through Congress this year , and introduction of another proposed bill for the Senate next year (Kerry/Boxer Bill). In both cases the United States is looking to generate up to 90% of the carbon offsets required for its national climate regulation system from forest sources, and half of this from foreign sources. This is great news for First Nations as there will be significant incentives to conserve such forests under ecosystems management schemes. In the United States many conservation forest projects are now in the carbon pipeline under the new Climate Action Reserve (CAR) rules, favoured by US legislators.
In Canada , many of the major undeveloped forests on the West Coast and the Northern region are under land claims with Federal and Provincial governments. A recent study, “The Carbon The World Forgot”, indicates that these northern boreal forests ”contain two to three times the carbon stored in the tropics”. This same region is home to some of the world last intact terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, with abundant populations of mammals and birds. Scattered throughout this northern forest are hundreds of indigenous communities. With over 200 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent tied up , this is a crucial carbon sink or storage area. The world’s policy makers are just becoming aware of the incredible importance of these forests. The carbon stored here is equivalent to over 40 years of world greenhouse gas emissions .
By asserting their claims to this traditional land, First Nations will be able to negotiate sustainability management plans with government that allow for the generation of forest-based offsets. The monetization of these offsets can be put into sustaining thes ecosystems as well as sustainable community development. Many green jobs can be created with community members actively managing and protecting the forests. Large scale ecosystems-based management schemes are being developed now, with the Great Bear Rainforest being a great example of evolving best practice for management and governance.
Shawn Burns, CEO Carbon Credit Corp. | 3.460881 |
The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed back at Cape Canaveral on Thursday at 5.57am, heralding the end of NASA’s 30 year shuttle programme.
It has been NASA’s longest running space flight programme and in the words of Commander Christopher Ferguson ‘After serving the world for over 30 years, the space shuttle has earned its place in history. And it’s come to a final stop.”
Only 12 people have walked on the Moon – all of them American, and so it is only through these handful of astronauts that we can glean any real information as to the atmospheric conditions up there. Apollo 17 astronaut, Gene Cernan gives us an insight to the mysterious smell of moondust. You might be wondering how he could smell the moons surface as they were fully covered in their lunar spacesuits, but the trouble with moondust is that it suffers from a terrible case of static cling (bit like my hair actually!). This I am informed is due to the solar winds constantly bombarding it with electrons. Therefore, after every moonwalk, although the astronauts did their best to remove the dust, it was trampled back inside the lander on their boots and also on their helmets and gloves.
Once the helmets and gloves were taken off, the astronauts could feel, taste and smell the moon. It apparently feels soft like snow but has an abrasive quality, and the smell is akin to burnt gunpowder. All the astronauts are in agreement with the smell, and are all very specific that it is like burnt gunpowder not the unfired variety. Curiously, back on Earth, moondust has no smell whatsoever. There are a few theories as to why this might be as follows…
The moon is akin to a 4 billion year old desert, incredibly dry. Once the moondust came into contact with the moist air inside the lunar module it began to give off odour in a similar way to the the smell that we get here as the first big splats of rain hit the pavement after a hot dry spell.
Another theory is that the the smell comes from the evaporation of gases caused by the solar winds once in contact with moist air.
There is yet another theory that oxygen when combined with the chemicals in the moondust could create oxidation which, although too slow for smoke or flames, could produce a burnt aroma.
So, if any of these theories apply then the samples brought back for study would already have been ‘pacified’, and any smelly chemical reactions therefore, would have ended long ago.
Nasa plans to send people back to the moon in 2018, and hopefully we will be able to discover more about the smell of the moon. In the meantime, whilst researching moon information I came across this recipe for your own home made moon oil….have fun
MAGIC MOON OIL
13 drops of sandalwood oil
9 drops of vanilla extract
3 drops of jasmine oil
1 drop of rose oil
Mix oils together prior to the next full moon and then place on a windowsill in a clear container overnight in the light of the moon. This captures the energy of the moon. Use to anoint yourself or in an oil burner when you feel that you need a burst of moon energy…and of course dont forget to let me know how you get on with all your newfound energy! | 3.121627 |
- You can protect yourself from many infections by preparing food and
- Meat, poultry (such as chicken or turkey), and fish can make you
sick if they are raw, undercooked, or spoiled.
- Raw fruits and vegetables are safe to eat if you wash them carefully
- Don’t drink water straight from lakes, rivers, streams, or springs.
Why should I be careful about food and water?
Food and water can carry germs that cause illness. Germs in food or water
may cause serious infections in people with HIV. You can protect yourself
from many infections by preparing food and drinks properly.
What illnesses caused by germs in food and water do people with HIV commonly
Germs in food and water that can make someone with HIV ill include Salmonella,
Campylobacter, Listeria and Cryptosporidium. They can cause diarrhea, upset
stomach, vomiting, stomach cramps, fever, headache, muscle pain, bloodstream
infection, meningitis, or encephalitis.
Do only people with HIV get these illnesses?
No, they can occur in anyone. However, these illnesses are much more common in
people with HIV.
Are these illnesses the same in people with HIV as in other people?
No. The diarrhea and nausea are often much worse and more difficult to treat in
people with HIV. These illnesses are also more likely to cause serious problems
in people with HIV, such as bloodstream infections and meningitis. People with
HIV also have a harder time recovering fully from these illnesses.
If I have HIV, can I eat meat, poultry, and fish?
Yes. Meat, poultry (such as chicken or turkey), and fish can make you sick only
if they are raw, undercooked, or spoiled.
To avoid illness:
Cook all meat and poultry until they are no longer pink in the
middle. If you use a meat thermometer, the temperature inside the meat
or poultry should be over 165° F. Fish should be cooked until it is
flaky, not rubbery.
- After handling raw meat, poultry, and fish, wash your hands well
with soap and water before you touch any other food.
- Thoroughly wash cutting boards, cooking utensils, and countertops
with soap and hot water after they have had contact with raw meat,
poultry, or fish.
- Do not let uncooked meat, poultry, or fish or their juices touch
other food or each other.
- Do not let meat, poultry, or fish sit at room temperature for more
than a few minutes. Keep them in the refrigerator until you are ready to
- Eat or drink only pasteurized milk or dairy products.
Can I eat eggs if I have HIV?
Yes. Eggs are safe to eat if they are well cooked. Cook eggs until the yolk and
white are solid, not runny. Do not eat foods that may contain raw eggs, such as
hollandaise sauce, cookie dough, homemade mayonnaise, and Caesar salad dressing.
If you prepare these foods at home, use pasteurized eggs instead of eggs in the
shell. You can find pasteurized eggs in the dairy case at your supermarket.
Can I eat raw fruits and vegetables?
Yes. Raw fruits and vegetables are safe to eat if you wash them carefully first.
Wash, then peel fruit that you will eat raw. Eating raw alfalfa sprouts and
tomatoes can cause illness, but washing them well can reduce your risk of
How can I make my water safe?
Don’t drink water straight from lakes, rivers, streams, or springs.
Because you cannot be sure if your tap water is safe, you may wish to avoid tap
water, including water or ice from a refrigerator ice-maker, which is made with
tap water. Always check with the local health department and water utility to
see if they have issued any special notices for people with HIV about tap water.
You may also wish to boil or filter your water, or to drink bottled water.
Processed carbonated (bubbly) drinks in cans or bottles should be safe,
but drinks made at a fountain might not be because they are made with tap water.
If you choose to boil or filter your water or to drink only bottled water, do
this all the time, not just at home.
Boiling is the best way to kill germs in your water. Heat your water at a
rolling boil for 1 minute. After the boiled water cools, put it in a clean
bottle or pitcher with a lid and store it in the refrigerator. Use the water for
drinking, cooking, or making ice. Water bottles and ice trays should be cleaned
with soap and water before use. Don’t touch the inside of them after cleaning.
If you can, clean your water bottles and ice trays yourself.
What should I do when shopping for food?
Read food labels carefully. Be sure that all dairy products that you purchase
have been pasteurized. Do not buy any food that contains raw or undercooked meat
or eggs if it is meant to be eaten raw. Be sure that the "sell by" date has not
Put packaged meat, poultry, or fish in separate plastic bags to prevent their
juices from dripping onto other groceries or each other.
Check the package that the food comes in to make sure that it isn’t damaged.
Do not buy food that has been displayed in unsafe or unclean conditions.
Examples include meat that is allowed to sit without refrigeration or cooked
shrimp that is displayed with raw shrimp.
After shopping, put all cold and frozen foods into your refrigerator or freezer
as soon as you can. Do not leave food sitting in the car. Keeping cold or frozen
food out of refrigeration for even a couple of hours can give germs a chance to
Is it safe for me to eat in restaurants?
Yes. Like grocery stores, restaurants follow guidelines for cleanliness and good
hygiene set by the health department. However, you should follow these general
rules in restaurants:
- Order all food well done. If meat is served pink or bloody, send
it back to the kitchen for more cooking. Fish should be flaky, not
rubbery, when you cut it.
- Order fried eggs cooked on both sides. Avoid eggs that are
"sunny-side up." Scrambled eggs should be cooked until they are not
runny. Do not order foods that may contain raw eggs, such as Caesar
salad or hollandaise sauce. If you aren’t sure about the ingredients
in a dish, ask your waiter before you order.
- Do not order any raw or lightly steamed fish or shellfish, such
as oysters, clams, mussels, sushi, or sashimi. All fish should be
cooked until done.
Should I take special measures with food and water in other countries?
Yes. Not all countries have high standards of food hygiene. You need to take
special care abroad, particularly in developing countries. Follow these rules
when in other countries:
- Do not eat uncooked fruits and vegetables unless you can
peel them. Avoid salads.
- Eat cooked foods while they are still hot.
- Boil all water before drinking it. Use only ice made from
boiled water. Drink only canned or bottled drinks or beverages
made with boiled water.
- Steaming-hot foods, fruits you peel yourself, bottled and
canned processed drinks, and hot coffee or tea should be safe.
- Talk with your health care provider about other advice on
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United States Department of Health and Human Services. | 3.287819 |
White dwarfs are among the dimmest stars in the universe. Even so, they have commanded the attention of astronomers ever since the first white dwarf was observed by optical telescopes in the middle of the 19th century. One reason for this interest is that white dwarfs represent an intriguing state of matter; another reason is that most stars, including our Sun, will become white dwarfs when they reach their final, burnt-out collapsed state.
A star experiences an energy crisis and its core collapses when the star's basic, non-renewable energy source - hydrogen - is used up. A shell of hydrogen on the edge of the collapsed core will be compressed and heated. The nuclear fusion of the hydrogen in the shell will produce a new surge of power that will cause the outer layers of the star to expand until it has a diameter a hundred times its present value. This is called the "red giant" phase of a star's existence.
A hundred million years after the red giant phase all of the star's available energy resources will be used up. The exhausted red giant will puff off its outer layer leaving behind a hot core. This hot core is called a Wolf-Rayet type star after the astronomers who first identified these objects. This star has a surface temperature of about 50,000 degrees Celsius and is furiously boiling off its outer layers in a "fast" wind traveling 6 million kilometers per hour.
The radiation from the hot star heats the slowly moving red giant atmosphere and creates a complex and graceful filamentary shell called a planetary nebula (so called because it looks like the disk of a planet when viewed with a small telescope). X-ray images reveal clouds of multimillion degree gas that have been compressed and heated by the fast stellar wind. Eventually the central star will collapse to form a white dwarf star.
In the white dwarf state, all the material contained in the star, minus the amount blown off in the red giant phase, will be packed into a volume one millionth the size of the original star. An object the size of an olive made of this material would have the same mass as an automobile! For a billion or so years after a star collapses to form a white dwarf, it is "white" hot with surface temperatures of about twenty thousand degrees Celsius.
When they were first discovered, white dwarfs presented a paradox to astronomers. If a white dwarf couldn't produce energy through nuclear fusion, how could it generate the pressure necessary to keep it from collapsing further? It didn't seem possible, yet there they were, glowing dimly and reminding scientists that "the fault is not in the stars, but in their theories," to paraphrase Shakespeare.
The paradox was not resolved until the quantum theory of matter was developed in the 1920s. This theory showed that matter in so-called "degenerate" states of extremely high density could produce a new type of pressure never observed in a terrestrial laboratory. This is because the quantum theory prohibits more than one electron from occupying the same energy state.
To see how this works, think about a parking lot. Only one car is allowed per space. When there are many empty spaces, there is very little motion in the parking lot. As an occasional car enters the lot it is quickly parked. When the parking lot is full, however, the picture changes. There is continual motion as cars move from one row to another while drivers search for a space. The pressure builds to get into position whenever a space is opened up.
Extremely dense matter is like a crowded parking lot. All of the low energy "parking spaces" are taken, so electrons are forced into higher energy states, not because they are hot, but because there is nowhere else to go. This creates a "degenerate" electron pressure (degenerate refers, not to the moral character of the electrons, but to the fact that all the low energy states are occupied). This pressure is what prevents white dwarf stars from collapsing under their own weight.
While still in his twenties Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the Chandra X-ray Observatory's namesake, used relativity theory and quantum mechanics to show that degenerate electron pressure can do only so much. If the mass of the white dwarf becomes greater than about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun—called the Chandrasekhar limit—it will collapse. In a binary star system this could happen if a nearby companion star dumps enough material onto a white dwarf to push it over the Chandrasekhar limit. The resulting collapse and explosion of the white dwarf is believed to be responsible for the so-called Type Ia supernovas.
Observations of white dwarfs are difficult because they cool quickly and become dim. When they are very young and hot their surfaces can produce X-rays. On these rare occasions X-ray telescopes provide valuable information about the nature of a newly formed white dwarf.
Fortunately, there are other possible conditions that allow astronomers to observe X-rays from a white dwarf. These opportunities occur when a white dwarf is capturing matter from a nearby companion star. As captured matter falls onto the surface of the white dwarf, it accelerates and gains energy. This energy goes into heating gas on or just above the surface of the white dwarf to temperatures of several million degrees. The hot gas glows brightly in X-rays.
A careful analysis of this process can reveal the mass of the white dwarf, its rate of rotation and the rate at which matter is falling onto it. In some cases, the matter that accumulates on the surface can become so hot and dense that nuclear reactions occur. When that happens, the white dwarf suddenly becomes 10,000 times brighter as the explosive outer layers are blown away in what is called a nova outburst. After a month or so, the excitement is over and the cycle begins anew.
To think of a white dwarf as a "burned out" or "dead" star can be misleading. It is more like a transformation or metamorphosis from one stage to the next. As X-ray observations prove, under the right conditions an old star can be quite lively indeed. | 4.193218 |
Osteosarcoma is the most common type of bone cancer, and the sixth most common type of cancer in children. Although other types of cancer can eventually spread to parts of the skeleton, osteosarcoma is one of the few that actually begin in bones and sometimes spread (or metastasize) elsewhere, usually to the lungs or other bones.
Because osteosarcoma usually develops from osteoblasts (the cells that make growing bone), it most commonly affects teens who are experiencing a growth spurt. Boys are more likely to have osteosarcoma than girls, and most cases of osteosarcoma involve the knee.
Most osteosarcomas arise from random and unpredictable errors in the DNA of growing bone cells during times of intense bone growth. There currently isn't an effective way to prevent this type of cancer. But with the proper diagnosis and treatment, most kids with osteosarcoma do recover.
Risk for Childhood Osteosarcoma
Osteosarcoma is most often seen in teenage boys, and evidence shows that teens who are taller than average have an added risk for developing the disease.
Kids who have inherited one of the rare cancer syndromes also are at higher risk for osteosarcoma. These syndromes include retinoblastoma (a malignant tumor that develops in the retina, usually in children younger than age 2) and Li-Fraumeni syndrome (a kind of inherited genetic mutation).
Because exposure to radiation is another trigger for DNA mutations, children who have received radiation treatments for a prior episode of cancer are also at increased risk for osteosarcoma.
Symptoms of Osteosarcoma
The most common symptoms of osteosarcoma are pain and swelling in a child's leg or arm. It occurs most often in the longer bones of the body — such as above or below the knee or in the upper arm near the shoulder.
Pain may be worse during exercise or at night, and a lump or swelling may develop in the affected area up to several weeks after the pain starts. Pain that persistently wakes the child up at night or pain at rest are of particular concern.
In osteosarcoma of the leg, the child may also develop an unexplained limp. In some cases, the first sign of the disease is a broken arm or leg, because the cancer has weakened the bone to make it vulnerable to a break.
If your child or teen has any of the above symptoms, it's important to see a doctor.
To diagnose osteosarcoma, the doctor will perform a physical exam, obtain a detailed medical history, and order X-rays to detect any changes in bone structure. The doctor might order a magnetic resolution imaging (MRI) scan of the affected area, which will find the best area to biopsy and show whether the osteosarcoma has spread from the bone into nearby muscles and fat.
The doctor will also order a bone biopsy to obtain a sample of the tumor for examination in the lab. This is best done by an orthopedic surgeon experienced in the treatment of osteosarcoma (orthopedic oncologist).
Sometimes the doctor does a needle biopsy, using a long hollow needle to take a sample of the tumor. A local anesthesia is typically used in the area that's being biopsied. Alternatively, the doctor may order an open biopsy, in which a portion of the tumor is removed in the operating room by a surgeon while the child is under general anesthesia.
If a diagnosis of osteosarcoma is made, the doctor will order CT chest scans as well as a bone scan and, sometimes, additional MRI studies. These will show if the cancer has spread to any part of the body beyond the original tumor. These tests will be repeated after treatment starts to determine how well it is working and whether the cancer is continuing to spread.
Treatment of osteosarcoma in children includes chemotherapy (the use of medical drugs to kill cancer cells and shrink the cancer) followed by surgery (to remove cancerous cells or tumors) and then more chemo (to kill any remaining cancer cells and minimize chances of the cancer coming back).
Surgery often can effectively remove bone cancer, while chemotherapy can help eliminate remaining cancer cells in the body.
Surgical treatments for osteosarcoma consist of either amputation or limb-salvage surgery.
Currently, most teens with osteosarcomas involving an arm or leg can be treated with limb-salvage surgery rather than amputation. In limb-salvage surgery, the bone and muscle affected by the osteosarcoma are removed, leaving a gap in the bone that is filled by either a bone graft (usually from the bone bank) or more often a special metal prosthesis. These can be appropriately matched to the size of the bone defect.
The risk of infection and fracture is higher with bank bone replacement and therefore metal prostheses are more commonly used for reconstruction of the bone after removal of the tumor.
If the cancer has spread to the nerves and blood vessels surrounding the original tumor on the bone, amputation (removing part of a limb along with the osteosarcoma) is often the only choice.
When osteosarcoma has spread to the lungs or elsewhere, surgery might be done to remove tumors in these distant locations.
Chemotherapy is usually given both before and after surgery. It eliminates small pockets of cancer cells in the body, even those too small to appear on medical scans.
A child or teen with osteosarcoma is given the chemotherapy drugs intravenously (through a vein) or orally (by mouth). The drugs enter the bloodstream and work to kill cancer in parts of the body where the disease has spread, such as the lungs or other organs.
Short-Term and Long-Term Side Effects
Amputation carries its own short-term and long-term side effects. It usually takes at least 3 to 6 months until a young person learns to use a prosthetic (artificial) leg or arm, and this is just the beginning of long-term psychological and social rehabilitation.
With a limb salvage surgery, one usually starts bending the knee or the affected body part almost immediately. A continuous passive motion (CPM) machine that continuously bends and straightens the knee may be used to improve motion for tumors around the knee.
Physical therapy and rehabilitation for 6 to 12 months following surgery usually enables the child to walk initially with a walker or crutches and then without any assistive devices.
Early complications after surgery include infection and slow healing of the surgical wound, and the metal prosthetic device or the bank bone may need to be replaced in the long term. Other late problems might include fracture of the bank bone or failure of the bank bone to heal to the child's bone, which might require more surgery.
Many of the medications used in chemotherapy also carry the risk of both short-term and long-term problems. Short-term effects include anemia, abnormal bleeding, and increased risk of infection due to destruction of the bone marrow, as well as kidney damage and menstrual irregularities.
Some drugs carry a risk of bladder inflammation and bleeding into the urine, hearing loss, and liver damage. Others may cause heart and skin problems. Years after chemo for osteosarcoma, patients have an increased risk of developing other cancers.
Chances for a Cure
Recent studies have reported that survival rates of 60% to 80% are possible for osteosarcoma that hasn't spread beyond the tumor, depending on the success of chemotherapy.
Osteosarcoma that has spread cannot always be treated as successfully. Also, a child whose osteosarcoma is located in an arm or leg generally has a better prognosis than one whose disease involves the ribs, shoulder blades, spine, or pelvic bones.
Treatments are being developed and researched with new chemotherapy drugs. Other research is focused on the role certain growth factors might play in the development of osteosarcoma. This research may be used to develop new medications to slow these growth factors as a way to treat the cancer.
For osteosarcomas that cannot be removed surgically, studies are underway to test treatments that use new combinations of chemotherapy and localized, high-dose radiation.
|Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation The Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation is a nonprofit organization that offers entertainment, education, social networking, and other activities for seriously ill children and their families.|
|CureSearch for Children's Cancer CureSearch for Children's Cancer supports and sponsors research and treatment for childhood cancers.|
|American Cancer Society The American Cancer Society is the nationwide community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to preventing cancer, saving lives and diminishing suffering from cancer through research, education, advocacy, and service. Call:(800) ACS-2345|
|Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer A unique foundation that evolved from a young cancer patient's front-yard lemonade stand to a nationwide fundraising movement to find a cure for pediatric cancer.|
|Anemia Anemia, one of the more common blood disorders, occurs when the number of healthy red blood cells decreases. This can result in a variety of symptoms, including fatigue and stress on all the body's organs.|
|Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) Rhabdomyosarcoma is a cancerous tumor that shows up in the body's soft tissues. With early diagnosis and timely treatment, most kids make a full recovery.|
|Leukemia Leukemia refers to cancers of the white blood cells (also called leukocytes or WBCs). With the proper treatment, the outlook for kids who are diagnosed with leukemia is quite good.|
|Lymphoma Although cancers that originate in the body's lymphatic tissues are the third most common type of cancer in children, most recover from lymphoma.|
|Cancer Center From treatments and prevention to coping with the emotional aspects of cancer, the Cancer Center provides comprehensive information that parents need.|
|Ewing Sarcoma This type of cancer mainly affects adolescents and usually develops in the arms, legs, ribs, spinal column, and pelvis. With early diagnosis and treatment, many kids with Ewing sarcoma have a good chance of recovery.|
|Bones, Muscles, and Joints Without bones, muscles, and joints, we couldn't stand, walk, run, or even sit. The musculoskeletal system supports our bodies, protects our organs from injury, and enables movement.|
Note: All information is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
© 1995-2012 The Nemours Foundation/KidsHealth. All rights reserved. | 3.742511 |
So begins one of the most extraordinary ancient documents ever found. (For the unusual circumstances surrounding its discovery, see Archaeology and Biblical Research, Winter 1991: 2-3). Mesha was ruler of the small kingdom of Moab, east of the Dead Sea, in the mid-ninth century BC. He was a contemporary of Jehoshaphat, king of the southern kingdom of Judah (870-848 BC), and Joram, king of the northern kingdom of Israel (852-841 BC). Everything we know about Mesha from the Bible is recorded in 2 Kings 3. But we know a lot more about him from a record he left us, referred to as the Mesha Inscription, or Moabite Stone. It was discovered in Dhiban, Jordan, in 1868 by a French Anglican medical missionary by the name of F.A. Klein.
Both documents, 2 Kings 3 and the Mesha Inscription, describe the same event, the revolt of Mesha, but from entirely different perspectives. Mesha made his record of the event on a stone slab, or stela, 3 ft. high and 2 ft. wide. Unfortunately, the stone was broken into pieces by the local Bedouin before it could be acquired by the authorities. About two-thirds of the pieces were recovered and those, along with an impression made before the stela was destroyed, allowed all but the last line to be reconstructed. There are a total of 34 lines, written in Moabite, a language almost identical to Hebrew. It is the longest monumental inscription yet found in Palestine.
The heartland of Moab was the territory east of the southern half of the Dead Sea, from the great Arnon Gorge in the north to the Zered River in the south. North of the Arnon River, to about the northern end of the Dead Sea, was a disputed area called the “land of Medeba” in the Mesha Inscription (line 8). Medeba was a major city in the region some 18 mi. north of the Arnon. The area was sometimes under the control of Moab, sometimes under the control of others. At the time of the Conquest at the end of the 15th century BC, the region was occupied by the Amorites, who had earlier taken it from the Moabites (Num. 21:26). The Israelites then captured the area (Num. 21:24; Dt. 2:24, 36; 3:8, 16), with the tribe of Reuben taking possession (Jos. 13:16). The area seesawed back and forth for the next several centuries, passing to the Moabites (Jgs. 3:12), Israelites (Jgs. 3:30), Ammonites (Jgs. 11:13, 32-33), and back to Israel (Jgs. 11:32-33).
In the mid-ninth century BC, Mesha was successful in throwing off the yoke of Israel and bringing the area once again under the authority of Moab (1 Kgs. 3:5; Mesha Inscription).
2 Kings 3 recounts how Joram, Jehoshaphat, and the king of Edom combined forces to attempt to bring Moab back under Israelite control. They attacked from the south and were successful in routing the Moabite forces and destroying many towns (2 Kgs. 3: 24-25). But when the coalition tried to dislodge Mesha from Kir Hareseth (modern Kerak), they were unsuccessful. After Mesha sacrificed his oldest son on the ramparts of the city,
The campaign must have taken place between 848 and 841 BC, the only time when Joram and Jehoshaphat were both on the throne. Although the campaign met with some success, it appears that Moab retained its independence. This is confirmed by the Mesha Inscription.
The Mesha Inscription gives us “the rest of the story.” It reads, in fact, like a chapter from the Old Testament. Its language, terminology and phraseology are exactly the same as what we find in the Bible. Mesha credits his successful revolt and recapture of Moabite territory, as well as other accomplishments, to Chemosh, national god of Moab. He does not, of course, record his defeat in the south at the hands of the coalition armies. Similarly, although the Bible records Mesha's revolt, it gives no details on his successes. So each record, accurate in its own way, records events from a different perspective.
Chronology of the Revolt of Mesha
Ahab, father of Joram, died in ca. 853 BC, so Mesha's revolt must have taken place some time after 853 BC. According to the Mesha Inscription,
Omri established a dynasty which lasted until his grandson Joram was assassinated by Jehu in 841 BC. The term “son” in the inscription simply means descendent, as we know from the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts. Adding the years of Omri (12, 1 Kgs. 16:23), the years of his son Ahab (22, 1 Kgs. 16:29), the years of Ahab's son Ahaziah (2, 1 Kgs. 22:52) and half the years of Joram, brother of Ahaziah, (6, 2 Kgs. 3:1), we obtain a span of 42 years. Some of the reigns of these kings could be common years, making the true span 40 years, or, the 40 year figure simply could be a round number. Thiele gives absolute years for the period from the beginning of the reign of Omri to the sixth year of Joram as 885 to 846 BC, or 40 years (1983: 217). Thus, it appears that Mesha revolted in the sixth year of Joram, ca. 846 BC. The Bible indicates that the retaliation by Joram recorded in 2 Kings 3 took place immediately upon Mesha's revolt (verses 5-7), or 846 BC. This date falls within the time period of 848-841 BC when both Joram and Jehoshaphat were ruling.
The Gods of Israel and Moab
In describing his victories over Israel, Mesha tells of defeating the town of Nebo. Among the spoils he acquired were the “altar-hearths? of Yahweh” (lines 17-18). This is the earliest mention of Yahweh, God of the Israelites, outside the Bible.
The Bible records the names of many deities worshipped by the nations around Israel. One of those gods is Chemosh. He is mentioned eight times in the Old Testament (Num. 21:29; Jgs. 11:24; 1 Kgs. 11:7, 33; 2 Kgs. 23:13; Jer. 48:7, 13, 46), always (with the exception of Jgs. 11:24) as the national god of the Moabites. The Mesha Inscription verifies that this indeed was the case. Chemosh is mentioned some 11 times in the inscription:
The Cities of Northern Moab
Most of the inscription is taken up with Mesha's success in regaining the land of Medeba, the disputed territory north of the Arnon Gorge. He claims to have added 100 towns to his territory by means of his faithful army from Dibon:
Some 12 towns in the land of Medeba are mentioned, all of them known from the Old Testament.
“I am Mesha …the Dibonite” (line 1)
Later on in the inscription he says,
Since Mesha erected his stela to honor Chemosh in “this high place for Chemosh in Qeriho,” and since the stela was found at Dhiban, identified as ancient Dibon, most scholars believe that Qeriho was the name of the royal citadel at Dibon. Note that Israelite captives were used to cut the timber used to construct Qeriho.
Dibon was captured from the Amorites by Israel (Num. 21:21-25, 31) and assigned to the tribe of Reuben (Jos. 13:17). But evidently it was reassigned to the tribe of Gad, since Gad built the city (Num. 32:34) and it was called “Dibon of Gad”; (Num. 33:45, 46).
The site of Dhiban and was excavated 1950-1956 and 1965. A city wall and gateway were found, as well as a large podium which the excavators believe supported the royal quarter constructed by Mesha. In addition, a text from around the time of Mesha was found which refers to the “temple of Che[mosh],” and nearly 100 cisterns were found on the site and in the surrounding area, possibly made in response to Mesha's directive to “make yourself each a cistern in his house” (lines 24- 25).
In his prophecy against Moab, Isaiah states, “Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high places to weep” (15:2, NIV). Jeremiah predicted that the fortified cities of Dibon would be ruined (48:18; cf. 48:21-22).
“And I built Baal Meon, and made a reservoir in it” (line 9)
Baal Meon was allotted to the Reubenites (Jos. 13:17, where it is called Beth Baal Meon), and built by them (Num. 32:38). An eighth century BC ostracon [an inscribed potsherd] from Samaria (no. 27) contains a reference to “Baala the Baalmeonite.” Jeremiah predicted that the judgment of God would come upon the city (48:23, where it is called Beth Meon). Ezekiel said God would expose the flank of Moab, beginning with its frontier towns, including Baal Meon (25:9). It is thought to be located at Kh. Ma'in, 5 mi southwest of modern Madaba, which has not been excavated.
Toward the end of the inscription, Baal Meon is mentioned again when Mesha records,
“And I built Kiriathaim” (lines 9-10)
Kiriathaim was another city allotted to the Reubenites and built by them (Jos. 13:19; Num. 32:37). Jeremiah predicted that the city would be disgraced and captured (48:1), and Ezekiel said God would expose the flank of Moab, beginning with its frontier towns, including Kiriathaim (25:9). It is possibly located at al Qureiye, 6 mi. northwest of Madaba.“And the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of Ataroth from of old” (line 10)
Mesha devoted 3 lines of his memorial to a description of his operation against Ataroth. Although mentioned only twice in the Old Testament, the city seems to have been an important place. The name means “crowns” and was said by the Reubenites and Gadites to be a good place for livestock (Num. 32:3-4). The Gadites built up Ataroth as a fortified city, and built pens there for their flocks (Num. 32:34-36). This agrees with Mesha's inscription which says that the men of Gad had lived there “from of old.” Ataroth is most likely located at Kh. 'Attarus, unexcavated, 8 mi. northwest of Dhiban.
The entire section dealing with Ataroth reads as follows:
Kerioth was judged by God (Jer. 48:24), with the town being captured and its strongholds taken (Jer. 48:41). Its location is uncertain. If “my town” is the correct reading in line 13, then the text refers to Dibon, Mesha's capital.
“And Chemosh said to me: ‘Go! Take Nebo against Israel’” (line 14)
Mesha's assault of Nebo is detailed in 4 lines, the most of any of the cities mentioned in the stela. Nebo is mentioned seven times in the Old Testament, being one of the cities built by the tribe of Reuben (Num. 32:38). In his prophecy against Moab, Isaiah wrote that Moab would wail over Nebo (15:2, NIV). Similarly, Jeremiah said that judgment would come upon her, and she would be laid waste (48:1, 22).
Mesha's nighttime foray against Nebo is reported as follows:
It appears that there was a worship center for Yahweh at Nebo since among the spoils were “altar hearths(?) of Yahweh.” It is perhaps for this reason that Mesha devoted the inhabitants to his god(s) Ashtar-Chemosh. The word used for “devoted” is the same as the Hebrew word harem used in the Old Testament for offering a city completely to Yahweh, such as Jericho (Jos. 6:17, 21). Nebo is most likely Kh. al Muhaiyat, northwest of Madaba and just south of Mt. Nebo.
Jahaz is the town where the Israelites fought and defeated Sihon and his Amorite army as they first approached the promised land (Num. 21:21-31; Dt. 2:31-36; Jgs. 11:19-22). It was included in the Reubenite allotment (Jos. 13:18), and later transferred to the Levites (Jos. 21:36; 1 Chr. 6:78). Jeremiah predicted doom for the city as part of God's judgment against Moab (48:21, 34). Mesha goes on to say,
Here, Mesha refers to a northern campaign by the king of Israel which is not recorded in the Old Testament. In order to achieve victory, Mesha had to marshal the best of his forces, 200 chiefs. Once captured, Jahaz became a daughter city of Dibon. The location of Jahaz is uncertain, although Kh. Medeineyeh 10 mi southeast of Madaba is a likely candidate.
The name Aroer means “crest of a mountain,” and that certainly describes this site. It was a border fortress located at Kh. 'Ara'ir on the northern rim of the Arnon river gorge. Three seasons of excavation were carried out there between 1964 and 1966. Remnants of the fortress constructed by the king of Israel were found, as well as a substantial new fortress constructed by Mesha over the earlier one. In addition, a reservoir to store rainwater was built on the northwest side of the fortress.
Aroer marked the southern boundary of the Transjordanian territory originally captured by the Israelites (Dt. 2:36; 3:12; 4:48; Jos. 12:2; 13:9, 16, 25). It was occupied and fortified by the Gadites (Nm. 32:34). Later, the prophet Jeremiah said that the inhabitants of Aroer would witness fleeing refugees as God poured out His wrath on the cities of Moab (48:19-20).“I built Beth Bamoth, for it was destroyed” (line 27)
The Beth Bamoth of the Mesha Stela is most likely the same as the Bamoth Baal of the Old Testament. It was here that God met with Balaam (Num. 22:41-23:5); the town was later given to the tribe of Reuben (Jos. 13:17). The location of the place is uncertain.
“And I built Bezer, for it was in ruins” (line 27)
Under the Israelites, Bezer was a Levitical city and a city of refuge (Dt. 4:43; Jos 20:8; 21:36; 1 Chr. 6:78). It may be the same as Bozrah in Jer. 48:24, a Moabite city judged by God. Its location is uncertain.“And I built [the temple of Mede]ba” (lines 29-30)
The city of Medeba was conquered and occupied by Israel (Nu. 21:30; Jos. 13:9, 16). It suffered under the hand of God when He poured out His judgment on Moab (Isa. 15:2). The ancient site is located at modern Madaba, and remains unexcavated.
“And I built …the temple of Diblaten” (lines 29-30)
Diblaten is mentioned in Jeremiah's oracle against Moab as Beth Diblathaim (48:22) and is possibly the same as Almon Diblathaim, a stopping place for the Israelites as they approached the promised land (Num. 33:46-47). It is perhaps located at Deleitat esh-Sherqiyeh 10 mi. north-northeast of Dhiban, but that location is far from certain.
The House of David and Southern Moab
“And the house [of Da]vid dwelt in Horanaim” (line 31)
Line 31 is perhaps the most significant line in the entire inscription. In 1993, a stela was discovered at Tel Dan in northern Israel mentioning the “House of David” (Bible and Spade, Autumn 1993: 119-121). This mid-ninth century BC inscription provided the first mention of David in a contemporary text outside the Bible. The find is especially significant since in recent years several scholars have questioned the existence of David. At about the same time the Dan stela was found, French scholar Andre Lemaire was working on the Mesha Inscription and determined that the same phrase appeared there in line 31 (Bible and Spade, Summer 1995: 91-92). Lemaire was able to identify a previously indistinguishable letter as a “d” in the phrase “House of David.” This phrase is used a number of times in the Old Testament for the Davidic dynasty.
From this point on in Mesha's record it appears that he is describing victories south of the Arnon river, an area previously controlled by Judah. Although there are only three lines left in the surviving portion, Lemaire believes we only have about half of the original memorial (1994: 37). The missing half would have told how Mesha regained the southern half of Moab from Judah. The complete text regarding Horanaim reads as follows:
Horanaim is mentioned in Isaiah's prophecy against Moab (15:5). He says that fugitives would lament their destruction as they travelled the road to Horanaim. Jeremiah says much the same in 48:3, 5, and 47. The town is located south of the Arnon, but exactly where is a matter of conjecture.
Author: Bryant G. Wood of Associates for Biblical Research
Copyright © 1996, Associates for Biblical Research, All Rights Reserved - except as noted on attached “Usage and Copyright” page that grants ChristianAnswers.Net users generous rights for putting this page to work in their homes, personal witnessing, churches and schools. | 3.690932 |
Broad-Band Optical Gain on a Silicon Photonic Chip
One of the critical barriers standing in the way of the creation of integrated photonic chips for future light-based information technologies is the development of silicon-compatible optical components that can simultaneously amplify and process optical signals covering a broad range of wavelengths. This capability would allow many different optical signals, distinguished by their wavelength, to be processed on one small chip. Up to now, researchers have been able demonstrate only devices that amplify one narrow bandwidth of light, or only a single wavelength “channel.” CNS researchers have now shown that by suitably designing silicon waveguides at the nanoscale, it is possible to achieve broadband amplification of light signals by exploiting a optical effect known as “four-wave mixing”. This process also can enable many other all-optical signal-processing functions to be done on a small photonic chip that previously could be achieved only by employing long lengths of optical fiber .
The four-wave mixing process involves the conversion of two pump photons to a signal photon and an “idler” photon. By suitable design, amplification of the optical signal can occur over a broad range of wavelengths.
[Lead CNS Investigator: M. Lipson and A. Gaeta ]
For additional information see:
- M. A. Foster, A. C. Turner, J. E. Sharping, B. S. Schmidt, M. Lipson, and A. L. Gaeta, "Broad-band optical parametric gain on a silicon photonic chip," Nature 441, 960-963 (2006). | 3.008951 |
Definitions for norwichˈnɔr ɪtʃ, -ɪdʒ, ˈnɒr-, ˈnɔr wɪtʃ
Random House Webster's College Dictionary
Nor•wichˈnɔr ɪtʃ, -ɪdʒ, ˈnɒr-, ˈnɔr wɪtʃ(n.)
a city in E Norfolk, in E England: cathedral. 128,108.
Category: Geography (places)
A city in England, the county town of Norfolk
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
1, an ancient cathedral city and capital of Norfolk (101), situated on the Wensum, immediately above its junction with the Yare, 114 m. NE. of London; its beautiful woodland surroundings have won it the name of "the city in an orchard"; chief of its many fine buildings is the cathedral, a handsome Norman structure, founded in 1096; of the old Norman castle only the keep now stands, crowning a central hill; its celebrated triennial musical festivals began in 1824; textile fabrics are still an important manufacture, but have been superseded in importance by mustard, starch, and iron-ware factories; has been a bishopric since 1094. 2, Capital of New London County (16), Connecticut, on the Thames River, 36 m. SE. of Hartford. | 3.036764 |
Excess weight can cause hypertension, or high blood pressure. Obesity is quickly becoming an epidemic and is having a substantial negative impact of cardiovascular health and blood pressure. When elevated blood pressure is present, it puts people at risk for having a heart attack or stroke. Excess weight places a strain on the heart, causing it to work harder. Although a physician can prescribe medications to reduce blood pressure, most health care providers prefer to initially try to reduce high blood pressure with diet and exercise first.
Eating a diet that is rich in vitamins and minerals can substantially lower blood pressure. Foods such as bananas, oranges and green leafy vegetables are high in potassium. Potassium is a vital mineral that has anti-hypertension properties. Drinking orange juice is also a great way to include more potassium in the diet. Although potassium supplements are available at most pharmacies, it may be best to consume potassium through the foods that you eat.
Being obese can also interfere with one’s exercise goals. Exercise helps people shed pounds, and by being obese, individuals may find that they are unable to raise their heart rates high enough to ensure a good cardiovascular workout. It is important to note that strenuous exercise is not recommended for people who are morbidly obese or out of shape. Discussing your exercise goals with your physician can help ensure a safe and effective exercise routine.
Steadily losing moderate amounts of weight can have a significant impact on blood pressure. It is better to lose weight slowly, than rapidly losing large amounts of weight. Losing a pound or two per week is preferable to losing weight too quickly, as this typically results in failure to keep the weight off. Losing weight can have such a significant impact on blood pressure that many times people are able to discontinue taking their prescription blood pressure medications. | 3.465581 |
A Legend Returns to Roost
In Ohio, it’s easy to see there are eagles among us.
The story behind the successful reintroduction of bald eagles to the Buckeye State has a fairytale-like quality: the proverbial wolf was at the door, but thanks to hard work and good people, the Nation’s symbol is once again flying high in our Ohio sky.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, however, the outlook was grim for this majestic bird. A steady loss of habitat and exposure to harmful pesticides caused bald eagle population numbers to plummet, both here at home and across the country. By 1979, the number of breeding pairs in Ohio numbered only four, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife. In fact, those eight birds represented the only known breeding eagles in the wild anywhere along the Great Lakes.
Ohio initiated its Bald Eagle Restoration Program that same year. Through habitat development and protection, fostering of young eagles, public education and extensive monitoring - including observation of nesting behavior and leg banding of offspring - the ODNR Division of Wildlife has helped bald eagles regain a “talon hold” in Ohio.
In 2004 the state marked a milestone in the recovery of this American symbol with 108 nesting bald eagle pairs; this signified the
first time more than 100 nests have been recorded. On the heels of that success, Ohio saw its eagle nest numbers grow to 125 this year. Of those, 85 were successful, producing an estimated 136 young. While these young eagles might migrate in the fall and at other times, those that reach breeding maturity are likely to come back to Ohio, establishing nesting territories in the areas in which they were reared.
Thirty-nine Ohio counties boasted at least one eagle nest this past spring, most of which were located along Lake Erie’s western marshes. Yet in the last few years, there has been an increase of inland nests. In fact, for the first time in memory, a bald eagle nest has been identified along the Buckeye side of the Ohio River in Brown County - that nest and one in neighboring Highland County represent the first in modern times to be located in southwestern Ohio.
Keeping an eagle eye on the national symbol
While Ohio can boast a healthy and growing bald eagle population, wildlife biologists continue to research and monitor the progress of this state endangered species. Concerns over habitat loss and water pollution are real threats to the eagles’ continued success.
Although protecting and managing Ohio’s bald eagle population falls mainly on the shoulders of professional wildlife biologists, volunteer nest observers - folks like you and me - have played an important role in collecting vital information. After attending training, volunteers devote numerous hours watching and recording what is occurring at each active eagle nest across the state. With so many helpful pairs of eyes reporting their findings, wildlife biologists are able to follow the reproductive and nesting efforts more thoroughly.
As the numbers of bald eagles in Ohio grow so do your viewing opportunities, especially along the Lake Erie coast. If you’re driving in the area, be sure to keep a pair of binoculars handy ... but don’t forget to pull over first before getting a closer look of this amazing bird of prey!
Laura Jones, ODNR Office of Communications
One of North America’s largest birds, an adult bald eagle has a black body that is offset by snowy white head and neck feathers. Its beak, feet and eyes are a bright yellow.
Bald eagles typically build their nests up high in large trees, usually close to a body of water. Constructed from twigs and branches, bald eagle nests are massive, usually measuring three to five feet across and three to six feet deep - about the size of a bathtub. They can weigh as much as one ton.
The largest eagle nest of all time was recorded right here in Ohio. Appropriately known as the “Great Nest,” it was located near Vermilion in Lorain County in the 1890s. The giant nest measured 8-feet across, was 12 feet deep and weighed nearly two tons - the size of a small pickup truck! Perched 80 feet from the ground, it was used by different eagle pairs for more than 35 years until a storm blew it down in 1925.
Eagle fun facts
- Female eagles average 3 feet in length and weigh about 13 pounds
- Male eagles are about 2.5 feet in length and weight around 10 pounds.
- Adult eagles have around 7,000 feathers and have a wingspan of 6 to 7 feet!
- Young eagles are a mottled brown before developing their distinctive white head at five to six years of age.
- An eagle’s life span in the wild is generally 15 to 20 years.
- Mature females generally lay two eggs each spring. Both the female and male eagles share in building nests, incubating eggs and feeding their young. | 3.356393 |
Magnets and Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology scientists are conducting research to determine whether magnetic nanoparticles can be used to make magnets stronger using less material. This research is being done with neodymium, iron, and boron — all used in magnet production.
Neodymium is an element used to make strong magnets. Neodymium’s magnetic capability is due to the way electrons orbit each atom. A magnet is formed by aligning the spin of unpaired electrons to a magnetic field.
Each neodymium atom has seven unpaired electrons floating around each atom that can be aligned to turn a piece of neodymium into a magnet. When neodymium is used in an alloy with iron and boron, the result is small, powerful magnets used in all kinds of electronic devices. The capability to make such magnets is one of the reasons that electronic devices like laptops can be so small and lightweight.
Neodymium is a rare earth element; others include samarium, dysprosium, and praseodymium. These elements are called rare earths simply because, in their natural state, they are mixed with other elements.
This mixture means that they have to be mined and extracted, which brings with it the jeopardy of environmental pollution through the mining process. Because of these complications, there is concern that supply shortages of such elements could develop, which could have a serious effect on industrial production.
Researchers are developing magnets that use less neodymium by using neodymium nanoparticles. This research is in the early stages, but the idea is that by using nanoparticles of neodymium and other materials such as iron, the coupling between the different atoms will be stronger, resulting in a stronger magnetic field even though less material is used. | 4.272557 |
Subsets and Splits